New SE goes bad.........A Holiday and Its BROKEN...

[billjustbill]

New SE goes bad.........A Holiday and It's BROKEN...

I bought the SE in April. It's been out about a dozen times...

Here it is Labor Day, and early this morning I'm detecting for about 45 minutes in a park detecting on a fully charged battery.

I'm using a 5" coil from Kellyco when suddenly the tones CHANGE. It starts with all low tones as it is swept from side to side sounding as if it were on pinpoint. I'm getting a lower sound, like a screwcap or a new penny, but the computer moving box is in the upper righthand corner showing me it's a large silver coin. What sound would normally tell me it's trash like an eyelet from a plastic tarp, or a new penny, the recovery is a new quarter...

Over a period of another 30 minutes, I try turning it off and holding the ON button down so factory resets kick in....NO CHANGE in tone. I then go back to the car and change back to the standard 10" factory coil with NO CHANGE in tone.

Tone will change to a somewhat of a higher pitch when another quarter is found and pinpointing gets closer or farther away, but no more high pitch sounds. Plus now the computer box on the screen shifts showing only the full lefthand side of the box not matching the correct high tones. When the screen's computer box starts shifting over to screwcaps or new pennies zone, it's now matching that odd tone, but a dime or quarter is found.

I've reset it twice, changed coils, and even used different quarters in front of the coil, but something is wrong... What Happened? What can I do... It's a holiday and I'm stuck in the house with a NEW but BROKEN $1,200 detector.... HELP...

Bill

 

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[Captn SE]

Re: New SE goes bad.........A Holiday and It's BROKEN...

Bill,

Please tell me what the following settings on your SE are:

Threshold Tone??
Variability??
Limits??
Sounds - Conduct or Ferrous ??

Thanks,
CAPTN SE
Dan

 

[billjustbill]

Re: New SE goes bad.........A Holiday and It's BROKEN...

Thanks for responding Capt.,

Threshold Tone?? 5
Variability?? 8
Limits?? 10
Sounds - Conduct or Ferrous ?? Conduct

Anything else you might need?

Thanks, Bill

 

[billjustbill]

Re: New SE goes bad.........A Holiday and It's BROKEN...

By doing a "Factory Preset" reset by also pressing the noise run-through and pressing the Detect button 3 or 4 times, I did get it back to normal...

Would you go ahead and tell me what you are looking for with those numbers you needed? The SE doesn't have that high pitch squeal like my old XS did when it hit large silver/clad coins or rings. And with the 3/4 of the cursor in the top right corner with my XS, the SE's sounds are pitched lower for the same silver and a larger amount of the cursor box shows.

Mostly before it started the sound change, I had found $3.77 in coins: 12 pennies, 6 dimes, 6 nickels, and 11 quarters, plus a small silver necklace with a 1" hollow silver heart. It might have been a better day if it hadn't had it's tantrum....

What else do I need to learn about the SE?

Thanks for any help you can share.

Bill

 

[Iron Patch]

Re: New SE goes bad.........A Holiday and It's BROKEN...

Bill, I hope someone else will jump in but I would expect the sounds to be very close, if not the same on the SE compared to the previous Explorers. The detector sounds pretty wacked but two other things you want to do is eliminate a sunray probe if you use one, and change to alk. batteries if you are running the charger pack. Basically you have to narrow it down as much as possible to determine if it's the detector or something else. Also try yanking out the battery during start up, when the detector is playing it's tune quickly take the battery out. Put it back in holding the power button to restart. I once had an XS that locked up and acted funny and I had to do it ten times to correct the problem.

Has this detector always worked the same? Always the lower than normal tones? ...and if it did was there a turning point that made it worse... which was? Don't mean to hit you with a million questions but it's just a process that has to be done to get to the bottom of things. No guarantee but worth a try since you're stuck with a broken unit.

(Also make sure your plug is tightly connected into the housing)

 

[billjustbill]

Re: New SE goes bad.........A Holiday and It's BROKEN...

Has this detector always worked the same? Always the lower than normal tones?
It started out on quarters and showing them in the top right-hand corner, but the pitch was not the high-pitched squeal I always heard on my healthy XS. I'm running the SE in Fast Response and Deep on both the 5" and the 10" coils because of the public grounds are so trashy with years of flea market vendors. The public park is cleaner only because 2 years ago it got a facelift and the half block area was recontoured with grading and loads of new soil for a higher and more level playground equipment area.


...and if it did was there a turning point that made it worse... which was? For the record, the SE has never been wet or left in a hot car.... Today was the turning point to the deeper sounds and the cursor beginning to locate over between the blacked out zone and the normal location of silver coins. Oddly, I wear an ArtCarved 14kt wedding band, size 12 by 5/16" wide. This SE has always shown the ring in that screwcap/new penny zone. I have a college ring with 14kt stamped inside, on these type of large gold rings, it has that flutey sound in that same high cursor zone, not even close to the lower down Nickel or pulltab zone

Don't mean to hit you with a million questions but it's just a process that has to be done to get to the bottom of things.

It came two weeks before the SE Pro came out, so it was shipped with the slimline 10" coil. I'm finding that pinpointing with that coil the actual coin/object is toward the center rear of the coil...Is that normal?

No guarantee but worth a try since you're stuck with a broken unit. I'm always on a learning curve with this SE, so keep asking anything that pops into your head!!

Thanks for your time and help, Bill

 

[Iron Patch]

Re: New SE goes bad.........A Holiday and It's BROKEN...

Bill, was it a Sovereign you were using before? Or an Exporer? I was just assuming it was an Explorer.

If it was an Explorer I don't think there is any learning curve going to the SE, I used one for a few minutes and it was just like using an XS, or EX II.

 

[billjustbill]

Re: New SE goes bad.........A Holiday and It's BROKEN...

No, it was a 2000 model Explorer XS.

The SE tones on this new detector are a lower key in pitch when compared to a working XS. Also, the "Blank squeal" when the object is just under the short green grass, was different to my XS as it didn't have that feature/tone.

I don't use the double digital side of the detector, I just use the sound and checking it with the cursor's reference.

Does your SE sound and have the high cursor zonethe way mine does with large gold rings?

Bill

 

[Iron Patch]

Re: New SE goes bad.........A Holiday and It's BROKEN...

Bill, we'll need someone to post about the sounds that has used both an XS (or II) and an SE. I wouldn't think there would be a big difference in sounds but I can't say 100% not really having used an SE. You should post a new topic asking if the sounds are the same. If they are than we know without doubt there is something very wrong and have a starting point to figure out what's wrong.

 

[Captn SE]

Re: New SE goes bad.........A Holiday and It's BROKEN...

I'm running the SE in Fast Response and Deep on both the 5" and the 10" coils because of the public grounds are so trashy with years of flea market vendors.

Bill, I don't think this is your problem with the tone shift/difference, but I was told by a Minelab tech never to use both filters (FAST and DEEP) ON at the same time, even though it is possible to do so with your machine. He said you will get unexpected results with your machine having both filters ON. I set FAST and DEEP both OFF (the default setting), and I hunt in pretty trashy areas. Having FAST ON will make your machine too chirpy on deeper signals, causing you to miss a good, deeper target, while DEEP ON will slow the machine down too much, causing a slight delayed reaction on tone/ID responsiveness. More processor power is being used by the Explorer to arrive at a more accurate ID when the DEEP filter is On, thus creating a sluggish recovery speed. I have found silver/deep targets with Fast On, and I have found silver/deep targets with Deep On. The SE manual states that having both FAST/DEEP ON will create a response with less accurate discrimination and target ID, create amplified signals on smaller targets, and have the response time similar to FAST/DEEP both Off. I'd stay with the default setting of both filters OFF.

I like my Variability setting at the Max, which is 10. With Variability and Limits set to 10, you should get the highest pitched tone on silver dime/clad quarter hits with a properly functioning machine. I've heard also that setting the threshold tone to a value other than the default will cause all the tones of the machine to change their pitch, being higher or lower than you're used to hearing. But a setting of 5 is the default for your machine. So you should be okay there.

It came two weeks before the SE Pro came out, so it was shipped with the slimline 10" coil. I'm finding that pinpointing with that coil the actual coin/object is toward the center rear of the coil...Is that normal?

Yes!

As for gold signals, they could be anywhere on your screen. Don't expect them to all be at one particular area of your display. Some will hit down by nickels(even lower), while others will hit real high like a quarter/half dollar. I have found gold rings/jewelry from the lowest of tone(small gold charms/thin rings) to the highest of tone(large 22-24K rings).

HH,
CAPTN SE
Dan

 

[Iron Patch]

Re: New SE goes bad.........A Holiday and It's BROKEN...

One of the best hunters I know with an Explorer uses both fast and deep at the same time and he has no issues. The problems posted above do not seem like settings, and the proof was it still acting up after a reset.

Problems can be tough to sort out online especially if it's something like a bad board.