Excalibur II falsing problem in water. Whats normal?

metalhealth

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Aug 6, 2014
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My Excalibur II was purchased new approx 3 months ago. Having never owned or seen an Excalibur detector before this one, I just have some questions about what is normal. I have had the detector in freshwater 3 times and saltwater only once. My first hunt in freshwater I noticed no falsing with sensitivity set at 8 or about 10 oclock. It seemed to work fine. The second time I hunted freshwater, I had to back the sensitivity down to about 5 or around 1 oclock to keep it from falsing. Last week I had it at Hilton Head Island. The beach sand is somewhat dark there, my detector falsed like crazy. The falsing was nearly constant from ankle deep to chest deep. Even with sensitivity turned as far right as it would go, the falsing was pretty much the same. I tried it at full sensitivity, min sensitivity, in between, and auto and same result. It seemed to do just fine on wet and dry sand but went crazy in the water. I checked and reconnected my battery with no noticeable improvement. Took the coil cover off and cleaned everything and even tried hunting with the cover off but didnt seem to help. I googled to see if anyone else had mentioned a problem at Hilton Head thinking maybe it was just the beach. I found a thread where treasure_hunter had been there so I pm'd him. He said no problem he could remember and after helping me troubleshoot some, advised me to turn threshhold down where I couldnt hear the falsing as a last resort. That worked ok but I still got some falsing. There was a trough I could hunt at low tide that had maybe 2 inches of water in it in places. If I just brushed the surface of the water it would false. I had my discriminate set at 1 altho I tried it set higher also with the same result if that matters.

One thing to mention of note, I accidentally bumped my control with my scoop handle and the falsing quit for a while. I was able to turn the sensitivity to 6 or 12 oclock with almost no falsing. And then at some point later the falsing started again. I tried putting my scoop handle close to where the coil and battery wire enter the control and it would signal and the falsing would stop sometimes for a while.

So when I got home, I took it to the lake. I had to hunt in freshwater with sensitivity set on 2 which is about 2 or 3 oclock on the dial to keep it from falsing. When I google this problem, most people have found they have a cracked coil. I have inspected my coil very closely and I cant find a crack anywhere. There really shouldnt be any damage to it. Ive only had it 3 months and never hunted with the cover off and have really babied it since I got it. When I look at the coil, I do notice some places where the coating on the bottom looks like its not filled out to the edge of the coil and there is one suspicious looking little place that I took some pictures of. Having never owned one before, Im not sure how normal this is for the finish on the coil?

Im just wondering how likely it is that the beach caused my detector that much problem. I did see one other hunter there with an excalibur who wasnt hunting in the water. I didnt get to talk to him to see if he had any issues. Targets are so few and far between on that beach tho that he could very well have just considered it not worthwhile to hunt in the water. It wasnt exactly tropical there last weekend either.

Anyway, here are some pictures of my coil. The first one is an example of how the finish they put on the bottom doesnt completely fill out to the edge. The rest are all just different pictures of the same little suspicious place I described. I took several to try to get a decent look at it. Its a very small spot, but hopefully you can see it good enough to offer an opinion. Any other thoughts or advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks

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Treasure_Hunter

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penzfan

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Apr 12, 2014
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its shippd to kellyco per minelab service. will let u know the outcome.
Cool. Barry will pressure test the new coil for 24 hours before returning it to you.
 

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metalhealth

metalhealth

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Update:
mailed excalibur to kellyco on wednesday, had detector back within a week. the coil it seems was fine. they said it was acting up in saltwater tho and replaced pcb. i took it to the lake yesterday and seemed to do fine with sensitivity turned up to 7. will be a while before I have it in saltwater but hopefully it is good to go. The tones might be slightly different. I could be wrong but I dug some bottle caps yesterday that actually sounded really good. Before the repair I had gotten pretty good at recognizing bottle caps, but I got surprised quite a few times yesterday.
 

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dewcon4414

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Hard to tell by bottle caps anymore they are putting some copper in a few. That work should give you 6 mos warranty as well.
 

Treasure_Hunter

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Update:
mailed excalibur to kellyco on wednesday, had detector back within a week. the coil it seems was fine. they said it was acting up in saltwater tho and replaced pcb. i took it to the lake yesterday and seemed to do fine with sensitivity turned up to 7. will be a while before I have it in saltwater but hopefully it is good to go. The tones might be slightly different. I could be wrong but I dug some bottle caps yesterday that actually sounded really good. Before the repair I had gotten pretty good at recognizing bottle caps, but I got surprised quite a few times yesterday.

I have owned 3 excals and still own 2, tones were slightly different on all 3 and changing headphones caused tones to change again slightly.
 

jyt2017

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May 7, 2010
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Keep us posted. Sounds like it should be good. hh gl -Joe
 

chriskellyco

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You're in good hands. Our repair center is really on point.
 

Treasure_Hunter

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metalhealth

metalhealth

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Aug 6, 2014
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yes i was shocked that it came back so quickly. thanks for the great service!
 

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