Surf & Sand

By Ozzie Osborne

    " Battery Check "

Looks like its going to be a nice day. Ah, a parking space, grab it. Your feeling lucky today. You park your vehicle, gather all your gear, head over the dunes, or across the parking lot and down to the water, or out to the woods to hunt some relics.

You get all your gear together, pouches, diggers, scoop, whatever. Now your ready to hunt. You pull a coin out and drop it on the ground for a test target. Turn on your detector, make a pass at your target, and nothing. Nada, zip, silence. Aaawww, fishpiss. Dead batteries.

Now you have to get all your stuff and head back to your vehicle. You change your batteries, and try again. Nothing, silence. Nuts, now what??? Back to the house, maybe its nothing, maybe it will have to go back to the factory and your going to be grounded for a while.

Most people don't give their batteries and battery packs much thought. You put them in, hunt till its time to change them, put new ones in and off you go. Battery packs and cases come in several types. Some are fixed in place, some come out all together, and others slide out a little and remain attached with a wire that is like an umbilical cord to the electronics package inside. All have the potential to cause problems.

Square 9volts have two nipples on top, and snap in place easily. " AA " batteries usually slide in place and have a spring load to secure them and make the connection. These usually have top and bottom contacts, and the spring is the bottom connector. Snapping batteries in and out can after a number of changes can cause wear and tear on the connectors and even wear them out with out any visible signs. The connectors in the battery pack are usually made of brass with a lite nickel coating. Pushing and sliding batteries in and out wears out the nickel coating and exposes the brass underneath. But often it will not be visible without some close inspection.