Batteries America CBE-210N Battery Eliminator - Definitely Different

I did something stupid earlier in the month. I accidentally reversed the polarity to my Batteries America CBE-210N battery eliminator and well... you can guess the result of that. Once you let the smoke out of some components, they just don't work very well any more. The same went for the ICOM F21GM radio, too. All in all, it was a very costly mistake.

However, since the specs of the 210N seemed to indicate it was different inside from the old 210, I figured why not crack the case and see.

Compare back to my older posting on this subject (August 15, 2009) and you will see that the 210N is much different. Instead of a single voltage regulator, there are two (L7808CV), so there's a bit of simplification going on in getting to that reduced voltage ( 7 VDC) that the ICOM radio is happier with.

So, I am now the happy owner of another (2) ICOM F21GM radios and a new CBE-210N. This time, I hope I've learned from my mistake and will keep the smoke locked up inside the respective components where it belongs.

Batteries America CBE-210N Battery Eliminator Update (no hack required)

My original CBE-210 Battery Eliminator used with my ICOM F21 GM failed on a day ride during the 2009 BMW MOA Rally in Gray, TN. Actually, what failed was a wire external to the eliminator. I had cut the cable shorter years ago to remove the cigarette lighter plug and the coiled portion fo the cable and replace it with a pair of Anderson Powerpoles. One of the small gauge wires just broke, leaving me unable to use the radio for bike-to-bike communications with the other GS rider in our party.

After returning from the rally and extended trip to Wisconsin that followed, I ordered up a replacement battery eliminator from Batteries America. I happened to notice that the original CBE-210 was no longer available and had been replaced by the CBE-210N. I'm guessing, but I bet the N means "new". This morning, I snapped the new battery eliminator on the back of the radio and did a little testing.

Before I snapped it on, I took the opportunity to check to see if the "new" model connected the small metal contact in the back of the eliminator to the Negative power contact that connects to the radio. My last post detailed a "hack" that was required with the original CBE-210 to allow the radio to be operated at full power. The N model DOES make the necessary connection internally so I removed the aluminum foil "hack" from the inside of the radio. Cool!

The other thing I noticed was that the filtered DC output of the eliminator is no longer 9 VDC, but reduced to 8 VDC which is closer to the 7.2 VDC supplied by a normal battery pack. Interesting.

With the eliminator in place and connected to bike power, I did a few transmit tests to see if any of the annoying squealing sounds of the past could be heard on my signal and from the speakers in my helmet. Elizabeth and I took turns alternating between transmitting and listening on a spare radio.

I'm cautiously saying that the problem experienced over the years has gone away! There was definitely some alternator noise still present on my signal, but it was not disturbing the audio enough to worry about. Gone was the squealing that made it hard for others to hear what I was saying. It was also not heard in the helmet either. It's possible that the original CBE-210 was providing too many volts to the radio, causing the problem.

With this possible improvement, I need to take an extended ride with the guys and see what they think!

Update on Saturday, August 22, 2009 at 12:47PM by Brian Young

With the CBE-210N installed and working well with the ICOM F21GM, I decided to take a look inside the ruined CBE-210. It took some work to get inside the case and I may have rushed it a bit. As you can tell from the photos, the seams didn't release cleanly, so some plastic was broken. Oh well.

Double-sided foam tape is used to hold the circuit board in place. On the top side of the board, you can see the input filter circuit, along with the capacitors associated with the voltage regulator that is riveted to the back side of the circuit board.

In this picture, I've flipped the circuit board over to reveal the voltage regulator whose metal tab is riveted to a small aluminum plate acting as a heat sink. The part is a LM2576T-ADJ. That "ADJ" at the end means that the output voltage can be adjusted by the surrounding circuitry to specific voltage. Presumably Batteries America adjusted this one to 9 VDC. If they are still using the LM2576T-ADJ in the CBE-210N, then they've made changes in components to adjust the output down to 8 VDC.

So far so good with the new one! I still find it hard to believe that my noise problem was actually the battery eliminator all along.