Effects of cold on MXT?

[Anonymous]

What have you folks observed as to how cold weather effects the MXT performance, LCD, etc., and at what temperatures and conditions?
Thanks,
Royce

 

[Anonymous]

I asked this exact question not too long ago. I have used my MXT now down to 18 degrees. It worked fine the whole time. I was out in that for about three hours on the beach in blowing snow and freezing rain. I just wrapped up the main electronics with a plastic bag and detected away. I was pushing the machine hard hunting in an area with lots of black sand locked at 83. I have a few concerns such as the condensation that can occur when you bring anything from cold temperatures to warmer temperatures quickly. I know they warned me of that with my digital camera. Another thing that was brought to my attention is that a cold battery can actually be drained by colder temperatures. I use the rechargable battery system that whites sells, and have left it out in my car for a day at about 10degrees in my detector. I had already used it for awhile. I turned it off at a charge of 10 when I turned it back on it was still at 10. The cold has to effect everything somehow. I know plastic and metal gets very brittle, and shrinks somewhat in colder temperatures. I dont think I am going to take it out in any colder temperatures. I am sure it could definitely damage it. HH Jason

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your report, Jason. Did you notice your LCD becoming dimmer or slower displaying its information?
Royce

 

[Anonymous]

The power available from a battery (cell) decreases as the temperature decreases.
If you were to measure the voltage while the temperature dropped you would observe the voltage dropping too. What most people do not understand is that if you continued to monitor the voltage as the battery warmed back up, the voltage would rise to about the same value as before at the same temperature.
Think of your car battery. In winter it has two problems. The CCA, cold cranking power decreases when the temperature decreases and the cranking load increases because of the engine and oil being cold and everything dragging harder.
That does not mean you throw it away or that it will not be OK when summer arrives again. Just the nature of batteries.
If your warm batteries read 10 volts in the house, they may only read 8 or 9 when out in the cold. Bring them back inside and they will soon read 10 again.
The point to understand is that you had better start out with good or fully charged batteries if you are going to use it outside in cold weather. When they are not good enough, use them in your portable radio, flash light, kids toys or whatever. I guess you could even save them and use them in your detector this summer.

 

[Anonymous]

sometimes my screen will go blank. When it does this, I turn it off & back on again, then it works OK. This might happen once or twice in a few hours, or maybe not at all. HH, George (MN)

 

[Anonymous]

I did not notice the display getting dimmer. And the display seemed to work fine. I did a test on a couple targets (coins: dime and quarter about 4 inches down) just to make sure it was working correctly. Pinpointing and target recognition were mostly right on. I did get some false readings on a couple nails that showed VDI 35 - 70. But I was running my detector at max sat in the prospecting mode with high gain in beach sand that had high concentrations of heavy metals. I had the ground phase locked at 83. The ground phase in the area averages 75+. I think that for the conditions the MXT did very well. HH Jason