Sena comm set

emr

Cheesehead Treehouser
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
2,193
Location
Neenah, Wisconsin
Hi everyone and Happy Thanksgiving to those in the US. I hope you have a great day.

We just bought the bluetooth communication sets from Treestuff and they are great. I do have one question for anyone who has them. When recharging, is it necessary to plug them into a power source that is continually on? All the the outlets in my pickup stop working when the truck is not running. I drive around enough to get them fully charged but it seems to take many short trips. Is this harmful to the battery? I think we are just going to plug them into our chip truck which has one outlet that is always on. However, I concerned about them sitting out in the cold during the winter. Any thoughts? Maybe it's best to bring them home every night during the cold winter months.

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I have plugged my Sena in to my cigarette lighter of my truck everyday after work for the last 3 years, all year long. I am not sure if intermittent charging will work or not, but there is only one way to find out.
 
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  • #3
Is your truck parked out in the cold?

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I bring mine in the house each night to charge. Would rather have the batteries warm at the start of the day.
Cold is hard on all batteries.
 
Is your truck parked out in the cold?

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Yep. We are actually in the middle of creating helmet shelves and a charging station for 10 units with a timer in the shop. This way everything will stay inside and be a little more organized.
 
I've done it both ways, but prefer a full charge and inside during cold weather.

I've found no problems with intermittent or partial charging when it was needed, but i haven't done it a lot or regularly.
 
I went down to the auto parts store and bought a under dash mount 3 station plug for the helmets. Wired it strait to the battery. I am going to do the same for the other trucks. Works a charm. No intermittent charging. Lost one battery in a module already and replaced the module (I have 5 now). We use a computer station sometimes with the USB cords. USB stations are cheap for your house sockets as well. Look into them. Better the units are not out freezing cold.
 
Our units stay in the chip truck year round and have done so for years. Might be better some other way but they still work, other than the unit that went through the chipper and the one that I left on the wheel loader during transport. Both replaced same evening.
 
TREESTUFF has the non-bluetooth components for sale for $50, FYI. I needed to order one. Somehow, groundies sometimes think everything is indestructible. The mount broke in two on one unit.


Fred, how many guys do you run? I gathered you're running big iron and growing. 10?
 
We have outlets in the heated area of the shop. I just plug mine into the cig lighter in the truck and most of the guys just take the battery home and charge it. I'm still wondering what happened to out #6 unit. We also numbered them with a paint marker so everyone knows who's is who's. Helps with multiple crews.
 
We are slowly growing Sean, nothing too crazy yet. We have four full time employees including me, and two part time employees. We have six helmet set ups and then four of the helmetless sets with just the earmuffs.
 
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  • #12
Thanks for the feedback. I might look into wiring my pickup directly to the battery too. I don't have a problem leaving the unit in there overnight because it's in my garage at home and usually doesn't get too cold in there. I'll just bring it in on nights when the beer starts freezing.

I saw the replacement parts kit from treestuff but I wasn't sure what's really included. One pic shows the speakers, but mine don't detach..... Too bad too because I figured the wires to the speakers would be the first thing to break.

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My mic was the first to break on one of the original 2 units. The wire in the boom it seems.
Lost a battery before that on number one. SMH 10 you need a new module as you can't just buy a replacement battery (but I will dig in and see if I can). $100.00 for the new module. Got a couple years on mine now I believe.
 
I ended up gluing the battery/unit together to the hard hat as popping out seemed to be becoming common.

Always charged them in the trucks just through the cig/power outlets.
 
I haven't found my hot glue gun, so I've been resorting to silver magic (duct tape). Looks fancy. ha. Seems to me that there is more often stuff directly overhead on conifers, so my radio has been knocked off more than one, always surviving, one unit losing one pin that is for a speaker, so only L ear when that is on the helmet. I have learned to give it more room, unconsciously. Being pulled off multiple times has make the little plastic barb too weak to hold the bluetooth part, after a couple years of use.
 
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