Thread: GME battery life

Just ordered a set of the tx6160.
What does everyone do about charging them over a few days in the bush?
I guess they may not use much power when on standby,but not sure.
TIA.

Battery will last 2 days will very minimal use from memory.
They use the juice when transmitting.
Not sure how long they'd last with heavy use.
They have removable batteries right? Pretty sure you could buy a spare if you think you'd need it.

Mine last 4.5 days with constant use

Yeah spare battery would be best option, but they are nearly the price of a complete radio.
Just wondered if someone used a power bank or solar system to charge.

Originally Posted by 7mmsaum

Mine last 4.5 days with constant use

Crazy, the specs say 30 hours on low power

Originally Posted by BushChook

Crazy, the specs say 30 hours on low power

Try turning it off when you are asleep.

Originally Posted by Ross Nolan

Try turning it off when you are asleep.

Duh, but 15 hrs on high power, over 4.5 days would be 3 hrs or so a day.

Just had mine out for 10 days hunting

When the two groups seperated we did hourly schedules when we switched on at the top of the hour
Left them on occasionally

Put them on the charger this morning and only started on orange ( red is more discharged ) and one went green in no time.

So with care you can get several weeks out of them

You can't charge the GME batteries using the cradle and a barrel plug from a 5V USB device. I asked the question to GME tech support once. Here is their reply. "The GME TX61 series of radios use a 7.2V Lithium battery which requires a larger voltage to charge using the supplied charger base.

A 1A minimum 12V supply is required or the battery charge circuit doesn’t work properly. The USB step up device would not work properly, and I notice it draws a lot of current off the 5v source to do that even.

A step-up device to supply 12V @ 1A off a 5V source would draw more current than the international USB standard requiring current of about 3-4A . Typically more current drawn from the 5V USB will shut down most supply devices as they see it as an overload / short circuit.

A small 12V 4Ahr sealed Lead Acid or GEL cell will give you many top ups or a few full charges depending on temp and battery condition."

I've heard from a mate he got a battery bank to charge one once, but it was cooking his battery bank with the high Amps as indicated above. You'll ruin a high quality battery bank trying to do it, or it won't work at all. I use an Ecoflow these days for 10+ day fly in trips. You have the benefit of a battery % indicator on start up with the 6160 series. If it says 60P when you turn it on, it's telling you that you have 60% battery remaining. As stated above though, they suck the juice when transmitting, and they fall off at the end very quickly. Once you drop to 2 bars on the battery indicator you'll only get a few decent transmissions before cutting out.

Regards, Joel