Author Topic: Dinotte battery packs  (Read 1219 times)

vorsprung

  • Opposites Attract
    • Audaxing
Dinotte battery packs
« on: 19 January, 2009, 12:30:20 pm »
My old dinotte light (from 2006) is a 5W single front unit.  It uses 4x AA NiMh and has approx a 3 hour runtime per battery set

To start with it was ultra reliable except when I went over bumpy ground.  Adding a rubber band around the batteries cured this.  In 2007 I used it for commuting over Exmoor and noticed the first signs of trouble.  The runtime had started to diminish plus there were more problems with the unit shutting down, not on bumpy ground, just at random!  This seemed to be due to corrosion on the battery pack.  But the light still worked it wasn't a big problem

Last year, in September I think it was, I was due to do a perm 600 with IanH.  I was riding over to Ian's house before hand.  My schmidt powered light packed up in 100 metres.  I switched on the dinotte - and there was nothing.  Oh dear there goes my SR for 2008 :)

I had a good look at the dinotte since then and decided it was due to rust/corrosion/dirt on the pp3 clip and the battery holders.  I ordered some new holders and clips from maplin.  But it was obvious that simply changing the holder made the light instantly work a lot better

So my advice is if you have a year+ old dinotte, get a couple of new 4x AA battery holders.  I don't think that battery holders with pp3 clips are suited to British weather