Deleon a chatterbox?

[marcomo]

OK a little background. I bought a used Deleon for $270 that the seller said worked great. When I got it it didn't seem to be working well so I sent it off to Tesoro for repair. After taking the PO almost 3 weeks to get it to Tesoro (with extended stops in New Jersey and Denver CO!) Tesoro got it fixed and back in the mail to me in less than two weeks. Rusty Henry of Tesoro sent a note along with the detector saying the coil needed retuning and recalibration and that the detector tests good.

Mt problem is that I've tried it now in three different areas and it constantly chirps and chatters (falsing?) and it's really fatiguing and driving my ears crazy. The only way I've been able to stand it is to turn the headphones volume way down. My first thought is the preset GB might be too negative for my area, but in each instance my Cibola has handled the same ground flawlessly. I've tried turning the sensitivity down and replacing the batteries.

My question is especially for phinbolt, kurt-ks and anybody else using the Deleon successfully. Do you guys have this problem with constant chatter? Since Rusty Henry says the machine is in good working order I can't figure out what's going on. The Deleon will find targets, but it's so noisy in between I can't stand it. Any suggestions? Thanks.

 

[kurt-ks]

Hi Marcomo, Mine does not chatter at all like that? Sometimes(its happened 3 or 4 times now) when I turn it on, no matter where I'm at it will go crazy,numbers jumping all over the place and chattering.I called Tesoro and they said maybe a momentary glitch in circuitry,I have heard of some Cortes people talking about the same problem and the two do share the same circuitry.It hasn't effected the machines performance any,I just usually turn it off and on a few times and it goes away? I haven't sent it in because its been such a intermittent problem and its difficult to diagnose an intermittent problem anyway.If it won't act up when they have it, how they going to fix it? Does your ID jump around constantly when chattering? Mine runs very quiet normally and I have good ground, not very materialized. Hope you get the problem fixed! It has been a good machine to me.--Kurt

 

[jeff@middlesex]

I had the same problem with Deleon and i sent it to Tesoro and they said the ground was not set properly

 

[Corteser]

I have never experienced this type of problem with my Cortes unless I was under power lines and once when I tried to detect near "invisible fence" for dogs.

 

[phinbolt]

I have run into that a few times to over the years but usually it is because of power lines or under ground power lines. I can turn it off and leave it off for a few seconds and it will reset and behave or if there are any above ground transformers near by it will go crazy like that also. In my yard at home it has places it will act up too but normally close to the house so I believe it is picking up some sort of power interference I can probably count the times it has done that one one hand so mine has been pretty much trouble free............................Knock On Wood....hope that helps it is a good machine and from what I have heard Tesoro will make it work right

 

[Mike Hillis]

You could be picking up a lot of ground chatter. Raising the disc a little would kill alot of that.

HH

Mike

 

[lovepulltabs]

Where are you running the sensitvity? Try turning it down and see if that helps.

 

[marcomo]

Thanks everybody for the suggestions. It's not the sensivity I've tried turning that down and down until it was at the lowest level. I've also tried turning the discrimination up and that hasn't helped either. I've tried turning the unit on and off each time, but not multiple times at once and I didn't leave the unit off for more than a couple seconds so I'll try those ideas next time I detect. I'm inclined to think what Jeff said about a ground balance issue might be the case, but that's only a slightly educated guess.

I'm going to call Tesoro tomorrow and see if I can get Rusty to talk to me and see what he says. The fact that the unit tested OK at Tesoro makes me think either I'm doing something wrong or that the GB setting is too negative for my soil.

I'm stumped on this one, but I really appreciate all of you trying to help. I'll keep you posted on what I find out.

 

[marcomo]

Talked to Gene today at Tesoro. He said that 95% of the time the problem is a ground balancing issue. I'm going to mail the detector back in tomorrow with a soil sample from the "worst area" and he said Rusty Henry would be working on it. Not sure which was the worst area was of the three I detected with the Deleon, but the first one where I did an hour and afterwards my ears felt like they did around 1975 after spending two hours in the 7th row of a Led Zeppelin concert is the one I'll send the soil sample from...

I'll let you know what happens, thanks again to everybody who offered suggestions.

 

[marcomo]

Unfortunately I missed the call, but I got a message today on my phone from James Gifford at Tesoro.

He said they adjusted the frequency and calibrated my Deleon to the soil sample I sent in.

I mailed the detector Wed. July 30 via UPS ground. The UPS store guy said it would arrive by Tuesday Aug. 5. So Tesoro probably got it yesterday or today and they have already (hopefully) taken care of my problem. And the owner of the company calls me to say the detector is fixed and on it's way back and to contact him if there are any problems. At any other detector companies would the owner or CEO call a customer like this?

Tesoro's legendary customer service has so far lived up to the lofty praise that so many of you have given the company.

I'll save my serious gushing until I actually get the detector and make sure that it works properly. Assuming it does, good luck getting me to shut up...

 

[Michigan Badger]

I spent a lot of time with the DeLeon and know it well.

A few things cause it to be unstable.

Starting with the most likely....

1) Low quality batteries
2) Sensitivity set too high
3) Dirt inside the coil cover or inside the control box
4) Electrical interference from powerlines
5) Defective search coil wire connector

When I got my brand new DeLeon and put the batteries that came with it into the detector it chirped like crazy. I put new batteries in and it ran fine.

 

[marcomo]

Thanks for your thoughts Mi. Badger, they're good ones.

I did try changing the batteries. I was using Walgreen's house brand alkaline brand batteries which seem really close if not equal to Energizer and Duracell in quality. But just to make sure I put brand new Duracell alkalines and that didn't help. I tried turning the sensitivity all the way down with several stops in between and that didn't help. Also I took off the coil cover when I cleaned the detector after the first hunt after I got it back from Tesoro. As far as electrical interference from power lines, I had the problem in 3 separate locations and there were no big powerlines near any of the sites other than the normal telephone pole lines you see in all old neighborhoods.

Tesoro says the detector is working fine now and calibrated to the soil I sent in so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

 

[WilliamJB]

A little off topic but something someone else said made me think of this! Even a laptop needs to be blown out with compresed air at least once a year to get dust and dirt out of the case. How many of us ever blow out our detectors in spite of operateing in dusty dirty area's. So much so that in the Army the main killer of electronics in out current campaigns is sand. MY brother inlaw took his $800 dollar compag laptop to Afganastan for two tours and Iraq for two tours in Iraq. His secrete to long life was blowing it out weekly. He was in a Signal Battalion supporting 10th Mountain Division. I have another friend that is in electronic maintence and 7 out of 10 times just cleaning out all the sand will return a piece of equipment to fully functioning status. I have also seen how storeing electronics in an environment where people smoke will speed corrission of the contacts on all the electronics! Just some things to keep in mind since many of use use some seriously old gear and a lot of it is used in dusty dirty environments since burried tressure is seldom found above ground in a clean room!LOL

 

[marcomo]

Something I never really thought about, good advice.

 

[marcomo]

Incidentally, I called Tesoro today and James Gifford got on the phone right away. Heck of a nice guy and very helpful with my questions. They did a couple things to my Deleon including a significant adjustment in the GB setting based on the soil sample I sent. He said Rusty needed to double check the detector today and after that it would be sent back to me.

You can't help but have a good feeling about this company, but serious genuflecting will wait until I get the Deleon back and make sure it's working OK

 

[WilliamJB]

I know I can not wait to be able to buy my first Tesoro..... I am preety sure I want a Vaquero but that might change between now and then!!! So far everything I have heard makes this sound like the company I want to buy from!

 

[marcomo]

OK, I got my Deleon back about two weeks ago and have had a chance to use it about six hours now over the last two weekends.

The good folks at Tesoro recalibrated the detector to my soil sample and that really helped a lot. It still runs noisier than my Cibola, but with the sensitivity set around 3 or so it's tolerable to me.

I was hoping I wouldn't lose to much depth with the sensitivity down low, I found out I didn't need to worry.

I was hunting in an old yard where I had gotten permission and the house was built just after the turn of the century.

Less than an hour with the detector and I got a signal that hit fairly solid from one direction and more often than not showed 95 with a depth reading of 7 or 8. From the other direction it was a broken signal and the numbers jumped all over the place. I didn't have a lot of hope, but I knew I had to dig it. As I kept digging, the target sound was still there and seemed to be getting stronger.

Finally, I got to the target - a 1954 Washington Quarter at 9" deep! My digging tool has 12 inches graduated from the the bottom of the blade to the top of the handle so it was easy for me to measure.

My deepest coin find previously with my Cibola was an Indian Head penny at 6".

The next week in the same yard I got a similar deep reading with the Deleon. Since I had my Cibola in the car less than 50 feet away I decided to grab it and see if I got any signal. I set the discrimination as low as I could, the sensitivity at 6 and the threshold at the suggested faint hum in pinpoint mode. No signal. But when I supertuned with the sensitivity and threshold in the red I got a solid signal that hit hard. When I dug the signal I found it was not a coin but was a thin piece of metal that was approximately nickel sized at 7" deep.

I'm still a novice at this, but it seems to me if I want to get better depth with the Cibola then I need to turn up the sensitivity and threshold and put up with some chatter from it too. At least in areas where it's not too trashy.

I've got some things to say about Tesoro and also about target ID that goes contrary to the usual thinking, but I'll save that for another post.

Thanks again for everybody's help.