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Minelab Batteries Amp Goes Bad Twice


IronDigger

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I am going to do a little complaining and its only directed at Minelab batteries. As an owner and consumer  of Minelab products I have to say their  GPX  Li-Ion stock battery with amp disapoints. Never had a problem with them charging and holding a good charge, of course over time the batteries time is reduced. My grip is with the amp, this is the 2nd battery that the amp failed , its a shame that  a 440 dollar battery the amp goes out after 2 years. This should not happen on such an expensive battery, are these amps or amp connectors replaceable? 

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40 minutes ago, HotSauce said:

I am going to do a little complaining and its only directed at Minelab batteries. As an owner and consumer  of Minelab products I have to say their  GPX  Li-Ion stock battery with amp disapoints. Never had a problem with them charging and holding a good charge, of course over time the batteries time is reduced. My grip is with the amp, this is the 2nd battery that the amp failed , its a shame that  a 440 dollar battery the amp goes out after 2 years. This should not happen on such an expensive battery, are these amps or amp connectors replaceable? 

What does your GPX do or not do with the bad battery? I'm having some issues with mine lately, and I'm now wondering if it could be battery related.

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Just now, schoolofhardNox said:

What does your GPX do or not do with the bad battery? I'm having some issues with mine lately, and I'm now wondering if it could be battery related.

Hi SchoolofHardNox,

In both my instances with two seperate batteries I had from Minelab what you will notice is when you plug in your earphones and turn the unit on is your headphones will either make some annoying sckreeching sound like it did on my last battery . This time on my present  battery I have  only one side of the earphone works  but hardly is audible   you can hardly hear the threshold, . The other side of the earphone speaker no sound at all. So basically if the amp is out, your earphones will either make some annoying sckreeching noise or like with the battery I have now one side of the earphone works but its not useable because you can harldy hear a tone. 

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I've had the same issue with 2 of my batteries. It seams to happen when they get charged. They're working fine and then you charge it and they're all of a sudden bad. I had 2 go out back to back and figured it was the charger. So I bought a new charger and no problems since. I fix both batteries with a repair kit sold by a company in Australia. I can probably find the info if you like. If you're not good and electronic repairs you can probably find a local shop to do the repair with the kit. Kit has all the instructions.

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Just now, abenson said:

I've had the same issue with 2 of my batteries. It seams to happen when they get charged. They're working fine and then you charge it and they're all of a sudden bad. I had 2 go out back to back and figured it was the charger. So I bought a new charger and no problems since. I fix both batteries with a repair kit sold by a company in Australia. I can probably find the info if you like. If you're not good and electronic repairs you can probably find a local shop to do the repair with the kit. Kit has all the instructions.

Hi abenson,

 

Interesting, I will do some research on that and try to make that repair. I guess I should also buy another charger and give that a try. Never knew they had repair kits, if you have time to find the info I would appriciate it, but no need to rush as I will have to buy another battery, at least i will have a back up battery if I can fix this one. 

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1 hour ago, HotSauce said:

Hi SchoolofHardNox,

In both my instances with two seperate batteries I had from Minelab what you will notice is when you plug in your earphones and turn the unit on is your headphones will either make some annoying sckreeching sound like it did on my last battery . This time on my present  battery I have  only one side of the earphone works  but hardly is audible   you can hardly hear the threshold, . The other side of the earphone speaker no sound at all. So basically if the amp is out, your earphones will either make some annoying sckreeching noise or like with the battery I have now one side of the earphone works but its not useable because you can harldy hear a tone. 

Interesting. I had the headphones cutting out issue, the other day. But sometimes it comes back on. I also had coil issues that sound like what you described as screeching sounds. I thought my coil was bad (still might be), but maybe it's the battery after all. Also noticed that if the coil touched the ground, even lightly, the detector would sound off with a long tone. I hope it's not caused by the charger because I use two chargers for 2 different batteries. If I find out both batteries blew out because of the charger, I will not be happy.

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58 minutes ago, HotSauce said:

Hi abenson,

 

Interesting, I will do some research on that and try to make that repair. I guess I should also buy another charger and give that a try. Never knew they had repair kits, if you have time to find the info I would appriciate it, but no need to rush as I will have to buy another battery, at least i will have a back up battery if I can fix this one. 

Phasetechnical.com.au is where I got the kit but I don't see them listed anymore. I would write them and see if they still sell them. I got mine about a year ago.

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51 minutes ago, schoolofhardNox said:

Interesting. I had the headphones cutting out issue, the other day. But sometimes it comes back on. I also had coil issues that sound like what you described as screeching sounds. I thought my coil was bad (still might be), but maybe it's the battery after all. Also noticed that if the coil touched the ground, even lightly, the detector would sound off with a long tone. I hope it's not caused by the charger because I use two chargers for 2 different batteries. If I find out both batteries blew out because of the charger, I will not be happy.

You could have a bad coil. I just lost one at DIV, acted very similar. Every time I moved the coil cable it freaked out. Come to find out the wires had broken right were it went into the coil. All those years of setting the machine down and then readjusting it to hunt wore the wires out.

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Doc‘s Gold Screamer amp, two 7.4v batteries, charger, short power cable and nice GPX control box cover cost the same as one Minelab GPX 7.4v battery and are 1/3 the weight. Replacement batteries are $45.

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Steelphase was selling the repair kits but he's stopped that stuff now, I'm sure Steelphase now he's not selling the kits would tell you the parts you need to fix it.  Perhaps Nenad at http://phasetechnical.com.au/ might start selling them now that Pat isn't, you could contact him and ask too.  The are repairable and from memory the kits were pretty cheap, something like $20 AUD to fix it.

Some info on what goes bad here

https://www.prospectingaustralia.com.au/forum/viewtopic.php?id=26814

These are the parts that go bad marked in Red.

36587779_2072702146331867_6457667016697315328_n.thumb.jpg.4a5b8bda04893b322d6a9b2d328bd23c.jpg

The repair kit contains:

  • 2 x Schottky Diodes

  • 2 x Analogue Switches

  • 1 x Op Amp IC

  • basic instructions

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