My Musketeer Advantage May Need Service - Not Sure

[lloyd0161]

I have been experiencing the following behavior. Not sure if this is normal for this detector:

With all metal mode, ground adjust set to fixed, ground adjust enable toggled, and sensitivity adjusted from approx 3 o'clock to full, an increasingly louder audible tone is heard; almost like a threshold tone. At full setting the tone is so loud it nulls out any detected targets. If the detector is switched from all metal to discriminate, the tone becomes a static spitting sound within the same sensitivity adjustment range. I have tried the detector at several remote locations in case of possible electrical interference and the result has been the same.

Please advise me if you think there may be something wrong with the detector.

 

[Crispy Critter]

ground adjust set to fixed, ground adjust enable toggled.

I really do not know the Musketeer but I'm wondering iff your problem could have something to do with the settings in quotes. May be a conflict there? Kind of sounds like your machine is not ground balanced. Just a guess though. Hopefully, someone that knows your machine, will chime in.

Good luck, Crispy

 

[lloyd0161]

Thanks to all for your help!!! I believe I have solved the problem for now....

Talking to Digger over at Minelab Musketeers forum on Yahoo, he thought that there may be something wrong with the all metal pot adjustment. I also read the article about adjusting the all metal and discriminate threshold pots. Tonight I opened up the box and carefully opened up the RFI foil cover to reveal the circuit board with three potentiometers. I connected the battery and coil and positioned the coil so as not to have any metal within reach. I located the two pots with "104" marked on the side of them. These were identified in the article I read to be the all metal and discriminate threshold adjustment pots. The third pot in the upper right is marked "103" on the left had side as "103" and is the ground balance adjustment pot. The article said "DO NOT TOUCH THIS POT" so I left this one alone and focussed on the other two. Then I carefully marked the pots with a sharpie fine point so I could return them to their original position if my experiment failed. With the coil cable connector facing away from me I switched the detector on and advanced the sensitivity to maximum. Prior to this experiment, maximum sensitivity produces an offensive threshold volume in all metal mode and an obnoxious amount of chatter in discriminate mode. I started by switching into all metal mode with zero discriminate and with ground adjust enabled. After trying the pot on the lower right I found this pot had no effect on the all metal mode threshold. I found that the potentiometer on the lower left with the cable connector facing away from me was the all metal discriminate mode pot. I adjusted this to have a stable but soft threshold tone. This pot was now off roughly 90 degrees from its initial position. Next I switched into discriminate mode and adjusted the lower right hand pot to a soft tone as well, which was again off by roughly 90 degrees from its initial position. Once the adjustments were made and I felt the tone level was not obnoxious, I carefully re-taped the foil RFI cover and reassembled the control housing and detector with with the TS800 7 inch coil. I then attached my headphones and took the detector out to my test garden where I have a clad dime and clad quarter buried at 9 inches. These have been in the ground for roughly 4 months now. I switched on the detector and tested the ground balance which now works as described in the owners manual. I then adjusted the sensitivity and discriminate to full and tested the detector over the two coins. Both coins were detected with the 7 inch coil and gave a very nice soft round tone over the coins. Before I had made any adjustments, the target response had not been quite as good as it was now. I will continue testing my adjustment through the week and next weekend before drawing any final conclusions. This is impressive depth for such a small coil with coins buried this spring.

Thanks again,

Lloyd

 

[lloyd0161]

Even better yet,

I tested the Musketeer, following the aforementioned adjustments, in front the yard again and pulled a 1951 wheat penny from a measured 8 inches. This was again with the stock 7 inch coil. The coin was under a tree root. I used 5 detectors this spring and summer and scoured over this spot in my front yard and none of them came close to finding this coin. Or at least the signal was not apparent. These included a Tesoro Vaquero, Garrett ACE 250 with 6x9 and 8x12 coils, Minelab X-Terra 305, and Minelab Sovereign XS-2 with 8 inch and 10 inch coils. Again, I wish they had not discontinued this detector as it is performing valiantly. Last week I found a clad dime at a measured 9 inches with the 10 inch coil. The Musketeer appears to be working much better now so I can get back out there and finish out this season with a little more confidence.

Lloyd

 

[Crispy Critter]

Great news! Thanks for sharing your trial and the results. Hope it works out well for you.