Compass Magnum 420 Repair Help Needed

[Functional]

Someone gave me this Compass Magnum 420 which had been "slightly" damaged in a house fire and I'd like to try and repair it myself, (since I can't afford to send it off for repair), but I'm don't have a background in electronics apart from installing car stereo's and doing automotive related soldering, etc. I'm also limited in what tools I have available. I do have a pocket sized digital multimeter and I have checked the boards while powered up, to see if there were indications of power on both boards, which there was at several points of contact.

At present I don't get any signal through the headphones, or the speaker and theres no indication from the meter to show that the machine is working. I would think that even if there were a problem with the coil that, there would at least be a beep or some sort of tone from the speaker, or headphones? And yes, I do have fresh batteries in it, which read about 9.6 volts total, (it has a battery pack that takes 6 AAA's).

I've gone over the motherboard and the daughter board, to see if there was any obvious indication of damage, or soot from the smoke during the fire, but there doesn't seem to be any and theres no odor of burnt electronics.

Heres the face of the Compass.




Below is the motherboard.




Here is the face of the daughter board.




And here is the back of the daughter board.


I didn't take a picture of the back of the motherboard, as it looked to be harder to get out and I was running short on time. If anyone has an idea of what I should be testing for, (I don't own a logic probe, or an oscilloscope and wouldn't know how to use one if I did), but I can at least check resistors and other contacts to see if they are functioning. But, I don't know which ones I should check and what setting the machine should be set for when testing them.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

F.

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Diving for Pleasure and Treasure - Grab it through Amazon!

[Functional]

Re: Compass Magnum 420 Repair SOLUTION FOUND!




Brainstorm time.


After all that fussing around, I stretched out the shaft to full length and fiddled around with the cable to the coil so that it was more or less uniformly wrapped around, then turned the machine on. Not only did the meter register, it surprised me with a welcoming BEEP! (The audio had never worked before.)


So, it looks like it was the coil cable the whole time and as soon as I find time to replace the cable, between the assorted other things I'm juggling right now, I should end up with a usable little nugget hunter. Perhaps not the best nugget hunter out there, but at least one that works. I'd been watching all those other nugget hunter MD's going up on eBay and noticing how cheap they are selling for right now, but I'm on a tight budget and have other things in the works, so I let them go until things improved with my finances. Looks like I'll be sticking with the Compass Magnum 420 for now.

If anyone has an old users manual, or just info on how to use this machine properly, feel free to post it here, or email me.

Have a good day!

F.

 

[oldestjim]

Gotcha.... Jim here.... I will keep looking... busy... send me a PM

 

[Functional]

Done.

F.

 

[Functional]

Found Compass Magnum 420 Manual

I know I mentioned this somewhere, but after about 3 months of hunting, I finally found a manual for my Compass. I had an idea of how to use my MD, but I hadn't expected the manual to have so much useful information.

To the person from another forum who found it for me. Thanks!

F.