SDC 2300 Drop In Battery Pack Trouble

[Ridge Runner]

I’ve got two drop in battery packs that are about 4 months old that at first did take a charge then but won’t now .

 The charger is working because I checked the voltage it was putting out . The light on the battery is flashing and stops in the time it takes to change the battery. The trouble is when you test the battery it shows a little over a half volt not around 12 volts it should be.

 I plan on getting with Minelab come this Monday to hear what they have to say.

 Before you make a trip don’t depend on that new battery pack take some C batteries with you.

 Lucky for me my trip was just 40 miles away not over a thousand .

 Let me hear from you on any problem you may have had with the battery pack .

 Chuck 

[Jim in Idaho]

Chuck, the only thing I can think of would be to check the charger output while under charging load. Forgive me if you thought of this already. If it were only 1 battery, I'd think it was a battery-management board error of some kind, but that's doubtful with 2 batteries. The common thing is the charger.

Jim

[Ridge Runner]

Jim  

 Checking the charger was the first thing I done and it’s rated at 12 volts putting out 11.87 volts. So you can see it’s doing it’s job .

 If and when I’m told the problem if they really know I’ll post it here.

 Until then!

 Chuck 

[Dutchman4]

One observation I should share.  I checked my SDC2300 Lithium Battery one time when I first got the machine and when it was fully charged it did not read anywhere close to the rated output of 7.4 Volts.  I don't remember what it read but it was way low.  Maybe someone else can put a meter on their battery to confirm my observation.

[Ridge Runner]

Dutchman4  

  Most time it’s going to read less than what it shows it should but in this case it’s not over a half volt out of 12 volts .

 Here you got 4 C batteries with a total 6 volts but with the drop in battery pack is rated at 12 volts with the charger rated the same. What that tells you it has to be a voltage regulator in the SDC giving you a longer run time.

 Chuck 

[Jim in Idaho]

12 hours ago, Ridge Runner said:

Dutchman4  

  Most time it’s going to read less than what it shows it should but in this case it’s not over a half volt out of 12 volts .

 Here you got 4 C batteries with a total 6 volts but with the drop in battery pack is rated at 12 volts with the charger rated the same. What that tells you it has to be a voltage regulator in the SDC giving you a longer run time.

 Chuck 

This is interesting, for sure. Looking forward to learning what's going on. I'm starting to wonder if there's a voltage regulator, built into the battery pack, that's faulty.

Jim

[Ridge Runner]

Jim  

 I can tell you one thing and that 1/2 volt won’t make that SDC come on . I do believe the pack does have some form of a brain in because the charger just puts out the voltage. Something is  controlling that light and saying it can’t take anymore because it’s at peak voltage.

 You and I both will learn something out of this.

 Chuck 

[Ridge Runner]

Jim  I’ll tell you what I did do on one battery and that’s short out the battery just for a second.Then took a voltage reading and got almost 9 volts. Then went back after a minute are a little longer but my 9 volts was gone and the half volt was back.

 It could be they put out a bad batch of batteries being both are reading the same after charging.

 Theses are we call smart batteries but the dumb ones are less trouble.

 Chuck 

[Ridge Runner]

Gather around everyone I have solved the mystery.

 One battery is good but the other is defective.

 Let’s start with the good battery. The good one is tight fitting going in and if you don’t give it a good push in the springs in the back won’t do it. The battery in front is not making contact and that’s why it didn’t work.

 The other battery slides in without trouble but it is bad . 
 The odd thing is both batteries read only a half volt . Something must happen when you turn on your detector that turns on the battery at the same time. Both look the same when charging.

 Chuck 

[Jim in Idaho]

Wow! The detector may be signaling the battery to turn on? Never heard of anything like that, but technology is steadily moving on. Chuck, maybe it's setup so that it won't run with just one of the packs? I know nothing of SDC's, and am assuming from your description it has 2 packs?

Jim