Charging the Excalibur II 800

[bkravitz_spectrav3]

Im new to the Excalibur II . Have had it for a few weeks now. Question about charging the NiMH battery.

1. Is the stock charger a trickle charger and can it be left on the battery.
2. How often should I charge the battery? Since it seems difficutlt to get a back up alkaline battery pack I would hate to get out and find out that im dead. I only wade when I use the machine.
3. Why didnt minelab add some sort of battery indicator... according to the manual when the battery is low it will make a tone.

I guess I will carry a meter with me and check the battery often..

The manual said give the unit a bath after hunting... see picture....

B

 

[bkravitz_spectrav3]

n/t

 

[OldBeechnut]

Since your using the stock trickle charge, I've read some where someone left their's on for a full week and no problem. I leave mine on over night and it will get me at least 14 hours of detecting..I never push it any further. After each hunt a good wash will do it good, then once it is dry a shot of silicon spray will perserve those rubber parts. The past few summers I neglected this upkeep several times, with the excalibur being a 2004 model, this took a toll along with the salt..then last fall I was getting more then normal falsing in the saltwater. A inspection this winter I noticed my coil cable was cracking from dryrot.......

Video is of the warning of a dead battery coming with the excalibur.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3Siob6rZfc

 

[Rob in (Ca)]

With a properly working stock battery, With a fresh battery charge, a all day hunt at the beach should be no problem, I did a Full day and a half hunt, and still had plenty of juice left.

I also left my stock charger on for over a 24 hour period, and it did not blow up my garage.

OBN I hope you had a back up plan.......... Do the Excal II sound the same on a dying Battery.

Good luck & HH

 

[Critterhunter]

One way to tell is to hook the battery up to a car tail light bulb until it goes dead Now look on the "charger". I think it says 50 milliamps output. Divide the capacity of the pack by that and that's how many hours it needs to charge. I'd over do it a few hours because often batteries hold more capacity than the label says. I think the Sovereign/Excal draw roughly 50 milliamps as well, so you can just put it back on the charger for the same number of hours you hunted to top it off but again I'd go another two hours more than that as charging is less efficient than discharging in terms of how long each takes to do what.

 

[Florida Keys Pirate]

I usually take it out for two hunts ( which equals about 10-12 hours ) and then I charge it for that amount of time before I take it out again. So far ,so good.

GL and HH