TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: Can I Substitute a NiMH Battery for NiCd in a Cordless Phone?

Re: Can I Substitute a NiMH Battery for NiCd in a Cordless Phone?

Gene S. Berkowitz (first.last@comcast.net)
Sun, 17 Apr 2005 23:25:36 -0400

In article <telecom24.168.5@telecom-digest.org>, curious@nospam.com
says:

> I recently bought a cordless phone, which came with a NiCd battery.
> In the manual it says:

> "To reduce the risk of fire, use only 3.6V 850mAh Nickel Cadmium
> (Ni-Cad) cordless telephone replacement battery pack."

> I've heard about the dreaded "memory effect" with NiCd batteries, so
> I'm interested in replacing it with a NiMH one. Someone who is
> selling a 3.6V 1000mAH NiMH battery on Ebay claims it works with my
> phone, but will it really be safe? Wouldn't want to install a NiMH
> battery and have the house burn down.

> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: 3.6 at 850 is _close enough_ to 3.6 at
> 1000 that I think it should work. The difficulty with swapping
> batteries around randomly however is not so much that your house would
> burn down as it is that differences in those batteries could possibly
> cause some slow degredation on your electronics unit and cause it to
> fry out prematurely. Your voltage (3.6) is critical; you want to avoid
> increasing _low voltages_ very much. A device which calls for 3.6
> should pretty much be confined to 3.6. You can play around with the
> amperage a bit however; 1000 will work fine with something rated for
> 850. But make certain the battery contacts line up correctly and do
> not cause a short circuit accidentally. It would be a shame to waste
> that new battery as soon as you got it. PAT]

There has been a rash of "exploding" cell phone batteries, primarily
caused by bootleg Asian import batteries that lack thermal protection
devices.

Also, the charging characteristics for NiCd are different than NiMH.
The charger could cause a NiMH battery to overheat, or at least reduce
its useful life.

--Gene

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