Lighter Battery for vex

 Does anyone make a lighter lithium battery for Vex flashers? Think how sweeeeeet it would be to cut off a couple pounds from the battery weight on your finder. Mrt.

I have used my 12v milwaukee batterys for not only my Marcum but also my shanty lights. I have 4 of them and they are super easy to charge as I have 2 chargers. They are marked +/- on the top. Use regular spade terminals and they plug right in.  

I have been using my Vex charger and it works fine. Mrt.

According to their site you can use a standard 12 volt charger like vexilar or marcum use.  

Bacon

Anybody know if the Dakota lithium need a special charger

Tim, it depends on how the battery is built.  Some lithium batteries have a built in controller so all it needs is a regular 12 volt charger.  Some do not have the controller built in so you need a controlled charger for that specific sized battery.  Drill batteries need that brands particular charger.  I don't know about Dakota's.  But I think they have a controller in it.

Bacon

Do you need to buy a special lithium battery charger too?

About as light as you can get. 1.5 amp/hr

Look into a rc car battery.

For those of you trying out your drill batteries, check out buck converters or Amazon, or also look up dc-dc converters.  I've got one marcum running with a Hodge podged converter using spade terminals slide into the battery + and - ports.  Works fine. Spent 20 hours outside in negative temps and didn't even use close to half of the battery.  On my other marcum I did up a little cleaner. Same principle as the Milwaukee m18 power source mentioned in other comments.  But I used a knock off unit that was only $18 instead of $40.  I added a $0.70 buck converter the size of my thumb nail.  Had to drill a hold for my wires to come out and bolted the whole unit to the marcum carrier.  Battery slides in top load style.  And my 9ah batter will run it for days as well as be available to be used to drill holes.  I'd post photos but I don't feel like going out to the truck.  But anyone want more info or pics I would be happy to post it later.  Bacon

Just picked up a Dakota 12v 10 Ah at the Boat Doc. Now if I can only get the screws out on the bottom of my Vex to put it in the unit. I have them soaking in Liquid Wrench. Hope it works. Mrt.

Check out batteries plus. They have a lot of lithium ones that are reasonable

You could buy one of the 12v that are like half the size of the standard 7 or 9.  Just will cut down on run time.  Unless you fish 8+ hours I don't think it would run low

I'm in the process of using my Milwaukee Electric tool 18V 5ah battery for my Helix 7.  Milwaukee has a 12v power source that your 18v battery slides into. Makie up a lead with a 5mm female plug and you shave about 1/2 the weight off of a standard gel cell.

I'm actually in the process of figuring out how to use the Ryobi 40V 5Ah lithium pack from my mower, or the 40V 5AH pack from my Ion auger, for powering a vex.

These batteries weigh about 3#, and have a capacity of 180Wh.  More than double the capacity of 12V 7AH (84Wh) SLA batteries, at half the weight.

And in the case of the Ryobi battery, it just sits idle all winter.  Need to purchase an appropriately rated buck converter to create the 12V, and verify the battery protects itself from over-discharge (I hope so).

Will post results....

Looks like the standard batteries weigh about 5 plus pounds. May have to pull the trigger on one. Mrt.