Problem with Power Cord

I detected on a ten day GPA tour out from Leonora in June. Everything seemed to be going fine for the first eight days and I had found 37 small nuggets averaging 0.3gm.

The last two days for that tour I got zip and felt I may have had a problem with the coil or the 5000. I changed to my 4500 on the last day and still got nothing. So I am thinking, is it just bad luck or do I have a problem.

The next tour is a seven day one at Sandstone and I decide change coils to test that side of things. I get only 8 pc of gold in 7 days on this tour and really have the poops about it. After the tour I went detecting with Mark, the tour operator. He was hot to trot, as he does not detect during the tours unless doing a "class" for beginners. He quickly started to get nuggets and I asked him on the radio if I could run my detector over some of his targets. "No problem" and I went over and listened to his latest signal under a bush. It was a clear signal that would have pulled me up anytime. I ran my 5000 over it - NOTHING - not a bloody murmur and it turned out to be 0.3 at only about 2 inches deep. Bloody hell, I had wasted ten days with a detector that must have only being picking up huge signals.

Mark lent me a 5000 of his and I immediately started getting gold. And the signals were so loud - both in the ground and in my scoop. Happy days !

I wanted to find out what had gone arse up with my 5000 - I changed my coil to Marks coil - no difference. I changed my headphones to his headphones - no improvement. I changed my battery - no improvement. FINALLY I CHANGED THE NEW COILTEK POWER CORD. BINGO . Suddenly I had a perfect detector. I got 27 nuggets with it in the next five days.

My problem had been, that the detector was still "working" - probably at 50% capacity. I would put a tester (obviously too big) on the ground and I would get a signal. I was still finding the odd bit of gold.

I will never go through a period of doubt like that again. I realise now, that the only way to check a detector is to compare a target signal found by another similar detector, using a similar coil. Any other checks you do, are all inconclusive.

I found out the hard way and wasted eight days of my precious detecting time because of my stupidity.

I have no idea how a power cord could affect my detector, so that it was partially working. I thought it would be on or off. We live and learn.

Cheers,

Jigalong.

I know how you feel , my first time out in WA with my new lucky lark battery/booster turned on to max volume i walked all day till dark for nothing .
next morning i was looking at all the switches on my 3000 and noticed i had the volume on the detector box turned right down .

how much did those tours cost you all up ?

G'day Guys.

When refering to metal detectors and there electronic counterparts such as leads batteries,charges,regulateors etc, brand new (off the shelf) electronics Items or not,this is where it pays to have a small $20 Volt/Amp meter handy which is probably the cheapest of all accessories one could have in there kit,yet one of the most invaluable tool to carry with you.You could buy a $10,000 TV set and a faulty 50 cent diode could put it out of commission.Now I'm not saying that everyone should turn into electronic wizards but simple testing of output voltages such that of what Jigalong stated on battery,on leads on voltage regulators and even (with caution) you could even test the output voltage that runs from machine to coil,will give you a clear picture of where things stand.This is probably the most accurate way of comparing two similar machines in terms of output performance.

Cheers kon61.

Hi M

Hey I only got 4 same tour!....but I do believe it was because I didnt walk over it...or was it?.. the battery lead that did not perform ...your post reads as a new Coiltech cord?...did I read that correctly or the faulty one the original from Minelab?

By the way our next few days afer the tour with you know who was small stuff.....the area is largely done to death I think

cheers

G

jig hi
hope you had a good trip to WA
i had a similar prob to you , thought it was a battery or headphones problem. detecter still detected & headphones were giving sound , but no high`s or low`s, turned out to be the lead
cheers dave

kon61 wrote:
G'day Guys.

When refering to metal detectors and there electronic counterparts such as leads batteries,charges,regulateors etc, brand new (off the shelf) electronics Items or not,this is where it pays to have a small $20 Volt/Amp meter handy which is probably the cheapest of all accessories one could have in there kit,yet one of the most invaluable tool to carry with you.You could buy a $10,000 TV set and a faulty 50 cent diode could put it out of commission.Now I'm not saying that everyone should turn into electronic wizards but simple testing of output voltages such that of what Jigalong stated on battery,on leads on voltage regulators and even (with caution) you could even test the output voltage that runs from machine to coil,will give you a clear picture of where things stand.This is probably the most accurate way of comparing two similar machines in terms of output performance.

Cheers kon61.

G'day Kon,

How about making a youtube video of how to perform these tests? I'm sure it would be greatly appreciated.

Robert

Unfortunately the phtos imbedded in this article didn't come across when I copied it. The article is from my Instructional CD Coin & Nugget Hunting Made Easy.

Even without the photos the article is easy to follow, I hope this helps.

Cheers, Jim

TESTING CABLES & HEADPHONES
Using a DIGITAL MULTIMETER
FORWARD
For some time now I have been trying to educate all detector operators to use a
digital multimeter to check their batteries and other equipment, but my own
experience and knowledge in this field is limited. To get some better advice through a
How-To section on these simple electronic problems I asked an Army trained
Electronics Engineer to write the article. Steve Pickering has twenty years
professional army experience, and many years as a civilian, in his field. You can take
what Steve says as being right on the button.
___________________________________________
To allow us to carry out a few basic tests on our Electronic Prospecting Equipment, an
inexpensive DIGITAL MULTIMETER will do the job. These days between $10 &
$20 will see you with a suitable Digital Multimeter that will let you carry out a bit of
basic faultfinding. Most of the electronics resellers (Dick Smith Electronics or Jaycar
Electronics) stock these types of meters. Do not purchase a Moving Coil Analogue
Multimeter, as these are far too fragile to be carried around in a vehicle over rough
roads and bush tracks. Apart from being very robust the Digital Multimeter is a lot
more tolerant to misuse by an inexperienced operator The following will show you
how to use your Meter to check the continuity of cables and test your Headphones.
As a note to the wise, always carry a spare battery for your meter, as they will
not operate with a flat battery.
SETTING THE METER
To carry out a test of the continuity of a cable the Digital Multimeter will need
to be set to the Lowest Resistance Range (W). This will most likely be 200 Ohms (W).
You will note that with the probes not touching the meter will display a 1 on the left
of the display (Figure 1). This shows there is an Open Circuit between the probes.
38
Figure I. Meter Indicating an Open Circuit
Now connect the probe tips together and note the reading on the meter. You
should get a reading of less than 1 Ohm, which is the indication of a closed or short
circuit (Figure II). The reason that the reading is not 0 Ohms is that there is a small
amount of inherent resistance in the meter and the test leads and probes.
Figure II. Meter reads 0.4Ohms indicating a Short Circuit
39
TESTING A CABLE
Now that the meter has been set up you can carry out a continuity check on a
cable or wire. For demonstration purposes I will explain the procedure to check the 4
pin Power Cable from the SD/GP range of detectors. First, you must ensure that the
cable or wire is not connected to any power supply. Then, establish the pin numbering
on each end of the cable. If it is not marked or you’re 20/20 vision is not all it used to
be, just hold the plugs side by side with the keying slot upper most. These tests can be
carried out by yourself but is much easier if two people are available. Four hands are
better than two.

Insert the probe tips into the matching positions on each plug e.g. Pin1 to Pin1
(as shown in Figure III). The meter should indicate a short circuit between each set of
matching pins. While carrying out the test, holding the probe tips firmly in place, flex
or wobble the cable back and forth to check for an intermittent break in the cable. If
the reading on the meter remains steady then the wire in the cable connecting that
particular pin is OK. If the reading becomes unstable and jumps around, the cable
may have an intermittent break in the wire connecting that set of pins. Now repeat the
above check for all the pins of the cable e.g. 2 to 2, 3 to 3 and 4 to 4. All should
indicate a steady short circuit for each of the matching pins.

Figure III. Testing Cable Continuity.
Now, while leaving one probe tip in place (Pin1) take the other probe tip and check
each of the other pins (Pin 2, 3 & 4). Each of the other pins should indicate an Open
Circuit, which means that there is no short circuit between the individual wires within
the cable assembly. Repeat this test by replacing the fixed probe tip into each of the
remaining pins and checking for shorts to the other pins.
This should now give you an indication if the Power Cable is the cause of your
detector problems. If a fault does show up while testing then you can replace the cable
with the spare one you always carry or unless you are suitably equipped with the tools
and know-how, you can get back into the car and drive all the way back home and
spend the rest of the weekend watching TV.

CHECKING THE HEADPHONES
There is nothing that will break your concentration more than a crook set of
Headphones. The sound in one ear going on and off or the whole thing clicking,
popping and crackling every time you swing the coil back and forth. This is generally
due to a loose wire or bad connection within the headphones. If you are suitably
equipped you could pull the whole thing apart and repair or replace the faulty bit if
you can spot them. To make this job a little less hit and miss and save some of your
valuable time you can use your Digital Multimeter to carry out a couple of tests that
should help pinpoint the problem.

WARNING. This test should not be performed on the Amplified/Booster type
Headphones, only on standard headphones.
First, place the headphones onto your head as if you were going to use them.
Then set up you Digital Multimeter to the lowest Resistance Range (200 Ohms) as for
the Cable Test above. Then take the Headphones plug and identify the various
connections of your Stereo Plug. The first metal connection at the pointy end of the
plug is the TIP, the next metal connection is the RING and the final large connection
at the blunt end of the plug is the SLEAVE. The Tip connection goes to one ear and
the Ring connection goes to the other. The Sleeve is common to both ears.
Now connect one test probe tip of your meter to the Sleeve of the plug and
then with the other probe tip first touch the Tip connection (Figure IV).

Figure IV. Checking Headphones Sleave to Tip.
As the probe tip makes contact with the Tip of the plug you should get a click
in one of the ears of the headphones. Once a fixed contact is made the meter should
give a reading of somewhere between 8 Ohms and 150 ohms depending on the type of
phones you are checking. While holding the probe tip firmly in place twist and shake
the leads of the headphones around. If you create a series of clicks and pops in the
ears and the meter reading jumps all over the place it means you have an intermittent
break in the cable or plug. With a bit of care and selective bending you should be able
to locate the area of the fault in the phones cable. It is normally at either the plug or
the phones end of the cable, unless of course you have given the cable a bit of a wack
with the pick or jammed it in the door of the vehicle. While leaving the probe tip on
the sleave connection now touch the other probe tip onto the Ring connection (Figure
V).
Figure V. Checking the other Ear.
The other ear should hear the click as the probe makes contact and you should
get a similar resistance reading as the previous test. Again give this test the same rattle
and shake treatment as for the other ear.
If both tests give a steady reading with no noise during the rattle and shake test
then the phones should perform OK on the detector
If your headphones are only Mono headphones you will not have the ring
connection on the plug and when you connect the probes between the Sleeve and Tip
connection you will hear the click in both ears.

In conclusion these basic tests can be applied to checking the continuity of any
type of cable or length of wire. No matter how many pins are involved, as long as you
can gain access to, and can reach both ends of the cable, its continuity can be checked
out. Just remember to make sure that the cable is NOT connected to any source of
power at all. Also, on multi pin cables, be aware that sometimes some cables may
have several sets of pins connected together or several pins not connected. They only
use the amount of pins they need. The continuity of Fuses and Light Globes can also
be checked in the same manner, as can batteries from your little button type to your
detector battery. Just remember, if a battery rated at, say 6volts, checks out to be six
volts then it is flat. The same is true of almost all batteries a 1.5volt AA battery is flat
at 1.5volts and so on. Just remember, don’t connect your meter to any type of power
source such as batteries etc. while it is set to the Resistance Range.
_____________________________________

A couple of points to keep in mind

Are the connectors tightened firmly

Have the pins in the connectors opened up thereby
not making a good connection

Cheers Ruffles

Hi G (Bungarra),

I squashed the plug of the original Minelab one when I slammed the car door, so I used one of my two brand new Coiltek spares.

If you only got four bits, you have more problems than "not walking over it" - sorry. I guess people say that to make you feel better. I guess if you find lots of little bits and no decent ones, you could say you may not have walked over anything decent.

We need to do some work on your technique. Go to Tibooburra sometime. If you learn to separate the fly poop from the pepper there, you can find gold just about anywhere !

During the second sandstone tour, went up again to where you later camped (but across the road ). I managed to get 12 bits off a pushing there - lucky day.

Are you back home now ?

Jigalong

Good Post.... I had a problem with the output of the battery for quite some time. I had spare leads and tried all methods to troubleshoot the problem but kept me guessing for quite some time before I resolved the problem. Even the leads are breaking where the 5 pin plug is. I am absolutely sick of this happening because minelab did not put some sort of bracket at the back to support the lead. ( the SD had it)
As the coil lead dangles and plays around it tends to bend and break the lead - has anyone else had this problem?
cheers Vasilis

G'day all , yes , taking the pressure off the cable connections WILL save heaps of future problems . I stretch the curly cable a bit and run the velcro tab of my detector cover over the curly bit about 6/8 inches from the plug and this prevents pulling on the plug at the detector ...I also fitted a velcro device to my battery belt to basically do the same at both ends of cable ...You lose about a foot of overall cable length but this is not an issue ...cheers Paul ...

vasilis wrote:Good Post.... I had a problem with the output of the battery for quite some time. I had spare leads and tried all methods to troubleshoot the problem but kept me guessing for quite some time before I resolved the problem. Even the leads are breaking where the 5 pin plug is. I am absolutely sick of this happening because minelab did not put some sort of bracket at the back to support the lead. ( the SD had it)
As the coil lead dangles and plays around it tends to bend and break the lead - has anyone else had this problem?
cheers Vasilis

Snap and I mean that, cost me a lot of time but got a new cable under warranty, that is the ML one.Keeping an eye on the flakey bas456/

I know what you mean. I have done the same trick with the velcro but still not a happy chappy with this. Have had to get Kon to repair all my leads and thanks to him I'm always back on track. The big problem is always when it starts to bend again and as mentioned on this thread we have the problem with resistance forming at this point. Our leads begin to block the flow of the current and perhaps reducing max performance.
Next time I will wrap the lead around someones neck or leave it hanging outside the shop.
cheers vasilis

I have a 4500 and had interference noises come from the detector and worked out that it was from the lead. Went to Bendigo Gold to get a new lead and on the way I was thinking I had stuffed the lead by occasionally kneeling on it or catching it on tree branches. When I got to Bendigo gold they had about 20 of the same lead hanging on the wall so I bought two, one to replace the stuffed one and one for a spare. I asked if it was a common problem and they replied no, but why else would they carry so many leads?
JMP333

EXACTLY they are all a bunch of crooks !!! I will never get another coil lead because of this design fault with Minelab. The lead is good but it's just too heavy with no support for it. As you ground balance just take a look behind you and see it bouncing up and down hence bending at the pin end section.
Why did Minelab not make a design adjustment for the 5000!!! Of course it's a great way to keep people buying accessories. Just for the record I hate winging about things but I do get pissed when companies by pass some very basic quality assurance details. We blast the Chines but don't question our own producers!!
Get my drift fellow prospectors.

Gday

Faulty power leads are a common problem, I dont use the standard curley lead that came with the 4500, its just carried as my spare spare, its heavy and I have found that sometimes it tangles on itself all of a sudden and you cant swing the detector, short arms you, until you stop and untangle it.

I use the straight cables and have one that I bought and one that I made after having to re solder a wire on the original one, learning to test you gear is important as having something go wrong as simple as a cable can ruin your trip, carrying a spare is vital.

If you make the checking of the cables and connectors a ritual part of your maintenence routine like cleaning and re taping coils you will find that often you will pick up faults before they become an issue, as far as buying spares that are faulty thats a little harder to pick up, I have just made it routine to go through my gear and run the detector before I leave home, if I have bought anything new like a coil or whatever I will always run it to be sure thats its ok.

As earlier mentioned a multimeter is a must have piece of kit and can be used for testing all your batteries, even the ones you use in your gps and uhf radio, I used re chargeables but also carry some packet batteries just in case, but dont be fooled and think that they are good because you just bought them, even these I open the pack and test the voltage of them, once done they go back in the pack and are re taped, I have found even new batteries to be low in voltage so care must be taken to ensure they are right as they could let you down if you are using them in a gps for instance.

One other thing that I would like to add is storage, its very important to store your cables and accessories in a way that they are not going to be damaged during offroad driving, if you just chuck them all together in a crate or box or whatever they can get damaged from simply bumping and rubbing together, what I do with all my bits and pieces is I store them in port cartons, which are in turn packed side by side in a crate, the 2 litre ones are compact and sturdy, Just cut the panel out where the dispensing nozzle comes out, and you have a sturdy container, headphones fit in these and cables etc, if you need a larger one then you can use ask wine ones as well, apart from protecting the bits and pieces you are organised and can find what you want when you need it.

cheers

stayyerAU

Shicer,
If you go to the Gold Prospecting Australia website, you can look at the details. http://www.goldprospectingaustralia.com.au
Cheers,
Jigalong.

The old thinner Minelab curly cords were hopeless. When I was at Coiltek we had some that didn't last a day, that was the reason Coiltek began making better, stronger curly cords. I have used the Coiltek variety ever since they came out. Some of our Coiltek curly cords are 7 or 8 years old and have no sign of a problem. We too pass the cord under the velcro on the box cover to support it but have never bothered to do anything about the control box end as far as supporting it goes. What we do is reverse our cords about once a week this ensures the strain is shared by each end of the cord. This might not sound as if it would affect them much but it can effectively double the life of your curly cord.

As for straight cords, I have never used one since we had a an SD2000 back in '95. They are cows of things, always getting twisted and caught on bushes. I broke several from kneeling on them then standing up when my foot was still on the cord this was because they were too long and spread out too far behind you. I had one frighten the bejesus out of me one hot day. I was kneeling on one knee concentrating on finding a small target when I felt something slithering across my leg. For one second I was sure it was a snake, but it was only the straight cord.

Curly cords do not hang in a long loop like a straight cord. Their loop is quite short and they seldom tangle or get caught in bushes etc, plus they slither across your leg on a hot day.

Minelab now make a much better curly cord and I haven't heard of too many people having trouble with them. They are a lot heavier than the old ones with very good termination at the plugs but I think the Coiltek curly cords are better. They are a little bit heavier than the Minelab cord and have a more solid termination. Our plan has always been to chuck the minelab curly cord in our spares box and fit a Coiltek curly cord whenever we upgrade to a new detector but as yet we haven't had to use one.

Minelab make the best gold detector there is and there is absolutely no doubt about this but over the years some of their accessories have been less than admirable.

Cheers, Jim

Granite,
I saw you idle past me at Christmas Well a couple of weeks ago. Did you stay and detect there ? I got a few small bits on the pushings and a mate got some just up from the bore.
Jigalong.

Hi jigalong, we drove further on about another1.5klm and detected first on some scrapes then on new ground. We did pretty well on the new ground when Cheryl found a little patch and pulled about 25 bits off it. I got another dozen or so stray bits further down the slope. We went back again and got another dozen or so strays. We also spent time on the Triangle and got about 15 bits there, everything was small but great fun to find. We had to cut our trip short but we still had a great trip. About 2 months altogether but only 28 days actual detecting. Time was cut short by heavy thunderstorms the first few days out followed by 6 days of constant rain and cold weather a couple of weeks later. Had other stuff hold us back like minor car trouble that required a trip to Kal to fix, gas regulator failure (don't ever buy Marshall regs as we had 3 fail) and minor medical problems that required time out. I hope you did better.

Cheers, Jim

Quality Leads can be found at
www.vkteksolutions.com
cheers
Geoff

Thanks Geoff - I had a look. They had straight power cables, but no coiled type ones which is what I like to use.
Jig.