battery failures

Gday all, i have noticed a few/lots of posts on different forums about 4500 battery failures, this was brought to light when i bloke i go detecting with (sometimes) said his battery had failed.
The reason i feel ive noticed this is, i never heard of a 4000 one failing (im sure there must be some out there) so am im thinking the 4500 batteries are not up to scratch? not saying they are rubbish but may have some shortfalls in design/component quailty.
I also fell that it may be the inbuilt booster which could be the cause any ideas?
(no War and Peace posts Nero got it ).
Regards
John

Though mine still holds charge aswell as it ever did, I've noticed this aswell.
I did have 2 of the old dome top one on my extreme not so much fail but just drop dead probably of old age.

L ion as I understand it, although fantastic can be very unstable and fail at any time. I noticed the warenties on my Canon and Panosonic camera batteries were only 6 months also, so the 6 month warrenty offered by ML must be a pretty standard thing.

Gday


Apparently Li-ion batteries start to deteriorate from the time they are manufactured, so if the cells that are used in a battery pack are older ones then I guess that they are at greater risk of failing, its for this reason that I bit the bullet and bought a second 4500 battery.

Prior to getting the 4500 I had a 3500 and used the coiltek pocket rocket Li ion set up, I was told that they also had failures with these,they are the sony handycam batteries, I had two complete sets of these and 4 batteries, and just continued to rotate them, so they all got used and regularly charged, I never had one failure with these and used them for two or three years.

I think the key to keeping these batteries in good shape is to keep them charged up all the time, and dont just pack them away after use when they are flat, I have always done this with all my batteries including the old 6v gel cell batteries and have never had one failure.

I have noticed however that the headphone jack on one of the 4500 batteries can play up sometimes and you have to slide the plug pin in and out to get it to work, I have had a brief look at it but it all looks ok, if that was to fail then I guess that you would assume that the battery was dead as you couldnt hear anything, if the inbuilt booster failed then it would be the same thing I suppose.

Anyway the best insurance is to have a spare on hand, if you regularly detect with other mates then it worth all chipping in and buying a spare battery to take on your trips, I dont know what the availability of these is like at the moment because of the thing going on with the 4500s, but they retailed in the shop for $430. but there is one on ebay at the moment for $650.00 some one bought one from the same bloke for about $520 a few weeks ago.

Reeds prospecting do a battery pack that suits these as well so that would be a cheaper option as a back up battery, but I am not sure if theres has the inbuilt booster, or you have to have an external booster with their set up.

cheers

stayyerAU

I charge my 4000 battery immediately after use. I then store it in the fridge until needed, it apparently slows down the degeneration of the battery compared to storing it at room temperature. I believe these batteries start chemically degenerating from the moment of manufacture.

Regards Bill

Thanks for that great report stayyerAU.

I have a GP-3000 and have two Detaac Super Sound Amps., in both 4 pin(GP's) and 5 pin(GPX-4000) I got through wheeling and dealing. I also have two short 4 to 5 pin(or 5 to 4 pin, which ever way you want to use it) conversion adapters. In the future I want to buy a GPX unit(maybe a GPX-5000) so I would like to know:

Can an old 6v Gel Cell battery be used on a GPX-4000 or 4500 ?

Can a CoilTek Pocket Rocket be used on a GPX-4000 or 4500 ?

"Reeds prospecting do a battery pack that suits these as well so that would be a cheaper option as a back up battery, but I am not sure if theres has the inbuilt booster, or you have to have an external booster with their set up."

Therefore, can a Reeds Lucky Lark be used on a GPX-4000 or 4500 ?

Thank you!

Gday Beer Beeper


The old type 6 volt gel cell batteries are not suitable for the gpx detectors, as the gpx detectors run at higher voltages, they shut down at 7.1 volts and most 6v gel cell batteries barely achieve that voltage.

The Coiltek pocket rocket li ion set up can be used on the gpx machines providing you get the version that was made for it with the gpx plug, the earlier ones have the old style gp series plug, the gpx version also uses a higher capacity li ion battery with a higher amp hour rating, there was a problem with them sometimes shutting down at start up as the voltage was not high enough, I seem to recall that there was an extra component added to it to soft start, so the machine wouldnt shut down due to excessive power draw at start up, I am working from memory here so this may not be entirely correct, perhaps someone else may be able to explain it more fully.

Anyway this issue and the fact that you would also have to buy a booster to suit it, which worked out close to the cost of the genuine minelab 4500 battery all up ,made me decide to just go with the genuine article, with having the coiltek system already I thought that if you changed the plug to the later type then starting the machine with a fully charged battery would be ok, there were more questions than answers at the time so I just bought the genuine one.

I dont use the Reeds battery set up but I have seen them with the gpx series plugs and the older gp/sd plugs, both on the same unit, so they can be used with the gpx series, and I seem to recall there was some issue it had with boosters?, cant remember if it had an inbuilt booster that didnt like the gpx machines or you had to add a booster to it, someone else may be using one of these at present and give you some more details on it, that like the coiltek one also raised more questions than answers at the time so like I said I just bought the genuine minelab one.

As the battery changed from the 4000 to the 4500 there might also be changes to it again when the new machine? maybe 5000 comes out, if the machine is upgraded perhaps it will require more power to operate and the battery for that might be a higher voltage or output, so who knows?.

cheers

stayyerAU

Hi, I bought a Reids Lucky Lark battery pack with inbuilt booster to use with my gp extreme, when I bought the gpx 4000
I adjusted the voltage to suit the 4000 and also bought a new lead with 4 pins one end and 5 pins the other to suit the 4000.
Battery is still working fine from when the extreme was being used.
Cheers Greg.
.

First of all I also have always thought the mains charger could damage a battery if left on for too long so I only run it for shorter supervised periods.

I read that disconecting and/or reconnecting a battery when the machine has been turned on(running), can damage a SD/GP(X) machine.

A little off topic but simular, I would like to know: 1) I also wonder if a coil can be changed to another coil while the machine is running and turned on? (And does anyone have a CoilTek Switching Block mounted on their shaft to switch from the main coil to a Probe, 6", or 10x5" coil for pinpointing while the machine is on and running?)
http://www.coiltek.com.au/accessories.htm

Thanks stayyerAu, that was great, and I understand about the voltage difference. Too many questions, so just buy another new 4500 battery as a back-up. The old Pocket Rocket will not work and buying another GPX one with a booster will cost almost the amount the same as a new 4500 battery anyway, so might as well buy a new 4500 battery. If a person already has a Reeds battery pack with inbuilt booster from a SD/GP it can be converted to a(adjusted the higher voltage and also a 4 to 5 pin lead) GPX, thanks Greg.

The Porta Pak from NuggetFinder was another product that is unique. It enables a person to do away with the heavy back pack battery on the SD series and all the interconnecting cords. 2) Does anyone remember the Porta Pak?

I bought one off of Barrie Johnson in 1997 for my 2100, it fit on my shaft and I loved it, it very worked well. It was a well designed plastic holder by Barrie that fit directly under the handle that held a small battery.

3) I wonder why anyone has not tried to market one like it since? (Yes I know a Pocket Rocket can be mounted on either on the control box or arm rest.) Someone should invent a new style Li-Ion battery(with built an inbuilt booster) that is installed on the shaft, right under the handle.


Also Miners Den in Melbourne has a NimH battery that fits on the control box as well. 4) Has anyone tried this one?
Miners Den NimH Battery PA00-0599
>These batteries fit against your control box< and weigh only 408 grams. They are suitable for half a days detecting. These Miners Den NimH batteries are a great way to power your SD or GP detector for I/2 a day.
http://www.minersden.com.au/default.asp?pageid=Products&template=PRODUCTCAT&catid=822&prodid=1810&site=15

All batteries and kits:
http://www.minersden.com.au/default.asp?pageid=PRODUCTS&template=PRODUCTCAT&catid=822&site=15

Gday Beer Beeper

As far as I know if you disconnect the battery lead from the control box while it is still running it will make the menu go back to factory preset and you will lose the setting you were using at the time, as far as other damage goes I am not sure, but if you try to plug the power lead back in with the switch still on the power surge might cause some problem.

I wouldnt be changing coils with the machine still running, there is no advantage to doing that time wise,it only takes seconds to turn it off and then back on, it would be much safer to turn the detector off rather than run the risk of damaging it, I wouldnt be surprised if there would be damage to the circuitry by doing this as it is sending power to the coil, the sudden drop then surge is bound to cause some issue.

Batteries like the Reeds Lucky lark are quite small and with some changes to the casing could be quite easily mounted say under the shaft or on top of the shaft just forward of the handgrip, or on the side of the control box, using velcro to the protective box cover or something, then just use a suitably made power lead to the control box, but unless you have either an external speaker attached to the detector shaft as well, then you are still going to be tethered to the detector so it defeats the purpose.

I have looked at many and varied ways of setting up the detector in this way but I have found that there would have to be changes to the design of the batteries that are available for them at the moment and you would most likely have to consider using either wireless headphones or speaker set up, as the speaker works much better when you have it mounted on your person than down on the shaft of the detector.

To make it viable, the unit would have to be compact, have a reasonable run time, include a suitable mounting sytem, and contain both a booster and fm transmitter/bluetooth ?, the speaker assembly would have to be self contained and have its own power source, volume control and fm reciever/bluetooth or something.

I am pretty sure that there is someone out there that could make this happen, all the technology is available so it would really just come down to time and viability in the market place, maybe this is one of the directions that minelab may go in the future and now as a part of codan they would already have access to technology of this sort available to them.

Only problem is that the more complicated the instruments are the more chance there is of it failing or being damaged, and it would have to be made "boofhead proof" so that it would stand up to the sort of treatment that it would cop from us prospectors.


cheers

stayyerAU