Problem with FBS coil that I've never encountered before

I have been a Minelab FBS user for many years and hunt with an Etrac every week. I recently purchased a used Minelab Safari that came with an extra SEF 10 x 5.5 coil.

When the SEF coil is installed on the Safari, the machine will not stay powered up. Swapping batteries did not solve the problem. I originally suspected that the Safari had a problem; however, the problem definitely appears to be the coil. As a test, I installed the SEF coil on my Etrac, which has a Sun Ray X-1 probe. When I tried to turn on the Etrac with the probe's toggle switch set for using the coil, the Etrac would not power up at all. When I flipped the toggle switch for using the probe, effectively bypassing the coil, the Etrac powered up with no issues. When I flipped the toggle switch back to using the coil, the Etrac powered off immediately. This Etrac found me two silver quarters yesterday, and has never failed me in years of use.

As a final test, I put a different coil on the Safari and the machine stayed powered up with no problems.

Since an FBS machine will power up even with no coil attached, I don't understand how this coil could possibly be interfering with two separate detectors' ability to stay on.

Bayard...to me, this would indicate a shorted coil, and the machines circuitry has built in protection in this event to prevent damage to the electronics which a shorted coil may/will cause.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/27/2020 11:47PM by IDXMonster.

IDXMonster Wrote:
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> Bayard...to me, this would indicate a shorted coil
> , and the machines circuitry has built in protecti
> on in this event to prevent damage to the electron
> ics which a shorted coil may/will cause.

+1

Yeah shorted coil I had the same thing happen to me. Mine was shorted right where the wire goes into the coil. I fixed it with some heat shrink to keep it where it didn't short out any more.

Yep.. wires touching inside

Yes, it's most likely a bad coil.

There's an electronics board inside the coil, with a pre-amplifier on it. There could be an electronics fault, perhaps causing too much power draw. And there are more wires in the coil cable than usual, so cable-related faults are likely -- broken wires, shorted wires.

i think the same those sef, cors and so on are not this good. my cors stopped working after one year of use , and i used it like 3 time. Coiltek seem to be the best coil brand for fbs.