XLT: Rechargeable or alkaline pack--what's your advice?

[MikeOregon]

Hi,

The guy who sells XLT's in our neck of the woods says that the rechargeable battery pack is the way to go. However, the most successful XLT detectorist I know says nothing beats a set of fresh alkalines. So, what do you all think? Have you ever noticed a difference? Do you get deeper one way or the other?

If you go with the alkalines, how low do you run them before replacing them?

Thanks,

Mike

[cavers5]

Alkalines are best. Battery life depends on the settings on your detector as well as hours of usage. It's different all the time!

Cavers5

[solx nys]

my rechargeable pack died a long time ago.I use the alkaline holder and use duracell rechargeables.they are nimh(nickle metal hydride) with at least 2500 Mah(miiliamp) rating.
I carry two sets 8 aa's in the field and never had a problem.when one set gets low I take
them out and put them in my home charger.a full charge is a days play for me and if I
go into overtime I have the other set as backup.I use to carry an eight pack of alks
just in case,but it was just added weight.I save lots of mollaa mollaa doing this.

aa alks run at 1.5 volts most of it's life then drops, the nimh runs at around 1.4 1.3 and
slowly drops off as time goes by.the internal electronics regulate this voltage and I
personally see no difference in performance.if you do not want to take the chance
and are willing to spend the extra dough get alks.if you get nimh's use a slow home
charger(especially for the first couple charges) and buy a multimeter to check voltages
of individual charged cells just in case you have a dud in the bunch(happened to me once
in a new pack of aa for my digi cam).take them out of pack when not in use.

[Sandman]

It doesn't matter which type of batteries you use, the detector will always get the same depth due to it being set to run on a certain voltage. Fresh batteries only last longer than rechargables. The only downside to rechargables is that when they run down they just stop where alkaline give you warning that the power is low so you can change them before heading out on a hunt.