Charging NiMH Batteries in a 360LX

Has anyone charged NiMH/NiCd batteries in a 360LX lately? Does the device quit charging automatically when the batteries are fully charged or give some other indication? Any input appreciated.

Edited by Mjolnir 2020-12-01 8:32 PM






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Approximately two hours after I posted above, the screen changed to show the normal battery status pictograph at 'full.' After I unplugged the device I was slightly worried that this might be misleading because in the +/- 8 hour charging time there was never any warmth to be felt at the battery department cover.
This morning the 360LX is working normally and shows a full charge.






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I never had any problems leaving 320's on charge. Though as a general rule it is going to stress the batteries if you leave it plugged in.

Yeah, many of my other camping, hunting and fishing devices are standardized around rechargeable double aa batteries so in practice I'll just be swapping out pre-charged batteries. I knew the 360LX had the ability so I just wanted to test it out. The 360 is just a great old device - I wish my J820s could be run on Eneloops.

I actually have a lot of questions about batteries on my HP 320lx. and i hope i'm not hijacking or resurrecting this thread too much. Currently I'm using Energizers NiMH. I'm NOT charging them in my as my system warns me that it could cause damage. Okay fair nuff. I picked up some no name banana yellow Ni-Cd 900mha batteries on ebay. pop those in and threw them on for a charge. they took the charge but my little palm top ate them so quick it's not even funny. Yes i was using the CF card (as it kept telling me it would decrease battery life but i only pulled maybe 30-45 mins of use off a charge which seems rather... not good. My energizers run like champs for hours but it's annoying to have to pop them out as its a little tight to get them in and out. If I grabbed some crappy Ni-Cds i would understand. they were kinda dirt cheap. like 5 bucks for 4

What are other people's thoughts?

I'm using 2300 mAh NiMH Energizers and charging them in my device with no trouble. Can you post pics of the 'warning' your device is giving you?

Edited by Mjolnir 2021-01-29 12:35 AM






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Uploading photo. Doing this on my cell so it's a little weird.







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Apparently, per @Rich Hawley you must should use an external charger if you want to use NiMH batteries in your 320LX: "The answer is no. The trickle charger of the 320lx will over charge the nimh batteries, even to the point of them getting super hot. You can charge nicad in a nimh charger however, just not the reverse.

My recommendation: An external battery nimh charger, where you can have 2 in the 320lx for use and 2 charging for swap out." https://www.hpcfactor.com/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=18057&start=3

Edited by Mjolnir 2021-01-29 11:03 AM

That is what I have been doing for safety sake. Maybe I'll see if I can't buy some better NiCds instead of the cheapest thing I can get from ebay.

Oh dear. I feel like we're going around in circles on this issue.

If you have the CE 1.0 ROM, the banner states that the device can only support NiCd, if you put the CE 2.0 ROM in a 320LX, the banner warning changes to NiCd and NiMh. The point is not to put any Lithium derivative cells in it, Li-ion or Li-pol as these will - on the balance of probability - eventually explode.





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