"Terry" wrote in message
. ..

Dirty contacts. Regardless of how they look, take an eraser and
clean
them. For some reason, there are a bunch of devices that behave
like
this. I believe it has something to do with dissimilar metals used
in
the contacts building up oxides.

Excellent suggestion. And/or maybe wipe off any grease with a bit of
that
car lock de-icer alcohol?

Our GE 900 cordless did the same sort of thing.
After we mislaid handset for about a week.
When found, handset battery which was supposedly OK since it had been
replaced a few months ago, was completely flat.
It has taken at least a week and a half for the battery recharge. Now
normal
So could be a bad cell/s?

Maybe you had a cell get reverse polarized from it running so low, but
I'd suspect that wouldn't correct itself. Perhaps also the contacts are
a bit high resistance so it took allot longer to charge. It's funny, I
have an old phone (~10years) that never had any trouble with the
contacts, no matter what. I now have a cheapy that often has issues
with not wanting to charge until I clean up the contacts, go figure. It
must be something to do with the type of metal(s).

In reference to dissimilar metals/oxidation etc. causing 'dirty
contacts', a
common fault back designation in the days of relays! Especially if you
didn't REALLY KNOW what the problems was! You had to write something
in the
trouble log :-); see also 'contact wetting'.

'Contact wetting' was/is the recommended practice of having a few
microamps
flow through an electrical contact that was not otherwise carrying any
DC
current (voice circuit relay contact, audio jack etc.) offset contact
oxidation. Not possible of course with the contacts of a tel. handset
that
is detached from the base.

I think this is still commonly done when miniscule amounts of current
are involved (like line-level audio) and plugs/jacks are being used. I
believe it's also done with potentiometers to insure that they conduct
the signal.