It Came & I Was Prepared As I Knew Garretts Are Built Tough!

[John-Edmonton]

It Came & I Was Prepared As I Knew Garrett's Are Built Tough!

As I drove to work in the darkness this morning, it snowed. Yikes.....but no problem. I headed straight home after work, got out one of those hand warmer hot pacs, taped it on the Scorp underneath where the batteries are situated, put on the camo cover and I was ready to go. I hit a soccer field and low and behold, the Scorp found another ring. And it was just at the freezing point outside. This setup worked well, as expected.

Pic of the finds is below.

 

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[Sandman]

Re: It Came & I Was Prepared As I Knew Garrett's Are Built Tough!

Nice post as most don't know that batteries need to be warm to work properly and supply the correct voltage. I like the pic of the probe with the red handle. Newbies think they only need an electronic one. I sometimes probe with a bayonet because it jams in the middle of the pull tab or ring for "popping" it out of the ground.

 

[John Tanner]

Funny…..

I got a good chuckle out of the hand warmers for the batteries……

The fact is most people don’t realize cold batteries work great except in extreme temperatures and the only thing you lose with cold batteries is capacity or battery life. Some detectors are advertised as having an operating temperature range of 4 to +122 degrees F (-20 to +50 degrees C) and some well known battery manufacturers say -18 degrees C to 55 degrees C which is pretty cold…..
Battery life doesn’t even begin to drop off until about 20 degrees Fahrenheit and will still work fine close to about 5 degrees Fahrenheit and even then a detector wouldn’t be affected in terms of performance they just dont last as long.
Rechargeable batteries are less prone to cold but don’t last as long to begin with so cold weather may wear them out faster. Some Lithium’s will work -40 F anything that says Heavy duties are no good even in warm temps.

If you store your batteries in the cold you can actually gain voltage as they ‘warm up’ by being used but if you take your batteries from a warm car or house with your detector it shouldn’t be an issue unless its really cold and I don’t know why you would be detecting with the temperature below 5 degrees F Brrrrrr….

All you need is a good quality battery for cold weather but most will work well.

Sandman, what do you mean that they need to be warm to work properly and supply the correct voltage? I found this missleading for the newbies .

If I am wrong someone please fill me in.

Thanks

The Falcon

 

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Re: It Came & I Was Prepared As I Knew Garrett's Are Built Tough!

 

[John-Edmonton]

Re: It Came & I Was Prepared As I Knew Garrett's Are Built Tough!

Nice post as most don't know that batteries need to be warm to work properly and supply the correct voltage. I like the pic of the probe with the red handle. Newbies think they only need an electronic one. I sometimes probe with a bayonet because it jams in the middle of the pull tab or ring for "popping" it out of the ground.

You are so right Sandman. I have been winter hunting for over 10 years, and both NiMH and rechargeable alkalines need a warmer temperature to operate. If I run either type at -5C/23F without keeping them warm with a hotpack, they are dead in about an hour. With a hot pac, they last about 6 hours. The NiMH fair better then the rechargeable alkalines, and an interesting note is that the NiMH don't retain a higher voltage when brought up to normal room temperatures, however the rechargeable alkaline do. The TID screens on the Garretts slow down in reaction time as they get colder, however, the audio response time remains the same. I believe the coldest temp which I have hunted in was about -25C/-13F. The only problem I had was that the headphone wires become very stiff, and I had concerns about them maybe cracking at the 1/4 inch headphone jack or the headset end.

 

[John Tanner]

Wow that’s cold brrrrrrr!

How do you dig in the frozen ground or do you just dig recently lost surface stuff in the snow? I remember when I was younger at an old fort site in MN we used to use coffee cans filled with hot charcoal to thaw the ground after we marked a target and looked for another target to dig. We each had a few cans going so we could keep thawing and digging relics.

I know it’s a tough detector because they haven’t changed much that I know of in the past 20 or so years.

How much life off regular alkaline as opposed to the rechargeable in the cold or in normal temps? I have not used a Scorp in a very long time and one of the reasons I gave it up way back when was because you had to open up the whole unit to replace the batteries which was pretty annoying because they never lasted long-is that still the case or have they given it a battery compartment yet?

How old are your rechargeable maybe that’s the problem? I never knew Garretts had a problem in the cold as I never experienced problems with LCDs or that short of battery life with some other brands in my cold weather hunting. Although I don’t think I have ever hunted in weather much colder than about 20 degrees F only because of not being able to dig and I am not much into the new stuff.

You do some pretty hardcore hearty hunting!


Thanks in advance,

JT

 

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Re: Wow that’s cold brrrrrrr!

You do some pretty hardcore hearty hunting!


Thanks in advance,

JT

[/quote]

Yea he does , His Winter snow hunts ,( complete with snow pictures) usally produce as good as John's summer hunts.

 

[BobInFla]

Re: It Came & I Was Prepared As I Knew Garrett's Are Built Tough!

Ask any photographer about battery life. Nothing kills batteries quicker than cold. And even when you carry spare batteries you need to keep them warm until you are ready to use them.

Also most car batteries fail when the ouside temperature sudenly drops. At least that's the way it happens in central Florida.

 

[sniffer]

Re: It Came & I Was Prepared As I Knew Garrett's Are Built Tough!

manufacturers of batteries recommend use and storage of batteries at room temps. anything extreme will shorten the life