Turtle beach x41 headset draining brand new aaa batteries

[Duane343]

Hi guys, I came here to try to find an answer to a problem I am having with my turtle beach x41 gaming headset. Recently they have started to drain brand new aaa batteries in an about half an hour to 45 minutes. They used to last for about 4 or 5 days of pretty heavy usage. I am not savy with this stuff but I thought I would give it a try. Any Ideas

 

[rjenkinsgb]

Are you using the same make of batteries from the same supplier?
Different types of AAA can have massively different capacity and there are fakes of some big name ones like Duracell..

 

[audioguru]

Chinese "Super Heavy Duty" batteries have a short life, use Name-Brand alkaline cells.
The Energizer alkaline cells recently on sale in local grocery stores are 5 years old which would be weaker than newer batteries.

 

[JonSea]

Chinese "Super Heavy Duty" batteries have a short life, use Name-Brand alkaline cells.

You will have to excuse audioguru's bigotry and hostility towards the Chinese. He apparently can't refrain from it.

I believe he meant to say that "heavy duty" (carbon zinc) and "super heavy duty" (zinc chloride) cells from any source, including reputable manufacturers, have substantially less power than alkaline cells. The info below is from Wikipedia.

 

[audioguru]

The Dollar Store sells Sunbeam very inexpensive Super Heavy Duty batteries from "over there". They are labelled carbon zinc the same as batteries were 50 years ago.
This website https://michaelbluejay.com/batteries/disposable.html lists all the disposable batteries and says:

(SUPER) HEAVY DUTY. These use the newer method, Zinc Chloride, which offers 2-3x the capacity of Leclanché batteries, better performance at lower temperatures, and are less prone to leaking. They were "Heavy Duty" compared to Leclanché batteries when they were introduced decades ago, but compared to modern batteries, "Heavy Duty" are really "Super Extremely Light Duty". Leclanché batteries are ordinary old carbon zinc.

Most Super Heavy Duty batteries listed on ebay say Carbon Zinc.

I watched a test of 8 AAA batteries on You Tube. Super Heavy duty and Alkaline. The testers were toy cars.
One Super Heavy Duty failed at half an hour.
Another Super heavy duty lasted about 1 hour.
Duracell Alkaline failed, then Harbour Freight Alkaline then Energizer Alkaline then Rayovac alkaline then a no-name-brand Alkaline.
The Sunbeam Chinese Alkaline from The Dollar Store beat them all lasting almost 9 hours.

 

[JonSea]

.....The Sunbeam Chinese Alkaline from The Dollar Store beat them all lasting almost 9 hours.....

How can this possibly be after all your disparaging remarks about the Chinese? Perhaps you should tone down your bigotry.

 

[Duane343]

I used to use mostly Energizer high quality but I have tried them and others. The problem is not with the batteries but with the turtle beach x41 headset. I have taken it apart and it doesn't seem to have anything obvious causing it but I don't really know what I am looking at either.

 

[rjenkinsgb]

Unfortunately, it's not possible to give any definite answer without doing hands-on testing.
(That's why I was hoping it was something trivial like bad batteries..)

You could possibly see if there is any component getting noticeably warm?
Something must be taking a lot more power than it used to & if it's enough, you may be able to feel it.

If so, post photos and indicate what the warm part is.

 

[alec_t]

Looks like you're not the first person to dislike the short battery life of that headset.

 

[dknguyen]

How can this possibly be after all your disparaging remarks about the Chinese? Perhaps you should tone down your bigotry.

Indeed. It's one thing to point out poor manufacturing quality or unreliable sources when it could a problem. It's another thing to repeatedly immediately blame the problem on something being made in China, almost like you WANT that to be the problem, and then remark that there was too much rice in the battery or alloys. It's going so far that details in the OP's post that likely rule out such a problem are ignored or assumptions that lead to this conclusion are made when insufficient information is provided.

 

[audioguru]

The headset user at You Tube also had a problem with short battery life so he converted his wireless headset power to be corded with a plugin.

The battery test video shows that ONE Chinese battery won, and it was not a 200 years old carbon zinc type but was a modern (maybe Japanese) alkaline type. If I tested batteries then I would test at least a few on each kind, not just one.

My American Energizer AAA alkaline batteries say they are made for Energizer not made by Energizer. Energizer Ni-MH batteries say they are made in Japan for Energizer not made by Energizer. Maybe Chinese battery companies like Sunbeam also have high quality batteries made for them by a Japanese, American or European battery company.

Rice? Then how come Chinese batteries are so lightweight?? Have you seen the video of a Chinese Lithium battery cell that was mostly full of flour:

 

[Duane343]

I know the batteries get very warm as they quickly get drained. Will put in another set and take it apart to see if there is any other parts getting warm. Thanks

 

[JonSea]

Maybe Chinese battery companies like Sunbeam also have high quality batteries made for them by a Japanese, American or European battery company.

Or perhaps everything the Chinese make is not crap, just like all Canadians are not close-minded bigots.

The Chinese manufacture some high quality innovative stuff. The ESP8266 based wifi modules are a simple example of of a product taking the world by storm.

 

[audioguru]

Or perhaps everything the Chinese make is not crap

We were talking about cheap Chinese Super Heavy Duty batteries.
WalMart discontinued selling Sunbeam Super Heavy Duty because they got bad reviews.
Amazon are also getting bad reviews for them like this, "Super Heavy Duty is a complete joke. It's a totally out dated and laughable distinction. These things won't give you any kind of acceptable performance if your device draws more than the tiniest trickle of energy."

 

[Dr_Doggy]

maybe use an amp-meter to see how many amps the headphones are draining ... there could be a short circuit on the power wire in there ... if you feel brave to pull them apart ... although it could b inside a chip to ... not as eazy to fix