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AA Battery Extender For Equinox?


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If its an RNB produce...... it will be top notch....... and LONG lasting.   Thou....... honestly ..... i hunt a good 7 hours..... with a few of those hours with the back light on....... and have rarely seen the battery gauge drop a notch.   USBs to me are just available everywhere for a recharge over night.   I mean we cant live without our cell phones now can we?

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I agree---

i would even venture to say that there are very few reading this thread who have swung the detector for 7 hours straight,,,

Life is about charging today---- GPS, eperb, telephone, headlight, detector batteries, WM12, BT transmitters, camera, drone, all the goodies..

I just cant see this as an issue.

i'm lucky to get 3 hours in at the beach before i'm ready to call it..?

 

 

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The idea of having longer battery life for the Equinox or for that matter any other metal detector for use here in the UK is because unlike the USA we have 3 & 4 day metal detecting rallies and at it for 8 -9 hours each day and most of the participants do not have any means of charging their batteries.  Steve has been over here detecting in these events and will most likely appreciate the battery charging nightmare.

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19 hours ago, Randy Dee said:

The idea of having longer battery life for the Equinox or for that matter any other metal detector for use here in the UK is because unlike the USA we have 3 & 4 day metal detecting rallies and at it for 8 -9 hours each day and most of the participants do not have any means of charging their batteries.  Steve has been over here detecting in these events and will most likely appreciate the battery charging nightmare.

Thinking about it from multi-day rally perspective, I wouldn't wholesale reject the increased capacity internal battery solution, but I think even if you give the upgraded battery twice the capacity which is probably the technological limit based on the battery compartment volume, you are still probably in the same boat relying, at some point, on an external power charge bank solution during a multi day rally.

A 30,000 mAH charge bank can be obtained for less than $30 US and could conservatively be used to fully charge your Equinox 5000 mAH internal cell and wireless headphones up to 4 times over even accounting for the efficiency losses in the process of doing so.  So I would have to see how much the RNB solution is being offered for to see if the value proposition vs. an external charge bank makes economic sense and is worth the trip vs. just bringing a high capacity charge bank in my MD gear bag.  I am all for increasing the internal battery capacity to provide reserve capacity in the event you cannot recharge between detecting sessions, but have still never run into a depleted Equinox battery situation even after back to back, multi hour detecting sessions without charging in between.

Regarding an AA solution (especially using rechargeable AA cells) mentioned a few posts back.  Great compact design, but  I am also not really seeing the practicality of that given the ready availability of high capacity external charge banks in a number of packages including watertight packages and also with associated solar charge capabilities.

Finally, even though this has not been suggested recently, I am not really seeing the practicality of an alkaline battery pack solution either.  I really try to avoid single use batteries in this day and age, if possible.   Just not a good solid waste legacy and I am not exactly what you would call an avid environmentalist.   This is directed more at those folks who try to focus on negative aspects of providing an internal rechargeable battery in a detector.  I often hear those folks say they prefer AA or 9-volt powered detectors  vs. rechargeable internal batteries because they can run down to the local convenience store and grab a pack of alkalines in an emergency.  The fact is that cell phone charge banks compatible with Equinox are ubiquitous and can also be bought at that same convenience store nowadays.  I really am a proponent of taking advantage of the live charge feature that ML has provided with the Equinox and doing so with Li Ion external battery solutions.  Just my view.

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Chase: I interpreted the OP bringing up the idea of using a AA battery charger for the Equinox to simply serve as an emergency alternative in rare situations where there is no access to a car's 12v outlet or a conventional power outlet and the user isn't familiar with rechargeable LSD AA batteries.

 

You're right, if someone wants to use a AA USB power bank with alkaline batteries to charge their metal detector (or any device for that matter) on a regular basis, they're delusional or deliberately trying to harm the environment and/or waste money (reminds me of "coal rollers").

 

I think for most people, a decent lithium power bank will be a reasonable method to have emergency power for their Equinox, phone or other device. I don't like them because I don't like the limited lives of lithium batteries (compared to high quality LSD AA batteries), I don't like how they're always a fire risk and I especially don't like how they're not designed to be stored with a full charge, i.e. keeping them at anything but a 35-65% charge actually decreases their life, even when not being actively used. Therefore, I like to idea of using a power bank with not just a user replaceable battery inside, but one that relies on nickel, rather than lithium tech. However, I understand most people aren't like me or simply don't care enough.

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I completely understand your concerns regarding lithium cells from a fire hazard perspective and also from a life cycle perspective.  But I think in-service cells in devices such as cell phones, computers, and even metal detectors have to be handled with more care than occasional use charge banks that there to provide a backup charging solution to those in-service lithium cells.  I have found the external charge banks from reputable manufacturers (and I own several) to be highly reliable and tend to hold their capacity quite well because they are basically oversized for their application (backup charging), so the degradation in capacity is less noticeable than on in-service Li Ion cells which are sized to provide device power over a number of hours.  If you treat them with respect (i.e., do not allow them to get banged around with your gear) and do regular maintenance charges, I have found the external charge banks to be a lot more reliable than the in-service lithium cells.

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Really not a good idea to intentionally run your battery to shut off, this something that does tend to degrade battery life (probably ok once in awhile, but why burn a freebie).   Also, it is not necessarily a realistic test, as processing actual target signals tend to suck more juice since the microprocessor is working harder and than it just sitting in the corner of the room (unless of course it is locked on to metallic structure or you turn up threshold as Steve did below).  I think if you turned on the wireless radio AND used wired headphones with the volume turned up, that would be a fairly conservative test.  From what I have seen, folks get around 12 hours from a full charge from such a test as Steve did in his test linked below.

Here is the battery test Steve H did early last year.

 

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