MD-3006 fault: needle pegging at ferrous end of meter

G'day all.
I've recently really gotten into metal detecting and have been using for the past 2 months a lower end MD-3006 detector which is not great for ferrous rich soil but not bad at beaches and non ferrous rich soils. Anyhow just recently my detector has been malfunctioning, the needle on the detector has been suddenly pegging hard on the ferrous end of the meter and so I hit the red button on the handle to zero it and it then the needle does not at all move in any direction when the coils pass over metallic objects. I then pressed the coil enclosure onto the ground and it brought the needle to extreme ferrous end then I zero it and it works again. Then it got worse during the day and I put my foot on the coil enclosure which I was wearing steel capped boots and that pegged the needle to the non ferrous end and taking my foot off it was back to zero mid point. It then kept on pegging at the ferrous end of the meter whenever I accidentally bump the coil enclosure and I so I did the foot trick to get it back but after a few times it has literally stopped working! So switching the detector off and on again the needle will peg at non ferrous and I zero it pressing red button, but when passing the coil over metal the needle won't move at all. I admit over the past 2 months of detecting I have often accidentally hit trees and objects while metal detecting so it has copped a beating and I wonder if that has ultimately upset anything in the circuitry? Anyhow I decided to open the coil enclosure and everything looks pretty well in place, the wires are hot glued in position, nothing is loose. I have attached a couple of pics to show how the coils are looking. So I would like to know what would likely be the fault with my metal detector and is it in the coil pack or a circuitry fault? Any help would be most appreciated.

Cheers
Troy


Linkback:

You are not allowed to view links.
Please Register or Login

http://www.thunting.com/smf/index.php/topic,67381.msg324458.html#msg324458