Lithium Battery Life

James Holst wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>renegadewalleye wrote:</div>
I got mine today and charge it up in no time. Turn on the Marcum look at battery and it said over charge.

My MarCum doesn’t say “overcharge” it says “HIVolt” or something to that effect. The battery is neither overcharged nor is the MarCum unit in any danger of being damaged.

My charger automatically shuts off when the battery is fully charged. The red light on the charger turns from red to green. The battery itself does not have an over-charge protection system in it (some do) but that’s not an issue because the charger provided does.

So, charge the battery using the provided charger, slap that sucker into your MarCum… and go fishing.

Thanks for the quick response. I figured that was the case. I just didn’t want to wreck my new battery.

I did just that and this wind is crazy but i just had to get out of the house.

renegadewalleye wrote:

I did just that and this wind is crazy but i just had to get out of the house.

Stay warm… and good luck. I finally have most of the feeling back in the fingers in my left hand after pushing my luck on Wednesday AM. Ouch.

Caught a couple of jumbo perch an some eater walleyes. I also had a puddle going in the xt 1200 cottage.

Cal

I just came back from a trip to red using my new lithium ice force battery and after reading your report I’m kinda disappointed…my fully charged battery last 14 hours the first time… About a day and a half on red then it completely died and messed up my software on my lx 7. Got it working with another battery and then the problem I had was my background colors were all messed up.. So I recharged it completely and got about 12 hours on this charged with orange background with blue lines. I sent it in to marcum to get the software fixed but I’m worried the battery life isn’t as good as it really should be. Give me an idea what I should be expecting for hours off a full charge with my 7. Thanks

A 10 amp hour battery is still a a 10 amp hour battery, SLA or Lithium.

Ok I can understand that if that’s how it is, but it sure sounds like cal’s three year old battery lasted much longer than 10 hours

It depends on the amp draw. When I first got my 10 amp. Hour Lithium I hooked t up to my HDS-5 and timed it. Got 11 hours continue with the back light on 10. That was in my living room with the heat at 68. In the real world outside at +5 turning it on and off I can go all day sometimes 2. With my FLX 28 I bet I could get 3 or 4 days of fishing. Running a Marcum LX 9 with the camera I think you would be lucky to get 10 to 12 hours continue run time. The advantage of a Lithium battery is light weight, faster recharge, more charging cycles(2000) and 100 present power untill it’s completly drained. The disadvantage cost, need for a special charger and not knowing when it’s going to run out of power (battery meter reads 100 present untill it dies)Bottom line, a battery is just a gas tank for electricity. You can’t drive 100 miles on a gallon of gas if your getting 10 mpg.

I use a 4 amp lithium on my Elite 5 and it goes forever. I use the old charger I had with the old standard 7 amp battery. Works fine.

bee wrote:

I use a 4 amp lithium on my Elite 5 and it goes forever. I use the old charger I had with the old standard 7 amp battery. Works fine.

Glad it’s working for you. It all depends on the amperage draw of what you are running. Most Lithium batteries need a charger that is made for Lithium batteries unless they have built in protection. Using a SLA charger only charges them maybe 50 to 60 percent and could damage the Lithium battery. With the cost of these batteries being so high I don’t think I would risk using a charger that isn’t made for them.

I have an fl-18 combined with an Elite 4 for GPS running off of the Ice Force lithium. Working great so far for me this season. Loving the light weight!

Quick question — The voltage meter on the LX7. Can I use that as a battery percentage meter? For example, this weekend I fished half day on Friday, all day Saturday and a half day on Sunday. Friday, the meter read 13.5v; Sunday, it read 12.2v. The meter goes all the way down to 9. Does that mean when it hits 9v, my battery is completely dead?

Sorry if this is a novice question..

Thanks for the input Daniel. Maybe knowing what I know now I may not have bought one. I just have the lx 7 and not a 9 so there is no camera being used. One thing I noticed and forgot to mention was my uncle was on this trip with us an he had a brand new lx7 with the standard battery in it and that actually lasted longer than my brand new lithium battery. Now understanding more about this stuff I get it now. So if u get a lithium battery you should expect less weight and longer life expectancy but not necessarily longer run time. And Duy if your volt meter gets down in the low 11 something or high 10. Something’s it’s about to die so be ready… I do know that one.

Ok, awesome. Thanks Mason, I have the standard battery and it lasted all weekend. Pretty impressed.

Mason grobe wrote:

Cal

I just came back from a trip to red using my new lithium ice force battery and after reading your report I’m kinda disappointed…my fully charged battery last 14 hours the first time… About a day and a half on red then it completely died and messed up my software on my lx 7. Got it working with another battery and then the problem I had was my background colors were all messed up.. So I recharged it completely and got about 12 hours on this charged with orange background with blue lines. I sent it in to marcum to get the software fixed but I’m worried the battery life isn’t as good as it really should be. Give me an idea what I should be expecting for hours off a full charge with my 7. Thanks

My test was done with a LX5, so my amp draw is certainly less. I do know in the past when running the 6 or 7 I could get a solid 2 days plus partial 3rd day depending how I ran my back light. Cold has a lot to do with battery life as well.

I fish an LX-7 and earlier this year I was able to use my lithium battery for over 20 hours of ice time without recharging (Due to not knowing where my charger was packed after moving last summer.) It actually hadn’t been charged since I put it away last Spring.

Man both you guys have gotten more out of your lithium so than I could get using mine….I was even indoors and had my backlight set to like 5 or 10 very low…I also bought the lithium charger for this and it was green each time I took it off the battery..maybe your old originals were a little better than the ones were getting now.. I don’t know what to think

I did a bunch of load/drain testing with the lithium batteries when the folks at Rapala first started looking at them. I took it upon myself to run the bamboo lithiums through the paces to verify the amp hour rating and general reliability under higher than typical drain conditions. I don’t remember the specifics exactly, but under loads pulling 2amps the batteries output nearly 10amp hours. At lighter loads (under .5amps), they exceeded (barely) the rating of 10ah.

As far as the LX7 goes, the sweet spot for saving juice is having the backlight set at 30. If I remember correctly, while set at 30, it pulls around .35 amps and there is a good falloff at that point from settings above and you don’t become exceedingly miserly going below that setting.

One thing to take special note of is if you have your units backlight set to 10, then power the lx7 off, then back on, the unit will display with the low setting, but it will drain juice at a super-rate until you press any of the buttons. Essentially if you pull it out and power it up without pressing any buttons, it’s a total power hog.

Interesting!! Never heard info like that…i think every time I turned it on I monkeyed with it a little bit like the sens or something

Thanks Luke !!!

Great insite !!!!