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AQ Owners, How Stable Is Your Machine In Salt Water?


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Yes, According to what I read. The 11.5 setting was actually a last minute change to 15uS. Because of this last minute change, I'm assuming they knew a problem existed for working submerged in salt water. Out of the water on the wet sand beach, this machine is great.  Working here in Pensacola, in the water, A lot of the modes are not able to be used to the fullest extent with the 12.5 inch coil. I'm looking forward to trying the 8 inch coil when it is available to see how much of a change it makes. I do realize this machine was designed for use in the wet salt sand at waters edge. the capability of the machine is limited when you enter the water with the 12.5 inch coil.

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18 minutes ago, deborah195412 said:

Yes, According to what I read. The 11.5 setting was actually a last minute change to 15uS. Because of this last minute change, I'm assuming they knew a problem existed for working submerged in salt water. Out of the water on the wet sand beach, this machine is great.  Working here in Pensacola, in the water, A lot of the modes are not able to be used to the fullest extent with the 12.5 inch coil. I'm looking forward to trying the 8 inch coil when it is available to see how much of a change it makes. I do realize this machine was designed for use in the wet salt sand at waters edge. the capability of the machine is limited when you enter the water with the 12.5 inch coil.

It is not because there was a problem that one put 15us, it is simply that Steve has recommended it to me in a conversation, so I programmed it for safety. I'm publishing a video today on the forum to show the normal behaviour of the system in the sea water...

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I have got it to work in Destin Florida in open water at sea

but it was very calm and even with a slight under tow,  but once conditions changed it was the difference in night and day or Heaven and Hell.....out of twenty hours Submerged in high salt salinity The big coil or at least mine did not like Salt I could make it work but at the cost of extreme depth......in brackish water I can make it go where Others can’t get to. It will find gold that all machines miss......but heavy salt now ....I got three good hours most these finds below Blue preset....in the other 17 hours. I am still learning this machine but realize I am very good at what I do in submerged water.
 

jimpugh

8A443B80-EBAD-4B6A-99E3-1197BF70F437.thumb.jpeg.0fa8b5c4d846e244948cb1615c1bad87.jpeg

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Thanks Jim. How do you think a smaller coil would do in heavy salt ?  I would love to see a coil around 9.5 inches providing the 8 inch coil provides a lot of improvement.

 

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Deborah

I use to hunt and dive Pensacola Beach ( over a hundred year old beach) back in the early eighties there is Always waves and gold in PB.....I will say I was one of the first to hunt a lot of the golden sites in the area....earlier I use to surf hurricanes me and My brother would hide in the dunes with few  friends and wait for the curls to Break jon top of each other we would just jump from one wave to another aaaah the days of adrenaline and Sea foam.....broke many a good board but in that moment you live ten life times.....Still got my old Eliminator 67 one the Beach Boys had on woody wagon .

yes I lean towards A 10 

just like my board blue strips and gold brown

Happy Trails 

jimpugh

 

 

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16 hours ago, deborah195412 said:

Yes, According to what I read. The 11.5 setting was actually a last minute change to 15uS. Because of this last minute change, I'm assuming they knew a problem existed for working submerged in salt water. Out of the water on the wet sand beach, this machine is great.  Working here in Pensacola, in the water, A lot of the modes are not able to be used to the fullest extent with the 12.5 inch coil. I'm looking forward to trying the 8 inch coil when it is available to see how much of a change it makes. I do realize this machine was designed for use in the wet salt sand at waters edge. the capability of the machine is limited when you enter the water with the 12.5 inch coil.

Thanks for this reply......👍👍

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17 hours ago, deborah195412 said:

Yes, According to what I read. The 11.5 setting was actually a last minute change to 15uS. Because of this last minute change, I'm assuming they knew a problem existed for working submerged in salt water. Out of the water on the wet sand beach, this machine is great.  Working here in Pensacola, in the water, A lot of the modes are not able to be used to the fullest extent with the 12.5 inch coil. I'm looking forward to trying the 8 inch coil when it is available to see how much of a change it makes. I do realize this machine was designed for use in the wet salt sand at waters edge. the capability of the machine is limited when you enter the water with the 12.5 inch coil.

" I do realize this machine was designed for use in the wet salt sand at waters edge. the capability of the machine is limited when you enter the water with the 12.5 inch coil."

This is a wrong assumption.

If the AQ aggressively reacts with the coil in the sea water, the only conclusion is that there should be a fault in the system, most probably a shield discontinuity in the coil or in its lower cable plug.

In that case, one has to report the case back to FTP.

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3 minutes ago, Willy said:

" I do realize this machine was designed for use in the wet salt sand at waters edge. the capability of the machine is limited when you enter the water with the 12.5 inch coil."

This is a wrong assumption.

If the AQ aggressively reacts with the coil in the sea water, the only conclusion is that there should be a fault in the system, most probably a shield discontinuity in the coil or in its lower cable plug.

In that case, one has to report the case back to FTP.

Indeed if you do not get results similar to the videos, you must report it to FTP.

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On 8/31/2020 at 3:56 AM, deborah195412 said:

Back in the water today with my new replacement coil. I was unable to get into the Gulf due to the rough water. I was able to get into the sound and check out the new coil. There was definitely a difference today. I went through testing all the different modes and settings. Still was not very stable in the all metal mode. Settings - Sens 3,Pulse delay-11.5, ATS- 10. I was able to get the most stability in the Volcanic Sand Mode. Sensitivity- 5, ATS-9, Pulse Delay - from 7-11.5 uS Usable over the full range. The higher the pulse delay setting, the more stable it is, I can hunt in this mode just fine. Still cannot vary the coil height much while sweeping the coil,but better than the other modes. All of the modes were a little better this time out. Another factor that may be involved is we have had lots of rain in the last week. Im looking forward to trying it in the Gulf when the water calms down. I am still unable to use the full capability of the machine in the other modes. I still think a smaller coil will help in the other modes.

We have proven that the AQ in normal operative conditions works well in salted water even if there were some doubts about that.

There are now a number of AQ users operating the system in sea waters without any problem.
Also, the sea water in Florida is not much different from other parts of US coasts and Northern Europe coasts.

Thus, we must conclude that there is a specific problem on YOUR  system (and maybe on another one, who knows?) .
 

Making a diagnosis of a problem needs a systematic procedure to eliminate the potential sources one at a time. The one left is then the probable reason why it does not work. it is then still time to find the cure.

Let's make an elimination procedure together:.

1. With the old coil, you have reported that the AQ was unstable even over wet sand. Do you confirm?

2. With the new coil, what is the behavior of the system over wet sand? Is it different from before?

3. Same when only the coil is submerged and swing  in sea water?

4. Same when the coil connector and enclosure  are submerged in sea water?

5. If the AQ responses in conditions 2 and 3 are  good and the one in 4. is bad, then there could be a problem with the coil connector or its fitting. In order to confirm that, you could plunge the whole system in sea water for a few minutes, then take it out of water and immediately make a test with the coil connector in the air. If there was some salted water ingress in the connector, the system will also badly respond.

6. If the procedure 5. show that there was no water ingress in the coil connector, then there must be a problem with the  system itself. It should be returned to FTP for further study.

7. If there was water ingress, the fitting of the connector was incomplete or the connector is faulty.

In the latter cases, a 8" coil would not be a solution to your specific problem.

8. If the system makes faulty signals when slightly changing the coil height during the swing, there could be a fault somewhere in the ATS circuit. If the system re-calibrates too fast whatever the ATS setting, that triggers a constant re-adjustment. If the system does not re-calibrate fast enough, there are false detection's on every slight changes of ground conditions.  In those cases, there is no other solution than returning the whole system to FTP.

Do you see any change of system behavior when changing the ATS from minimum to maximum values?

 

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