Equinox in the heat

[jimzz977]

About two weeks ago I took my equinox on hunt to a old dump site, the temperature was around 90s and sunny . I took a break and left my machine on. lending on my back of truck. When I was ready to go back I notice there was black spot on my screen I could only see half of the screen. I'm guessing direct sunlight affected my machine, I turned it off and put in the shade for a bit and turned back on and it was back to normal, NM dan had same kind of problem today while hunting in 102° weather. Wondering if it's hot to hunt here in southern NM.

 

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[ARC]

Screens on many things... not just detectors.... left in direct sun are affected like you described ... sometimes permanently.

Never leave anything in direct sun electronic.

Heat is destroyer of all things electronic.

 

[Dan(NM)]

I was hunting yesterday with a rain/dust cover on the Nox, in 100-101 degree temps with the sun directly overhead. After 20 minutes my audio starts cutting out and sounding erratic. I notice my screen is looking bizarre, as you can see, every icon was lit up and there was no way to see a VDI at all. My first thought was the cover was acting like a greenhouse and causing the housing to overheat. After about 10-15 minutes of taking it off, things began to look normal once again, within 30 minutes, completely back to normal. I have a Zagg cover on the screen, so, no dust cover for my machine during the summer months.

Also, I was unable to adjust my iron bias setting, doing a factory reset cleared up the issue.

 

[vferrari]

Even though the ambient temperature was nowhere close to the limit, you might be right that the dust cover was doing something to contain heat within the unit, the operating temeprature limit is 122F and the battery charging ambient temperature limit is 104F per the manual (so I would definitely NOT charge the battery on the go under those conditions). Direct sunlight under those temps plus ground temperature, plus use of a black cover that allows heat absorption as well as direct sunlight on the screen, will make the ambient temperature in the proximity of the control head higher than the indicated air temp, so you may have actually been exceeding the operating temperature limit locally. Another thing you can do if you have a dust cover that is moisture absorbent, is pour some water on the cover, put it over the control head (since it's waterproof), and the evaporative effect will actually promote cooling (just thinking out loud). But if just removing the cover did the trick, that is probably the way to go. HTH HH

 

[Rick K]

CPU, 2 (or is it 3?) radios, detector transmitter/receiver, lithium battery putting out a lot of power - sealed unit, big glass screen.

I wonder how hard they worked in mechanical design/engineering to assess the thermal loads and deal with them. Electronic bits hate running hot - shortens their lives.

I have wondered for some time where ML does their mechanical design - so many odd choices - CTX, SDC, GoFind, Gold Monster, now the Equinox - all these machines have distinctly odd features when considered from the point of view of the detedtor’s “Job to be done”.

 

[vferrari]

CPU, 2 (or is it 3?) radios, detector transmitter/receiver, lithium battery putting out a lot of power - sealed unit, big glass screen.

I wonder how hard they worked in mechanical design/engineering to assess the thermal loads and deal with them. Electronic bits hate running hot - shortens their lives.

I have wondered for some time where ML does their mechanical design - so many odd choices - CTX, SDC, GoFind, Gold Monster, now the Equinox - all these machines have distinctly odd features when considered from the point of view of the detedtor’s “Job to be done”.

It is a huge mechanical or at least thermal engineering problem. How to you put all the fancy in AND make it waterproof AND compact. Cell phone manufacturers wrestle with this problem too. They pack it all in a little too tightly and you have Note 7 exploding battery issues.

As far as "where" ML does their design, Adelaide, South Australia was where their HQ was located. Not sure if they have moved.

 

[smokeythecat]

Looks like they need to start over. My machines live in the truck most of the year, get stepped on, rained on, snowed on, they have been known to lie down in the snow and "hide" from me, pushed over by my truck, fallen over logs, uses as "snake" sticks, used to test the depth of streams, used as a cane and used as weedwackers. I don't have any problems with them except they LOOK like all of the above happened to them.

 

[Darwoody]

I had a similar thing happen a few weeks ago. Posted on a FB Forum:

Hi all. I was out on the beach on the weekend getting to know the Nox and was chatting to a member from an MD forum for a bit. The detector was upright in front of me in the sun. After the guy left I dug a target right where we were standing (a bullet head) when I looked at the screen...it had a large oval-shaped dark spot that took up a large portion of the screen. At first I thought it was due to my sunnies but when I took them off the dark area was still there. I also noticed that all the icons/pixels were showing, even the ones that weren't active. I moved into the shade of a tree and took off the control box cover...the screen was very hot. I thought I'd cooked it but after turning it off for a couple of minutes, letting it cool down in the shade, and restarting it, everything was back to normal...phew! I should have taken a photo but it was very glarey.

I spoke to a ML Technician and he advised that monochromatic LCD screens are subject to being affected like that in high heat situations. Normally, with the movement of general detecting there wouldn't be a problem, but in this case the screen was static and facing directly at the sun for quite some time. No problems since, but I don't leave the screen directly facing the sun while static.

 

[flgliderpilot]

Really no big deal. This has been going on with LCD's since the early 80s.

 

[smokeythecat]

I would not worry about it and if it becomes permanent or obnoxious, that's what your warranty is for. Most of the major manufacturers have good warranties on their machines.