Equinox 800 - Battery Life?

[glacialgold]

I took the Equinox 800 out today for a 3 hour water hunt at the local beach, primarily using the Coiltek 15" coil. This was my first substantial water hunt, and overall an enjoyable learning experience. It was also my first experience learning how to handle a water scoop with a longer shaft -- between the oversized coil and the scoop, pinpointing and digging out targets turned out to be challenging, especially as the water depth increased. I did start to get the hang of recovering targets as time went by and scored a handful of clad, and only a few pull tabs and bottlecaps.

Anyways, like I said, this was a 3 hour hunt. I ran speakers-only, no headphones, and volume in the 16-20 range. No backlight turned on, either. Mostly kept the machine in P1 multi although I did fiddle with Beach 1 and 2 a bit. Battery was at 4 bars when I started, but ran down to 1 by the end. I'd fully charged the machine a week prior and had maybe another 3 hours on it in the meantime practicing the 15" coil on land.

Does running the battery down from 4 bars to 1 in maybe 6 hours of cumulative detecting time under these settings/conditions sound normal? My thinking was maybe the combo of a big coil and speakers caused it to drain more quickly than usual. I'd say the machine has maybe 60-70 hours on it total, so it's not like it's facing long term battery degradation.

[midalake]

6 hours ago, glacialgold said:

Does running the battery down from 4 bars to 1 in maybe 6 hours of cumulative detecting time under these settings/conditions sound normal?

No, not normal at all.  I would do a full charge right before you detect and see the results. Or, just leave the machine on for six hours just sitting somewhere after a full charge. 

[glacialgold]

On 9/5/2023 at 8:20 PM, midalake said:

Or, just leave the machine on for six hours just sitting somewhere after a full charge. 

Good idea. 

I did a full overnight charge, then turned on the 800 the in Park 1 multi-- a full 3 bars displayed. (I know I said 4 bars in the OP, but meant 3.) I then dialed down the sensitivity to 10 and sat the machine on top of the bed in the back bedroom, leaving coil suspended in the air a good 12" away from any metal. In that arrangement, there weren't any signals getting picked up, except when I would pick up the machine every couple hours to check the battery indicator and wave it around briefly. After 7 hours, it was down to 1 bar. The next day (today) I turned it back on for 2 hours (no additioinal charging), and the it went down to a flashing single bar.

So, 9 hours from full charge to flashing 1 bar in a minimal activity setting. Hmmm... 

[midalake]

2 hours ago, glacialgold said:

So, 9 hours from full charge to flashing 1 bar in a minimal activity setting. Hmmm... 

I think, time to order a replacement battery. 

[PimentoUK]

"So, 9 hours from full charge to flashing 1 bar in a minimal activity setting"

That doesn't sound terrible, but is a bit below what I would expect. I would say 11 to 12 hrs from full charge to "diddle-biddle-diddly-do-dah" turn-off would be normal, when running earphones, Bluetooth/Wi-Stream turned off, backlight off.

[glacialgold]

1 hour ago, PimentoUK said:

That doesn't sound terrible, but is a bit below what I would expect. I would say 11 to 12 hrs from full charge to "diddle-biddle-diddly-do-dah" turn-off would be normal, when running earphones, Bluetooth/Wi-Stream turned off, backlight off.

Yeah, that was my line of thinking, as well. 9 hours isn't catastrophic or anything, but I was expecting 12 hours or more as a "healthy" result, given expected battery life and a minimal activity setting.

I think I'll do another test after a factory reset and putting the stock coil back on. Last test was w/the Coiltek 10x5 attached. Not that coil should matter (I think?), but the intent is to measure in the most baseline configuration.

[PimentoUK]

The coil size will make no difference, nor will the Minelab / Coiltek make, as the electronics board inside the Coiltek coils is a Minelab-supplied board.
Running the machine on the internal loudspeaker is a definite way to increase power draw. ( though not if it's silent, of course ).