All the metal detector companies appear to be uninterested in making a waterproof gold detector and having recently very nearly drowned my Fisher gold bug I decided to take one big step back and make up a waterproof housing for a Minelab FT16000. I chose this detector for two reasons one because it has automatic ground tracking and second because Minelab make a waterproof coil that is suitable for the 16000. The coil is the TS 800 and is made for the Musketeer range of Minelab detectors but it will work on the 16000 but is not suitable for the 17000 18000 etc. I did try using the Fisher Gold Bug in the waterproof housing but the need to constantly retune the ground balance made it just about impossible to use with the unit sealed up.

I have just completed the construction and initial test of the waterproof housing and it worked fine. I didn't find any gold but I sure cleaned up a lot of rubbish in one of the local creeks. The waterproof housing is a 6inch diameter tube of PVC pipe with a screw cap on one end and two sealed exit tubes on a cap on the other end. One exit is for the coil lead and the other is for the headphones. The headphones are a second hand set from a Minelab SD2000 (which I am assured are the same as the waterproof ones used on the Excalibur) Using these headphones does have one drawback in that it looks as if I will have to use an amplifier because of the weak audio. The 16000 is not as sensitive as the gold bug but will still find reasonably small bits of gold at a reasonable depth. The unit is not suitable for diving as the housing floats on the surface but is ok in water up to about 5 feet in depth. I may have to put some sort of float on the armrest so that there is no strain on the coil lead while digging in deep water.

Further testing will be needed to prove just how useful the system will be. I am reasonably happy with the way the system worked last weekend but it will probably need some more refinments in the future.

Is there anyone out there with further information or ideas on waterproof gold detectors??

Cheers Steve D

• Re: Waterproof gold detector RockChuk 18:26:56 1/27/99 (0)
• Re: Waterproof gold detector RATTLESNAKEJIM 07:20:05 1/27/99 (1)
  • Re: Waterproof gold detector Steve D 13:15:37 1/27/99 (0)