Thermal killing batteries

[Taco]

Twice with my Zeus 75 I have been out hunting, I'll engage a sounder, and the unit dies. Battery life has always been at leaast 50%. I changed the batteries and the unit resumes working perfectly.

Tonight I had the same thing happen with a pulsar 38a scanner. Hogs were everywhere tonight. Busted up 4 sounders. Stalked with 38a on a lanyard in a shirt pocket. About an hour in and battery life is showing 75%.....then the unit died. Power it up, it tries to boot, then dies. Put in fresh lithiums and it's good to go.

Do thermals "kill" batteries suddenly? The units work fine with fresh batts. Just seems that after a period even when reading adequate battery life my thermals die. Thoughts?

 

[theblakester]

Had a thermal monocular Eotech x200.. Would go from reading full or almost full practically all night and then die out pretty quickly.

 

[FrankT]

I had to start removing my batteries or they would die when not in use..not sure these battery meters are very accurate either.

 

[Taco]

Hmm. I remove the batteries every time. Seems odd. Guess I'll keep monitoring it.

 

[Afalex1]

My x320 battery meter is not accurate. Sometimes it's slowly drains other times it shows full, then suddenly 1 bar and shuts off. That's with llithiums. If I try normal alkalines it works for an hour and dies. They aren't meant to run on alkalines AA Batts anyway. As the weather gets colder battery life will suffer.

 

[TEXASLAWMAN]

I usually get several hours out of mine the last couple of boxes have started out at 3/4ths charge think there may have been a bad batch of batteries put out. But other than that after it shows half charge in the screen I get nervous because the end is near. This has been with all brands of thermal from L3 to Ir defense.

 

[gshock]

Hmm. I remove the batteries every time. Seems odd. Guess I'll keep monitoring it.

This happens to my friends scope as well ... I think the thermals need a certain amount of current, if it drops below whatever threshold it will just die. Unlike flash lights where we see it start diming.

 

[BigRedDog]

This happens to my friends scope as well ... I think the thermals need a certain amount of current, if it drops below whatever threshold it will just die. Unlike flash lights where we see it start diming.

this

I have learned the hard way that cheap batteries are false economy with thermal

energizers only please

 

[JPK]

after it shows half charge in the screen I get nervous because the end is near. This has been with all brands of thermal from L3 to Ir defense.

This has also been my experience with my IR's and my Pulsar.

I switched to one of Ultimate Night Vision's remote, rechargable battery packs for the MK II since changing batteries on that unit in the field is a pita because of tight battery cap/rail clearance, and now it runs all night long. I know the battery pack is getting low when a horizontal line appears in the view, but that is about 1hr notice to the end after the line appears and before death the scope starts to act oddly as well.

 

[Taco]

Ok. I'm not the only one. Swell.

 

[TEXASLAWMAN]

this

I have learned the hard way that cheap batteries are false economy with thermal

energizers only please

I'm not sold on this theory I agree with the no cheap batteries, but have used energizer, Rayovac, streamlight, surefire with no noticeable difference. I just bought 100 Rayovac for $1 each.

 

[gshock]

I'm not sold on this theory I agree with the no cheap batteries, but have used energizer, Rayovac, streamlight, surefire with no noticeable difference. I just bought 100 Rayovac for $1 each.

I thought you would use a battery pack with all the hunting you do.. ; ) I've had good luck with AA energizer ultimate lithiums for the thermals I use. They last a while but I got tired of paying for them so I bought AA panasonic eneloop pro rechargeables. They perform better than standard AA batteries and I bought enough to swap out for a night hunt.

 

[DerekFSU]

I used the armasight battery pack on the armasight Helios Monday night and it was awesome. Ran it for 2 hours with zero reduction in the battery meter and then another 2 hours with it coming down just a tiny bit. So 4 hours was easy, per the meter. Definitely sold me on the packs.

 

[Lancer]

This has also been my experience with my IR's and my Pulsar.

I switched to one of Ultimate Night Vision's remote, rechargable battery packs for the MK II since changing batteries on that unit in the field is a pita because of tight battery cap/rail clearance, and now it runs all night long. I know the battery pack is getting low when a horizontal line appears in the view, but that is about 1hr notice to the end after the line appears and before death the scope starts to act oddly as well.

I'm currently using the UNV remote battery I got from ******************* on the Pulsar Apex and it's been great, one less thing to worry about.

 

[Taco]

Going hunting early in the AM. I pull out the rifle and put the batts in the Zeus for a check up. Turn it on and I get a blue screen. Nuc it, on off, on off, blue screen. Change batteries to fresh batts. Same exact thing. Go back to original set of batts, scope lights up and has been on for 20 minutes going strong. Just seems odd. I had a few thoughts.

I've never run the scope for more than maybe 4-5 minutes at a time. It's never run continuously or "warmed up." Total it's maybe been on 45 minutes in a year.

How tight do I tighten the battery cap? Its a standard Zeus 75 640. I'm just going finger tight plus a smidge.

I'm gonna let this scope run an hour or more just to see what happens. When I go hunting should I turn it on and leave it on?

Thanks dudes.