J richard

On all of them take the student headset and shrink tube or zip tie the cord to the mic boom, a little strain relief that will make them last much longer...

CWhaley

Good tip!

syncspeedinc

Thanks, we are also making adaptor cables for Chatterbox - Stilo helmet communications if anyone is interested.

jscott82

Can you do an adapter the other way, Chatterbox Earpiece to IMSA intercom? Would like to be able to use the chatterbox when in a students car, but use the higher quality intercom when in mine.

edit: that would be a 4 prong intercom plug to chatterbox headset... not imsa plug...

aeshultz

Chatterbox for the win. Only pain is the rechargables dieing in the middle of the day - just grab your friend's head unit and go!
Zip tie the cable _and_ the foam windscreen over the mic.

PorscheDoc

Never had a problem with my chatterbox. I really wish someone would come out with a blue tooth headset though for crying out loud. Why in this day are we fumbling trying to untangle cords from ear pieces, etc.

syncspeedinc

Yes, we can. Which unit are you using for your comm set up?

JClark

Doh! That's what I'm using mine for.

Gofishracing

Nice thread. I like the focus on needing the communicator as a tool of the trade. "No communicator- No Instruct" rule for this upcoming sesaon. me..

todinlaw

Good tip, because my instructions say to charge for about 4 hrs the first time but say nothing about over charging. A few times I plugged it in the night before I left for the weekend and forgot it till morning. so It got 7-8 hrs of a charge. I will look into the replacement batteries.

dan212

Its 2011 and when did you last see a device that won't go to trickle charge? What junk. I actually called Chatterbox a few years ago. The only safe and reliable way to charge them is to drain the battery and then do a full charge based on time. Time from empty to full is the only thing you can go with since it won't trickle-charge and overcharging a NICAD battery will cook it. Like everyone else, I have a bunch of them (don't want to be stuck with a dead communicator) , which makes the much more expensive Peltor (powered by a 9 volt battery) much less expensive in the long run - never mind the quality diff

CT03911

I also use the Chatterbox, it seems 95% of us do. I got my helmet wired up today for the "stereo" speakers and mic so am looking forward to a season of not having to deal with jaming the "lolipop" up under my helmet.

Regarding recharging, there is a lot of different information out there. In my first few years of ownership I did not know better and left it charging for differing lengths of time but typically a long time.
I knew there were different types of batteries and charging methods so don't ask me why but I never paid much attention to the Chatterbox. I plugged it in and gave it a long recharge. Never seemed to hurt it and never ran out of juice even on many 12 session days.

Last season a lot of guys were saying NEVER charge more than 3 hours so I began to assume (never checked) I had a lithium style battery.

Fast forward to today looking my system over closely. The Chatterbox CB50 http://www.chatterboxusa.com/cb50skit.html has a NI-MH battery. These have memory and performance suffers if you don't run them down and then fully charge. This business of "short charging" them, never more than 3-4 hours seems to be not entirely correct. It resulted in many of us plugging them in for short boosts and I believe that will not be good for the battery.

All this aside batteries are cheap for them but I think we all need to know short partial charges kill these batteries as they have "memory".

CT03911

I spoke to Chatterbox today. All the HJC-50 chaterboxes- old and new have nickle batteries.

Those batteries are the older technology battery that DO have a "memory" and can become less effective with partial charges.

Why do they use those batteries vs the "newer" lithium ones? Cost.

Here is what Chatterbox says. In a perfect world deplete the battery completely. Leave it on and kill it. Then, charge it for maybe EIGHT hours. Not much more but NEVER a short 30 minute type "boost" charge. A 24 hour charge will hurt it.

They should last for a minimum of 8 hours of normal on time. Talking non-stop will wear the battery more than someone who talks less. Turning it on and just letting it sit until discharged can take a good bit more than 8 hours too.

The key points are they last a long time so resist the temptation to give it a short quick trackside boost charge. That eventually kills the battery performance.

Replacement batteries are cheap if you may own one that was recharged incorrectly a bunch of times and you are not sure how good the battery may be.

va122

They make wireless http://www.chatterboxusa.com/cbxbiokit.html

mglobe

Yeah, but look at the "Student Headset". How do you use that the way we jump from car to car? And you would have to somehow clip the wireless student's communicator to their helmet. AND its $360 for a pair of them.