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Coil connector pin broke

ironman200081

Active member
Does the CTX still work effectively with one coil connector pin broken off? Yes, yes it does. I went digging last weekend with a Missouri digging legend (some may say "professional") and noticed my coil wouldn't screw in when I went to swap it out. I looked at the connector pins and noticed one was bent out of whack. I carefully used my small blade on the pocket knife to manipulate it back into shape but to my horror, it fell right out. Nuts. Well my machine was new on Memorial Day 2012, so it was about time something crapped out.

We considered driving 30 minutes to fetch my E-Trac and continue the hunt, but I wanted to see if it would recognize the coil and find metal minus one pin. I hooked up the small Coiltek coil and turned on the machine. To my delight, no "Coil Not Detected" message appeared. Some good. I swept over some metal, and beep she went. Nice. We proceeded to hunt another four hours and the machine performed wonderfully in rough soil with lots of rusty junk.

I still think I will send it in for repair when winter hits (and I guess have them fix the screen, which has been streaking for the past 4 years). As long as it works now with the one missing connector pin, I don't want to be without it in prime detecting weather.

Has anyone else experienced broken connector pins?
 
I haven’t broken any pins Bryan but that’s a weird one that it still worked! I haven’t a clue as to what wiring goes where but I wouldn’t want to lose any more pins!:lol: Smart to test it out first before driving back for the Trac...
 
moreb said:
Who were you hunting with?

Eh, some guy I met on a battlefield who was trying to unlock the magic of the CTX. He's addicted to junk, Yankee camps, and pin-up photos of Nancy Pelosi. You wouldn't know him.
 
IDXMonster said:
I haven’t broken any pins Bryan but that’s a weird one that it still worked! I haven’t a clue as to what wiring goes where but I wouldn’t want to lose any more pins!:lol: Smart to test it out first before driving back for the Trac...

I do something smart every once in a few years. I hope it holds out, will keep y'all updated.


bklein said:
Just saw one like that last weekend. The pin was bent off to the side, missing the contact.

Did it work fine? Any issues? Is the owner going to have it repaired?
 
His quit working suddenly. It wasn’t after misinserting the plug - he had run it that way for some time. Power switch wasn’t working, menu display but no VDI display. Bigger problems than a bad coil connection.
 
You just got lucky. :)
It totally depends on which pin is broken.

The connector has 8 pins. They(ML) chose it based on application, size, cost, availability, and water proof-ness.
They did NOT choose it based on the need for all 8 pins. <-- that's an important fact to keep in mind.

A detector could use as few as 4 of those, depending on whether or not they center-tap either winding ....
Pictures of the internal PCB connections appear to show ML using 6 connections (out of the 8 )
Looks like 2 twisted pairs, one for each winding of the coil, then two other lines.

If you break one of the critical pins, it's dead. Period. No saving throw.
The electricity won't magically re-route itself through the other wires.
If you break one of the unused pins, it doesn't matter or affect anything related to the used pins.

In summation:
If you break one of the unused pins, of course the coil will still work.
If you break one of the used pins, of course the coil will NOT still work.

Caveat:
There is actually one 'used' pin in a coil that you can lose, and the coil still work .... and that's the shield.
Although it might affect EMI/RFI sensitivity in some locations.

HH,
mike
 
Wow, thank you Mike for that very detailed explanation. I guess I did get lucky. I will have it repaired as soon as it gets too cold outside to detect. luckily I have my E-Trac as a serviceable backup.

The pin I broke was the one that is in the 10-o-clock position.
 
Ya, they can actually replace the assembly that goes though the bulkhead wall. What can happen is that grit or salt corrosion can get on the threads and when you try and wiggle the fitting to secure it--bang. Even a bit of silicone on the threads might prevent a recurrence.
cjc
 
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