cobalt pet shortwave / mediumwave weblog

17 March 2006

kaito 1102 batteries

The Kaito KA1102's battery compartment is a dark and scary place, often filled with starburst lime-colored rechargeable batteries.

The 1300mah NiMH batteries that came with my 1102 are great and a charge lasts a long time. It has been so long since I charged the 1102's batteries that I forgot how to do it properly.

The radio came with an adapter and has a built-in charger, but I charge batteries for all of my other radios with a standalone charger. So my instinct, when the batteries ran out of power, was to remove the batteries for an overnight recharge.

I appreciate the hinged battery door that stays attached to the radio, as Ulis mentions in his Degen DE1102/Kaito KA1102 review on Radiointel.

The two outer batteries came out easily, especially since the ejector ribbon was laid down correctly. But the third battery was deep inside a tight crevice.

The factory batteries have a clever design. The edge of the battery near the positive end features a small groove. So after the first two batteries are removed, a fingernail can be placed into the third battery groove, and some amount of tugging and coercion will follow. Here's how my battery tugging adventure concluded:

I re-inserted the other two batteries, found the adapter, and charged the batteries inside the radio.

If the radio isn't plugged in when pressing the P-# key sequence to begin charging, the battery icon starts animating even though charging hasn't started. It took me several tries before I noticed the problem! When the radio is plugged in, an electrical plug icon appears on the display. In this case, I plugged my radio into a power strip that was switched off.

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