Handle angle on Explorer?

[cdsmith46]

Is there any way to pad the handle on the explorer to make it more like the slight angle on the e-trac? Maybe a small triangular pad on the top and bottom that would fill in the necessary areas, but without making it too thick to handle...

 

[Big Boys Hobbies]

Good question! I cant think of anything!

 

[sgoss66]

GREAT question, CDsmith...I have wondered the same thing; the E-Trac is MUCH better, ergonomically, with the different handle angle.

I wondered if there was a way to buy a "junked" E-Trac from someone, remove the "head" where the electronics are, and attach the SE Pro "head" to it? Not sure though, as I haven't looked more deeply into it, beyond the "I wonder if" stage.

Steve

 

[BHMACK]

I thought about that as well. My (in process) answer may be to design a wrist strap with a wide piece of hardened plastic attached that has a 90 degree bend in it the diameter of the handle allowing me to 'hook' the handle in the palm of my hand. It would allow my fingers to relax (especially the middle and fore fingers) and ease the stress of long detecting.....hmmmm

 

[cdsmith46]

Keep us posted on that one. I was thinking of two semi-triangular blocks(top and bottom) that could be attached with Velcro or held on with tape. They probably wouldn't have to be very large to effect some change...

 

[Ray-Mo.]

n/t

 

[Charles (Upstate NY)]

I purchased an X-Terra shaft assembly recently, it has the more upright handle angle like the ETrac and a nice oval shape grip that feels comfortable. I'm weatherproofing my older SE for storm hunting and will be using that shaft.

 

[sgoss66]

Hey Charles -- have you yet looked into how to dis-assemble the "head" of the SE Pro from its upper shaft, and re-attach it to that X-Terra shaft?

Steve

 

[Charles (Upstate NY)]

Hey Charles -- have you yet looked into how to dis-assemble the "head" of the SE Pro from its upper shaft, and re-attach it to that X-Terra shaft?

Steve

Yes I have chopped Explorers into pieces many times modifying them. Now I'm talking an extreme no going back modification here. Here's a quick summary. Remove the arm cup and stand, remove the foam grip, remove the front faceplate from the control box. There are three pcb boards stacked together like a sandwich, they just pull apart, remove the LCD screen board, photograph all wire connections, now cut the coil transmit and receive wires leaving as much wire as possible, cut the battery and headphone wires and remove the 2 remaining circuit boards. Drive the pin out of the cam lock below the control box housing and remove the cam lock components. Now comes the fun part, The control box housing used to just pull off the S shaft but someone at Minelab at one point got the bright idea of glueing the damn thing on. This was back in the Explorer II days. I don't honestly know if they are still doing glueing them on but if they are no amount of beating on the thing with a 2x4 will remove it. I think I had to take a dremel cutting tool to the last one, eventually you will get the control housing off the S shaft.

If you look at the tunnel where the S shaft went through the control box housing you will see its a big hold, far too big for tubular S shafts. But if you carefully cut away the bottom of that tunnel you are left with 2 flat sides which are perfect for fashioning a mounting adapter onto a shaft. The last time I modded one of these stormproof Explorers I used a featherlight Whites S shaft. I want to say the OD on that tube was maybe 7/8 inch. I took a 7/8 inch Forstner bit and cut a hole in a piece of oak. Then cut that in half, now I had a block of wood with the same OD as the Whites S shaft. Placed the Exploer housing down over the block of wood, 2 screws through the housing/wood block. Then 2 screws down through the block of wood through the Whites S shaft presto Explorer control box is mounted onto a round S shaft, lightweight, solid.

This time I have professional CAD/CAM software so I might just draw the adapter in CAD and have a machine shop machine it for me out of aluminum.

So this brings us to the housing itself. Fact, you cannot build a housing that is lighter than the stock housing, its pretty thin and light. Most of the weight of the control box are the pcb boards. Which is to say put ideas of fashioning a custom housing out of your minds, I have done it, for a storm/weather proof Explorer just use the stock housing. If you want to build a waterproof housing for wading around in a lake or ocean it can be done but that's a whole other conversation.

That said there are some things that need to be done to the stock housing. First remove the useless external speaker, that saves some weight. You will need to fill the speaker opening with silicone, just goop it in there and smooth it over so its completely filled. Next there is a gaping hole in the bottom of the housing where the giant fitting for the coil cable exits the housing. You will need a small piece of ABS sheet plastic to fill most of that void, and more silocone to seal the hole up tight.

Now look at the housing, there are several ideal spots to drill holes for the coil, battery, and headphone cables. Waterproof lightweight nylon Sealcon fittings are perfect for the battery and headphone cables. For the coil cable you have two choices, hardwire a coil to the machine using a Sealcon fitting or use a waterproof electrical fitting so you can change coils. Ikelite makes the best one here and its fine in salt water. This will add weight but at least you can change coils. Note you will have to chop off the stock coil cable connector and attach the mating Ikelite fitting to whatever coils you want to use with this machine e.g. you will no longer be able to use them on your other machines. Since I will be using this machine in storms and its unlikely that I will be using the WOT coil in a storm I plan to just hard wire a stock SE Pro coil on and be done with it. NOTE: Coil cables need to be shielded all the way to the circuit board, keep that in mind if you start thinking about using connectors to allow switching coils.

On the back of the Explorer housing you have room for 2 cables left and right, there's 2 nice flat spots to drill holes, use one for the coil cable fitting and the other for the battery cable fitting. For the headphone cable...if you were holding your Explorer the best place is the bottom of the housing on the left or right side, there is room there for a fitting. I fished the battery and headphone cable fittings into the S shaft tube and routed them back out the rear of the S shaft so I didn't have cables dangling but you could probably wrap them tightly around the shaft in a pinch.

For a battery housing, again this is a storm proof machine I just used a Excal battery housing, no need to re-engineer what's already available off the shelf. It already has a waterproof connector as well. Now it is heavy. I took a length of aluminum tubing the same diameter as the S shaft and mated it onto the rear of the S shaft. This extended the S shaft further to the rear for better balance. I used a piece of lower rod to connect the two. This positioned the battery well to the rear of my elbow which made swinging the WOT coil feel like the stock coil, that's how important balance is. As we all know the Explorers are normally nose heavy.

For this machine I might actually fashion a custom battery housing to use 10 AAA cell rechargeable batteries instead of 8 AA cell rechargeable batteries, this saves a lot of weight. The reason to use 10 instead of 8 is rechargeables are only 1.2 volts vs 1.5 volts for alkalines so you can use 10 rechargeables and your Explorer will run for hours longer.

Well there's a quick brain dump, hope that was useful.

Charles

 

[Charles (Upstate NY)]

n/t

A heat gun LMAO I approve of this extreme measure! Saws-all and some glue might also be handy.

 

[sgoss66]

Charles -- I much appreciate the detailed, thorough explanation...but I have learned from your explanation that you are FAR braver, and more electronically-knowledgeable than I! I could not perform that "surgery" on my unit with any confidence that I wouldn't totally destroy it!

Steve

 

[Charles (Upstate NY)]

Charles -- I much appreciate the detailed, thorough explanation...but I have learned from your explanation that you are FAR braver, and more electronically-knowledgeable than I! I could not perform that "surgery" on my unit with any confidence that I wouldn't totally destroy it!

Steve

I have been tinkering with stuff for years so I guess its no big deal to me to chop an Explorer to bits. OT but when I'm not modding detectors I'm building bad ass 100 watt tube gutiar amps!

 

[TURNMASTER]

I cut a piece of cardboard shipping tube in half wrapped it in gorilla tape and zip tied it to the handle creating what one might call an Explorer lift kit. I did this last summer and am still using it. I thought of making new armrests from Al and selling them but that ain't gonna happen. I may be lazy i think.

[attachment 217420 E4.jpg]

Helped to fix the ergonomics of the angle. I'll see if I can get a better pic.

Jeff

 

[cdsmith46]

Now, those are drop-dead gorgeous! A craftsman in our midst- who knew?

 

[BHMACK]

I cut a piece of cardboard shipping tube in half wrapped it in gorilla tape and zip tied it to the handle creating what one might call an Explorer lift kit. I did this last summer and am still using it. I thought of making new armrests from Al and selling them but that ain't gonna happen. I may be lazy i think.

[attachment 217420 E4.jpg]

Helped to fix the ergonomics of the angle. I'll see if I can get a better pic.

Jeff

"Now THAT is thinking!" I would guess that the only logical answer to the Explorer handle angle issue lies in the modification of the armrest.