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Charging The Gpx-6000 In A 1/2 Ton Truck Or A Car/van?


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I recall in the early days with my ML4500, detecting for the day, then putting the 4500 battery on charge via a rear 12volt power point at the rear of our Landcruiser on the way back to camp. Left the battery connected over night, in the morning the battery was not charged. Turned out it was a blown fuse in the charge lead.

Replaced the Fuse and used a spare nearly charged battery for the days detecting. A couple of days later did the same thing charged up on the way home. However I did check the battery charging when I got back to camp. There were no lights on the battery indicating it was charging, and another blown fuse.

To me what was happening was that when I was starting the cruiser with the 4500 battery in parallel with the starting battery it was helping to turn the engine over and excessive current was blowing the 4500 charge fuse.

No more charging the battery on the way home.  This problem could have been eliminated with a diode in the 4500 charge so current can only flow one way to the 4500 battery and not from the battery, and may well have been included in later 4500's and probably in the 5000 and 6000. Now always charge my 7000 over night back at camp.

Re my overnight charging in the back of the cruiser, maybe the battery should be outside in a tin box, just in case of fire, but no problems in the last 5 years.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-07/lithium-batteries-in-phones-laptops-cordless-causing-house-fires/12483756.

 

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I'm not sure yet. I will be calling them tomorrow and asking these questions and more. I have a 95 Taco

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Guys, Gal's --

A few basics, if the GPX6000 has a battery rated 100 Watt Hours, you take that and divide it by rated system voltage of 12, to get Amp Hours, thus 100 Watt Hours is equal to roughly 8.33 Amp Hours. TOTAL CAPACITY.

An average car or truck battery has an Amp Hour rating likely around 80 to 150. So 8 Amp Hours is really not much total power to drain from a battery that size. In other words an 80 AH battery can charge Ten GPX batteries before being completely drained to below a useful level.

Keep in mind it is not a good practice to charge two batteries hooked directly in parallel, especially if they are not drained down to the same point and not the same type of battery (starting vs deep cycle for example) because one is always going to drain more amperage than the other, and if the alternator sees the voltage of the battery that charges first it will stop charging both, then the low battery will pull power from the fully charged one, eventually they will even out, but it's not recommended for battery life.

A Battery Splitter is about the best way to go unless you physically disconnect and charge one at a time.

Also, most alternators put out 60 to 180 amps per hour, so even a 60 amp alternator can make up that 8 AH in about 8 minutes run time, 4 minutes with a not uncommon 120 amp alternator.

As for Me, I carry a Cat Brand combo Battery Jumper, Air Compressor, LED Light, USB Charger, just in case I need any of those in the middle of Nowhere.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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22 hours ago, Gerry in Idaho said:

Newbie here.  So I'm getting ready to train my customers at Rye Patch, NV and many will have their new GPX-6000's.  Here is my question for those of you who have learned.

Yes I've seen the video with the gator clips to a 12V vehicle battery, but what they don't say is for how long does it typically take?  Will it run a battery down in the winter cold of NV?

We'll be out there off the grid for 3 day and some of us much longer.  I'd like to get those have already figured out the timing and or a new way of charging the battery.

Funny thing is my 1 Ton diesel can charge my GPZ-7000 and my Equinox 800 with no issues and even when the truck is turned off.  I just plug into the outlets provided inside the truck dash.  My 1/2 ton gas truck only charges when the truck is running and as soon as I turn it off, all chargers go off as well.

Your help is needed so I can try and prepare my customers.

This salty dog is still learning new tricks on the GPX-6000... with your help that is.

Thanks in advance.

Just remember that Amps x Volts = Watts

The 6000 battery is 42Wh (Watt hours, don't worry about the hours).  The 12v plug or clips charges at 6W so it will take 7 hours to charge the battery from dead.  Don't worry about leaving it on longer.  Once it reaches capacity it will no longer drain off the larger battery.

The question now is, how many Watts is your truck battery.  I tested mine on a 500W Jackery battery, so I knew I would get 10 charges before the battery is depleted.  

The second question is, how long would it take running your trucks alternator (aka battery charger), to charge your truck battery back up to full.  

What I would do is when the truck battery is full, test with a volt meter.  Run it down charging a few 6k batteries (if you have the time), then test again with the volt meter to see the new level.  Run the truck maybe for 15 mins, turn off and check the truck battery again with the volt meter.  You should then be able to calculate how long it would take to run the truck to get back to the full volt meter reading and hence a full truck battery.  If you were to charge for 3 days I don't think you would have a problem, but bring jumpers.  You will have friends there 🙂

I would not advise using an inverter.  Those take energy to run to convert the DC to AC and still take the same amount of time.  The most efficient use is to charge with just DC.

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1 hour ago, afreakofnature said:

Just remember that Amps x Volts = Watts

The 6000 battery is 42Wh (Watt hours, don't worry about the hours).  The 12v plug or clips charges at 6W so it will take 7 hours to charge the battery from dead.  Don't worry about leaving it on longer.  Once it reaches capacity it will no longer drain off the larger battery.

The question now is, how many Watts is your truck battery.  I tested mine on a 500W Jackery battery, so I knew I would get 10 charges before the battery is depleted.  

The second question is, how long would it take running your trucks alternator (aka battery charger), to charge your truck battery back up to full.  

What I would do is when the truck battery is full, test with a volt meter.  Run it down charging a few 6k batteries (if you have the time), then test again with the volt meter to see the new level.  Run the truck maybe for 15 mins, turn off and check the truck battery again with the volt meter.  You should then be able to calculate how long it would take to run the truck to get back to the full volt meter reading and hence a full truck battery.  If you were to charge for 3 days I don't think you would have a problem, but bring jumpers.  You will have friends there 🙂

I would not advise using an inverter.  Those take energy to run to convert the DC to AC and still take the same amount of time.  The most efficient use is to charge with just DC.

I don’t have a GPX-6000 (yet), so I was going by what both Rob and Jerry said about it’s rating, it looks like Rob is advertising that battery as 100Wh. I was a bit surprised about that because it would be a pretty large lithium battery (My drone batteries are 60Wh and they are twice the size of a 6000 battery). So if it were true, that 500Wh Jackery of yours would not last five charges because you wouldn’t want to run it down to zero. 25% is a good stopping point which would only give you about four charges if it was truly a 100Wh battery and about twice that if it has a 42Wh battery rating.

42Wh does make more sense, what is the output voltage of it?

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A few years ago Steve H submitted a post addressing this problem by recommending a battery charging/booster. I bought his recommendation and have had no problem charging my detectors for several days with power to spare. Link below:

NOCO Genius Boost Pro GB150 4000 Amp 12V Lithium Jump Starter

 


 

 

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Based on those numbers if the charge rate is only one amp then it will take about 5 hours to fully recharge, even with system losses it will likely be under 6 hours.

But any alternator can make up that power used from your vehicle with just a few minutes run time, so vehicle battery drain is no real concern if using the DC charger, if using the AC charger it will it cause more battery drain just because of the AC to DC efficiency losses, but still no big deal. Be Aware - Many things take more power than recharging detector batteries, it all adds up.

If your lighter socket goes off with the key I would just hook it direct to full time power wiring or directly to the battery, in either case I would put in an inline fuse rated at about 5 amps in case of a short.

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57 minutes ago, Knomad said:

Based on those numbers if the charge rate is only one amp then it will take about 5 hours to fully recharge, even with system losses it will likely be under 6 hours.

But any alternator can make up that power used from your vehicle with just a few minutes run time, so vehicle battery drain is no real concern if using the DC charger, if using the AC charger it will it cause more battery drain just because of the AC to DC efficiency losses, but still no big deal. Be Aware - Many things take more power than recharging detector batteries, it all adds up.

If your lighter socket goes off with the key I would just hook it direct to full time power wiring or directly to the battery, in either case I would put in an inline fuse rated at about 5 amps in case of a short.

…and running a 100w solar charger all day will replenish the loss of charging a couple 6k batteries on your truck battery.

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Gerry, how are you going to change things when you get that Tesla truck? or other electric car/van/truck.

They rent a parking lot here at the beach so that people can sit around before they drive home on weekends and get a charge from the giant batteries on trailers.  That is supposed to be the quick charge and not the 110/220V slow method.

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