Frustrated E-Trac Owner

[jsmith]

Towards the end of the summer last year, after weeks of careful research, I purchased an E-Trac metal detector. I picked up metal detecting again last year after not having touched a detector for many years. I had been using my father's bounty hunter and made multiple good finds, but determined that if I was going to buy my own detector I wanted to get one that I would be happy with for years to come.

I purchased a used E-Trac off eBay with the Sunray X1 probe customization. Having read about the learning curve of the E-Trac on this forum and others, I also purchased Andy Sabich's E-Trac handbook. I've read this book front to back a couple of times in an effort to master the E-Trac.

I've taken the E-trac out 8 or 9 times and have found one wheat penny and pockets full of iron and other "junk". My detector does a poor job of pinpointing items that I've buried for testing. The Fe-Co values for known items are all over the board and I believe this has contributed to me digging up items that should've been discriminated by the pattern I was using.

I've started to suspect that my detector may have a defective component. This was reinforced on me last weekend when I went detecting with my father and he dug out a civil war button in the same area that I had swept an hour before. After he pulled it out I swept my E-Trac over it and was able to detect it. I've read that someone else was having similar issues and met up with a fellow E-Trac owner. Together they determined that the faulty E-Trac had a bad coil.

I'm putting this message out there in the hope that someone in my area (Central IL) who owns an E-Trac would be willing to assist me in determining if my E-Trac is not working correctly, or if I simply do not understand how to use it properly.

 

[stasys]

if detector can pick up item in the air its usual can pick in the ground, make test and look what you cant pick, maybe you discriminated it on the screen?. I suggest you change to other coil, because some pro coils like iron and for new comer its can be problem, try old explorer coil1000 or 1050. and remember switch back to coil from sunray probe when you detect, I have some hour early morning work with probe left on-was interesting experience... and zero finds

 

[sugar]

ok lets go back to absolute basics and try and see if you have a faulty coil put it in the relic program which will have the etrac working in the ferrous mode with not alot of discrim try if you know your way around the controls to switch the ferrous programe to 2 tone by going into audio scroll down to tones click on and use directional arrows bottom left hand to move tones to two now you will dig every two way tone under the 17 and ignore all the grunts this will do two things it will help us determine if the coil is faulty and if not it will start giving you confidence in the etrac ok make sure you hit the noise cancel button when you first turn on the machine and hold a few inches above the ground for the minute it takes to find the quietest channel make sure you are in auto sensitivity say plus 3 if that doesnt make it chatter and go out and hunt and dig all two way high tone signals if you do not start pulling up coins we must look at the coil being up the creek but give it a go and report back so we can all help you happy hunting

 

[Illinois Dirtdoctor]

I live in Central Illinois; it is a big area though and not sure how close we are. If you can message me perhaps I can help out.

 

[EtracTom-AdirondacksNY]

Do a reset use the coins factory program pattern from the 4 choices already in the menu then set TRASH to HIGH and GROUND to DIFFICULT. You noise cancel then KEEP the coil on the ground while swinging it, it likes no air under it only the earth. Swing slowly like painting a house with 4- 5 seconds long from one end of your swing then 4- 5 seconds back the other way.
You said you could detect the button after your dad dug it you should have been able to pick it up in the ground unless it was discriminated out from your pattern you have set in the detector because of iron or minerals or such in the ground. Same on your test coin patch when you said the numbers all over the place. I only pay attention to the CO no couldn't care less what the FE no. is if i'm hunting in CONDUCTIVE MODE. You may have skipped it looking at the FE no reading when you passed over it thinking it was iron or such. That is why I only go by the CO no's when I hunt.
I think if the coil was bad then every bump or movement it would be going off on the detector screen and sounds as that is what I had one do when it was bad.

 

[Barry NY]

are you sure your x-1 switch is flipped forward?
did you check to see if the probe works?
did you try connecting the coil directly into the control unit bypassing the probe?

 

[JamesBondaka]

check your connections.......there could be several issues....might be better to talk with someone on phone...if you need it...I can help and we can chat