Critterhunter
New member
I was going to respond to Ron on a remark he made in another thread about him thinking a lot of Excals in the future will be put on good shafts for land use to in a sense carry on the Sovereign with new machines being bought, but figured this topic might be fun in it's own thread to kick around, so here goes...
A lot of guys put it on a straight shaft and balance it well for land use so the weight of the pod isn't an issue. I found an 1835 bust dime and a large cent first day I ever used a friend's Excal on land, well before I had my GT.
Wondering now if the Excal's electronics on the board have the output traces for the meter VDI voltage output ID. If it does, then should be a simple matter to bring out two wires via the existing unsused ones in the coil cable (or separately even) and install a waterproof volt meter on your Excal to ID targets for land use, and at the same time be able to use it in the water without having to always remove/replace the meter.
I doubt Minelab would bother to put the output VDI electronics on an Excal's motherboard but then again stranger things have happened. They might have did that just in case they decided to make an Excal with a meter down the road. Also, could be all the processing for the 2V ID scale is done in the stock Sovereign chips, and so there really isn't any need to add other electronics to the board to generate the ID. If that's the case then simply tapping the right pin on one of the IC chips that is found in both the Sovereign and the Excal should put you in business.
In fact, next time I have my GT apart I'm going to trace back the ID pin and see where it goes on the board. If it's right to an IC chip and not being ran through a bunch of external parts related to generating the ID, then it should be a no brainer to wire up a meter for the Excal. I remember somebody a while back had posted a pic of his Excal with the Digisearch meter on the shaft. It wasn't wired up, it was just his thought that this might be a project to look into but far as I know he never persued the idea to see if it was possible.
I bet OBN has a few Excal boards laying around. If he could pull up some pics of the Sovereign's motherboard and compare them to see where the ID pin (pin 5?) on the coil connector goes on the Sovereign, should be a real easy thing to see if the Excal has the same roadmap on it to indicate the ID voltage is available to tap. I'm suspecting, since the ID on the Sovereign is just straight voltage and not ran thru heavy layers of processing separate from the audio report (since there is no VDI lag), it might be a possibility that the VDI voltage is generated right along with the audio in the same chip and outputed directly from an IC chip doing that kind of work.
If that's the case, I can see people building dual purpose land/water Excals to carry on the Sovereign as a "new" machine still being made in a way. Might even be a nice little business in that kind of conversion for somebody. Take a Excal, stick it on a straight shaft, throw on a waterproof meter, add some waterproof plugs for headphone and coil changes, wire up a remote PP switch for convinient reverse disc hunting= Sell it as the ultimate land/water dual purpose machine at a modest price of say around $1000 to $1500 (AKA: AT Pro).
Man I like that idea. Hmmm....
Be hard to find used Excals cheap enough, then add a meter and other mods, and still sell it at a reasonable price that isn't up so high you might as well buy a CTX. Then again, maybe somebody could approach Minelab and offer a deal to be supplied with new under warranty Excals to that company for conversion. Kind'a like the Troy Shadow did with Fisher. Call it the Excalibur Ultimate L/W (for land/water use). Doubt Minelab would want to do that though, since it might bite into their CTX sales if people had cheaper options in a land/water unit that still has Minelab performance. The used Excal route conversion thing might have possibilities though. At the very least I bet Ron's right and many Excal owners will be converting theirs for land/water anyway regardless.
Of course a meter isn't really needed for land use of the BBS units thanks to the long detailed audio. Many Sovereign guys never use a meter and hunt by ear alone, and make some great finds that way.
A lot of guys put it on a straight shaft and balance it well for land use so the weight of the pod isn't an issue. I found an 1835 bust dime and a large cent first day I ever used a friend's Excal on land, well before I had my GT.
Wondering now if the Excal's electronics on the board have the output traces for the meter VDI voltage output ID. If it does, then should be a simple matter to bring out two wires via the existing unsused ones in the coil cable (or separately even) and install a waterproof volt meter on your Excal to ID targets for land use, and at the same time be able to use it in the water without having to always remove/replace the meter.
I doubt Minelab would bother to put the output VDI electronics on an Excal's motherboard but then again stranger things have happened. They might have did that just in case they decided to make an Excal with a meter down the road. Also, could be all the processing for the 2V ID scale is done in the stock Sovereign chips, and so there really isn't any need to add other electronics to the board to generate the ID. If that's the case then simply tapping the right pin on one of the IC chips that is found in both the Sovereign and the Excal should put you in business.
In fact, next time I have my GT apart I'm going to trace back the ID pin and see where it goes on the board. If it's right to an IC chip and not being ran through a bunch of external parts related to generating the ID, then it should be a no brainer to wire up a meter for the Excal. I remember somebody a while back had posted a pic of his Excal with the Digisearch meter on the shaft. It wasn't wired up, it was just his thought that this might be a project to look into but far as I know he never persued the idea to see if it was possible.
I bet OBN has a few Excal boards laying around. If he could pull up some pics of the Sovereign's motherboard and compare them to see where the ID pin (pin 5?) on the coil connector goes on the Sovereign, should be a real easy thing to see if the Excal has the same roadmap on it to indicate the ID voltage is available to tap. I'm suspecting, since the ID on the Sovereign is just straight voltage and not ran thru heavy layers of processing separate from the audio report (since there is no VDI lag), it might be a possibility that the VDI voltage is generated right along with the audio in the same chip and outputed directly from an IC chip doing that kind of work.
If that's the case, I can see people building dual purpose land/water Excals to carry on the Sovereign as a "new" machine still being made in a way. Might even be a nice little business in that kind of conversion for somebody. Take a Excal, stick it on a straight shaft, throw on a waterproof meter, add some waterproof plugs for headphone and coil changes, wire up a remote PP switch for convinient reverse disc hunting= Sell it as the ultimate land/water dual purpose machine at a modest price of say around $1000 to $1500 (AKA: AT Pro).
Man I like that idea. Hmmm....
Be hard to find used Excals cheap enough, then add a meter and other mods, and still sell it at a reasonable price that isn't up so high you might as well buy a CTX. Then again, maybe somebody could approach Minelab and offer a deal to be supplied with new under warranty Excals to that company for conversion. Kind'a like the Troy Shadow did with Fisher. Call it the Excalibur Ultimate L/W (for land/water use). Doubt Minelab would want to do that though, since it might bite into their CTX sales if people had cheaper options in a land/water unit that still has Minelab performance. The used Excal route conversion thing might have possibilities though. At the very least I bet Ron's right and many Excal owners will be converting theirs for land/water anyway regardless.Of course a meter isn't really needed for land use of the BBS units thanks to the long detailed audio. Many Sovereign guys never use a meter and hunt by ear alone, and make some great finds that way.
