Tecsun Pl-880 Battery | The SWLing Post

Many thanks to SWLing Post reader, Bill, who writes:

Maybe you already know this, but I only recently discovered the Tecsun PL-880 rechargeable battery is available on Amazon for $9.99 and can qualify for Prime free shipping. I bought one and it seems to work great. There are other battery models on Amazon that may work, but many had comments about inconsistent quality, various countries of origin and even various sizes! I decided to go with this one branded as Tecsun to play it safe and am happy. Just an FYI to your readers.

Click here to view on Amazon.

Thanks, Bill! I have two PL-880 batteries and they continue to do a fine job running the PL-880. They are over two years old now (hard to believe–!), so I’ll keep Amazon in mind. Note that Universal Radio also has the replacement battery for $9.95 (though no free shipping).

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The supplied Tecsun PL-880 charger/power supply (Click to enlarge)

I’ve had a lot of questions and comments about whether the Tecsun PL-880 is supplied with a power supply/battery charger. I purchased my PL-880 from from Anon-Co on eBay and they sent a charger along with the radio.

The charger was not in the actual PL-880 (OEM) box, but wrapped up inside Anon’s FedEx shipping package. I found it instantly.

I mention this because I’m not sure if other vendors are supplying a charger as well–perhaps other PL-880 owners can comment?

The charger has two ports where the supplied USB cable can be plugged in–both 5 VDC, but one rated at 1000mA and the other at 2400 mA. Either would work to power the PL-880 as it only requires 300 mA. For charging, I would use the 2400 mA port–though the 1000 mA port may work as well. You certainly can’t hurt the radio by using the higher mA port as the radio will only use the amount of amperage it requires.

I will also note that while I prefer portables having the more standard AA cells, the supplied PL-880 rechargeable battery (see below) has superb capacity. With all of the listening time I’ve been logging, I still haven’t needed to recharge it yet. I suspect its capacity is superior to that of most AA rechargeables.