Gpx 5000 battery

Question. My mate has a GPX5000 with the original 6year old battery. He won't buy a replacement battery or spare until the other one dies.

Will the battery die suddenly and ruin the trip, or give an indication it's on it's last legs? cheers Pete.

One of the original batteries for my 45 was on its last legs, wasn’t holding charge,going flat after a couple of hours,but it’s like anything could go for many more years or give up tomorrow,extended trips always take a second battery and lead,nothing worse than your battery going flat digging a hole or arriving at your destination only to find out your lead is stuffed,had both happen

I'm hearing you mate. A problem with a detector can ruin a trip. cheers Pete.

been there done that ,spare battery and leads essential for one's sanity

cheers   moredeep

Nothing worse than equipment failure, there has to be a warning feature, I just can’t find it . Obviously someone out there does know . Please don’t tell me to read the instructions. Hehe it’s not there. ???

If it is NiMh and six years old then it is into overtime.
The only indication you will get is the tecta will not run long between charges.

The GPX batteries are a bundle of 18650's. If one cell in the bunch fails which can easily happen the battery will just error and not charge. At that age it's a gamble. Minelab have used excellent quality cells in their batteries and they appear to last for many years in most cases but it's still a gamble even on a much younger one to not consider cell failure.

Another problem that they get as they age is they won't charge as much, so even though they may report fully charged they'll drain very quickly. They're basically the same battery used regularly in laptops, especially ones about 2 or more years old. If you've had experience with laptop battery failure or just not lasting as long on the batteries, the GPX is no different. It tends to last longer than a laptop as most people don't use the GPX batteries every day of their life.

A bit of info re the 18650
https://www.18650batterystore.com/blogs/news/18650-battery-life-span

Note the major factor for life of the battery is the number or full recharges. 300 to 500 recharges not age. That is for 2 months a year between 5 to 8 years a lot more for the average detectorist if they follow the rule of looking after their batteries.