Battery Issues

First the good news.  Dug these yesterday.

Same site, same experience.  Everything was really deep, and you had to dig ’em all.  Ended up digging 22 clad quarters.  Are you kidding me?  That’s alot.

The bad news is I got a weird error on the E-Trac: “OVER VOLTAGE”, and it shut down, and would not boot.  Pulled the battery, kept trying, and so forth, so I went home.  What else can you do?

I googled around, and could not find anything interesting (which, I imagine, will be the same experience for the next person who has this issue, and happens to land here), so I put the double AA pack in, and it booted fine.  I put the rechargeable pack in, after just 15 minutes of recharging, and it was fine.  Go figure.  When I started the day, on a fully charged battery, it started with one bar.  After charging for an hour, after this problem, it had all but one bar.  Go figure.

So, I went back to the site, more to see if the machine was fine than anything else, and it was, and I also pulled the silver Q, making this a 9 silver site.

Today, I went back to the same site, same experience, except I pulled 24 clad quarters this time, one at an unbelievable 9 inches.  Are you kidding me?  I figured I had a silver on that one.  But, I didn’t, in fact, I didn’t get a single silver all day.  I’m in a less promising section of the site (field not as old), but the grade is true, so there should be a stray silver or two.  Hopefully there will be in the future.

The fully charged battery died after just 3 hours today.  At least I didn’t get that hideous message.  I finished up on the AA pack.

So, I ordered the RMB Innovations replacement battery.  Reading good things about it.  Expect it on Friday; maybe I’ll get a chance to test it next week, we’ll see.

Interesting thing about this battery is that alot of comments (including one on the manufacturer’s site), suggest that this battery will give you more depth.  Some people on the forums just come right out and claim that it does.  I’m no engineer, but that has got to be absolute bullshit.  But, it tickles your buying bone.  It tickles your gullibility.  People are naturally gullible, and will always buy hope and other irrationality, regardless of how obviously stupid the suggestion is.  I’m not going to get too off-topic or offensive here, but you see this in the “real world” everyday.  I’ll leave it to the role of the reader to come up with their own examples.

Well, my gullibility bone has been tickled (not that I had a choice; I need a new battery, and  the OEM battery is apparently garbage).  But, more depth from a battery?  Are you kidding me?  Do these people buy LRL machines as well.  I know one prominent dealer that sells them, so someone must.

Well, the OEM battery is easy enough to carry around and swap out.  When I get this new battery, maybe I’ll do some depth tests, then post the results.  If someone wants to give me a free LRL machine, I’ll test that too (well, maybe not) 🙂

4 thoughts on “Battery Issues

  1. Some people will believe anything, even if not true. Hope springs eternal. 🙂 Hope the new battery finds many more silvers for you!
    Looks like you have been doing well. Still searching for that darn copper thingy! (And a certain inflected interjection! 🙂 )

  2. Randy, I don’t know if that new battery will give you greater depth, but what I was reading about it, the stock battery pack put outs around 9.6v while this RNB battery outputs 12.5v. If you add more voltage to a coil it will create a greater magnetic field. I’m no electronics expert, but I would think the way the Etrac works it probably sends a certain amount of voltage to the coil, now if that amount is the total of what the battery is outputting I cant say, if it is then I would think you could get a bit more depth. How much more depth will you get from the extra 3volts I don’t know. Look forward to your testing results, I plan to pickup that battery for my Safari. Good Luck

  3. I dunno. I was told it was all digital, but I guess the TX/RX operation of the field must be analog. I really have no idea what I’m talking about, in all honesty. I hope I get more depth.

    I also hope my fine-tuned zen between me and my machine is not broken by this change. I’ve spent a good part of my life in the digital world, and came to learn that any change, no matter how innocent seeming, can have bizarre and unexpected consequences.

    Unfortunately, the ground is rock hard now, and will likely stay that way for quite some time. As an aside, I wonder if I’ll be the only person running with this configuration (E-Trace, 13 inch Ultimate, RNB battery)?

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