I just received my new baofeng uv-5r and tried charging last night but I keep getting blinking red and green light.
I’ve tried different outlets, battery by itself and attached to radio. I’ve plugged charging unit in without battery and still get blinking lights.
Anything else to look at or try our did I get a defective unit?
You talking on the charger or the radio? Flashing on the charger indicates its doing nothing from memory, going red when charging.
The charger light flashes red and green. Even if there no battery attached.
The charger flashes red and green when there is nothing in it to charge. When the battery is inserted alone or attached to the radio, the light should go solid red when charging and turn solid green to indicated charging is complete.
The charger LED may also flash red and green if the battery and radio are not inserted properly and one or more metal contacts in the charger are not touching the contact points on the battery pack. It can also indicate the charging tray or battery pack may be defective.
If you have another battery pack for the UV-5R, try it in the tray. if the LED turns red, the other battery pack may be defective. If the LED continues to flash red and green, they charger tray may be defective. If you don’t have a spare battery pack, you may want to purchase one. They are very inexpensive and are always handy to have when carrying the radio around for extended periods.
I have a new UV-5X3, which uses an identical charger… the charger WILL do the red/green flash IF a fully charged battery sits in the tray too long. This radio is a recently designed radio, this seems a new “feature”.
Some dealers will fully charge the radio for you, before shipping.
Try using the radio and run the battery down some. If the condition exists still… with the radio in the charger, remove and reinsert the power lead into the base.
IF the problem still exists, there could be a charger issue.
When I bought my UV-5R and put the battery is put into the charger, the charger red led ( indicates charging) turns on for 3-90 secs and then the red and green led starts flashing. The online manual says that the flashing is an error condition or the battery is out of the charger. I measured the battery voltage at 7.4v out of the charger. When the charger red led is on, the battery voltage rises to 7.65v. When the flashing occurs, the voltage goes to 8.4v, which is also the charger voltage when the battery is removed. Charging never resumes. The battery has a protection circuit and it looks like the protection circuit is cutting the charging off. When I try to use the radio, the radio dies fairly quickly because the battery isn’t charged. I got a new battery and it charged up, so the original battery was bad.
I also had the problem of the charging unit blinking red/green with nothing plugged in. And in fact both my chargers did, so I figured that can’t be necessarily the sign of a bad charger. And leaving the radio on the charger overnight didn’t charge it up one bit.
I tried the second charger, though (exact same model), and it went to red when the radio was put in the cradle (as it should, to indicate a low battery being charged).
I now tried the second charger, and after awhile of wiggling the radio around in the unit, found a position that held a steady red. Both chargers and two almost identical Baofeng radios are almost brand new, so I would say that it’s just poor design on Baofeng’s part.
So, keep trying to see if you can get the radio to seat in the charger, and good luck!
73,
I have several Baofeng UV5R’s. I also have 5 BF-888s (cheaper Baofengs). For 4-5 years I have run my 888s handsets switched on constantly and sat on charging cradles constantly. We use them for comms around a large farm, one in each workshop, building etc. They have been great but just bought a load of UV5Rs to replace them with (only because we wanted the functions of UV5Rs, the 888s are still working perfectly). I want to leave permanently on charge so they never fail if a transmission is made by someone.
I don’t care about battery life (no probs with 888s after all this time), they cost pennies after all so that’s not an issue, the only issue I have concerns about is SAFETY. Does anyone know if it’s SAFE to leave UV5Rs (Li-Ion) constantly charging like this? I dont care if I damage radio or battery, I am only concerned with trying not to burn the place down 
Any advice appreciated. thanks
You can… BUT make sure they are NOT powered on! The charger circuitry may think, with the extra current draw, that the batteries are lower, when in fact they are full. An overcharged lithium ion is not a good thing. These batteries must be carefully charged. Any deviation from the carefully designed charging methods could lead to fire.
Really?! ****! I have had the 888s sat on 247 for years, and only decided to check now I have some UV5Rs. Such a pain in the youknowwhat. I need to have these running constantly. I wish you could get a desktop version, or maybe a mains battery eliminator (noise will be a problem I know). Thanks for replying, need to give some more thought to this, we live in a trailer and it would go up in flames in about 60 seconds from a lithium fire! I thought it was only a risk if the batteries were pierced.
I must admit I very rarely remove a radio from the charger once it’s charged - I are up on nicads and that’s how I used them, and now I just carry on the same. Multiple 6 ways chargers just have the radios living on them. My logic simply being that they design things for idiots to use, so the manufacturer makes this safe - or if they don’t they put a BIG warning pin the charger and in the manual. I’ve never seen this warning, so with litigation being common, why not?
I come from similar point of view, but then those 6 rack chargers in police stations and train platforms etc, they were usually Motorola or Icom or similar high quality gear. Not sure I would trust Baofeng to spend money on too much clever circuitry, it’s budget stuff after all. I am 99% sure I would be fine carrying on just the same, but living in a cardboard box (almost) with many kids, not sure I want to be one of the first to find out that it can happen! Its a real pain though, can’t think of any other way to work. we relied on these for years, always on, so if someone is missing, you can call up and find them somewhere as radios dotted around all over the place!
Some of my Baofeng UV5R radios have a solid green light on the front, and the screen is lit up all the time. Its driving me nuts, because I have 5 of them and only 3 do this, the other two dont, yet they are all programmed exactly the same. Any advice appreciated!
thanks
Does anyone know if you can get a click fast attachment for the uv5r or any other baofeng or retevis brand radio
SapperGP21. I desperately need help. My brand new battery chargers for BaoFeng UV-5R twin set radio (delivered today) do not work as per instruction manuals indicate they should. When I first plug them into a power supply a red light comes up on the base unit but after inserting the radios for charging the red light goes to green. I have been at this for hours now and still have no power to my radios. i.e the batteries are not charging properly.
What does “muted” mean? I am trying to get thru to someone who is familiar with the BaoFeng UV-5R to get a simple sensible answer
If you have two radios and two chargers, it’s unlikely they are faulty, assuming you’ve tried both and swapped them.
If you leave them on overnight and in the morning they are still both flat, then sadly, the batteries or the chargers, as unlikely as it seems must be faulty. Either that, or they are not making contact inside the radio. There’s no protective film over the terminals inside is there?