John Volek, Author at The Ring Finders | Page 20 of 23

Playa Mujeres-Cancun, Mexico (Vacation)

I debated taking a metal detector on my vacation to Playa Mujeres Cancun Mexico, but opted to pack up the Excalibur II and see if it could learn to speak Spanish.

As relaxation kept me pre-occupied, I waited until the last day of my vacation to break out the Excalibur II. I spent a little less than 4 hours playing around in about 3 foot of clear water. The bottom was surprising clean, and most finds were of interest.

Surprisingly enough, most of my finds were American coins, not that of the local currency.

I recovered three rings during that run, two of them were Tungsten, and one 14kt with 9 Diamonds.

Checked with the Resort, and was unsuccessful at finding a report of the ring being reported lost.

No telling how long it had been in the sand, but it now has a new home in Texas. Now wishing I would have started detecting on day 1.

Minelab had just recently provided me with this replacement Excalibur II, and it worked great.

After a good cleaning and polishing.

Excalibur II

John – Texas, USA

Lost Diamond Wedding Ring Marble Falls, Texas

Recently traveled 3 1.2 hours up to Marble Falls, Texas  for an underwater recovery job to find my Excalibur was non-operational (busted)

I prepared as always carrying two of everything, batteries, pin pointers, masks, tools, you get the picture. The fact is a lot of work goes into preparing for an underwater recovery, everything I am sure you already understand.

I powered on the Excalibur and immediately noticed something was wrong. I immediately thought, how could the battery be dead, I charged both the primary and secondary battery prior to making the trip to Marble Falls. I thought to myself that’s really weird, and climbed out of the water to retrieve my back-up battery. I mounted the second battery and the presence of silence through the head phones was a shattering disappointment.

I spent a few minutes trying to identify what was wrong when I bumped the battery wire and heard tones through the head phones. A closer examination revealed I was up a creek with no paddle.

I immediately realized that the battery power cable had come loose from its internal coupler and was shorting out. I must admit, I became very upset seeing that the wire was not really held into the coupler with anything more than a mere crimping of the coupler. It seemed improbable that a machine this well
built and designed for underwater operations could have this type of manufacturing design

It’s interesting that all the other cable ends have cable guards/protectors but the most exposed wire on the machine uses a simple crimp to hold it in place?

Excalibur is back at Minelab, while my client is awaiting my return.

Working on a solution, may end up transition the Excalibur to an Anderson Shaft.

If you operate an Excalibur check this cable frequently.