A thought on why some of us have problems with the X-Tera's shutting down.

[Mick in Dubbo]

There has been a number of us complaining of the X-Terra's shutting down. I include myself in this group.
The probable cause is that when we drop our batteries in, we do it by dropping them in vertically. Given, the amount of momentum that the batteries hit the springs at the bottom of this drop, it would not surprise me that the battery springs must compress. With these springs compressed, the connection to the batteries is broken!
Solution.Be gentle and place the batteries in horizontally.
Hopefully I won't be a stranger to the forum for too long. I've set a goal with my Ace and once reached, I pull out the X-Terra again.
In the mean time I'll lurk around in the background.
All the best.
Mick Evans.

 

[James/Washington]

I also have an X-Terra70 and it is may main detector. I use the 10 1/2" round DD 7.5 kHz coil. I use the detector mainly for coin shooting. I had also read about others having this detector shut down on its own. Until about a month ago, I had not had this happen to me. Then one day while detecting, without any warning, the detector shut down. I turned it back on and continued to hunt and this happened a couple more times. When I got home, I took the batteries out and carefully, using a looped string, pulled on the springs enough to bend them out just a little. I have not had any more problems but I expect I will continue to later on.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that an inferior spring was used in the making of this detector and these problems will continue with this detector. I will not let this slow me down in using this detector nor will I sell it and get me something else. I will continue to do my 'fix' until something breaks and then send it in for repair. Things like this happen to anything that is man made. No company is perfect nor makes a perfect product. No use in blaming Minelab. They sure aren't making money repairing them on warranty! I'm sure that they know that there is a problem with the springs and probably has fixed this on all newer detectors. If you feel you must, then by all means, send it in for repair. I know it is a pain, but what in life is not?

 

[jackintexas]

I had trouble with the audio cutting off but the ID still worked. Without looking at the meter all the time I didn't know when it was working or not. I was using eveready alkalines. Because the Duracell alkalines appeared to be physically a little larger. I started using the Duracell in my Exterra 50 and have had no more problems with the audio cutting out.

 

[Mick in Dubbo]

Jack.
I had the same problem with the speaker not working. Sent it back for repair. It turned out that it was just a loose conection somewhere. The detector works fine now.
Looking forward to taking it out again.
Mick Evans.

 

[jackintexas]

Hi Mick: Changing to Duracell batteries solved my problem.....Jack

 

[Mick in Dubbo]

Glad to hear it Jack.
Once I get off the computer, I'll be taking the angle grinder to the lower shaft to shorten it. I had a look at the adjusting button in the lower shaft and found that it is easy to get out. It kinda looks like a small pair of tongs. I'll leave the shaft attached,so that I can us the upper shaft as a drilling template for accurate hole location. Once this is done, I'll take it for a spin(haven't used it in three months, so looking forward to it).One thing that I've found with the Ace, is that you can have the shaft fairly short, which makes it a lot more comfortable to swing.
One other thing that I've done is, removed the rubber hand grip as I find that the grip is too deep for my hand.
Haven't really taken it out since it came back from repair as I seemed to keep running into problems with it, so I bought the Ace. It's going to feel like I'm taking out a new detector, as it hasn't run properly for about 10 months. Even got the pinpoint mode working properly! Yippee!
Mick Evans.