Baofeng Radio: 12V DC Charging Mod 

To answer a few questions: -A Flashing Red LED on the cradle means that there is something wrong with the battery and it will not charge. Any attempts to charge ends when the LED starts to flash. - The cradles can only take 5 to 10 volts. Anything more than 10volts will damage the charging circuit. Some have tried with 12V from their car and got it to charge but I will say from that the amperage must be very low so it is possible to charge at 12volts with a low amperage. - Owning several types of Baofengs, all my chargers exhibit the same behavior: Red means charging, Green means Charged, and Flashing Red means Battery Failure. -The extended pack does have its own charging jack but it is for a USB Adaptor, which is 5V. Anything more than 6V going through it will damage the charging circuit. USB electronics can easily be damaged by over-voltage. - As far as the UV-5RA, that radio I do not own. But I seen youtube vidoes making a modification to the extended battery pack to make it fir the UV-5RA. It mean cutting a couple plastic tabs on the extended battery case to make it fit. Search and find these vidoes to see how it is done.

I use a 12v to 120v inverter to a 3 way multi plug to 2 chargers. I've even thrown a 3 way 12v multi plug in the mix so I can use 1 radio while charging 2 batteries. It's a bit Clark Griswoldy but works.

I know a lot of hams that use the cigarette lighter plugin directly to the Baofeng extended life battery and I always warn them that the voltage is not correct to charge the battery and they are risking damaging the batteries, but they never listen. Maybe one day they will learn the hard way, hopefully not in an SHTF situation though.

Tons of options on amazon. Just search baofeng USB charger. There's USB cords that step up to 10v that plug into your cradle or cradles with USB built in. They also have plenty of cigarette lighter style.

Bow fang sells a cord that’s made to plug into the battery it has a USB end on it so you plug a USB connector into your cigarette lighter and you’re good to go it has a red light on it it turns green when the batteries charged it’s made by. Bow fang

You can also cover up 1\2 the goal zero panales .. That also works

Just string 8 AA together in series and attach it to the drop in charge unit

My charger said 12v 1A. I use 2 HT radios and have mounted the chargers in my car and wired them straight to a switch. That way I can chose if they charge while the key is off or not.

I put a 10 volt voltage regulator in the base of mine it works quite well

If you choose to charge DIRECTLY from the SIDE plug, wich is the volts (8,4v ?) and mAh that are need for?

Is it possible to use the radio while charging? Is there any problem doing this?

1.7mm inside 4.0 outside diameter connector

thanks for the vid. could you answer this question for me? Is it ok or preferable to leave these baufeng radios in their cradles constantly charging (eg plugged into AC outlet at home? or does this damage / overcharge the battery?

i have the dreaded mis match battery's. possible to discharge the pack. then charge it up. will this balance the two batteries? i do not want to tear it apart if possible. also are there replacement loose batteries on the market? aka the cells. not a whole pack. if so what is the numbers used? and who stocks them? i know a new pack is cheap. but this way i know the two batteries match each other. .

You could use a 10VDC voltage regulator. They sell them at electronics shops. You can have a female DC jack on one side and a male DC jack on the other. The female would receive the power from the car adapter, and the male would feed the charger. Job done. Some soldering would be needed of course. Something like this: www.amazon.com/Electronics-Salon-Positive-Voltage-Regulator-Module/dp/B00LM2ISOU

For car/truck just spend $13 on a small 12V to 110 converter at wallyworld or northern tool. Best go is a solar charger usb

Greetings everyone, I am interested in the battery pack with charger rather then the cradle charger. Could someone tell me parts numbers and compatibility the Bf-f8

I have a Baofeng UV-16 and it has a USB-C charger built in, so I can use any USB-A to USB-C cable and a 12V car charger to charge the radio. The question is: Can I use the radio while charging? The radio works while charging, but the question is, does it harm the batteries?

PS the rectifier will fit in the end of the cheep 12v plug .. I have 11 of these radios. Yes I do have better ones. But these are so cheep and the the battery last at lest a year. I have them in my car my truck my girlfriends car home and at work. And a back up hear and there with the ability to charge them

Im not sure why Baofeng does not add a USB-c charging... seems so simple.

Well my charger was flashing green and red which is what its suppose to Then it flashes green by itself Then I put the battery on the charger and the light goes out!!

Great video. Just need some more information. Can the UV-5R be placed in the cradle that is plugged into house power (120v) and left turned on indefinitely? I ask because I would like to use two in my attic (#1 as RX and #2 as TX using an audio cable), hooked up to an external antenna on the chimney as a repeater, so I can roam around my property with a stubby antenna on my third UV-5R.

I wanted a portable solution, so here it is 1M USB DC 5V To DC 9V supplied by lanmu on Amazon, I connect the lead into a 5v power bank, it does take a while to charge but at least I can top up the battery while out and about. I also bought 1M USB DC 5V To DC 12V and I'm able to charge my Kenwood the f7 & my Kenwood d72. hope someone finds this helpful, I'm also in the process of making a extended power option for baofeng. will post my results

I have a 5v USB step up converter that outputs 10 V.

Your answer lies with in. After some damage. I skinned out the battery holder. then made a regulator. I took a 7805, and added 4 1 amp diodes pointing to ground. Off pin#2. Them put one ten UF cap at pin#1. The + at pin #1. Then put a 10 uf cap. On #3 pin. the (+) to pin#3, and ground to ground rail. Then to take noise out. I put at #3 pin, a 0.1 uf ceramic cap. One end to positive other to the negative. Simple system and can be shoe horned in the original box. Then I took a cooking timer . To announce at 0 to 3 hours of operation. Battery and charger doing fine (as l was too lazy to add Charge indicator.) Works well. Even added a strip of aluminum as a sink to cool the 7805 .( We be cool) . Ps the radio has a volt meter built in one bar to 3 in short time. . Bread board it first to check results as I use solar for my power.

??? the charger flash red when I put the unit in the charge what is the problem is it supposed to do that?

Wait I am so lost. Does it charge? because it seems it stays RED and also there is no indicator on the radios screen that says it is charging. So how will we know if the radio is even being charged?

Another thing I’d like to know you may know the answer, if I keep the battery plugged into the USB and then plug it into my car can I use the radio while it’s charging or will that hurt the battery

I just got the same setup as you. Last night I plugged my USB charger into my battery (2/3 bars of battery life) and this morning the battery was completely dead (battery symbol flashing). When I have the charger plugged into the battery, the radio works. But when I unplug the charger, the radio dies immediately. Has this ever happened to anyone?

I have tried charging my extende battery with 12v directly and charge.

Hi I wondered if you could help. I have a boafeng uv b5 but the charger isn't working. DDo you know of any alterntaives chargers that will work. I have looked on the internet but chargers specifically for this model are quite pricey. Any aletrnative to get running again, would be appreciated. Cheers

I had to wire in a 12v rectifier .. It worked even though the volts where a little to much

The Baofeng cradle charger is trash, because the engineers at Baofeng disregarded ALL of the data in the SC6038 charger chip's data sheet. It specifically tells you not to leave chip enable (pin 6) disconnected. Guess what the Baofeng engineers did? 🤣 They also wired the battery sensing backwards to get a slightly lower voltage from the regulator. SMH

Amazon link is not working

Will the base from the baofeng uv-5r charge the bf-f9 v2+

ok

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