Possible extended battery time with the explorers/etrac's

[Big Boys Hobbies]

I saw on another forum (m i n e l a b o w n e r s) where there is some sound coming out of the speaker when your headphones are plugged in. I tried it for myself on my etrac and sure enough its true. If you hold you ear right up to the speaker you can hear sound coming from both the headphones and the speaker when you run over a target, barely audible but there is some sound. So stand to reason if you turn that off somehow it should consume less battery drain.

It was officially answered by minlab on the forum that it does not in fact reduce battery consumption but I am curious. Any time you are running a speaker you are using power to do so. It has to be using "some" power to do so. Some people over the pond are taking the 4 screws out on the back of the main module and pulling the speaker connection and getting better battery life.

I don't know what how much if any it increases your battery life but I thought I would throw that out there just as knowledge.

Yes I'm sure pulling the speaker voids your warranty so do so at your own risk.

AGAIN....... just a heads up.

HH

 

[McNickle]

If you went into Menu,and turned down volume to 1/2...Then crank your headphones up. Could that quite the speaker more,giving longer battery Life ?

 

[Hard Nosed Dave]

After taking those 4 screws out, the speaker can be easily disconnected on the Explorer. It's the same with the Etrac. All you do is pull the speaker off it's 2 pin plug connector. I really can't see why doing so would void a warranty, unless you cause another problem during the disconnection. None the less, you would so so at your own risk.

I recall that the pin's plug that you pull the speaker off, had to be "bridged" on the Explorer in order get the earphones to work when I directed the full sound output of the Explorer directly to a set of headphones .

Don't know about the E-trac as I haven't bothered trying to disconnect the speaker on it........... not yet anyway. Regardless, here is a picture that shows the speaker connector inside the Etrac.

That white arrow's pointing to it.

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You probably don't need to bridge the pins as you'll still be using the part of the circuit that headphones go through and have simply disconnected the internal speaker. Thought I'd mention it though.

Personally, after a little experimentation, I have found it useful to leave the internal speaker connected as it meant not having to rely on having headphones in any given situation. Yes the speaker can still be heard even with the headphones plugged in, BUT it's really a very small amount of volume. The whole thing is that if you are using full sized headphones with the speaker inside the the Etrac and the Explorer's is actually quite small ans are probably not drawing too much power.
To me it seems that a disconnected internal speaker basically means taking it out of a 3 speaker power draw equation and only engaging the two speakers of the headphones which are still, none the less.......2 speakers that are usually larger than the internal speaker. The lesser volume output from the headphones will probably also mean that it also becomes a consideration of the power draw. Having said this and given the fact that's it's pretty hot over in Australia at the moment, due to our summer, I've taken to using good quality ear-buds on my Etrac and have found that there is an increase in the battery life. I get to hear all I need to and it's easier to where a full brimmed hat for protection for the sun. Standard headphone cups are great in winter and to keep out noise( though the ear buds I am using are keeping out most if not all external noise, like that caused by wind. For me it's become very impractical during these hot summer days to where full cupped headphones.The ear buds are also a lighter to wear.

Ear buds are probably drawing a whole lot less current than what amounts basically to two speakers within a set of full cupped headphones. That's probably a better way to go.

HH

David Di

 

[woodchiphustler]

n/t

 

[Brett]

If you can barely hear it, it's not drawing much power at all. It would be much better to just buy some 2700mAh NiMH rechargeable batteries and use those in the extra pack. This would increase battery capacity by 68% over the standard 1600mAh pack.

Being in the electronics industry, I know there are usually indications if an electronic device has been opened... thus voiding your warranty. I think the standard 1600mAh battery pack lasts a good long time, an all day hunt for me. If run time is such a concern, just go with the extended capacity batteries. It's not that much of a pain to charge them and put them in the battery holder.

That said, if you want to tinker... go on and get in there and figure out why the internal speaker is not complete OPEN and disconnected when the headphones are plugged in. Maybe you can modify your unit to completely open the connection to the internal speaker when the headphones are in fact plugged in. The audio jacks usually have a couple connections that run the speaker connection THROUGH the jack connections, and then when you plug in your headphone plug, it opens the connections to the speaker and just puts the headphone connections in contact with the amplifier.

Good luck!