- #1
Thread Owner
.....Should I send it in now for warranty? 
Sorry I did not keep track of the total time hunted but I had the AT PRO in the back of the truck and decided to hit it today. Last time out I had one bar of battery power in the tank and I went for over an hour today on the batteries that had been chilled for weeks before they failed today -just as it started to sprinkle outside.
Took in 91 cents, I clad quarter, one 2004/1803 friendship nickel, 5 clad dimes,5 zincs and 6 copper Lincolns. Also one zinc button, 1.5 modern pulls, 2 different antique pulls, one copper ring lug and one neatly folded piece of foil 3/8x 1/2. A good hunt in a trashy location.
When the batteries failed, the machine went berserk. It was at a point where the internal regulator could no longer compensate and it was quite a show to fight for its life. I had to lower the sensitivity and hit the notch button to get control to get the power switch to turn it off. This is not a flaw, the machine was erratic because the batteries could no longer provide enough power for normal operation. Let me say that again, I ran it until the batteries failed. I could have powered it down by removing the battery pack.
Back at the ranch, I brought it inside to warm up and after about a half hour I turned it on. The batteries had cycled up and it ran normally at 4.36 VDC (on the removed pack). A few minutes later the removed pack had an additional tenth of a volt. Storage leakage on the batteries was indiscernible as the batteries provide power to allow a tactile switch power-up. Dead batteries cycled up! What a machine! I suspect there is a voltage regulator that puts out 5VDC inside and it can compensate for lower battery voltage until cells absolutely puke out. I must have run the machine for three to four hours at one bar in the battery window and 3 weeks between hunts at one bar.
Basically what I saw was the power required to watch the command to turn it on did not affect battery voltage and draw down the batteries when the unit was off – remember I kept the machine in the cold and if it was going to eat batteries while it was off, this would have shown. I have an expensive digital multi-meter that eats batteries when it is off. What a piece of junk! I have to put batteries in it all the time. It stays off and another meter has been more reliable. Unless I am wrong, the AT PRO controls power-up through a low voltage command that the machine watches for as it watches other buttons for commands during operation. The switch is not your conventional make or break load switch wired in series with the battery pack. Standby Power consumption while off has to be in micro-micro amps if not less. This is a very good feature not mentioned in the manual but page 49 instructs you to pull the battery pack if stored for more than a month.
Sorry I did not keep track of the total time hunted but I had the AT PRO in the back of the truck and decided to hit it today. Last time out I had one bar of battery power in the tank and I went for over an hour today on the batteries that had been chilled for weeks before they failed today -just as it started to sprinkle outside.
Took in 91 cents, I clad quarter, one 2004/1803 friendship nickel, 5 clad dimes,5 zincs and 6 copper Lincolns. Also one zinc button, 1.5 modern pulls, 2 different antique pulls, one copper ring lug and one neatly folded piece of foil 3/8x 1/2. A good hunt in a trashy location.
When the batteries failed, the machine went berserk
. It was at a point where the internal regulator could no longer compensate and it was quite a show to fight for its life. I had to lower the sensitivity and hit the notch button to get control to get the power switch to turn it off. This is not a flaw, the machine was erratic because the batteries could no longer provide enough power for normal operation. Let me say that again, I ran it until the batteries failed. I could have powered it down by removing the battery pack. Back at the ranch, I brought it inside to warm up and after about a half hour I turned it on. The batteries had cycled up and it ran normally at 4.36 VDC (on the removed pack). A few minutes later the removed pack had an additional tenth of a volt. Storage leakage on the batteries was indiscernible as the batteries provide power to allow a tactile switch power-up. Dead batteries cycled up! What a machine! I suspect there is a voltage regulator that puts out 5VDC inside and it can compensate for lower battery voltage until cells absolutely puke out. I must have run the machine for three to four hours at one bar in the battery window and 3 weeks between hunts at one bar.
Basically what I saw was the power required to watch the command to turn it on did not affect battery voltage and draw down the batteries when the unit was off – remember I kept the machine in the cold and if it was going to eat batteries while it was off, this would have shown. I have an expensive digital multi-meter that eats batteries when it is off. What a piece of junk! I have to put batteries in it all the time. It stays off and another meter has been more reliable. Unless I am wrong, the AT PRO controls power-up through a low voltage command that the machine watches for as it watches other buttons for commands during operation. The switch is not your conventional make or break load switch wired in series with the battery pack. Standby Power consumption while off has to be in micro-micro amps if not less. This is a very good feature not mentioned in the manual but page 49 instructs you to pull the battery pack if stored for more than a month.
