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CTX Tones & Target ID's Unstable - Help Please. :confused:

The batteries I have in the battery pack at the moment are 8xAA Duracell, and the battery icon on the screen is showing around 75% remaining. I just Tested the battery pack with a multi meter and the reading is currently 1.34v.

I’ll perform the other test as suggested by Bklein, later this evening when I’m somewhere with no EMI.

Minelab have also advised me to do some other tests with the sensitivity, nothing I haven’t already tried, but I’ll double check.

Will update ;)
 
1.34V isn’t right.
Measure each cell of the pack individually not in the pack. They should all read ~1.45v or higher. I don’t remember the cell configuration of the pack but there is no way to get 1.34v without having dead cells.
 
I'm guess (hoping) that was a mistype and either meant 13.4V or 1.34 amps. I'm also curious if you were reading across the correct terminals
 
My bad, sorry. Measured the wrong connections. The correct voltage (correct me if I’m wrong) is reading 10.79v. Photo showing the terminals used. This is measuring the voltage of the battery pack containing batteries with several hours use, but still well in the green on the CTX battery level indicator on the screen.
 
What I just discovered is that the rechargeable power appears on different connector pins than the alkaline pod.
The rechargeable is as above but the alkaline outputs 12V-13.x volts out pins one and two.
So you might get different behavior out of your detector if you get a rechargeable pack and try it.
 
bklein said:
What I just discovered is that the rechargeable power appears on different connector pins than the alkaline pod.
The rechargeable is as above but the alkaline outputs 12V-13.x volts out pins one and two.
So you might get different behavior out of your detector if you get a rechargeable pack and try it.
Click to expand...

What do you mean? When the pod is connected, the detector is going to draw power from the same connectors, regardless. It doesnt know what you have connected. Also, there is no difference in behavior or performance by different batteries. The detector (like almost all modern electronics) use power limiters. The circuit needs X volts and that is all that the limiter allows through. When the battery drops below X volts, then it dies. Otherwise it performs exactly the same.
 
Jason, I am suggesting there could be two voltage regulation circuits in the CTX. One that handles the rechargeable and another that handles the alkaline pack. The detector has to know which type is attached for the battery level meter to be accurate and there could be other reasons like for efficiency.
 
bklein said:
Jason, I am suggesting there could be two voltage regulation circuits in the CTX. One that handles the rechargeable and another that handles the alkaline pack. The detector has to know which type is attached for the battery level meter to be accurate and there could be other reasons like for efficiency.
Click to expand...

No, there is zero need for multiple voltage circuits. The detector doesnt know what pack is connected, and there would be no reason to. Voltage is voltage, the detector doesnt care if its coming from an alkaline cell or NiMH or lithium cell. All the detector cares about is enough voltage to operate the circuits.
 
Mattysiam, just try to borrow a rechageable pack and try it. You are going to want one anyway so maybe just buy one.
Jason, why argue about something that you don’t have a schematic for? The battery voltage range of the two battery options are 1.5X difference and the discharge curves are different because of the battery type. The detector does “know” what’s attached. I’m not saying there couldn’t be a shared regulation circuit but am saying there are reasons to have separate ones.
 
bklein said:
Mattysiam, just try to borrow a rechageable pack and try it. You are going to want one anyway so maybe just buy one.
Jason, why argue about something that you don’t have a schematic for? The battery voltage range of the two battery options are 1.5X difference and the discharge curves are different because of the battery type. The detector does “know” what’s attached. I’m not saying there couldn’t be a shared regulation circuit but am saying there are reasons to have separate ones.
Click to expand...

I'm "arguing" because, according to your "theory" the detector wont work correctly if it doesn't know what type of battery is powering it, and that is absolutely ridiculous. According to you, if we put rechargeable AAs in the AA holder, it shouldn't work, but they work great. Doesnt matter if the batteries are Alkalines, zincs, Nmh, NiCad, or plutonium. The only thing that matter is that battery power is greater than power need. Period, end of story.

The detector doesn't need 13v from a full Alkaline pack. It likely needs 6 or 7 volts. Everything above that in the battery pack is just more reserves. My GPZ pack is amazing in my CTX and it was WAY more power than either factory pack AND its an authorized power supply.
 
The GPZ pack is twice the current capability as the standard CTX pack. That’s fine, still has the same discharge curve - the battery meter will work the same. In fact there could be a Coulomb counter measuring chip in the pack itself. When my original pack died I rebuilt it with 3A cells. Works fine.
I am not saying rechargeable cells won’t work in the alkaline pack(!)
The discharge curve would be different but the detector obviously works. His detector is not working well and I am suggesting the experience using the rechargeable pack may be different. It would still indicate a defective detector as the alkaline pack should work.
In my experience if the detector comes up and operates the power source is sufficient. If you get bogus setting changes the internal 3v battery may be low.
If you get poor depth or high EMI I’d suspect the coil or coil wiring. Agree?
 
Update: I contacted Minelab in Malaysia, my nearest service centre. The Coiltek 10x5 coil I was expecting on the 23rd from a friend from the UK, was accidentally forgotten and left in Scotland, so I can’t test the CTX with a different coil for now. Minelab in KL told me yesterday my machine is no longer under warranty. They have my serial numbers for the machine and coil, and also my purchase receipts from 6th September 2018. They are investigating the warranty issue with Minelab AU. I’m waiting for an update on this.

Can someone confirm please that Minelab offer a 3 year warranty? Hopefully Minelab AU will sort this additional problem out for me. My plans to buy an EQ 800 for the Mrs are currently on hold.

Will update again later.
 
Matt...My only thought is that the seller sold you a used machine and the entire deal is “funny”. 3 year warranty is standard,I believe 1 year on coil and battery stuff. You have a sketchy seller OR it was listed as “used” and you didn’t catch it. Let us know...
 
Did ML confirm that they will even service a detector from a different zone? That was my biggest concern in all this. I remember an incident years ago where someone was selling a group of Spanish E-Tracs in the USA. Someone called ML and asked to make sure the SN was legit and was told that they cant service it. All warranty work must be done in the region the detector originally sold from. Is that what your service center meant by it not being under warranty?
 
If it ends up truly out of warranty I’d suggest checking the internal battery. See the “hacking the CTX” thread. Mine has gone dead twice. It’s rare as the service center doesn’t see this problem often. But will show in old detectors that sat for a long time before being used. You see all sorts of weird behavior that just gets worse. If you can find something called de-oxit you could try it on connector and battery contacts. Were you hunting underwater?
Did you try reloading firmware - yours might even be down level anyway. Worth a shot.
 
To add quickly to the above,Deoxit can be found at a “Radio Shack type” place. Not sure if Radio Shack made it to Phuket...:) But!...they sure seemed to make it to everywhere else.
 
The vendor seems 100% legit to me. It was listed as brand new, and from the state it arrived in it was brand new, no question. If anyone wants the link of where I bought it online in the UK. send me an email and I'll reply with info, I don't think I'm allowed to post it under this thread.

Still waiting for Minelab AU to look into the warranty issue for me. I'd be surprised if they come back and tell me it's no longer under warranty.

Re the firmware, I'll check it this evening if I get time, it's high season now where I am and my business is taking all the spare hours I have right now. I don't have access to a windows machine, and last time I checked Xchange was only available for Windows. I have Macs at home, at work, and it's weird, but everyone I know has a Mac. Still, I can still update the firmware I think, but without Xchange. I will also check the "Hacking the CTX" thread. Thanks for all the info and advice.
 
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