Whites SPP Upgrading Batteries?

[dazza513]

The 18650 might be a bit big, I'm sure you could fit six of them but you would have to modify the case more.
I use a lot of these style battery in my electronic cigarettes and I find that they virtually stop working at around 3.4v in unregulated devices.

It's hard to get the non protected batteries now, 18650 & 18500 are really cheap to buy from ecig stores in China and 14500 are really popular in small led torches. I recently bought two trustfire brand 14500's and a two cell charger for $2.99 free post from eBay and they work really good surprisingly.

As soon as my spp arives I will try the case mod for six 14500's that can be removed and charged separate(seen an eight cell charger on eBay for $14.99)

Regards Daryl

 

[old hand]

I was away for the weekend and we tried charging the standard rechargeable with a inverter and so far so good, placing it in the charger it only took a few hours to charge and i used it this morning its been OK so far .With the batteries what are a good type of rechargeable to use ,I was told that if you alter the tabs on the top sliding you can use the whites charger ,a friend did this but it did not work do you have to do any other mods to the battery pack regards john

 

[Ridge Runner]

I was away for the weekend and we tried charging the standard rechargeable with a inverter and so far so good, placing it in the charger it only took a few hours to charge and i used it this morning its been OK so far .With the batteries what are a good type of rechargeable to use ,I was told that if you alter the tabs on the top sliding you can use the whites charger ,a friend did this but it did not work do you have to do any other mods to the battery pack regards john

Well the proper Nimh pk has a third metal pad for charging where the dry cell Pk does not, so you will need to add that to it, as for batteries I got some energizer 2650mah nimh batteries which are a little bigger than standard so they might work for you.

 

[old hand]

Ridge Runner thanks for that I will have a look around and see what is available I wanted another set of batteries beside the rnb s

 

[Ridge Runner]

no worries mate, let me know how you get on

 

[dazza513]

I haven't seen the case in the flesh yet, but it looks like a standard stacking type case. If you put tree 14500's in you would have a 12.6v 1500mah case.
If you put six in the volts would be over 24v unless you modified the case wirering to make it two parallel groups of three cells in series making 12.6v @ 3000mah
But if you did this mod then standard AA batteries would no longer work in it.

I don't think the increase in voltage would hurt the performance of the spp, from my understanding there is no voltage step up or over voltage protection so a bit more volts may be noticeable at the business end.
Inverters work really good and that might be enough, especially if you had two of the standard rechargeable packs.

Or... A compact lipo or similar battery at around 14v strapped on the detector or your belt, something from a video camera or rc drone would have a huge mah and be light weight.

 

[old hand]

I have just looked inside the rechargeable pack one side + and the other - the round one in the middle is - there is a thin wire going between the batteries from the - to the centre port I think it may have a heat sensor on it

 

[Ridge Runner]

That's right mate Reg said something about that, If you put 9 AA 2650s in there you will get the higher voltage and the 2650mah which should give you a better result, I might give that ago because they hold about 1,35/1.4 v x 9=12.6volts and at leased I would have 2650mah which is cheaper than buying the RnB and a spare Whites Battery box is about 10 to15 bucks, you could make two of them for the cost of the RnB. and not have Airline flight issues.

 

[Guest]

Iv just finished doing some short tests on small gold with the STD rechargeable pack and the AA pack with expensive alkaline camera batteries now the standard rechargeable pack was putting out 10.3 v and the AA pack was putting out 11.8 v.

There was a noticeable difference between the two and I can confirm that the extra voltage will give the upper hand ' not a lot but worth running the extra voltage.as small gold was detected a little easier.

I myself might look into building a 10 AAA's pack, than buy the RNB at $150.

 

[KarlS]

I did also found out that there is worthwhile increase in the sensitivity and the depth when using higher voltage batteries. My testing has been done with 8 x NiZn rechargable batteries that have nominal charged voltage 1.6 Volts. No modification to the battery holder are required. But, NiZn batteries ara kind of new technology and as such they don't last very long. On average I get about one and half hours of detecting from them. They need to be charged before you go detecting, because they self discharge faster then NiMh. And they will last only about 20 to 30 recharges. Although when they become unusable in SPP they can be still used in X-terra, giving about 12 hours of run time. Few months ago I did buy set of 8 for $16 including postage. That compares favorably with alkaline batteries. Unfortunately with Aussie dollar lower it is hard bloody find good deal on those.
Using 10x AAA batteries, well I thing you will be lucky to get 1 hour out of them. Most are rated at around 1200 mAh, but not designed to provide hight current discharge.
As the supply Voltage increases, so does the power consumption. Increased voltage pushes higher current pulses through the coil. That is 20 years we see increase in the sensitivity and depth.
Karl

 

[Guest]

So Karl do you suggest if I have the funds to just purchase the RNB batt?

 

[KarlS]

No, I recon if you can get NiZn reasonably cheap it is good alternative to spend couple hundred bucks on batt. pack.
With Li-ion batteries you are facing one problem. There is not battery discharge monitoring on SPP. Current low battery light is only good for NiCad batteries.
If you discharge Li-ion battery below 3.25V it will get stuffed pretty fast.
When the dust settles down about SPP mods. and I know how many switches or pots I have to add, I will add small digital voltmeter with momentary push button switch so I can check voltage on any kind of batteries that I'm going to use.
Then I will mod battery holder to accept 6 AA Li-ion rechargable plus 2 dummies . Two banks of 3 in series batteries. That will give me about same search time as supplied battery pack but at around 12 Volts. But without voltage monitoring it would be just waste of time and money.
Karl

 

[Guest]

Hmmm interesting' I'm wanting to spend more time detecting rather than fiddling with the detector so for the moment I'll continue using the two rechargeable packs while I come up with a better solution.
Cheers Karl let me know when you find an alternative'

 

[OzzieAu]

Hi all,
Apparently the higher mAh rating of Nimh rechargeables means the less cycles they will take over their lifespan; so I've been informed by a BatteryWorld dealer. I've just recently bought a SPP and have been reading this thread about increasing battery voltage and was asking myself why Whites have built this detector with a dedicated battery pack that runs at 2200 mAhs. and less than 12V. Perhaps it is to get a decent lifespan out of the battery pack?
I havn't had the chance yet to run my machine longer than 3-4 hours at Teetulpa, SA and did not get low batt light, so I figure with a set of 2100 eneloops as spare dry pack, I should be good for 8 hrs. detecting.
I was also told that good quality Nmih rechargeables take many cycles to get to their best holding voltage and "memory". So I think I will just stick to the less complex and cheaper option for now and see if the manufacturer knows best.
Thanks to all for the food for thought,
Adrian.

 

[dazza513]

I'm thinking of drilling a hole in the battery door and mounting a female plug into a whites dry cell case and just running a small 7ah 12v battery on my belt minelab style.
Wont affect normal battery use but will be handy on extended prospecting trips

 

[Ridge Runner]

I'm thinking of drilling a hole in the battery door and mounting a female plug into a whites dry cell case and just running a small 7ah 12v battery on my belt minelab style.
Wont affect normal battery use but will be handy on extended prospecting trips

yeah that's what I was going to do, still might yet

 

[Guest]

Pocket rocket system in a belt pouch! Sounds good Dazza'

 

[OzzieAu]

Dazza, RR and Zuke, do you guys want more oomph or depth out of your SPP's or run time or both? If you do the belt battery mod I'd be interested to hear how it goes with punching any deeper than the standard setup. Extra run time will be obvious.
Could you post some pics of the modded battery holder if you think the extra performance is worth it,
Cheers.

 

[Ridge Runner]

Dazza, RR and Zuke, do you guys want more oomph or depth out of your SPP's or run time or both? If you do the belt battery mod I'd be interested to hear how it goes with punching any deeper than the standard setup. Extra run time will be obvious.
Could you post some pics of the modded battery holder if you think the extra performance is worth it,
Cheers.

Yeah, can Do Mate, My Machine is the TDI SL which has a Few More Knobs So I assume its going to use A Touch more power for those other circuits, I will have a look and see what bigger lead Acid Batteries I can get hold of, I'm thinking maybe 10 amps or there abouts, which by rights should give me about 22 hours with a bit of luck,

I need to work out what type of plug to use IE something like a coil Plug So it can be screwed in so it don't loose contact, When them Lead acid batteries are fully charged the should give you around 13.4 to 14.0 volts which is good and maybe if you can get 8 hours a day out of it and enough for 3 days that be awesome aye,

 

[OzzieAu]

Thanx RR, another bonus of the belt pack is you will have an even lighter control box without batteries in the pack, providing you set it up that way. I reckon a deep cycle AGM 12 volt would be the way to go on the belt.
Adrian.