I just tried to charge my TS1000 and I got the blinking light. I realize I'm going to have to replace it soon, Reading the Pronto forums, though, even the new models have charging issues. We have laptops, phones, camcorders, ad nauseum and none of these have charging problems! I even read about a Pronto NG smoking and catching fire. Since you folks have much more expreience with these, do you have many of these problems? Who would be liable if one of these remotes scorched a valuable antique end table? Thanks for letting me vent.

ronk,

You've gotta be kidding me. You think laptops, phones, camcorders, etc don't have problems! I'll tell you that all these devices have had problems.

I work on IC's to perform charging and fuel gauging for hand held devices. I keep up on this area, as it's my daily job. All the manufacturers (These are major manufacturers, among the top five in portables, cell phones, and digital video/cameras) are worried about safety, but they worry every day about cost. They all know that the consumer electronics industry stands still for no one.

I think almost all the major manufacturers have had a recall of a battery, charger, or some other element in their power system. Batteries are capable of delivering huge amounts of current. A notebook battery pack, when shorted, will deliver a surrent surge of around 200Amps! It can easily sustain currents of over 20A for minutes. These kinds of currents, if undetected can easily cause a fire due to heating of the conductor causing the short. I've seen problems because someone on the assembly line routed the wire the wrong way, and over time a sharp edge of sheet metal can wear through the wire and cause a short.

Many companies will submit their designs for UL approval. Underwriters Laboratories approval costs companies a fair amount, but provides some sizeable benefits. If something does happen, and it can in even the best designed product, their experts will show up to defend them in court.

Customers do bad things to products without ever thinking about the issues. It wouldn't surprise me to see a charger with a blanket thrown over it. This could easily cause high enough temperatures to develop that the charger or battery pack could overheat, and possibly cause a fire. I've seen the woman of the house throw a scarf or fabric on top of a TV, and cover all the ventilation... again, this has the potential to cause problems.

In all these cases, the manufacturer has taken action to try and prevent problems, but if the customer creates a problem, and circuitry fails, multiple failures can sometimes lead to fire, or "Rapid Disassembly" of the battery pack.

Urge your customers to be smart... don't cover ventialtion grills. If you spill something in a component, take it in for service, don't just power it on and see if it still works.

Also remember that rechargeable battery packs don't last forever. Even the best packs after about 500 cycles will exhibit about 80% of their original capacity, and will start falling off rapidly in capacity after that point.

What is your chance of being liable? You are not very likely to be liable. You are selling a device. The manufacturer bears the burden of design for safety. You could be held liable is you improperly install the device. So, don't defeat grounding on three wire plugs, make sure you have adequate airflow in racks, use good old common sense and you should be ok.

Your right. I see recalls all the time for defective items, BUT the manufacturers replace or repair the defective items. Personally, I have about 6 rechargeable items and they all work fine! We have gone from the TS1000 to the TS7000 and I've read about charging problems with every model up to the TS6000. How long does Phillips need to get it right. I'm not talking about customer abuse, I'm concerned about design flaws.

bcf's letter indicates to me that he has great theoretical and practical knowledge, but not specific knowledge of problems with Pronto chargers.

A few years ago, I quit selling the chargers for a period of 18 months, after two chargers just quit, this site was full of complaints, and then one of my clients' chargers overheated without any blankets, scarves, quilts, sheets of plywood or anything else having been thrown over them.

The client walked into the room one day and wondered what the crackling sound was. While we never figured it out, it came from the charger, which was sitting on top of a table with about 12" clearance on every side and about four feet of clearance above it. The remote appeared to be properly seated, but the charger had heated to the point where there was a one-inch black circle in the LCD that prompted us to ditch the charger and get a replacement TS1000 from Philips.

Remember mood rings? LCDs respond to heat. That black circle gradually disappeared over the course of the ten or so days that it took for a replacement to come, but we traded it out anyway. Who would want a component that had so obviously been unreasonably stressed?

It is true that rechargeables can put out massive current. Heck, I had five plain AA batteries in my pocket the other day -- the pocket with about four dollars in quarters in it -- and even these rather low current batteries got hot enough for me to scramble to empty my pockets. But the issues have to do with products used correctly, not idiocy such as I demonstrated!

You may have fully researched this, but many chargers blink when the battery fails. If it has one open cell out of the four, if it has one shorted cell....these are smart chargers and they look for overcurrent problems as well as opens.

I'd be more likely to sub another battery before knocking the charger. I've not had a pronto or a chad quit but I've had customers bend the battery compartment terminals enough and have the charger quit.

My cordless drill charger blinked and would not charge last week. So I put the battery on an external charger (note - it read 5.6 volts instead of 14 volts) and gradually increased the charge voltage. No current flow, bad battery...then suddenly it began charging.

Some techs know that supplying an overvoltage for a brief period will restore a battery, and in this case, I am using this battery again and it's fine. I'm sure it's old and doesn't have a great lifespan, but I've put off the expenditure for some time at least.

Not trying to tell you that you don't have a bad charger, just giving you some info that may be of help to you.

BTW I have a few pronto batteries in stock if you want to buy a spare.

=Tom

Tom:

I may take you up on the new battery. I wasn't just complaining about this on instance. I've had other problems with the TS1000 charging system. I'm just saying that Phillips has had a history of charging problems dating all the way back to the TS1000 and it shouldn't be rocket science to fix them. When I've had a charging problem, I've come on these forums and found many others who have had the same problems. It just seems to me that after all this time, Phillips could have gotten it right.

I have one client that gives me his CHAD (pronto) every couple months and says "It's not charging".

He's always taking the NiMH battery out, for no known reasons, and I get the thing with bent contacts inside the compartment.

It had always been no charge light before, but this last time it was flashing. Took apart, straightened, charging again. I dunno.

It's funny how I've got umpteen tools with rechargable batteries and none of them have had anywhere near the problems that I've had with Prontos and Pronto chargers. Five feet away from me, I have a Nicad/NiMH battery charger that charges the batteries for all of my test tools. No problems there either. Laptop batteries? So far so good.

Pronto batteries and chargers? I'd say about 2 out of 5 had problems with them. I no longer sell Pronto and that's exactly why I no longer sell Pronto.

Tom:
Probably the reason he was removing the batteries was ANOTHER known problem with Pronto chargers. You could charge the battery, but the charge indicator would not show a charge. It's been reported on the Pronto forum that removing the battery momentarily, would somehow reset the indicator. I've also had this problem, and removing the battery seems to work. Another solution was to put the remote on and off the charger 4-5 times. Ahem reminded me that when I mentioned that I had a half dozen rechargeable devices, I forgot power tools. If you count them, I probably have 10! I like the Pronto's ability to label every button. I can reproduce all of my other remotes completely. My Pronto is probably going to have to be replaced soon, but I don't want to have these hassles again.