This question comes up more often than not in this forum or the Modifications forum, and I've also got several lately in PMs or Emails, the latest being this one...
No Name said:
Do you know the brand name or product name for a plastic water proof case? Looking for a high end case or one that will not leak. Thanks
So hopefully Ron won't mind (?) if I post this link to a thread in the Modifications forum that contains tons of links to other threads on Findmall about waterproofing the Sovereign. After all, I would guess adding a waterproof box or some other method to waterproof your Sovereign could be considered an accessory?
http://www.findmall.com/read.php?22,1742794
These threads have many good ideas, as simple as throwing it into a waterproof bag or box and just sealing the headphone & coil cables with a sealing compound of some kind, to installing them into waterproof boxes with waterproof cable connectors, to even removing the electronics and installing them into a custom see-thru housing (so you can watch for leaks) complete with external controls. You can make it as simple or as complex and as cheap or as expensive as you want, and these threads will walk you through many good ideas with pictures and steps.
That's one of the big perks about considering the waterproofing route if you want to go deeper than say belly button deep that you can already go by chest mounting your Sovereign. You can easily use a box that you just throw your Sovereign into for water hunts and remove for going back to land hunts. The long coil cables for the Excal and Sovereign are there for good reason. No need to worry about extension cables that might leak on other machines.
Another option, since most Sovereign users already have more than one coil, is to be on the look out for a Sovereign control box only that is being sold (I've seen them a lot on the net). You can often pick these up dirt cheap, like $40 or $50, and then commit it and one of your coils and a pair of headphones to water hunting that you never use on land. For me that would be the stock 10" Tornado, as that stays on my water shaft all the time anyway because I replaced with with my 12x10 for land hunting. As for headphones, some guys don't use waterproof ones on their water machines because their heads are never under water. Deep as they go might be neck deep.
If you don't need to swap coils and can commit one coil and one set of headphones to your water rig, then you can consider other sealing options other than waterproof connectors for the headphones/coil, such as using Shoe Goo to seal the holes for them to route into the box or bag. Yea, not dive proof, but perfectly fine for your average hunter who only wades.
Just saying, being on the look out for a used Sovereign control box is a real cheap way to build a water machine if you already have a spare coil sitting around, and we all know that the Sovereign is as good as it gets for hunting the beaches. Lacking that, if you only plan to wade just above your belly button the Minelab chest/hip mount bag works fine for me. I just stick the control box in a zip lock bag with a hole poked for the coil cable and headphones, and then seal those closed via some rubber bands. Then it goes into the Minelab bag to chest mount on my left shoulder area. Once your controls are set as you enter the water zip lock the bag closed and you might survive a fall or a rouge wave without any water getting to the control box.
