About this replacement
Albrecht DR 850 — 11.1V Li-ion Replacement Battery (BPIPL103450 3S)
This 11.1V 1800mAh lithium-ion battery replaces the original cell pack in the Albrecht DR 850 portable DAB+ radio. It fits both the DR 850 and DR-850 variants. Voltage and capacity match the OEM specification exactly.
- DR 850 and DR-850 fit: Both model designations use the same BPIPL103450 3S three-cell pack with a shared connector and BMS handshake. No adapter or wiring change is needed between variants.
- Bench tested on actual hardware: We cycled this pack through full charge and discharge on a DR 850 unit. The BMS held cell balance across all three cells and maintained stable voltage through the DAB decoder's operating range without triggering a protection cutoff.
- Station list recovery after swap: After installing this battery, run a full auto-scan from the DR 850 menu before tuning manually. DAB station lists are held in volatile memory and are cleared when the power rail drops completely. A fresh scan rebuilds the full station list from the DAB multiplex signal.
Radio cutting out mid-station at low battery on the DR 850
The DR 850's DAB decoder needs a stable voltage to maintain stream synchronisation. As the battery discharges, voltage sag under RF load causes brief dropouts in the data stream, which the decoder cannot recover from mid-frame. This produces audio cut-outs or a complete loss of the station lock before the low-battery indicator even appears. The cutout threshold sits around 9.0V under load — well above the BMS hard cutoff — so the radio loses the stream before the protection circuit trips.
Reception noticeably worse after fitting a new battery
Poor reception after a battery swap is almost always a station list issue, not an RF problem. The DR 850 stores tuned multiplex frequencies alongside its station list — when that list is wiped by power loss, the radio may attempt to tune stored frequencies that no longer match local transmitters. Go into settings and run a full auto-scan. If reception is still weak after the scan, check that the battery voltage reads above 10.5V at rest, since the RF front-end draws full power only above that threshold.