Tuning up an old metal detector

[david1953]

I have a White's Coinmaster 5000/D Series 3 which I bought in 1984.

Does anybody know whether there is anything in the elctronics of this detector that might have drifted with time, causing performance degradation over time? For example, analog filter getting detuned or detector loosing balance?

If so, can these drifts be retuned for peak performance?

 

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[kenb]

I got a 5000/d from one of my customers a year or two ago and it works great. It sat in her garage for years after her husband past, he had all the original paper work with it including the receipt. It blows my bounty hunter away. Good luck with it

kenb

 

[Huizer]

The only thing I can think of is the capacitors. They have a shelf life, even more when they are not used. I think they should be ok from 1984 but I know from building guitar amps that the electrolite in the electrolytic caps can dry up. This is usually the cause of hum in an old amp (1960s to 70s) but these are filter caps and see a lot more voltage than your detector would. I always laugh to myself when i see some one on Ebay selling NOS caps.....you take a chance if you buy those. Just a thought if you want to muck around with it.
Dan.

 

[Reallydigit]

What I do with all my detectors is clean and lube the controls, jacks, battery connectors and coil pins with CAIG P-5 control lubricant. Put it on a Q-tip to clean the pins. This stuff is recognized by the largest electronic companies and it lasts alot longer than other cleaners. It's on the internet at CAIG.com

 

[luxefaire]

I learned a valuable lesson in my younger days....an old guy with a beatup compass whooped my hiney in a contest at an old abandoned house lot in Tampa, which was totally trashed. This guy, he knew his detector so well, he could hear nonferrous targets within the ferrous and his was no discriminator!

So any detector you take the time to practice with, and learn, will find you good stuff. The coinmasters are especially good to get to know because they are super powerful, super adjustable, and last a long time.

If its out of warranty and you want to experiment, you can try adding 2 more batteries to the pack, it WILL give you increased depth and power. This may cause any weak pints on the circuit board to fry though, fyi...so far I have not had that happen. I have converted c packs to D, and added 4 additional AA bateries to an old coimaster 6db whose pack already took 14 AA batteries!

!!

No kidding, but that addition of 4 more AA made a real big difference.

I also use an easy and cheap amplifier of my own design which works especially well for sound outputs on the coinmasters (Most ALL detectors actually), the plans are still for sale at www.autodidactics.com (http://www.autodidactics.com/energy.htm) and will give the user a BIG advantage. There is other good free info at that site too. People I know who use the super booster, as well as yours truly, have gone back over so-called hunted out areas, and with the extra inch or two of depth its amazing what one can find in these places. Amazing.

Good luck,

 

[rcasi44]

Don't the coinmasters have a voltage regulator on the board that limited the voltage the electronics get? I think so. As an example my Whites MXT is regulated to 8v. It doen't know if I have 13,12,11,10 or 9v in the pack. I added a 9th AA to the 8AA pack. It lasts longer because there is more MAH but it doesn't work any better.

If detectors didn't have regulator set at less than the battery pack, performance would start dropping off minutes after the batteries were used. In my example performance stays the same until the voltage drops to 8v. Rob

 

[rcasi44]

Here's some plans for audio amplifers for free. The link will get you to the patent page for metal detectors. Go down to misc. You will find two listings for plans for the amplifiers used by Depth Master. A guy I know has the bought version and it's the same as the ones on the patent page. And it is free. Rob


http://www.thunting.com/cgi-bin/geotech/pages/common/index.pl?page=metdet&file=patents.dat

 

[luxefaire]

Well I think that most circuits, and components of those circuits, especially the older models (Which this subject is addressing directly) possess what are called tolerances, and these vary from machine to machine, and sometimes the plus/minus factor is as much as a volt or two, or even more... I have also forcefully conditioned existing circuits, by intentional overload just this side of failure, but that is esoteric stuff and not recommended for the inexperienced or faint of heart....if auxiliary cooling devices are used, especially pertaining to light amplification, alongwith electrical amplification, and these happenstance are viewed in other, novel ways, without fear of experimentation, then many times new things can result.

As always, good luc, and the added batteries on some of my older detectors certainly made my personal experiments fruitful, and some others I know of have used my methods to good result too.

Bill Gallagher

 

[luxefaire]

wow that is an oldie

some people collect the real old ones...ebay is the great clearing house for all that stuff I guess, but sometimes hard to find buyer, maybe better to trade or make specialty tool

hows the coil housing? is it waterproof? sometimes these old machines can be converted to certain jobs like for use on boats as bottom probes, or for construction/plumbing work.

if it works and is not too good for coin shooting, plumbers usually like to have extra detectors hanging around
b

 

[luxefaire]

Hey fm glad to see you not banging dee hed no more

that was you eh? listen i think you gotta take that down to the classifieds!

i need detectors like that just for parts and stuff, let me know if you want to trade some good ancient bronzes for it, or one real killer ancient bronze, and how much to ship...shipping can kick booty on things like this, make it not worth it...sux

anyway, thanks for info and i will not call you josephine--heh

also you might get a kick out of this here:

http://blogs.ebay.com/billder

b