Wallaby and VOM meter

[shep]

I posted this on Doc's site also-

Went out yesterday with Grubstake. Got lucky, found a couple of little ones. Bout half way thru the day, the GP3K went bonkers.High Low pitches with any movement. Tried in different setting, changed batteries, tried everything. It did this at Rich Hill last time there and it cleared up. I checked under the skid plate and thought that was it. This morning. I turned it on, same high/low. Put the stock coil on, quieted right down. Pulled skid plate off, nothing under it. I ohmed all the plugs and made a pretty diagram of plug end in Paint (but can't get it to paste). Anyway w/ notch at top, reading clockwise 1-5, I am getting the following:

1-2= 7.1 ohms

1-3= .6 ohms

1-4= .6 ohms

1-5= .2 ohms

2-3= 7.7 ohms

2-4= 7.5 ohms

2-5= 7.0 ohms

3-4= 0.0 ohms

3-5= .7 ohms

4-5= .7 ohms

Anyone out there have a wallaby, that I could compare these with, before I toss it out? Appreciate any help

[nuggethunting]

Hello Shep,

What has me thinking it might not be so much the coil if the fact the coil works for part of the day. If the coil was bad, it shouldn't be so much intermittent. It would act funny from the start to the end.

I'm not an electrical guru, so maybe Doc and others can give some better information. I haven't had a problem with my Wallaby or anyone else that I hunt with that owns one.

The Wallaby DD Pro draws more power than most coils. What battery system are you using?

Hope we can get this issue resolved soon.

Rob Allison

[shep]

Hey Rob, I'm running the Pocket Rocket, that's not the problem. On Doc's forum, Doc had a couple of ideas. One, I noticed yesterday, the coil seemed "swollen", air in it and suggested, loosening up the flex fitting, cleaning out the silicone, compressing the coil and then resiliconing the flex fitting. I have my old weight belt on it now, fitting cleaned and resiliconed. Cleaned the plug, but I do that alot and don't believe that was the problem.

This was #0094, one of the first 5 (?) Doc got in. Have loved this coil. Even if this solves the problem for now, might be a little stitish about packing in a long way w/o packing a backup coil. Grubstake said the Platipus's coil is epoxied solid (similar to NF??), any idea if Coiltec has any plans to make a waterproof Wallaby?

[nuggethunting]

Hello Shep,

Glad Doc was able to help out with a possible solution. You probably just wore the coil out finding so much gold! The Coiltek Searhcoils are highly reliable.

I have heard about the "Swollen" Searhcoils, but haven't personally seen one. Hopefully that solution will work.

Shep, all the Coiltek Waterproof coils are epoxied solid like the UFO, Mini UFO and the Platypus. I would love a bigger DD Pro that is waterproof. There has been some talk about some new line of Coiltek coils, but I know just as much as you about them right now. Maybe Doc or Trev @ Coiltek could give us some more information?

Congrats on the new nuggets from the patch.

Rob Allison

[Jonathan Porter]

Hello Shep,

  What has me thinking it might not be so much the coil if the fact the coil works for part of the day.  If the coil was bad, it shouldn't be so much intermittent.  It would act funny from the start to the end. 

I'm not an electrical guru, so maybe Doc and others can give some better information.  I haven't had a problem with my Wallaby or anyone else that I hunt with that owns one. 

The Wallaby DD Pro draws more power than most coils.  What battery system are you using? 

Hope we can get this issue resolved soon. 

Rob Allison

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Rob a coil can and will behave exactly as described above, during the night any internal moisture will settle out as droplets inside the coil and can then re-vaporise later in the day as things warm up which would cause the coil to become noisy even though it was working fine earlier on. Water usually ingresses via a crack in the plastic housing (common problem with vacuum formed coils); it can do this in two ways, either as pure moisture (detecting in dewy conditions) or as moisture laden air (high himidity).

If the coil has swollen up (air pressure inside the housing is different compared to the outside air) then there could be chaffing between the faraday shielding on top of the foam insert and the plastic top of the coil, as the coil is swung there can be movement between these two parts which will make the coil very noisy. This swelling might also have put strain on the soldered junction point of the external cabling and the internal wiring of the coil.

Hope this helps

JP

[nuggethunting]

Hello Jonathan,

Thanks for the detailed explanation. I have heard of the "Swollen" coils before in the past, but never personally seen one. I'm so hard on searhcoils I wear then out way before one could get swollen. I could see how a swollen searchcoil could do all the things you mentioned in the previous post. I cracked a searchcoil once and then moisture entered the searchcoil .... well you know the rest.

I would assume the weather is nice over there now. Getting up into the 90's here. Going to be another hot Summer ....

Talk with you soon,

Rob Allison

[Reg]

Hi Shep,

Here is a pic of how the coil is wired to the plug.

I would look very carefully at the wiring at the back of the plug and make sure nothing broke loose or is shorting out. Normally, the wire will go bad at the connectors before going bad anywhere else.

Something could have gone wrong inside the coil, but that is hard to tell without taking it apart. I have never taken a Coiltek coil apart so I am not sure of the difficulty.

If you decide it is bad and are going to toss it, let me know, I would like to take one apart to look at a couple of things.

Thanks,

Reg

[shep]

Reg, If this doesn't work, I'll see you get it. I'd take it apart, but wouldn't know what I was looking at. Would likepics of inside-

[Capricornstreasure]

Interesting problem,

JP's analysis looks good. Might be helpful to check the coil resistances

when its working and when its not using Req's guide to see if indeed

moisture is present. I tried resistance checks against my 11 DD and

the results were comperable to yours on the wallaby, excepting different

manufactures and sizes the basics are going to be the same. If its still

in its warranty period you may want to turn it over to thier techs.

It will help to note temp's when you start to when it reacts~ I've seen

plenty of temperature related intermitant faults to lend my beliefe

to JP's results.

Let us know what you find out. Definitly noteworthy.

pz

[fenderbender]

I posted  this on Doc's site also-

Went out yesterday with Grubstake. Got lucky, found a couple of little ones. Bout half way thru the day, the GP3K went bonkers.High Low pitches with any movement. Tried in different setting, changed batteries, tried everything. It did this at Rich Hill last time there and it cleared up. I checked under the skid plate and thought that was it. This morning. I turned it on, same high/low. Put the stock coil on, quieted right down. Pulled skid plate off, nothing under it. I ohmed all the plugs and made a pretty diagram of plug end in Paint (but can't get it to paste). Anyway w/ notch at top, reading clockwise 1-5, I am getting the following:

1-2= 7.1 ohms

1-3= .6 ohms

1-4= .6 ohms

1-5= .2 ohms

2-3= 7.7 ohms

2-4= 7.5 ohms

2-5= 7.0 ohms

3-4= 0.0 ohms

3-5= .7 ohms

4-5= .7 ohms

Anyone out there have a wallaby, that I could compare these with, before I toss it out? Appreciate any help

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