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D

Darrel

New member
Bought my first detector (MXT) last winter and have studing "The MXT Edge" book almost daily dreaming about my first Expliots. I went out for 1 1/2 hours today. I would dig holes with repeatable readings and sounds and nothing. I would get a hit, then I would pinpoint it. The MXT would show 1" or maybe 2" etc depth and when I dug the object it would 4 to 7 inches deep. Then MXT would loose all sound including the threshold. I would fiddle or restart and was able to get the sound back. This happened several times.

Question, am I having beginner blues or is the MXT need some attention.

Any help would be appreciated
Thanks
Darrel
 
You just need to keep detecting. Learning your MXT does not come overnight. Keep reading your MXT manual and before you know it you will be digging the good stuff. Be patient. HH Dennis in Idaho
 
First what were the targets ( coin, can ) that read 1 or 2 inches but were 7 inches? What were the VDI numbers of the targets?

Then MXT would loose all sound including the threshold. I would fiddle or restart and was able to get the sound back. What do you mean by fiddle? What did you change to get the sound back?

Answer these questions and we might be able to help. Rob
 
Rcasio
One of the pieces that actually pinpointed 1" depth turned out to be 6 to 7 inches deep was a piece of pipe about 8 inches long and 1 inch diameter. It was in the ground vertical, the tip of the pipe being 6 to 7 inches below the surface. I had the disc turned down because I had the Grand Kids with me and just wanted us to have fun finding anything.

By fiddle, I would turn the different knobs and try swinging the detector again. It would come back this way some times. I can't believe that would cause the sound to come back. I would turn the threshold all the way up and it didn't seem to make a difference. Other times, I would give up and turn the unit off and then back on and that seemed to work sometimes. I did these incantations with and without the headphones. I know this is all vague, but like I said, I'm newbie.

Hope this helps describe my detector woes.

Thanks
Darrel
 
The first problem is easy. The detector is calibrated to read depths for coin sized objects. Larger targets read shallower than they are ( your pipe) and smaller than coin targets read deeper than they are. For example, if I get a VDI of 75 and it says 3 inches I dig and if it is 3 inches it's usually a Chucky Cheese token or it's a crushed can at 9 or 10 inches. A pieces of foil can read a VDI of 6 at 4 inches and be shallow or on the surface. This can be a help. A 20 vdi that gives a shallow reading can be a tab or nickel, but a deeper 20 is more likely to be a nickel because tabs stay more shallow.

On the sound issue, does the screen work with the sound gone? Rob
 
So many possibilities, where to start.....

Oh, and as was already stated, the depth meter is calibrated to small round coin sized targets. Anything other that that will skew depth. Large objects show as shallower that they are, smaller bits will show deeper than they are, and everything in between. In trashy sites, pinpointing may also be off due to other nearby targets being under the coil at the same time as the target.

1. Check that your coil connection is tight on the control box
2. When you turn on the detector, read the battery voltage, it should be 10v or better, 8v is the absolute minimum and then it should give you a low batt warning
3. Give the coil and control box a couple of gentle taps to make sure nothing loose is causing you grief.
4. Being new, I would start with Coin and Jewelry Mode, Gain at preset or even a bit lower, Discrimination also at the preset, Trac switch to Ground, and threshold so you just barely hear a buzz in the background.
5. If the sound goes out when using headphones, try wiggling or unplugging them first to see if the problem persists when switching to speaker. Take a look at the VDI and see if the numbers still change normally as you sweep over the target, may be an audio issue or a problem with the headphone jack.
6. Move away from the target to see if the sound comes back, you may have a nearby discriminated target nulling and masking the threshold.
7. Turn off the detector and then back on again, watching that the voltage is still okay, to ensure you don't have a bad battery pack or bad battery.

Just a few things to try. you shouldn't have to "fiddle" with any knobs to make things better, especially when using the presets, other then turning the gain even lower.
I didn't touch on Ground Balancing, but the MXT tracks the ground so well, that after a few sweeps when starting, its auto GB'd anyways.

If it is the machine that is faulty, rest assured that that is uncommon, and White's service is the best.
 
It's still not easy without checking it in person to tell exactly what you are doing.

OK,
1. it shouldn't be the coil connection, because you will have a threshold even with no coil connected.

2. It shouldn't be a battery connection because then the screen wouldn't work either.

3. It could be the socket the ear phones or speaker, BUT you said it does it with or without the phones. So both would have to be bad, I don't think so.

4. It could be the phone socket, BUT turning knobs (fiddling) wouldn't change or get it to work. Wiggling or pulling the phone plug out some usually will show this problem. Unless you are moving the detector around enough when fiddling to have the same effect as wiggling the phone jack I don't think this is the problem.

So if you are describing just what is happening it sounds like something is not right in the unit (loose). Some MXT's had a problem with some parts not seating completely on the PC board. The unit would go completely off not just the sound. On some units it would happen infrequently and taking the battery pack out or turning the unit off and then back on got it going again. This movement not the fiddling was what was fixing the problem, I haven't heard of this problem in a while. Good luck, Rob
 
Thanks Rob.

I should not be posting at 3:30 am when tired, :goodnight: since I clearly did not catch all the clues, and just rambled on about general diagnosis 101. :blink:

I hope you find out what the problem is, Darrel
 
Thanks to everyone and the help. I just hope I didn't disourage the grandkids with my rookie detecting, they were really excited at first.

Thanks
Darrel
 
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