ICOM Radio fix... advice needed??

[goeasy123]

I have an old ICOM M71 handheld VHF. The battery is dead. A new ICOM battery is £65. I can buy a raw Li-ion pack of ebay for £7. With a bit of mechanical engineering i can make it fit the radio. Will it work?

The ICOM battery is 7.4v 2000mAh with 2 connections. The ebay battery is 7.4V 3800mAh with 2 connections.

Also will the ICOM desk top charger charge the ebay battery? It's a BC 166.

Thanks.....

 

[William_H]

Yes you should be able to replace the batteries alone. Do make sure you make the connection to the middle of the 2 batteries. The charger considers the charge of the cells individually. This connection makes 3 contacts on the battery to charger. All assuming you are sure your charger and old batteries are Li-ion because older ones were NIMH batteries.
If you are getting batteries from China you may find that the amp hour rating claimed on the batteries is nothing like actual rating (about 10% for 18650 Ultrafire) Look for rants on internet about 18650 capacity. ol'will

 

[goeasy123]

Yes you should be able to replace the batteries alone. Do make sure you make the connection to the middle of the 2 batteries. The charger considers the charge of the cells individually. This connection makes 3 contacts on the battery to charger. All assuming you are sure your charger and old batteries are Li-ion because older ones were NIMH batteries.
If you are getting batteries from China you may find that the amp hour rating claimed on the batteries is nothing like actual rating (about 10% for 18650 Ultrafire) Look for rants on internet about 18650 capacity. ol'will

Thanks. That's reassuring. The battery and charger only have 2 connections each. So I assume whatever the battery pack has got in it the charger sees as one cell.