Rechargable Li-ion in Spot tracker?

[johnnystorm]

Official advice, iirc is that Spot Trackers should only be run with disposable lithium batteries. I'd rather use rechargeables but obviously not if it wrecks the device or they fail rendering it useless.

I saw Torchy was selling these on eBay : http://bit.ly/18DLtjY

Are rechargeable li-ion OK or will I have to stick to £4 a time disposables?

[greenmug]

I did a lot of research online about this topic as I didn't think it viable to run a spot gen2 on disposable batteries. I also wondered how folk like Tour Divide riders managed.

One website (can't find the link now) did a technical blog on using recharables. As he pointed out, there isn't really a chance of damaging the unit. The problem is one of delivering the correct power to drive the circuits. He found he could use recharables very well BUT with vastly reduced numbers of messages transmits.

I used to work in Antarctica and had to work with different batteries and can confirm that only lithium work at low temps to any usable degree. Much less than zero and anything else has a very low run time.

In my rough calculations if you were transmitting every 10mins (tracking option) then you would be replacing the recharables every 1-2 days. So kind of about the same as a Garmin GPS.

However, if you haven't purchased one yet, (or anyone reading this considering one) the Spot Gen3 shoudld be available in the UK andtime soon. Available for import now.
http://www.walking4charity.co.uk/2013/0 ... eview.html

This is designed to take recharables and has a much longer run time anyway. Smaller unit. Higher costs though.


RE rechargable batteries, there are vast differences in quality of them. I bought some expensive ones and have some cheap ones and the run time on my Garmin GPS is the difference between 8 hours and 2 days. I'm going to spend a bit more upfront for rechargables and have the ability to carry less spares on long trips.

[Blackhound]

I have a SPOT 1 and recently did a 6 week trip on one set of lithium batteries and they are still going. I see them at Asda for £5 for 4 and use them for big trips in my gps. Lithium batteries are significantly lighter than rechargeables and last longer.

[Ian]

Like Blackhound, I recent got at least 100 hours out of my Energiser lithiums while used on tracking mode. With tracking off it would probably last a good deal longer.

[johnnystorm]

Cheers guys. I wish I'd kept a tally how long I'd used the current set... :)

[jameso]

Spot 2 seems to do ~5 days of 16hrs on / 8hrs off using the energiser ultimates that were recommended, so 80-100hrs is a good guide, does it vary with temperature? I got through 3 sets in ~18 days although I didn't have it on all the time, maybe 2-3 days worth of downtime in total.