Any water hunter will tell you that twist cams are a problem waiting to happen. Usually they seize up. Minelab has been in the business well long enough to know it too. The design and implementation is flawed. Especially going to the one button clip. Let Minelab off the hook if you want to. Me? I sawed the twist cams off. Replaced with better ones. 24 bucks. Problem solved. Of course I am quite good at doing it. I have been doing it with Sovereign shafts for over a decade at least. Yeah Minelab knows. But so does any manufacturer that uses them.
goodmore,
I totally agree with you. In "digging into" the problems with the stock shaft design, I concluded pretty quickly that the twist-lock cams are a big part of the issue, and thus I am working on designing a much better cam-lock option, for making Equinox shafts. Working with the carbon-fiber company I deal with, when I first approached them about needing a clamping system for telescoping carbon-fiber tubes, their first suggestion was a twist-lock cam system, and spring clips -- in other words, the same design as Minelab's EQX shafts. I told them "no way," and began working with them on a custom design. What I can't understand is this -- why would Minelab go the "twist-cam" route? How much more could it possibly have cost, to utilize a much more robust cam system -- even if it were something similar to the CTX design? Ten bucks per machine?
In any case, I agree with you -- if you or I can figure out that twist-cams are insufficient/inadequate, ESPECIALLY on a machine with solid beach-hunting capability, then CERTAINLY Minelab knows, too...which begs the question...WHY?
Steve
