Compadre Schematics

[Merc]

I had a problem my Golden Sabre(original factory built) beeping randomly when I would flex the coil cable where it entered the connector housing. I opened it up expecting to find a broken wire but there wasn't one. Looking close, however, there was an extra unused black wire in the cable and it looked like the strands of wire at the end were touching one of the receive coil wires. I cut the cable off and resoldered all connections and taped back the extra wire. I also connected the shield drain wire to the tab connected to the body of the connector. It only went to the middle pin of the connector before. Problem solved. No more beeping when I flexed the cable.

Merc

[bklein]

Has anyone taken this Amigo schematic and verified it against the Compadre and re-numerated the various components to correspond?
It is pretty aggravating trying to match it up as is.

My unit continues to randomly beep. It seems it does this if in the constant presence of metal or wetness of the soil. I see this coming from the outputs of the 393 comparators. This circuit looks kinda weird to me.
To work it gets a pulse on the lower comparator and a delayed one on the upper. R18 sets the delay timing of the upper one. The Q3 circuit sets a fixed bias for the threshold. Part of my unit's problem must be here somewhere. So I need to find the Q27 circuit and Q3 circuit and check them out. Weird how on my unit, only the VR4 trimmer seems to do something. Too far to the left and it beeps all the time, back off to the right and play with ground balance of the unit and it seems ok. But the others don't seem to change the way my unit works. How about you guys?

But I notice that if I (lightly) twist the cable going into the coil (remove/unscrew the connection cover) it beeps with movement. Does this coil have a shield that may be not making contact inside?

[Merc]

Yes. It is a shielded cable and the shield drain wire should be connected in the connector housing.

Merc

[bklein]

Does your detector have this characteristic - beeping if you twist the coax slightly at the coil input? It may be due to some wires just simply moving or it may be due to a poor connection. Is this connection accessible if I take the coil cover off?

[bklein]

Yes. It is a shielded cable and the shield drain wire should be connected in the connector housing.

Merc

oh, and are you sure about the drain wire? There is none on mine.
Just two twisted pair wires connecting to the pcb.

[Merc]

I don't have a Compadre so I can't be 100% sure. I have 4 other Tesoros that all have shielded cable with a drain wire. It's just hard to believe that Tesoro would use a different type cable on just one model. The ones that I have all have coil connectors so you can change out coils. Isn't the Compadre coil cable soldered straight to the board?

Merc

[simonbaker]

oh, and are you sure about the drain wire? There is none on mine.
Just two twisted pair wires connecting to the pcb.

I recall my Compadre (5 1/4 " coil, new model) does not have outer shield connected, only two pairs of wires. I was surprised.


-SB

[bklein]

My unit does not have a drain wire. There are just two twisted pair wires coming out of the cable, going to the pcb. On Esteban's post #3 with the photos of the board etc. you can see the coil wires attached on the underside at the left. No separate ground wire but one of each pair likely connects to ground on the board. The Compadre coil is fixed connection but there is an alternate they offered to sell me that would have to be wired in.

Barry