Acro battery life thread

[HCM]

Or, they will cause Aimpoint to make product improvements. I still hope ACRO works out, I just wonder if it’s not soup yet.

[farscott]

Yes


According to a Aimpoint rep, the curve is not linear it is exponential. There is exponentially more draw at max brightness then say a few clicks down.




Does anyone who knows batteries and electronics in detail know if this is due to the type of battery used?

If anyone knows how to make a low draw RDS it is Aimpoint.

Assuming the dot source is a LED, the Aimpoint rep is not correct. LED brightness (units of cd/m^2) increases linearly with current through the LED through the specified operating range. Run the LED with too little current, and the color shifts in addition to being dimmer. This is an issue with white and blue LEDs used as indicators in vehicles. Run too much current through the LED and it gets too hot, decreasing service life.

Here is the data sheet for the battery: https://www.bto.pl/pdf/06943/renata2032.pdf

The CR2032 standard current discharge is 0.4mA and the maximum continuous (leaving the sight ON on a single setting would be an example of a continuous load) specified is 3mA. This is not a lot of current. For example, indicator LEDs on vehicles are typically driven between 0.5mA (dim) and 5mA (bright). The CR2032 maximum battery life (defined as when voltage reaches 2.0V from 3.0V start) with a load that requires 0.25mA is 1000 hours (41 days, 16 hours) during usage. Using the same battery with a current of less than 0.5mA drops the battery life to less than 600 hours (25 days). To get a battery life of 5000 hours, the current has to be less than 0.05mA, which is not enough to make the dot visible in sunlight.

As such, ACRO battery life will be measured in weeks, not months. It is a function of the small cell's battery capacity and the LED current needed to make the dot visible.

[Trukinjp13]

This is just another example of why Trijicon has the auto on feature. I do not have a issue with manually setting my dot when I pick her up from being dormant. But having a lockout for the auto will be a good feature in the future.

But I imagine if Aimpoint had something similar it would help stretch that battery life. Sometimes you do not need the dot on. But it HAS to come on as soon as you pick up the optic. I hated the trs25 for this, even when it was just on the 12g for hunting. Turning a optic off and on to me is bullshit.




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[Tokarev]

One thing with the ACRO is how quickly it can be turned on. It takes a press and hold of a couple seconds to turn it off but it comes on immediately when either the up or down button is pressed. The buttons are big too.

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[Default.mp3]

I don't get your argument.. 6 months vs 2-3 weeks is a big difference for serious use. If I had the acro in Afghanistan and I had to worry about it after a week, I would of shit canned it. To each their own but it seems like you are making commissions where there shouldn't be.

I'm not saying 2 or 3 weeks is acceptable for use (I think that's an individual determination that needs to be made by the user), just that it shouldn't be seen as a surprise, given the specs of the battery used, and the current state of RDS technology; I personally believe that an RMR using the same battery would see similar run times.

[GJM]

I'm not saying 2 or 3 weeks is acceptable for use (I think that's an individual determination that needs to be made by the user), just that it shouldn't be seen as a surprise, given the specs of the battery used, and the current state of RDS technology; I personally believe that an RMR using the same battery would see similar run times.

I think most of us thought battery life would be a non issue given this was an Aimpoint, not an Eotech, and the only listed duration in the specifications was 1.5 years. User reports from the field was the first hint of a battery problem with this product. Aimpoint should have provided battery duration information for the settings users were likely to use, so we could be informed as to whether the Acro would meet our needs, and so we could plan for battery changes rather than be surprised when our optic died.

[Default.mp3]

I think most of us thought battery life would be a non issue given this was an Aimpoint, not an Eotech, and the only listed duration in the specifications was 1.5 years. User reports from the field was the first hint of a battery problem with this product. Aimpoint should have provided battery duration information for the settings users were likely to use, so we could be informed as to whether the Acro would meet our needs, and so we could plan for battery changes rather than be surprised when our optic died.

I guess the lesson here is, read the spec sheet first at the very least. An EOTech EXPS3 running off a CR1225 would probably have battery life measured in hours, or possibly even minutes; my interpolation says it takes less than 20 hours for setting 12 to deplete a CR1225, whatever brightness that is (since EOTech claims 600 hours for that setting, and there are apparently 30 settings on an EXPS3, 20 of which are supposedly daylight bright). I agree that it would be nice that if Aimpoint put the battery life for setting 8 or 9, but setting 6 seemed pretty obvious to me to not be really usable in daylight, analogous to their posting of setting 8 out of 12 for the T-2 for 5 years (although there they also put the battery life for position 10, which is 10 months, substantially shorter than position 8 despite only 2 setting difference).

[JHC]

I think most of us thought battery life would be a non issue given this was an Aimpoint, not an Eotech, and the only listed duration in the specifications was 1.5 years. User reports from the field was the first hint of a battery problem with this product. Aimpoint should have provided battery duration information for the settings users were likely to use, so we could be informed as to whether the Acro would meet our needs, and so we could plan for battery changes rather than be surprised when our optic died.

What if this were Glock eh?

[GJM]

I guess the lesson here is, read the spec sheet first at the very least. An EOTech EXPS3 running off a CR1225 would probably have battery life measured in hours, or possibly even minutes; my interpolation says it takes less than 20 hours for setting 12 to deplete a CR1225, whatever brightness that is (since EOTech claims 600 hours for that setting, and there are apparently 30 settings on an EXPS3, 20 of which are supposedly daylight bright). I agree that it would be nice that if Aimpoint put the battery life for setting 8 or 9, but setting 6 seemed pretty obvious to me to not be really usable in daylight, analogous to their posting of setting 8 out of 12 for the T-2 for 5 years (although there they also put the battery life for position 10, which is 10 months, substantially shorter than position 8 despite only 2 setting difference).

It pains me to be comparing an Aimpoint product to an Eotech. For a decade or more, all I have heard is how poor battery life is on an Eotech, and how that is largely disqualifying for serious use. As bad as Eotech battery life was, short battery life is far easier to deal with on a carbine, than on a pistol that is worn continuously.

We have had RMR units out there for years, and when used as designed, their battery lasts a year or several years. Aimpoint batteries have lasted for years in their other red dot optics. Who would have thought that Aimpoint, known as the leader in battery life, would release a product, when used as we do with a pistol optic, that has battery life that is a fraction of the product they are competing with — the RMR.

Frankly, the Acro has been a hot mess since day one. It has been a couple years late, since first rumored to be released, and what ten months since it appeared on the Aimpoint website. For months, nobody has been able to get any straight info out of Aimpoint as to when units would ship. Then the users discover the battery life sucks. The product specs even if technically correct are clearly misleading. And we users are practically going to have to treat the Acro like an Apple Watch.

The Acro was supposed to be the product that finally brought the PMO to mainstream LE and EDC use, and my gut is this short battery life issue will keep it from being widely successful, and the Acro will turn out to be just another transitional product, hopefully soon to be superseded by something better.

[Sigfan26]

It pains me to be comparing an Aimpoint product to an Eotech. For a decade or more, all I have heard is how poor battery life is on an Eotech, and how that is largely disqualifying for serious use. As bad as Eotech battery life was, short battery life is far easier to deal with on a carbine, than on a pistol that is worn continuously.

We have had RMR units out there for years, and when used as designed, their battery lasts a year or several years. Aimpoint batteries have lasted for years in their other red dot optics. Who would have thought that Aimpoint, known as the leader in battery life, would release a product, when used as we do with a pistol optic, that has battery life that is a fraction of the product they are competing with — the RMR.

Frankly, the Acro has been a hot mess since day one. It has been a couple years late, since first rumored to be released, and what ten months since it appeared on the Aimpoint website. For months, nobody has been able to get any straight info out of Aimpoint as to when units would ship. Then the users discover the battery life sucks. The product specs even if technically correct are clearly misleading. And we users are practically going to have to treat the Acro like an Apple Watch.

The Acro was supposed to be the product that finally brought the PMO to mainstream LE and EDC use, and my gut is this short battery life issue will keep it from being widely successful, and the Acro will turn out to be just another transitional product, hopefully soon to be superseded by something better.

They should have made it a rechargeable battery that used a USBc (like the Surefire Stiletto). Just plug it in.


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