y's my halo doin this?

[A.B]

hello again

ok my lovely halo is having a turn. it's a 3-4 months old, te clear shelled.

after turning on i'm gettin an intermittent red light, thought that meant the batteries were low but by pressing the on/off to check this i get a green light then it goes back to red intermittent. after taking the batteries out, and trying to re-charge em they appear fully charged (they are rechargeables ) anyone know what this problem is? i cant find the answer in the owners manual, or in previous threads. an e-mail will very shortly be winging it's way to odyssey.

thanks for you time AB

 

[jahlad]

mmmm have you just changed to using rechargeables?....im led to belive that they deliver a slightly lower voltage than standards batterys....maybe this is fooling the halo into thinking that the batterys are low?
try it with normal batterys to see what it does.

without fiddling with it i cant really solve the prob....id advise trying different batterys and if that done help, drop odysee an email, they usually answer quite fast

 

[Collier]

odyssey will tell you not to use Rechargables! Get some M3 duracells in it and see if the problem persists!
Is it affecting its performance?

Paul

 

[A.B]

it's been fine up till now, tho now there isn't much grunt in the paddle since the red light started. been using rechargables since i first got it and have never had any performance probs. i'll try it with normal batts and see if the problem persists. cheers for your time guys

 

[IanC]

Batteries - Alkaline vs. Nicad

As rechargeable batteries age, their voltage output levels out a little. Its not uncommon to see 8.4 volts from a 6 cell (nominally 7.2 V) battery pack when freshly charged.

Halo's are very high draw devices, so will drain your batteries very quickly, placing them under fairly heavy strain, and reducing their working life through heat fatigue. Your best bet would be to modify your halo and add an extra cell or 2 into the circuit

6 cells x 1.2 volts = 7.2 V under load

8 cells x 1.2 volts = 9.6 V under load

Or just buy lots of duracells. 6 Alkaline batteries will give you the 9 volts your halo needs, and for far less agro! ( yes, alkalines are higher output than Nicad Or Nimh rechargables. 1.5 V per cell rather than 1.2)

Oh, and don't try using little 9v pp3's in your Halo, they won't last very long!!!

Laterz

Ian

 

[jahlad]

i bought a huge pack of aa batterys from costco about 6 months ago for around £15 for 60.....not even half way thru em yet, they aint duracell but for your hopper they are fine

 

[QuackingPlums]

NiCads are better "under load" than Alkalines though - lower internal resistance, therefore higher current output. However, they DO have a lower nominal output voltage than Alkalines, and most battery level-meters work on voltage, not current.

The latest Duracell M3 technology does improve on standard alkalines (hence they're advertised as ideal for high drain devices) but they'll never match NiCads for pure output current.

If you can make them fit, then an additional cell or two will balance out the voltage AND give better capacity.

Alkalines also have a steeper discharge curve so when the little red light starts flashing, there's probably about a third of its capacity left.

NiCads discharge to about 80% nominal voltage after a few seconds of high drain, but level out at that until they're almost flat,

hee... I'm a battery geek!

 

[IanC]

Originally posted by QuackingPlums
NiCads are better "under load" than Alkalines though - lower internal resistance, therefore higher current output. However, they DO have a lower nominal output voltage than Alkalines, and most battery level-meters work on voltage, not current.

The latest Duracell M3 technology does improve on standard alkalines (hence they're advertised as ideal for high drain devices) but they'll never match NiCads for pure output current.

If you can make them fit, then an additional cell or two will balance out the voltage AND give better capacity.

Alkalines also have a steeper discharge curve so when the little red light starts flashing, there's probably about a third of its capacity left.

NiCads discharge to about 80% nominal voltage after a few seconds of high drain, but level out at that until they're almost flat,

hee... I'm a battery geek!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You are worse than me! I just remembered a bit from when I raced RC cars years ago, now they were high load little buggers!

Anyway, back to the plot, if you can find somewhere that sells them, try Duracell Procells, they rock! I regularly feed them to my Halo and she loves it!

 

[QuackingPlums]

You're telling me! 1200/1700mah cells charged to within an inch of their lives in about 25 minutes, then fully discharged in about 5, cycled, put back on the charger... hmmm... I might dig out my old NiCad-matching machine... it plots graphs and everything!


In fact, I think I'm gonna make my next project a Halo-sized NiCad pack at 9v... now there's a challenge...

 

[IanC]

QP, just enlarge the Halo a little and go for Sub C size sanyo's.

You know 2000Mah SCRC's make sense!