Aquapulse batteries and battery maintenance...are they really this good???

[Jolly Mon]

I got my second hand Aquapulse 1a yesterday and am pretty stoked. It air tests right to specs and everything seems to be in very good shape except for a loose connection in the land headphone pigtail. No problem there. I can solve that. The manual says the batteries should last around 10-12 hours during normal operation. It also says the batteries should occasionally be fully discharged and then recharged...I guess to avoid battery "memory". It suggests leaving the detector turned on overnight to accomplish this. I turned on the detector at 9 p.m. last night tuned to very low threshold. It is now 5:30 p.m. the following day and the thing is still going strong with no observable loss of sensitivity. That is over 20 hours. I am liking this, obviously, but am wondering if this is "normal". Should I turn the threshold up to maximum to draw more current? Or should I just let it roll like it is? I am sure in actual use more current would be drawn by hitting targets, but this seems almost too good to be true...do they all have battery capability like this? Is it really necessary to drain the batteries all the way down? I don't know the actual battery voltage at this point because I left my multi-tester on my boat...

 

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[stevemc]

Sounds like the batteries are good. You will notice a slight loss of depth when the batteries start getting low. Maybe this one has the upgraded batteries.

 

[Jason in Enid]

The problem here is that what causes REAL drain is the changing of the detecting field and the calculations of those changes to produce audio reports.

I can take a nearly dead battery in any of my detectors (non aquapulse) and turn it on, and lay it one the counter and it will go and go and go. Take it out and start swinging it around and the batteries will be dead MUCH faster.

 

[ScubaFinder]

Yeah, with that run-time you likely have a NiMH pack instead of the original NiCad pack. NiMH packs aren't as finicky about memory either. Its never a bad idea to condition your packs with a full discharge, followed by a full charge though. With that pack you wouldn't need to do it often though, once a season should suffice.

Glad you are liking your machine. Quit goofing around with those batteries and go hunting! :-)

 

[Jolly Mon]

Thanks for the information, guys. The batteries finally gave up the ghost at the 31 hour mark. I appreciate finding out from Jason that I only have to condition them once a year.

 

[trsrseeker]

How long the machine will run when you are trying to discharge it depends, amongst other things, whether you have the coil connected or not and whether or not the machine is giving a sound signal out of the earpiece. Each of these adds to the current drawn from the battery.