explorer II Gutts

[Anonymous]

I wonder if I sent my explorer I in for repairs if minelab will put explorer II guts in it as an upgrade? Since I missed out on the extra 8 inch coil and free hat when I bought it last year. I heard some say before they upgraded theirs on the first explorers,like the housings and such.My wife wont let me get the II model,she is still not over the sticker shock of the first one!!!

 

[Anonymous]

They wont change the electronics inside, I already asked Minelab and even was willing pay the difference, like if it was $600-700.. But they wouldnt... Id like to upgrade but with all new products ill wait and see how others find the new XS2. I cant justify it yet but in 6-8 months time i could.

 

[Anonymous]

And if is possible a self made home upgrade? May be is possible to change some components only... or reprogramming some flash memory... can someone post the electronic board pics of both model?

 

[Anonymous]

to upgrade your old one, why not just sell your original for 600 bucks and pay the 400 or 500 extra for a II? that way you get a whole new machine thats under waranty

 

[Anonymous]

Ummm i wish it was so easy...here in australia the new machine is about $1800 .. no sure what the guys in the US pay.. If i could swap the circuit board for 600-700 i would do it without blinking...but if i sell mine for $1000 then id get a new XS2

 

[Anonymous]

I don't know why they wouldn't do that for that kinda money. You know full well that the components don't cost them anything near that amount. It may benefit them in the long run to do so for even less than your suggested amount and here's why:
I bet there's an electronics whiz or two out there that can open up an EX2, interface with it, crack the software once he determines the programming language, reverse-engineer the board, and install it for a decent price (on the sly) and STILL turn a profit. It looks to me that the addition of the numerical ferrous representation on the Digital screen is purely a graphics tweak. All it is doing is taking data that's already present on the XS (horizontal crosshair plot) and presenting the value in the same manner that the conductivity value (vertical crosshair plot) is already also numerically represented on the Digital Screen. All you have to do is order the processor and other board components from the same Asian manufacturer that they probably get theirs from. They're all labeled. It may be proprietary but since when do they pay attention to that sort of thing in that part of the world if someone tosses a few greenbacks at them? If it's written it can be transcribed. If it's encoded, it can be decoded. This would be a very simple hack for someone who plays the game.
I bet anyone capable of hacking a DirecTV card can figure this puppy out. Programming lines are programming lines. As long as you name it something other than what it was originally called, and make a few superficial changes that don't affect function. (such as changing all of the characters to lowercase and renaming menus and screens) then nobody can get you for anything. The burden of proof is on them that you didn't just coincidentally come up with something very,very close to their hardware/software all by your little old self.
Sound dishonest? You betcha. But then again, so is denying that a new Explorer is coming out when someone asks before making the decision to plop down the money for an XS. You know what they say payback is.
But since I have trouble even programming my VCR, and haven't written programs since my Commodore 64 and VIC-20 days, it ain't gonna be me <IMG SRC="/forums/images/smile.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="">