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First 2 weeks with Minelab Excalibur 2 going pretty good but I have two questions for you Excalibur users.

M

madmikegolf

New member
First two weeks with Minelab Excalibur 2 going pretty good but I have two questions for you Excalibur users.
First Question:
When I hunt in Disc mode I am having a problem with the threshold. I set it up so that I can just barely hear the threshold but when I get in the water or start searching the sand I eventually get this loud threshold noise that stays most of the time. I do not think it is nulling because it does not go away very often. But then again, it could be nulling but for some reason it does not go back to the original threshold. I can hunt for 10 minutes with this louder threshold and then for whatever reason it goes away. If I move my coil over my scoop it goes away but then most of the time it comes back. So I adjust the threshold again to barely hear it and then when the normal threshold noise comes back I can't hear it at all. This is really annoying. I have hunted multiple beaches so I know its not something in the ground. I do not have this problem in all metal mode. I have also tried this using auto sensitivity but it didn't help at all. Below are my settings when using Disc mode.
My settings for are:
Disc: 1
Manual Sens 12 o'clock position
Looking for suggestions for me to try.

Second Question:
The beaches / water that I hunt are really clean. Would it be better for me to search in all metal mode to gain depth?

Any help you all can give me would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks and HH.

Mike
 
I find I have the same problem, I just re-adjust the threshold. I'm not sure what you mean by all metal mode, as I have only had mine a week, but I pick up and find everything. Look through some of my posts, Gulf Hunter has been very helpful and I use the setting he recommends.
 
These were some settings that I offered to Floridabill:


Here are the settings I have been running Excals in.



Disc = 3-TOTALLY wrong, NEVER run anything but minimum,
mine is at 1 and never moves, you like gold right?

Sens = 11 O'clock or 1:00
Set arrow pointing straight to the coil or 12, but you may be OK at 11(lose the Auto), unless it seems like a high pitched hum at barely audible. This means the unit is not dealing well with the ground and you are losing depth.

Threshold = Slight buzz, like gentle buzz of a bee-Get rid of the bee and go just below barely audible. If the threshold tone comes back over the headphones, you may still be set too high.

Volume = 3/4's to full...nice and loud but not insane-This is good, but I run wide open

Disc/Pinpoint = Disc-This is perfect! I would not recommend Pinpoint or all-metal, as I have seen that the unit does not even read in Pinpoint on some signals obtained in Disc.

Some of these things will sound unorthodox, but I learned most of them from cjc (Clive James Clynick) and would highly recommend that you read his Excal, water hunting and sight reading books. Try these things I suggested and see if she not only performs better, but your finds column will be the better for it.
 
Thanks guys for all the help. I got all 3 of Clive James Clynick books and started reading them. Right now I am hunting all freshwater so I have decided to hunt in all metal mode. Based on his book....you get 30% deeper then Disc mode. I am glad I did. Today, I got two 14 K gold wedding bands. Both of them did not even register when I switched back over to Disc mode. Also, in all metal mode, both rings hardly gave a beep. Mainly it was a change in threshold until I moved some of the sand away. I almost did not even dig them because they were such faint crappy singles. I am glad I did though. These rings must have been ten inches down. I will put up some pics in a couple of days of all of my finds for May with the Excalibur 2. HH Mike
 
n/t
 
tell me about .........the Disc / pinpoint knob already fell off..........also the black thing that goes around the end of the electronics where the headphone jack is also came loose too.
 
Mike, I have been using Excaliburs for years, and that is simply what they do. One can run/set a perfect low threshold, and as soon as your coil passes over a rejected target such as iron/bad ground, the return threshold comes back louder. If you then lower the volume on that iron return threshold, when the next good target is detected, the new closer to original return threshold is so low one can not hear it. So one has to constantly adjust threshold volume. I have asked Minlab why this is, without a response. So I have simply come to accept that this is the nature of the beast, and one must deal with it. Both my new Excalibur IIs do it, and I put up with it because I feel the Excalibur is the hottest discriminating underwater detector on gold jewelry I have ever used!

I feel because of all those BBS frequencies, Excaliburs are sensitive to all sorts of interferences. Lots of things can cause the louder threshold return. Sometimes when underwater I get that louder threshold return every few feet! As you mentioned, I simply run my scoop past the coil each time to reset to original threshold. I also have recommended to Minelab to develop some sort of waterproof threshold reset button, which would be placed on the grip tip of my suggested new factory Excalibur straight shaft. Then one could simply retune threshold with a push of a thumb.

But since that has not happened, I run my machines in saltwater with 0 discrimination, at max volume, High Noon sensitivity and a barely audible good target threshold. If I can not stand retuning my threshold with my scoop after hours in the water, I lower my sensitivity. I have found some deep targets at a low setting of 3! Sometimes a lower sensitivity setting actually seems to go deeper at certain beaches.

It is easy to just run threshold into null/silence. But I have found less that way. I find the most gold with a barely audible threshold. But that almost always means using the scoop to retune. But I put up with that because of all the gold and platinum the Excaliburs just love and eat for lunch! Then there are some conditions where I have run at max sensitivity, with all that bee noise and got phenomenal depth on gold! For new areas I run at high sensitivity until I get a deep sounding target. Then I lower sensitivity to where I can still hit the same target, and continue my search at that setting, for the most stable operation. CC.
 
I'm new, just bought a used Minelab Excalibur 800 4 weeks ago, it is about 4 years old according to the seller. Not knowing much about metal detecting at all O soon found out it had a weak battery. Charged it up and it would last about 40 minutes. I ordered a battery pack from a Only Batteries in Wisconsin. New 12V 1600mah pack (34.00) and a peak charger (17.95) with leds that let you know when the battery is charged and goes to trickle chg as soon as pack is fully charged. Supposedly it's impossible to overcharge (over heat) the battery pack. The new battery is great! It has more endurance than I. After 4 hours on the beach today I checked the voltage and it was at 12.7 coming off the charger this morning at 13.46 volts. I'm working some salt beaches in Brevard county Fl where I live I find lots of trash even with our beach renourishment projects, I pouch everything I find. I was told buy the seller to turn it on and set the threshold and go and do that for the first month. I have a slight hearing loss from running presses at a Eatons forge shop when I was younger. My threshold settings are probably set higher than most in order to hear it. Question is does this effect the depth of penetration? I still haven't found any thing of value other than change. My best find was a fake diamond ear ring and a 2007 1 yen coin behind a hotel. I have tons twist offs, foil, some twist ties, bobby pins and about 3.00 in change. I've heard there are some good books and a CD of tones but unsure where or when to start altering the basic settings. One fellow told me not to mess with scoops and get a shovel, Ive got a fiberglass handel shovel I've been using but have seen a long Handel scoop in action and was impressed with the way the guy covered the beach. Guess he had a good ear as he didn't stop much. He was using a Sovereign with custom shaft and 15 DD coil, looked like a Coiltek set up. He sure didn't stop every 5 feet like me but I'll never know what he was finding either. The guy was like 6'7" and his shaft must have been 7 to 8 feet long hip mounted box, looked like he covered a 10' swath on a swing. I watched this guy for a hour I was fascinated as he covered more beach in that time than I would in 2 days with my little 8" coil. Have a ton of questions but don't want to hog the space. Any recommendations? Everything I read here is very helpful!

littleml in Fl
 
Mike: Although Gulf hunter has been a lot of help on the forum, I disagree with him telling everyone to set the sensitivity between 10-12. What I have learned from a sovereign since 97-98 is you should set the sensitivity to match the conditions you are hunting. I mean no disrespect to Gulf hunter, but try telling someone in Hawaii, where you have a massive amount of black sand to set the sensitivity, between 10-12. Try telling someone in Pennsylvania that's hunting the rivers with all the remnants of Iron ore to set it there. IT AIN'T GOING TO HAPPEN. Here in Va. Beach, I've set mine as low as 2 o'clock to get a smooth threshold. Another trick that I've learned with my Sovereign GT is there are times setting the disc. up to one will also help smooth the threshold with no loss of depth or missing any gold. If your conditions will allow you to get a smooth threshold between 10-12, then use it there, if not you will need to lower it , and don't be worried that your going to loose depth. Another problem people have when they first start using an Excal or Sovereign, is you will Need to learn to slow down. When I first started using them, and I realized how deep they can go at the beach, and I felt like I needed to get from point A to point B before I went home. Now, I will swing a little quicker to find a coin patch, then I try to work that area to death. So, try slowing the swing down and see if that helps. Good luck
 
hey gh, was reading your post, and agree with it all but the part of running in all metal missing targets.
with my excal its the other way around. i swing in all metal, then switch to disc to check targets. this is right (right)
 
The information I wrote in this thread is dated 05/08. I have changed settings a couple of different ways, since then. I never leave it one way and just stop looking to improve. I like to fiddle too much. The Excal is not just a turn on and go detector, settings can often be improved to suit your conditions. The all-metal gig works excellent and I use that one often, especially where a PI would be preferred. I have learned a great deal, from reading Clive's books.
 
Hey Tony, point taken. I only am seeking to get folks to a starting point. The Excal settings are really too sight specific, but if someone tells them to run Auto or something, I'm going to save them some grief, been there done that. I don't recall ever cousiling below 11 though. I agree, it IS better to set lower, than higher on sensitivity. I have since figured that one out too. Heck, I'm still learning things and have been running it, since Jan. '06! Thanks for setting me straight!
 
Hey Gulf Hunter,I'm still learning my machines too. I learn something everyday, heck, I've even called Rick from N.D. and talked to him a couple times to get his opinion about some setting for Relic hunting with the GT. If you want to get another good book to read. Get "Finding Rings with the Mine lab Sovereign and Excalibur, along with other hints and tips"... I bought it 1980, it was written by Mike Keener & Otto Feiler, it's only 39 pages, but page 14 had advance tuning tips. That's the way I've used mine with for many years.
 
Hey Tony, thanks for the tip, if it is still in print, I'll hunt a copy. I have counsiled some with Rick too, he's a sharp guy!
 
Hey guys i've been hunting now with my excal for about a yr now an i sure have learned alot from all of you but since i hunt lakes . I use different settings so i'm all ears to what ya'll are talking about
 
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