Topic: iRiver H120 Battery Swap but not much improvement

[blastroknow]

I bought a 2200 mah battery {branded for iRiver from Batterygallery on ebay} did the swap no problems but I have run 2 tests with my Core Sound HEB 4060s {with the battery box} and I have only gotten a little over 3 hours of stereo .wav recording on the iriver {better than the 2 hours I was getting before the swap}.  I was expecting at least 6 hours of record time.  I charged it fully before using.

Any ideas of what I'm missing?

Any thoughts appreciated.

[petur]

really weird, I'd expect you to get 10+ hours recording...
maybe it needs a few charge/discharge cycles?
I'm not a battery specialist though....

[Javier Cinakowski]

maybe the HDD is having issues and draining the battery....   I get 5+ hours on a really old stock battery....

[deadhoarse]

Your charging circuit could be fried on the iriver's motherboard as well.  Did you ever plug an incorrect charger into the iriver?

That happened to my first iriver, and afterwards, I was never able to get more that 1.5 hours out of it, even with a new battery.

[petur]

Also, define 'charged it fully' - leave it at least 3-4 hours on the charger/

[blastroknow]

thanks for the replies -

I ran it down again last night and charged it over night {probably close to 8 hours and it comes up and says 4.13 v on the startup screen.   Seems like that should be a higher number.  The green light was on when it started and off in the morning.

The hd seems good - it doesn't try to write all the time and no dropouts on the recordings I do with it.

The unit is used so I don't know the incorrect charger in the past answer - I have the original iriver charger now for it.

Something in the power charging path is what I'm thinking at this moment - either the irivier charging circuit or the external power supply and with deadhoarse's experience it adds some validity to that idea.  Everything else on the iriver seems fine.

I have a couple of 3 hour events next week but I think I can pull them off and then I'll decide what to do with this iriver.

[petur]

I ran it down again last night and charged it over night {probably close to 8 hours and it comes up and says 4.13 v on the startup screen.   Seems like that should be a higher number.  The green light was on when it started and off in the morning.

no, 4,13V is a perfectly fine maximum value. In fact, if it goes much higher you will have a very dead battery...

[bugg100]

I bought a 2200 mah battery {branded for iRiver from Batterygallery on ebay}

Any ideas of what I'm missing?

Any thoughts appreciated.

You may want to be sure the battery text (printed on the foil in dot matrix print) says the correct battery capacity. I had a ebay cheapie, that when the sticker that was covering the text was removed, said 1300mah not the supposed correct 2100mah.... as they say, caveat emptor!

[blastroknow]

I ran it down again last night and charged it over night {probably close to 8 hours and it comes up and says 4.13 v on the startup screen.   Seems like that should be a higher number.  The green light was on when it started and off in the morning.

no, 4,13V is a perfectly fine maximum value. In fact, if it goes much higher you will have a very dead battery...

If that is good then when I use it for 10-15 minutes it drops dramatically like down to 3.7 - maybe bad battery?  Some other power draining problem within the iriver?  I'm sure I'll be pulling out the new batt and I can try bugg100's suggestion but it was definitely 2200 mah printed with all the other info on the batt but mislabeling can happen. 

If I can find an ipod replacement at radio shack I might put that in and {after the polarity swap} see what is happening.

Thanks again for the ideas!

[bugg100]

 I'm sure I'll be pulling out the new batt and I can try bugg100's suggestion but it was definitely 2200 mah printed with all the other info on the batt but mislabeling can happen. 

i'm sure this was a case of fraud....

[Cheesecadet]

I get 29 hours w/ my CameronSino 2300 mah battery that I replaced of play time and can record for over 18 hours.

[knoxmallette]

I have a similar experience as the OP. I replaced the battery in my H320 with a new cameron sino. I recorded two shows during JazzFest's second weekend without recharging the battery. Now I'm lucky to get three hours of playback before the unit dies. I'm bummed.

[George]

When I swapped out the battery out of my h320, I found the original battery wires practically split apart...which was causing my h320 to shutdown abruptly after 30 mins of playback time.  The voltage/battery life would literally nosedive to 3.44V or 0 mins in a matter of seconds from a full charge.  After swapping in a sino battery, all appears to be well (practically just ran out the first full charge).

[petur]

another thing to note is that battery performance is very much related to its age, and I don't mean the time you used it but the time since manufacturing. Normal life is 2-3 years, so if you happen to buy one that was manufactured 2 years ago, it will die on you within a year.

And sellers never disclose to you when it was manufactured... I wonder why 

[George]

another thing to note is that battery performance is very much related to its age, and I don't mean the time you used it but the time since manufacturing. Normal life is 2-3 years, so if you happen to buy one that was manufactured 2 years ago, it will die on you within a year.

And sellers never disclose to you when it was manufactured... I wonder why 

I seriously doubt they even know that.  Especially with these sellers that carry 1000 piece lots, their bound to find themselves selling batteries that have aged quite a bit before being sold.