Lost My Headphone Jack Cap

[Tiftaaft]

One of the things I am excited about with the Equinox is to do some swimming hole hunting as soon as the weather warms up.  Because I have been using the supplied wired headphones for the land hunting, the screw cap for the headphones jack was left dangling.  Evidently, the rubber strap holding it didn't have a good enough grip.  The cap came loose and is MIA.  I don't want to submerge the head unit with the jack port exposed... does anyone know how I could go about getting a replacement?  Unfortunately (as we all know) the accessories page on the minelab website is not currently active.  Tim.

[Skate]

Jamie at Minelab is rock solid at getting things done and providing help where needed. 

jamie.moeller@minelab.com 

 

[Tiftaaft]

thanks Skate!

[steveg]

Tim,

While Jamie is great, as Skate said, I tried getting a replacement WM08 module from her, and there were none available.  Apparently, all "parts" that they have are feeding straight into the boxes of Equinoxes, so they may not have that part available.  It's certainly worth a try, but I do remember Steve saying that the port is still "waterproof," even with cap removed, so there is that.

Steve

[Tiftaaft]

Thanks Steve.  

[FlySAR]

Might take it to a hardware store and get a nylon plug or a metal plug with o-ring. My understanding is It's more of a dust plug than watertight.

[Chase Goldman]

17 minutes ago, FlySAR said:

Might take it into a hardware store and get a nylon plug or a metal plug with o-ring. My understanding is It's more of a dust plug than watertight.

 

58 minutes ago, steveg said:

Tim,

While Jamie is great, as Skate said, I tried getting a replacement WM08 module from her, and there were none available.  Apparently, all "parts" that they have are feeding straight into the boxes of Equinoxes, so they may not have that part available.  It's certainly worth a try, but I do remember Steve saying that the port is still "waterproof," even with cap removed, so there is that.

Steve

The control module internals are sealed behind the audio jack so there should be no water intrusion into the electronics even without the cap or a fitted, sealed plug inserted. There is a concern, however, that salt water intrusion into the audio jack itself may cause corrosion of the jack contacts so the plug or insertion of the proper mating plug from the ML custom wired headphones provides some protection against contact corrosion.  You can attempt to flush the jack after submersion in salt water without the plug, but the jack cavity is tiny so it is hard to get enough water flow into the jack to guarantee flushing all residual salt water out of the jack.  You also don't want to attempt to dry out the jack without flushing because the evaporating salt water will leave behind the corrosive salt residue.  I would say avoid frequent salt water dunking without the protective plug or compatible wired headphones plugged in, though the occasional splash or even dunking is probably not a problem, provided you rinse the control module off afterwards.  There is obviously much less of a concern with freshwater submersion depending on the cleanliness of the freshwater source.  I would not completely stop using the unit in salt water, but be cautious about it.  HTH.

PS If you know someone with an 800, you can borrow the plug off their WM08 because I can't see that to be very useful other than as a dust cover since the WM08 cannot be submerged or wetted.

[Tiftaaft]

1 hour ago, Chase Goldman said:

PS If you know someone with an 800, you can borrow the plug off their WM08 because I can't see that to be very useful other than as a dust cover since the WM08 cannot be submerged or wetted.

That is a good point that I didn't think of Chase... When In get my 800 I will do just that.

[Tiftaaft]

1 hour ago, FlySAR said:

Might take it to a hardware store and get a nylon plug or a metal plug with o-ring. My understanding is It's more of a dust plug than watertight.

Thanks, I will check that out as well.  

[TedinVT]

Hardware stores sell rubber “corks” of various diameters.  I'd take the detector or WM 08 to the store and find one of those corks that is the correct diameter such that you could “screw” it into the jack port enough to seal it until the real cap replacement is available.