New Wireless Battery Update

A quick update on the new battery system. This will be available for retail in the middle of November. The reason for the delay is it is being manufactured as we speak and the lead time for delivery is 20 days. I decided to give a few details of the system for those that are interested in the concept.

I have been asked over the years to develop something like this and until now I was more or less not overly impressed with firstly the Lithium battery systems we have been marketed and due to a complete bulls up 3 years ago with the Lithium Polymer batteries size, it stopped me from going ahead with the first lithium product. I have been using the samples I received then until today and they have outlasted all other systems on the market, that is not to say the other systems are not working but when you do a comparison on the battery pack themselves you will find that the Li-Ion cells are down quite considerably in actual capacity whereas my Li-Poly batteries are still at over 90%. The major difference in the chemistries between the 2 batteries is that Li-Ion start to deteriorate the very moment they are manufactured even before the first use. Li-Poly doesn't suffer from this to that point providing the cells are matched. Li-Ion is generally cheaper because the packs are not matched to the degree that Li-Poly are. This is one of the reasons for the delay in production as the batteries I am having made require 7-10 days to assemble and then 7 days of stringent testing. So in all up to 20 days for the first packs to be released from the manufacturer. Also the batteries are Japanese/US joint development of the cells.

The major features of my system, which I have pre-named the "Little Ripper" is firstly high capacity Lithium Polymer battery pack (7.4V 8500mah) I cannot give an exact specification as all packs will differ slightly in capacity due to the batteries having a general capacity of a minimum 8400mah to a maximum of 8500mah. The time that a detector will run constantly without a break is 10 hours. the formula I use is Detector current draw / total capacity of battery, in this case 840mah/8400mah. If I was to use a 11.1V 8400mah battery then this would be longer due to the higher voltage x current drain gives an actual larger capacity. For instance, I use my sample 11.1V 8000mah regulated to 6.9V and it lasts 12 hours minimum in fact it lasts up to 14 hours so if we divide 8000mah by 12 we get a current drain of 667mah yet the detector we know is actually drawing 840mah so the voltage does matter in this instance. As the major Lithium Battery systems are all based on 7.4V except for Reed's they are 11.1V the actual detecting time can be worked out with the above equation (total mah/detector current drain in ma).

The next major feature is that it is completely wireless, no wires from headphone to battery on detector at all. This means you can put your detector down without removing your headset or stretching cables. The system comprises of 2 parts one is a battery transmitter that attaches to the detector and according to my battery specifications will only weigh around 290 grams and no more than 300 grams, the box that attaches to the detector is 130 x 68 x 41mm. This will have 1 cable coming out which plugs into the detector power socket and another very tiny one with connector for charging. On the box is a push button and 2 switches. These will be detailed at a later date.

The next part will be a box that is the same size of the average enhancers that you get (54x83x30mm) on this will be a headphone / speaker socket a push button and again 2 switches plus another small charging lead (this has a small 980mah Li-Poly battery in it also) and a volume control. This box is attached to your harness or even placed in your shirt pocket.

That is all that the system consists of except for the charger. The charger is a multi-chemistry charger that works from 12VDC - 18VDC (I have yet to decide whether I will add the AC Adapter for it) It can charge: Li-Ion/Li-Poly and LiFe lithium battery packs from 2 cell to 6 cell, NiCd and NiMh cells from 1-15 cell packs and lastly even your SLA/Lead acid (Pb) batteries from 2-20V the maximum charging current is from 0.1 - 5 Amps. It is menu driven and you can set everything regarding the charging and even save the settings so you don't have to set up the charger every time you use it, this way you can set it the charger to charge my system batteries quickly say 4 or 5 amps for the detector battery and 980ma for the headphone box. This gives the advantage of when you come back to camp you can charge the system at a high rate to give the maximum daily detecting time where as all other systems on the market at the moment, especially those using the Camera batteries, take a long time to charge due to the low charging current output of the chargers. As an example take the Camera battery system, the maximum those charge at is 800mah but most are 600mah output. So let's say you have been out for 4 hours and come back to camp and put it on charge. You have already used 3360ma from the battery which is close to 50% so you stay in camp for 1 hour the battery is now up to 3960mah capacity roughly just over 4 hours left of detecting, whereas with mine you could pump back 5000mah in 1 hour. A big difference. Also Lithium batteries do not charge exactly that way so as the battery nears full charge the chargers throttle back in current output. I had a 6600mah camera battery and to charge from 20% flat took over 11hours with a 600mah charger.

I will be posting pictures of the unit when I have the first setup properly designed and tested in the next week or so. Below is a comparison of the known Lithium systems on the market today and the major features:



I will keep you all informed. Oh BTW I would like suggestions of a name for the system so please feel free to post any suggestions (PROPER ONES!!) and any dealers who are interested in resale of the system please feel free to contact me via email. The system's key compliance is already World wide and FCC approved so no worries of FCC approval or other international compliance issues.

The last thing is due to unforeseen issues I have made the initial release price of AUD$295 this is a special price after the first month will increase to a maximum of AUD$375. Prices for International will be more due to the higher cost involved in freight. I have already tested the system reasonably thoroughly but as with everything sometimes manufacturing processes and components tolerances could change and present an issue. However I have been doing R&D for an awful long time and I have never had any product that has been manufactured after prototyping change from it's design specifications.

Thought I'd add that as a precaution for the price. You all know that my first concern is never profit but quality and I put my reputation behind this product as normal.

I will do Dennis, you and quite a few others. It looks like the first batch are all but sold out! Due to the response I have had, if you are interested then you better add your name to the list if you want one from the first batch. The next batch should be available in December and I will probably double the manufacture.

Hi Steve, there is no identifiable delay that I can see or measure. The latency in the wireless modules is stated as <3mS so you wouldn't be able to notice it at all. So far the only obstacle I have found is that my Wireless Access point made the module give a clicking noise. So that may be the only problem if you were in or close to 2.4Ghz wireless. Funnily enough none of my other 2.4Ghz devices caused a problem but my AP is actually rated at twice the normal power output than a normal one. I modified my access point when I was playing with long range wireless internet access. It should be compatible with every system but the reason for the amp is really only for Headphones as the gain of the system without amplifier is not enough to run Headphones (volume output is too low) the actual gain is 1:0.7 (1 in .07 out).

I have been notified by one of the members that the charge time for a Reed's battery system is much less than I put. I was informed that after 6 - 9hours of detecting it only takes less than 2.5 hours to charge. I don't know whether this is because the Reed's battery packs are 11.1V and therefore do not loose capacity as quick as a 7.4V or that the batteries have lost capacity and therefore charge up quicker. If anyone has a Lucky Lark can you look at the charger and see if it has the output voltage and ampere written on them. This makes it easier to work out. The information was given to me by a owner of a brand new pack and that is what I used as a benchmark. I apologise to Reed's if the figures used are incorrect.

Well if it is anything like my original batteries (LiPo) I am still using them after 3 years and as I said in my post above it still lasts a full 9+ hours. As we are using a balance charger system I would expect the batteries to be in better condition as my originals have very seldom been put on a balance charger. I only did that recently when running tests to see whether the cells would reach full capacity and they did. but I would honestly say that one cell was slightly lower than the other but as mentioned it was just charged with a normal unbalanced Lithium charger all its life.