stitchlips
Sr. Member
I just picked up an excal. It has a rechargeable battery pack that plugs into the wall. How do you know when it's done charging?
Overnight...Overnight When you are asleep ..overnight 8 to 10 hr's...Overnight If you want the exact Minutes i don't think any one can tell you just do what we do overnight............stitchlips said:That doesn't really help me. it's done in 18 hours isn't an answer. Not trying to be rude just trying to figure out a way to tell other than a time span if it is fully charged.
Can you put a volt meter to it and tell?
el conquistador said:Some of the techno guys that used to post on here said that the rechargeable battery pack has to have x-amount of volts. They also said a $10 meter from Harbor Freights would do the job in measuring the voltage. That would be the only way to tell it's more or less fully charged.
I'm sorry that I don't remember the amount of volts but if you look up on past posts on the Minelab forum or the beach and water forum they have written about it a few times. I will try to look and if I find it I will post a link.
I wish that the charger for the battery pack of the Excalibur had a light or something on it to let you know it is fully charged, but that's my opinion.
Good luck.
Brett said:Those chargers that they sell are cheap as dirt and get the job done, that's why they don't make one with a light that goes from red to green... they wanna maximize their profits. Same reason they don't give us 2700mAh NiMH batteries instead of the 1600mAh batteries that come with the Explorer and E-Trac. 1600mAh is good enough for an all day hunt... why give us more than we need for free? Well, I certainly wouldn't mind a little extra capacity, but I'm not paying $80 for another 200mAh of capacity.
The charger just trickle charges the batteries, which is why it's OK to leave it plugged in past the time required to charge the batteries. The batteries will become warm as they charge and heat up towards the end of the charge cycle, usually after they get to about 70% charged.
I design battery chargers as part of my job, but I still just plug in the pack overnight just like the manual says... it's good enough for an all day hunt the next day.
If you really want to measure the voltage, it should be about 11.5 to 12V (or higher) if they are charged, vs. 7.2 to 8.8V discharged.