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Explorer SE Touch sensitive + unstable

IntoTheWild1995

New member
Hello everyone, i have a Explorer SE and the detector is acting in strange ways.
I will try to be short, when the coil is touching the ground the detector become crazy or simply when i touch the coil on right side (Stock coil 10")
And the detector even make noise when i put my hand close to the coil on RIGHT side only and this is really strange.
i had a ACE 250 a Tecknetics Eurotek Pro and i never had this kind of issue before......
and as detail i use low sensitivity like 10 and it's the same.
i bought a 15x12" SEF coil and i will receive it next week i hope it will resolve the problem. if anyone can help i would be really grateful and if the other coil resolve this issue i will tell you guys so if it happen to someone else he will know by searching in the forum =) .
I pressed the "Noise" button and factory reset and tested everything possible in settings.
And last thing when i take off the shaft and touch the place where the coil connect with finger it make noise so if someone can try and tell me if it detect something like me it would be kind to tell me so i would know that it come or no from coil.
Thanks in advance :)
 
You should just wait til your other coil gets there,I think that will be your solution. The machine will make a bit of noise if you touch the cable end when it's on because I believe your body is electrically grounding the machine. I don't think there is any problem with that. But the coil itself most likely has a defect. Keep us posted when you get your other coil.
 
Okay, i will wait for the new one, but really with other metal detector that i had nothing of this ever happened. The thing i dont get it's how the coil can detect my hand without anything on it and only on right side.... before when i was searching for coins etc i was passing the hand with the dirt in my hand in front of the coil and it was very good and never had any false signal due to my hand. Very strange to me .... anyway i will keep you up to date about the other coil.
Just a last thing if you have the Explorer can you please try to touch the pins of the connector of the detector just at the box to see if it make sound? My finger work as a "coil" when i touch it.
Thanks
 
Yes,your last sentence is what I was describing...if your finger touches it, your body is acting like an electrical ground,causing the machine to respond.
 
But the thing is that normally i pass my hand in front of the coil with dirt inside my hand until i find the place where the metal is. Now if i do that the detector detect my jand even without touching the coil it mean i cant really detect properly. Is it really normal for the Explorer SE?
 
I would have to see what is exactly going on but just wait on the other coil...I thought you meant something else.
 
Ok i will wait for the other one but maybe it can be from settings i dont know.... anyway if you or anyone can touch the pins where you plug the coil and hear if it makes noise and report it here it would be cool. Im not sure it come from the coil due to that
 
Sorry for double post but to be more precise i made 2 video. In the first one i show the thing i was explaining that i dont know if it is a problem or no and i would like that one of you guys try to do it too and tell me if it make noise or no.
Here is the video :
https://youtu.be/-4FrmHYy7Sk
And the second one is the touch problem the sensivity at 10 i pressed noise button and tried every settings :
https://youtu.be/kItXGsI3fPM
Sorry in advance for my bad english typing and talking.
Thanks to take time trying to help me :)
 
I watched your videos. I will help you, but long story short I am without my Explorer for a few days. When I get it, I will check to see if touching the pins of the connector will cause those tones to occur, like in your video. That does not surprise me that it would, though. I'm guessing that is normal.

The coil thing, though? That is NOT normal, and I would guess that it's a coil issue, as others have said. When your new coil arrives, I would expect that problem to disappear. It makes no sense (other than a problem with the coil) that running your hand over the RIGHT side of the could would cause the machine to tone, but on the left side it does not. Running your hand over the coil (unless you are wearing a ring, or unless you have a metal pin in your hand from a broken bone, or something like that) should NOT cause the machine to emit any tones, obviously.

I will report back to you when I check to see if my machine will tone if I touch the connector pins. But I really do think you should just wait until you get the new coil, as I think that will solve your problems.

Steve

P.S. FYI, I will have several different Explorer coils that I'm putting up for sale in the next week or so; if it ends up that the Slimline coil is bad, and you decide you may want to buy another coil to replace it, please let me know. I may have something you'd be interested in.
 
Hi Steve, Thank you for your help, It is very strange for me that the coil react to my hand and i dont have any metal bone or anything in metal in my hand and with my previous metal detector i never had such problem because as i said i was passing dirt in front of coil in my hand to search for the target and now if i do it it will detect my hand .... it is so strange.
And yes please try to touch the pins when you can i hope it do the same as mine or there must be a problem inside the circuit or cables.
As soon as i have the new coil i will test if everything is fine and tell you guys if it helped or no. Maybe a person in my situation will see this post in future and know what to do :)
Thank you for your help i really appreciate.
 
How funny! I just turned on my Explorer2 without a coil attached and put my finger on the pins. It responded like it was detecting a target! I know FOR A FACT that my Explorer is not broken so I would have to assume this is normal as well. No worries Wild Man,you'll be just fine with the new coil.
 
Thank you so much mate it give me a big hope now :blowup:
Im waiting for the new coil :)
I will keep you up to date about the result. If it work i hope it will help someone else in the futur this post.
Again Thank you a lot for your help guys i really appreciate.
 
You have a shielding problem with your coil, sadly its not that uncommon with that slimline coil. Touching the coil, coil cable, coil connector will not normally cause a false signal but if the shielding isn't working then even lightly brushing the coil with a few blades of grass or touching the coil can cause the machine to false.

Shielding runs from the circuit boards in the control box all the way into the coil. Here's the path, there is a ground wire from the circuit board that connects to the male coil cable connector sticking out of the control box, this shields that male metal connector and when you plug your coil cable female connector into the male connector at the control box the female connector is then also shielded.

The coil cable itself is a bit different. Inside the coil cable are basically 4 wires, 2 of these wires attach to the transmit (TX) winding in the coil, the other 2 wires connect to the receive (RX) winding in the coil. But these are not just 4 separate wires inside the cable. The TX wire is a center conductor, insulated, then wrapped with outer shield mesh wire, which itself is then also insulated. Ditto for the RX. I'm going by memory about 10 years old but I believe the outer RX shield mesh wire also serves as a ground for the coil shielding.

The coil shielding is a carbon black conductive paint, this painted on shielding routes static electricity, you touching the coil etc. off to ground where its ignored so that the machine does not false. There is a coil shield wire that is very loosely draped around the coil embedded/coated in the carbon black conductive shield paint. It is this shield drain wire that attaches to the RX shield wire. So static is picked up by the paint, routed over to the shield wire, then to RX.

Any break in this shielding can result in the machine falsing. The original Explorer/Explorer II coils were notorious for going bad when used in salt water. The outer plastic coil housing was not completely waterproof. Worse, you take the coil out in the hot sun, the air inside the plastic coil shell heats up, expands, and some air is forced out. Then you go dunk your coil in the ocean...yep the air cools in the water, shrinks, but because the coil is under water it draws back in salt water instead of air. You can hear it slushing around in there. The corrosive salt water corrodes the drain wire in the shielding paint and presto that coil will start falsing like crazy. Sometimes you could dry them out and it would start working again but only for a time, the coil's life is on borrowed time.

Back to the slimline coil, this was ML's attempt at making a slimmer, lighter coil. The problem was, there was only a thin layer of epoxy between the bottom and outside world. Worse some of these coils came with the shield drain wire sticking out the bottom of the coil, even though the bottom might still be sealed in epoxy, the shielding paint/drain wire was very close to the surface, ideally you want some space between the shield and outside world. You can't have any shielding paint sticking out from the sides of the coil shell either, it needs to be completely sealed in epoxy.

Try another coil, likely your problem will go away. If not then you have eliminated a lot, the coil, shielding, cable, and female coil connector. If this is the case next you should confirm the male coil connector at the control box is still grounded, you would need a multi meter for this. If after confirming this the machine is still malfunctioning then I think its off to the repair center.

There that's probably 10x more than anyone wanted to know about Explorer shielding. lol
 
First thank you a lot for your answer i really appreciate.
After reading what you said it's becoming more clear. today i opened the coil because there was a hole on the "cover" in the bottom. after opening it surprise there was water and sand inside. then there is still isolation with Epoxy but there is hole's too around the epoxy at some place as i show in the picture.
Maybe water goes inside and rust destroyed the shield no ?
Do you think that there is a way to repair the coil anyway ?
Next week im supposed to receive the 15x12 coil but it would be cool to have the 2 coil because the other one is very heavy and large.
the problem is that the epoxy is very strong and i don't see how i could take off the coil and try to repair the shield.
And an other thing, how can i test if the box is grounded ? i got multimeter and i know how to use it but i don't know how metal detector works.
Thank you again for this precious post.
 
Yep that's the problem with your coil. The outer shell is separating and exposing the shielding paint. Shielding paint cannot have any path to the outside world it must be completely encased in epoxy e.g. electrically insulated. You have a good shot at repairing this coil, go buy some marine epoxy at the hardware store coat that area that's split open, let it soak into the crack and seal it up. Make sure the coil has dried obviously if its been wet.

Even if your coil is in perfect condition be advised that sand, black sand especially, and even inland dirt when it gets sandwiched between the coil and coil scuff cover and gets wet this is a recipe for unstable false prone operation, even if your coil and machine are in perfect working order. I won't even use a scuff cover when beach hunting for this reason.

If you are beach/water hunting with this coil you might consider removing the scuff cover permanently, and instead brush a coat of epoxy on entire bottom of the coil e.g. brush on scuff cover that sand/water can't get penetrate.
 
As for testing the ground, you want to switch your multi-meter to conduct a continuity test e.g. if there is an electrically conductive path between the two test points your meter will confirm this. Honestly I doubt its worth the effort given the photos of your coil and opening the control box to access the ground wire is not quick and easy.
 
Thank you again for the answer, i will do what you said but just a thing, how to dry the coil and how to be sure that it's dry inside ?
Thank you a lot :)
 
The coil is solid cast epoxy so if there is any water in there its just going to be along the edge of the plastic outer coil shell where its separated, water can't soak into the coil elsewhere its completely sealed, think solid block of epoxy plastic. I would think if its been indoors for a day or two that separated area is sufficiently dried out by now.

The original Explorer I and II coils are different construction. They had a plastic outer clam shell. Inside this outer shell was the coil, cast in poured epoxy, painted with shielding paint and a drain wire wrapped around it. This inner coil was suspended on some foam pads inside the clam shell. Your slimline coil is completely different construction, yours is an ABS outer plastic shell completely filled with poured in epoxy, no air no gaps. Its unfortunate that the outer ABS plastic shell separated from the poured in epoxy but that happens, not just on that coil or just on Minelab that can happen to any cast epoxy coil which most manufactures sell.
 
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