Equinox600 Problems

[jemala44]

My nox 600 with a fully charge battery, suddenly goes on and off,  on and off for ever! My nox is one year and a half old I use it quite often! It happens one day and the next charge, no problem and then the next one it goes again! It happens more often when the battery is almost drained! 
Anyone knows about that problem! Do I just need to replace my battery?

[TedinVT]

Your battery should last a lot longer than 1 1/2 years. My original 800 battery is still going strong since Feb. 2018. I charge my battery after every outing so it's always up for a day's hunting. Try keeping your battery charged and see if that helps. Last resort, try a factory reset. Good luck.

[PimentoUK]

It does sound like a battery problem. Batteries in general are not the most reliable things, they can fail quickly, slowly, when the battery is quite new, or after many years.
Have you tried plugging in a 'power bank' battery , into the USB charging port? That may keep the internal battery topped up enough to make the machine useable, so at least you can carry on digging the treasure.
If you do decide that a new battery is required, there are two options:
A genuine Minelab battery, complete with the right plug, so it's a simple swap over,
or:
Buy your own seperate cell, and transfer the cable and plug over from the old one. Cell size is '26650', and you want to ideally get one with a capacity of 4800 mAh or greater ( 5500 may be the largest, I recall ). You don't need a 'Protected' cell ( with internal electronics ), but a Brand name type is recommended, as there are plenty of 'Lucky Golden Sunshine' / no-name-at-all types out there. Ones designed for vaping, or high-power flashlights are a suggestion.
Obviously you will need electrical skills to do this work.
Minelab branded replacements are approx 40 Dollars, a single cell about 10 Dollars.

"Your battery should last a lot longer than 1 1/2 years. My original 800 battery is still going strong since Feb. 2018."
Mine too, but they can fail inside a few months.
"I charge my battery after every outing so it's always up for a day's hunting."
This actually can contribute to a reduced life-span. I imagine most people do this, it seems a reasonable thing to do. Unfortunately, being fully charged to the maximum 4.2 Volts stresses the battery, and reduces life-span. It would be better to leave the machine with a part-discharged battery, and top it up shortly before using it. And only charging it up to 4.0 V would be ideal, if you're not the "11 hour hunt" type of detectorist. But that's not an option with a built-in battery ( and built-in charging electronics ).

I mentioned in the "How can the Equinox be improved?" thread that it would be useful to actually have a more accurate readout of battery voltage / state-of-charge. There's an "88" display on the screen. Using it to display "41" for 4.1 Volts etc would give about 8 steps resolution ( 35 - 42 ); or have a '0 to 9' scale, example "b5" for '50%+' , "b9" for '90%+'. Have it work with the coil disconnected, as that's how the machine will be when most folks charge up their machine.

[phrunt]

4 hours ago, PimentoUK said:

"I charge my battery after every outing so it's always up for a day's hunting."
This actually can contribute to a reduced life-span. I imagine most people do this, it seems a reasonable thing to do. Unfortunately, being fully charged to the maximum 4.2 Volts stresses the battery, and reduces life-span. It would be better to leave the machine with a part-discharged battery, and top it up shortly before using it. And only charging it up to 4.0 V would be ideal, if you're not the "11 hour hunt" type of detectorist. But that's not an option with a built-in battery ( and built-in charging electronics ).

Very good advice.

[PimentoUK]

Here is a technical article that goes into some detail about charging, discharging of lithium cells, and how it impacts life-span of the cell:
battery university link

[TedinVT]

All good info. Sure would be nice to know when your battery was charged to 80% so you could take it off the charger. Lacking that info, charging to full capacity has worked for me for 5 1/2 years and still going strong. My 800 does “hibernate” from January through most of March here in VT though.