Still Confused Part II

[saanich2018]

This is continuation of my thread called, Still Confused.

I have been getting weird readings and my unit has been acting strange lately.

I talked to Minelab and they said to adjust the recovery speed and the sensitivity.

Well, this evening I went out and did just that. I went back to the same school yard I have been going to try to learn this unit.

The first few times I went to this playing field, I was getting good numbers and tones and finding all sorts of coins and ear rings and the assorted trash.

However, it seems to be going down hill fast. Tonight my 800 kept getting stuck at 15 with a high tone. I could walk away from where I was standing and/or raise it up in the air and it just held the tone. I would finally have to hit the reject button to make it stop. Plus, it seem like the only signals I am getting are between 8 and 10, or 39. Adjusting the sensitivity or recovery speed made no difference. It locked into the 15 mode about three times in an hour.

Is it time to tell Minelab there is something seriously wrong with my unit - or is it me?

By the way, I left my cell phone in the car tonight.

Thanks

 

[Dan(NM)]

Your Equinox is sick and needs to go see the doctor, I suggest you call and make arrangements to send it in. Have you tried doing a factory reset? If you have and it's still acting up, you need to call Jamie at Minelab and get a RA number.

 

[saanich2018]

Yes on Factory Reset.

 

[Dan(NM)]

I'd be calling Minelab first thing in the morning and get the ball rolling to get it to the repair center.

 

[smokeythecat]

Yup, another sick Equinox. Call Dr. Minelab.

 

[HighVDI]

Probably a bad coil like pa dirt nc sand had.

 

[vferrari]

Yes. Call ML.

 

[saanich2018]

Call Jamie at Minelab this morning.

She said to send the head and the coil in for service.
Very nice. Sent me the RMA number and the return UPS label.

Unit is already on its way.

I will keep you informed.

Thanks everyone.

 

[pa-dirt_nc-sand]

I had the same problem, they returned it with a new coil within a week.

 

[saanich2018]

Well, Minelab sent my 800 back to me today and said they could not find anything wrong with it or rather they could not make it lock up.

However, they said the next time it locks up to take a video of it for them. ??

I am going to the beach Saturday, so I will see what happens.

 

[A2coins]

Nothing stuck in your coil or coil cover

 

[saanich2018]

Not that we can find or identify

I found it interesting in that they did not say it did not happen, but just video it the "next" time.

 

[BLK HOLE]

Re-Creation of a fault can be tricky, I think it is so cool that with the technologies we have today you can use your phone to make a video of the fault real time giving the techs a new thread to pull when the standard diagnostics fail. I wish you the best of luck!

 

[smokeythecat]

It's kind of like cars. When they work, they're fine. When they die intermittently it takes an act of God to find the problem.

 

[pa-dirt_nc-sand]

Luckily when I sent mine in they were able to duplicate the “stuck in low tone” problem I had and sent me a new coil that was the solution. Good luck at the beach!

 

[saanich2018]

Well, let me give you a quick update.
I am at the beach with my 800 and have spent about seven hours with it so far.

During this time period I have recorded 17 videos of my unit malfunctioning.
I have talked to John at Minelab and he agrees there is something bad wrong with my unit and they will probably just replace it.

It is doing things like changing from detect mode to pinpoint mode on its own.

In pinpoint mode it will freeze up and give me a steady loud hum or buzzing, even if the unit is pointed straight up in the air.

Then yesterday, it started turning itself completely off and the only way I can turn it back on is to disconnect the coil.

So it goes back to Minelab next week when I get home.

In the mean time, when it is working correctly I have been finding lots of stuff.

However, what I do not understand is why it will not detect certain things. There was another person on the beach with a cheap Discovery unit and he was able to detect stuff I was not. He found things like metal matchbox cars and metal toys, where my unit will not detect them at all. His unit screams when it finds them. I even ran my unit over a metal toy car sitting on top of the sand and it did not register at all. The same thing when I passed over a small fishing net with a metal ring around the net. Nothing.

I have repeatedly done the FP. The noise cancel is usually between -1 and -4. The ground balance is "0". I am using beach mode 1 and 2. Sensitivity is 20

Shouldn't I be able to detect these toys? I can find money and sunglasses and keys, but not these toys.

Still confused. Thanks

 

[HighVDI]

I'd say you no doubt have the fluke Minelab Equinox on the forums. Lol! Hopefully they send you out a perfectly working unit.

 

[vferrari]

If you have ferrous discriminated out then you may not detect the objects you described, plus since it is malfunctioning, all bets are off.

Shame they did not figure it out the first time.

Good lesson learned here. Take videos of your detector if it is intermittently misbehaving as these types of issues are often hard for techs to replicate in the shop.