More fun with the Kaito voyager pro KA600 and the Baofeng UV-5R
You no longer need to program the Baofeng with a hammer and a screwdriver.
WARNING: Trying this may render your Baofeng battery completely useless. After these test were done my Battery pack would no longer take a charge. It seems that the charge indicator built into the battery pack tell the charger that it is already charged.The Kaito ka-600 emergency hand crank radio is the best emergency radio I have ever owned so far. It is a multi-purpose device that you can use during a power outage or when no electricity is available. As far as all the emergency radio reviews it is one of the best that you can purchase under 100 dollars. With it's hand crank you can power the radio long after the batteries has been depleted. It receives the AM and FM bands as well as shortwave radio and weather stations. It also include a solar panel, a reading light AND a flashlight.
More information on the Kaito AM/FM shortwave radio
Recently I have also been really enjoying my Baofeng UV-5R dual band handheld radio, but got to wondering one day if it would be possible to put together a connector from the power out on the Kaito KA600 to charge the 7.4Vdc battery on the Baofeng.
After testing the wall wart that came with the Baofeng charger I see that it puts out 10Vdc at 500mA. This was a bit discouraging since it would take several hours to charge up the battery using the hand crank. Who wants to spend several hours cranking the handle on the Kaito KA-600 charging up a battery.
My next thought was, what if the Baofeng Battery was completely depleted. How long would it take turning the handle on the Kaito to make the Baofeng UV5R usable ?
I disassembled an old USB mouse that didn't work to scavenge the cord and USB connector and using that I was able connect a VOM (Voltage Ohm Meter) to test the output. In the initial tests I was able to connect the VOM and by turning the hand crank get 4.5Vdc output. Not bad, but would it be enough to charge the 7.4 battery from the Baofeng UV-5R.
The Baofeng battery is measured at 7.56 VDC when fully charged.
Hacking a connector together MacGyver style
After first making my connector, making sure the polarity was right, I could see that the Kaito was not going to supply enough power by connecting the Baofeng stand up charger to the output of the Kaito KA-600. When the hand crank is turned, no matter how vigorously the little red "Charge" light does not even come on, much less the little "Fully charged" light indicator.
The USB power "out" connector on the back of the Kaito voyager pro KA600 is capable of putting out a max of 5V dc. This is well within the capabilities of the USB port, and 5V is the common voltage..
What could possibly go wrong ?
One other problem i ran into was that the Baofeng UV-5R battery was already fully charged, so I would either have to find a way to quickly drop the voltage or wait a day or two until the voltage went down enough that I could see a difference after charging it with the Kaito....fun fun fun
Here in the next day or so (once the battery on the Baofeng runs down) I will be posting my results, so stay tuned, and see you on the air.
WARNING: Trying this may render your Baofeng battery completely useless. After these test were done my Battery pack would no longer take a charge. It seems that the charge indicator built into the battery pack tell the charger that it is already charged.
Charging a Baofeng battery with the Kaito KA-600 Part IIWARNING: Trying this may render your Baofeng battery completely useless. After these test were done my Battery pack would no longer take a charge. It seems that the charge indicator built into the battery pack tell the charger that it is already charged.
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