Excaliber II problem

[Tenderfoot]

I'm hunting with an Excaliber II with a 10" coil in the salt water of st Martin. Recently the unit will not quiet down no matter what settings I've used. I've tried auto and manual discrimination. I've tried adjusting sensitivity no luck. Just swinging the coil makes it sound like there's clad under the coil. If I scrape the sand I get the same tone. If a wave comes even though I'm in waist deep water the coil reacts. I get deep tones like on pull tabs but nothing else. Any suggestions? Could it be the battery pack?

 

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[signal]

The only thing I can think of is make sure you clean the coil, which would mean removing the coil cover if your using one. Give it a good rinse in fresh water. If you still have these types of problems I would say send it in. Excals do start to act strange when the battery is very low, so that is a good thing to check, certainly you have a spare battery? If not, you should get one, either the NiMH or the alkaline.

 

[Tenderfoot]

I rinse the unit thoroughly after each hunt including removing the coil cover. It's a bummer because I sent it in this summer knowing I would be coming here for 7 weeks. I have 2 rechargeable packs and 1 aa pack. This happens mostly with the rechargeable even though I charge them after 6 hours of use. I even purchased a 220v - 110 v converter as the charger supplied with the unit is only for 110v. I'm baffled

 

[Sandman]

Try applying some silicone grease to the threads and cable to the battery connector plug. Keep the grease off the prongs.

 

[bigscoop]

Get some contact cleaner and clean both ends of the battery pod connection. Remove the seal on the detector side (males) to make sure no trapped water is creating a short between the two post. This probably isn't your problem but I have had this happen to me on one or two occasions. If the problem still exist try the AA pack with new alkaline batteries and see if this works. Some of what your describing is normal on certain beaches, i.e., waves going over coil and scraping the ground. Where is your sensitivity set at?

PS: In a pinch a little rubbing alcohol and q-tips will work when cleaning connector seal, post, and battery pod sleeves.

 

[Sir Gala Clad]

Water/corrosion may have gotten between the terminals of the battery pod.
If you have not done so already, carefully remove the circular rubber seal that is over the
Terminals of the battery pod and gently clean between terminals as well as the terminals
While looking for corrosion. After cleaning put a thin coating of silicon grease between the terminals on the battery pad and where the rubber seal will set. Use the silicon grease sparingly, being sure that the silicon grease is not on top of the seal to where it could attract sand.
This should be done periodically, before the Excal ll starts to get chatty.

You may be swinging the coil in an arch (pendulum) rather than level, which results in false signal(s).

Your sensitivity should be reduced to the subaqua range when shallow water detecting to reduce false signals from waves. Hearing a false signal generated by a passing wave is not unusual. This is not a
Problem as it is easy to tell this type of false signal – or just let the wave pass before sweeping your coil.

Unless, I am detecting above sharp coil, or jagged metal, I don’t use a coil cover as it is a pain to
constantly clean and the only damage that has occurred to my coil is an indention in the bottom from
a very large hard grain of sand/shell which got between the coil cover, aka skid plate and the search coil.

I'm hunting with an Excaliber II with a 10" coil in the salt water of st Martin. Recently the unit will not quiet down no matter what settings I've used. I've tried auto and manual discrimination. I've tried adjusting sensitivity no luck. Just swinging the coil makes it sound like there's clad under the coil. If I scrape the sand I get the same tone. If a wave comes even though I'm in waist deep water the coil reacts. I get deep tones like on pull tabs but nothing else. Any suggestions? Could it be the battery pack?

 

[lost items recovery]

I could be way off here but check to see if you have any cracks in your coil cable wire insulation jacket. Hard to tell from your description but almost sounds like you may have a bad coil. Hope not!

 

[ARC]

Justa tip...
Silicone should be removed... from both ends PRIOR to charge...
all parts concerning the battery connection should be thoroughly and carefully cleaned prior to charging.
Salt in any form in or on terminals when charging can create short... reduced charge... faulty charge and even has been blamed on a fire.
After charged silicone should be re-applied using q-tip to both sides of grommet ONLY.
Like surgery... This should be done very carefully as to avoid ripping grommet and also over use of silicone.
This should be done EVERY time you charge it.

 

[meMiner]

Try it with new AA quality batteries. Make sure the contacts for the coil wire and the battery have no issues. 90% of the time this will solve the issue any detector (I don't have an excel). Since you cleaned out the coil/coil cover, it is not that. I never had any issue with a CZ in St.Martin in the places I tried, so it is not the area/ground. Hope you don't need a repair...

 

[OBN]

Try hunting in Pin Point...

If your running a full charged battery then it is the coil..

 

[metalhealth]

This sounds exactly like my excal II was doing. Mine was fine on wet sand but even brushing the sand or water made it false like crazy. It even started doing it in fresh water tho not as bad. I could be in 3 feet of water and just a small swell of water at the surface caused it to false. Swinging it at any depth also caused falsing. Minelab had me send it to kellyco. They tested the coil and said it was fine but was definitely acting up in saltwater. They replaced the pcb and it seems to be fine now tho I've not had it back in saltwater yet. They had it back to me in less than a week from the day I mailed it.

 

[Tenderfoot]

Thanks to everyone all the advice. I did use marine grease on the seal but was not very careful not to get it on the contacts. I will thoroughly clean the contacts and be more careful putting it together next time. Kellyco just 3 months ago did an entire maintenance on it so I'm hoping it's not anything major. Being in St. Martin I can't send it to them until I get back to the states. That leaves me with 5 more weeks with nothing to do but go to the bars. Ugly thought.

 

[meMiner]

Oh, I feel your pain. I would go crazy if I was spending 5 weeks there without a working detector. I only detected St.Martain once (for two weeks) and the thing I needed was dive weights. I got beaten up pretty good by the waves. I would hear a "good" target (or a pulltab) and then get picked up and dropped (or flipped) somewhere else. At least, I was detecting. Anyway, if I were in your shoes, I would find a way to get a backup detector quickly. Either order one (new or used) and have it shipped (deal with customs/duty) or find somebody who is coming down and have them bring it along.

 

[jyt2017]

Its not the coil cover. While sand in coil cover can effect the performance of the machine, virtually no amount of sand can make it go nuts like that.

Charge battery for a good few hours. Try that. Make sure your coil wire is wrapped right. Basically, use nylon zipties or velcro and go straight up shaft. Don't start wrapping wire until its atleast halfway up shaft. Only leave enough wire exposed for coil movement.

Take a close look at machine for cracks too...top to bottom.

If its not your battery, coil wrap, or sand in coil and its still doing it. Get an rma from ml and send her out. :[. Hope its just a minor thing you can fix quickly. hh gl -Joe

I'm hunting with an Excaliber II with a 10" coil in the salt water of st Martin. Recently the unit will not quiet down no matter what settings I've used. I've tried auto and manual discrimination. I've tried adjusting sensitivity no luck. Just swinging the coil makes it sound like there's clad under the coil. If I scrape the sand I get the same tone. If a wave comes even though I'm in waist deep water the coil reacts. I get deep tones like on pull tabs but nothing else. Any suggestions? Could it be the battery pack?

 

[metalhealth]

Thanks to everyone all the advice. I did use marine grease on the seal but was not very careful not to get it on the contacts. I will thoroughly clean the contacts and be more careful putting it together next time. Kellyco just 3 months ago did an entire maintenance on it so I'm hoping it's not anything major. Being in St. Martin I can't send it to them until I get back to the states. That leaves me with 5 more weeks with nothing to do but go to the bars. Ugly thought.

When mine was acting up like that, I was able to hunt with it by turning the threshold down low enough to where it wasn't audible and it got rid of most of the chatter. Obviously that's not optimal but it allowed me to be able to hunt. I still got some noise but at least I could identify a repeatable signal with it. Don't know if that would work for u but something to try anyway. Hope u get it straightened out.

 

[rons1947]

I have sent my Excal.2 in for repair several times,since I bought it in 2009,and most of the problems were because of the coil.Many times,the coil was falsing over the dry sand,wet sand and in the water.No adjustments that I made would solve the problem.

 

[penzfan]

My Sand Shark did exactly the same thing last year and it was a leaking coil...

 

[slider66]

my minelab 1000 was acting up really bad and it turned out to be a bad connection on the inside of the power plug feeding the main control unit. Where the silver connector feeds the wire into the control unit. You might try jiggling the cords that feed the coil and power into the control unit to see if that makes a change in the tones.

 

[lost items recovery]

My Sand Shark did exactly the same thing last year and it was a leaking coil...

Re SandShark leak
Had that problem about 3 times and headphones twice. Asked them to seal where the wires come into the control box but it came back unsealed. Brought it out and it leaked into the control box and onto the PCB. They eventually sent a brand new machine sealed in the box and I saw my out.
Turned it in to my local dealer for credit towards a different machine. Great customer service though.

 

[wecandigit]

Water in the coil?