CTX Battery

[dewcon4414]

Ive been using the Nox for some time now ...... but i charged the CTX about a month ago. I like to put a battery on charge no less than once a month if not using the machine. Did that today and noticed the red blinking light. So next step was to test it in the machine i was wondering how much charge it had and if it was the charger. The machine didnt come on...... so put the AA pack on and the machine lit up. Is it D E A D........ or is there away to charge it?

 

[IDXMonster]

Dew,you can try putting battery on charger and THEN plugging it in,or vice versa....just try swapping around what’s plugged in place first. This has helped OTHER things I’ve had that have Li-On power,specifically power tools. It’s been said that once the battery goes below a certain voltage the charger can’t “recognize” it,but I can’t confirm that. There’s also a thread somewhere about “jumping” power to the correct terminals to get it back to minimum,but I won’t condone that for obvious liability reasons....

 

[trojdor]

It's probably dead.

There are several YT videos showing how you can try to recover a bad LiPo cell, but the bottom line is this:
If a battery drops a cell to near zero volts in less than a month, then it's probably not healthy.

mike

 

[dewcon4414]

Thanks guys. IDX...i tried all that .... including using a lessor charger thru the ML one. Nada. I was told you can recover them like you said many years back by one of the battery companies that makes Litho batteries for the Xcal. I am aware you can just use litho rechargables like Andy S. mentioned in his book....... but im a lazy guy who prefers just dropping it on a chargers lol. Well..... ill make a phone call to my dealer and get another one....... and get out the screw driver and learn something with this one. Normally....... there are 3 wires going to Litho batteries with one being used to check EACH cell. But what normally happens is they just get really hot trying to charge that ONE dead cell..... UNLESS you use a smart charger then it wont recognize the battery....... so why do they call them smart chargers?

Dew

 

[IDXMonster]

I guess they’re just kinda smart...I’d be interested to know what you find with the old battery.

 

[Champ Ferguson]

What IDX said about chargers not recognizing low voltage on a lipo is something I've experienced with my racing drone batteries. What I did to bring them back to life was to use another charger to juice the voltage up a bit to get to the threshold my charger was looking for and then balance charge it normally. Obviously with a CTX battery, its a bit tricky to do that unless you take it apart and see which leads are which.

Theres a thread here somewhere (I think by amberjack) who pulled apart his dead CTX battery and replaced the innards with even more amp-hour batteries. Its what I plan to do when my factory battery dies.

 

[billwatson]

Li-On batteries are happy to sit for up to a year at 50% to 75% charge.
Model airplane flyers are warned against letting a Li-On battery sit for more than a week at 100% charge.
Also do not let a full charge battery sit in a hot car during a summer day, or cold car on a winter night.
I do not recharge until the night before detecting so it spends the least time at full charge.
Letting a Li-On battery get low on voltage does the most damage to it - bring it up to half charge for storage.

 

[dewcon4414]

It was fully charged after the last hunt........ i ALWAYS do that..... and the way i found it was i was checking the charge for the night before. WELL..... i guess ill be another one taking it apart to see which of the leads are the pos/neg. Worst case ..... they only make a small explosion im told lol. Been at this awhile ...... so ive got more than a few chargers laying around. I did however order another battery.

Ok...... now gurus, my next question. I ordered the larger battery for the gold machine..... did i mess up? Not because of additional capacity....... but its weight? The clips should hold it easily in place........ but because of the length and additional weight would that possibly create an issue for the O ring and water hunting with it? Anyone else using the larger battery for neck deep water hunting..... a LOT?

 

[dewcon4414]

It was fully charged after the last hunt........ i ALWAYS do that..... and the way i found it was i was checking the charge for the night before. WELL..... i guess ill be another one taking it apart to see which of the leads are the pos/neg. Worst case ..... they only make a small explosion im told lol. Been at this awhile ...... so ive got more than a few chargers laying around. I did however order another battery.

Ok...... now gurus, my next question. I ordered the larger battery for the gold machine..... did i mess up? Not because of additional capacity....... but its weight? The clips should hold it easily in place........ but because of the length and additional weight would that possibly create an issue for the O ring and water hunting with it? Anyone else using the larger battery for neck deep water hunting..... a LOT? Id hate to think the battery would be a cause to destroy a good machine.

 

[Jason in Enid]

Ok...... now gurus, my next question. I ordered the larger battery for the gold machine..... did i mess up? Not because of additional capacity....... but its weight? The clips should hold it easily in place........ but because of the length and additional weight would that possibly create an issue for the O ring and water hunting with it? Anyone else using the larger battery for neck deep water hunting..... a LOT? Id hate to think the battery would be a cause to destroy a good machine.

Nope, you didnt mess up at all! There shouldnt be any change in O-ring compression since the sealing surfaces are back inside a channel and the compression latches are mounted in the middle. I have the GPZ battery but I haven't gotten it to a beach yet. The good news is that you can easily get 25+ hours from it. My test times were with GPS and backlight on at all times so I know it will last a lot longer if you dont use those.

The bad news is that I would recommend you still pull the battery after every hunt. I failed to remove my stock battery after a water hunt ONE TIME and paid the price. A single drop or 2 of water had gotten in and corroded the terminals, never affected performance during the hunt. If I had taken the battery off and inspected it after that hunt I could have saved myself a warranty repair.

 

[dewcon4414]

Jason...just a bad design..... those connectors should have been at the top. I do use a 2.5mm O ring.

 

[Jason in Enid]

Jason...just a bad design..... those connectors should have been at the top. I do use a 2.5mm O ring.

I agree, that one change would have probably saved many detectors from needing repairs. Of course, a proper o-ring and correct compression latches would have made that change a "good idea" instead of a much needed.

I have dive lights, cameras and video equipment 100 feet (and more) underwater without ever a single drop of water getting past. ML should have contacted a scuba UW housing company for consultation on sealing systems. Water leaks at 1 - 2 feet is ridiculous.

 

[dewcon4414]

Ive taken the battery apart..... might be the small board thats the issue. There are 3 leads as expected... pos, neg, and one to check the cells. Battery reads like 7.6 dcv. If im not wrong its only a 7.2 dcv lith....with the 8.2 dcv charger? So looks like im fully charged....... just not working. New battery and AA both work as expected. Once taken apart i can see why you pay a good deal for these. Its not as simple as plugging in new lith batteries. I seem to remember Andy S saying something in his book about using rechargeable lith batteries in the AA pack and reducing the cost. I dont remember him saying ... what dcv the TOTAL needed to be when using the same amount of batteries. AA are 1.5 v each.... 12v total. So it puts out 12 v if using AA batteries...... but only 7.2 off the rechargeable is what im reading from manual?

Dew

 

[Jason in Enid]

I dont remember him saying ... what dcv the TOTAL needed to be when using the same amount of batteries. AA are 1.5 v each.... 12v total. So it puts out 12 v if using AA batteries...... but only 7.2 off the rechargeable is what im reading from manual?

Dew

The detector doesnt need 12V. It probably uses somewhere around 5 or 6 and has a voltage limiter. The battery keeps pumping out the same 5v (for example) to the detector until the voltage drops below that and detector stops working. Battery packs are about MAH. voltage doesnt matter as long as it isnt enough that it would fry the limiter circuit.

 

[mrsspk]

I have revived several of the CTX batteries, the trick is to put it on the charger for around 12 hours, then unplug the charger for an hour and then charge again for another 12-16 hours. I have done 3 of them so far and all worked great afterwards and held a full charge.