Ocean City Maryland - Broken Excalibur - Bleak Bleak

[Steve and Bia]

Yes the beach was sanded in. Most of the coins look fresh.

We started at 11:00am and quit t 8:00pm. My scoop worked great and Bia had fun up until her new Excal stopped working properly. After an hour of use it started making funny noises like the battery was dead. I thought she had it in Pin Point so I went to turn the dial but It just spun around and then fell right off. I did manage to verify that it was in Discrim mode. What I could'nt understand is the when you turned the machine on the threshhold was already too loud. There was no way to get it low enough because the machine would power off. Anyway, she used it for a little while but then it wouldn't read anything. I changed the battery and it still had all the problems. The only way to get it to read was to turn the volume all the way up and the readings still sounded faint. It's unfortunate but I'n sure we'll get it fixed....

Bonnie, if your reading this you know I'll be calling you Monday.

The spin down the lane... Bleak... I couldn't hunt the lane even at low tide because the waves were ruffer than bricks... It was a fight and I feel sick from it... I think I over did it this time...

Bia's finds are on the left... mine are on the right

[attachment 9229 IMGA0094.JPG]

[attachment 9230 IMGA0095.JPG]

[attachment 9231 IMGA0096.JPG]

 

[GraveDiggerMax-VaBch-Va]

n/t

 

[therick]

n/t

 

[Steve and Bia]

n/t

 

[Bottomfeeder]

Only needed mine twice in over 30 years, but there it was, otherwise I would have wasted a whole day. Good luck with the excal. I recently got a Sovereign Elite, and I will be sand hunting with that in january down in Panama City. Hope its as good on sand as my excal is in the water. if not, my backup CZ-20 stands ready to step in. Love my machines.

 

[VaBeachRon]

Go to Radio Shack and buy knobs with set-screws and get rid of those factory P.O.S. knobs. You'll do much better.

It sounds like you either got water in your coil, water in the unit or battery pod or possibly a shorted coil wire. That really is a bummer to spend that kind of money and have it go belly-up that fast out of the box. Here is a picture of my Excal with the Radio Shack knobs....

P.S. When your warranty expires, I'll show you how to work on it yourself and save a fortune.

Good luck!!

 

[Low Tide Tim]

You would think that a machine as good as the excalibur would spend a little more on their knobs. Some of the folks that use excaliburs go directally to radio shack and by knobs to replace the ones that come from the factory. I have had pretty good luck with the factory knobs, knock on wood but have had to replace a couple of them over the years. The excaliburs are great whin they are working but they are just a little weird sometimes.
Good luck on getting a fix.
HH
LTT

 

[JIMBOAK]

Am considering getting an Excaliber. What have you heard about them being fragile??

 

[Steve and Bia]

n/t

 

[Steve and Bia]

I knew the end caps had a set screw holding them on. The only thing I couldn't figure out was getting the black rubber covers off without breaking them.

I see the board is analog and the fact that these units can't get 20 feet close to each other tells me they truly think in analog. Did you ever see any LSI or any kind of logic chips on these? Do you have the schematics? That would be kewl!

Bia and I were just talking about building a 400lb ROV that is driven by a PCM hand held similar to the ones used for model airplanes. We want to rig up some grappling scoops and a Minelab to it and have it roboticly detect targets and scoop them. It would look similar to the rover on Mars but a lot less expensive.

 

[VaBeachRon]

It's pretty easy. First, take off the black boots. Take a sharp skinny knife and just work your way around the boots and they'll slide off. Then start at the headphone end. Take out the 2 set screws. The headphone cable is on a connector and will pop off the mother board. The mother board is a piggy-back board, well built, full of IC's (chips). Nicely designed. Once this is done, take out the set screws on the coil & battery pod end. What is pretty ingenious is that the knobs are not connected to the mother board. Turn all o fht knobs full counter-clockwise. This will line up the spline of each knob in a straight row. Now, the mother board will carefully slide right out the end of the housing. The potentiometers on the mother board have slits on the shafts that line up with the screwdriver type shafts of the knobs.

 

[Steve and Bia]

KellyCo issued a call tag for Bia's 800. Looks like we're gett'n a new one.

I'm kinda like'n KellyCo. It seems they always take care of me.

 

[David from Suffolk]

Glad someone is taking good care of you two

 

[therick]

n/t