Wow! Thanks so much guys! This is incredibly helpful stuff! I feel like I'm ready to properly take care of this machine now! It just shipped, so I may have it in hand in as soon as a week (optimistically-- two weeks is also possible and more likely)!
The silicon grease used on the O-rings in SCUBA diving will work as well as any listed. Stop by any dive shop, there's gotta be one near the beach, and pick up a tube. It will be small, very small, and when you do lube the O-ring used only the barest amount of the grease so that the ring just shows a sheen. Over lubing the ring is worse than not lubing it at all.
Nice! Dive shops are
everywhere here (this being a popular diving reef area) so this looks like my best bet for getting some really fast! Good to know about over-lubing. Definitely don't want to mess that up.
Silicone grease used to lubricate pool gaskets is what I use. The Sand Shark is built like a tank. The opening-closing system for the batteries is pretty straight forward. There are pirates that use a Velcro strap as added protection around the opening clamps. I used to. I find those things clamp pretty tight. There's one large o-ring that forms a box. Whenever you change or take out the batteries to charge just clean the contact area well and put a light coat of silicone. I use rechargeable AA Eneloops. They have served me very well. You're going to kill it with it so get ready to dig & good luck!!
Thanks for the tips! I may consider using some velcro there if the clamps aren't super tight on mine or if any part of my gear tries to catch on them. Yay for Eneloops! I'm a huge fan of those-- used them for backpacking for years-- they carry a lot of charge and they fill up in just a couple hours! The panasonics that I had before took like 10 hours to charge. Good to know Eneloops are good for detectors! How many hours does your SS usually get off of a fully charged set of Eneloops?
I'm ready to dig! Even scored a long-handled scoop that was about to get chucked when the apartment building's storage room was getting cleaned out (think it belonged to Onthespot). It's incredibly heavy and I feel like I'm wielding a medieval mace, but it's something! At least I can wade and hunt without having to squat down in the water like I'm dropping a turd.
Plummer silicon grease works well too. I wouldnt use anything but silicon spry on the wires. Rarely do you get a machine with cracked cable so dont worry until you check it out. No need to panic. Make sure you check the O rings to ensure they fit snugly. That to me is more important than grease. Grease to me collects sand..... so i ensure it fits properly and run it under hot water to clean it. Buna O rings are especially good ones. They have a natural stickiness to them. Doesnt the SS have a life time warranty?
That's reassuring! Yeah, the cables and connections looked very solid in the photos. The seller included a lot of close photos of the insides and various parts of the detector for quality assurance, which I thought was probably a good sign. I'll definitely make sure the O-ring is in good condition before putting it to the test. Maybe I should get a spare on in advance before the detector arrives? Sounds like lots of y'all keep spares just in case, ne.
Everyone is right. silicone grease is silicone grease. No difference.
You can pay 10.00 for it at a scuba shop or 4.00 for it at a hardware store.
The most important thing is to use it SPARINGLY. Put it on the gasket so it looks wet. Do not glob it on. I put it on a small part and run the gasket between my fingers to make sure it gets coated. Do not drop it! If you get sand or dirt on it you will have to clean it before you grease it again.
Make sure the sides of the case the gasket sits against are totally sand and dirt free. If you follow those instructions no water should ever ruin your new toy.
Arigato! Sounds like a little of that stuff goes a long way, ne. Very cool. I will make sure to keep it free of sand and dirt when cleaning and lubing.
Here's a link from Mr. Terry Solomen you tube video on how
https://youtu.be/J-fYvHBRWmk
Nice! I totally just watched that! I like the shower idea. I've got a soft brush in the back of my car for getting any thick sand off, so then a quick shower indoors and air-dry on the back porch before disassembly: should work out real well. I'm curious-- he mentions battery leakage: have y'all had that happen with rechargeables? I've only had that happen with cheapo batteries before. I'll be taking them out regularly to charge them, but usually I would not worry about leaving them in for a few days in a row if the charge was still good. Thoughts?
Very true about the original purchaser. I don't trust Tesoro's out of warranty. TWICE now Tesoro has told me my coils were bad (different ones) and wanted to rebuild them. Twice I have declined and I have never had a problem with them.
Personally I think they TRY to charge people with machines out of warranty as much as they possibly can. I won't send another machine to them
Good to know. Yeah, shipping is so expensive to and from here that I wouldn't consider it. My husband's got mad engineering skills, so if it breaks I'll see if he can fix it. If not- he gets some new parts for his robots. My general hope with any detector is pretty much that it will at least pay for itself before it breaks. The TK4 paid for itself x 2 in clad already and x 10 in precious metals (and it's still working) so if I do as well with the Sandshark I'll be an extremely happy pirate!
Sort of, Different greases will use different thickening agents. Dielectric grease is silicone grease but the additives are designed specifically for electrical connections. It's made for thousands of volts and high heat so if your detector ever gets struck by lightning the connections will still be good.
The main reason I use Dielectric grease is because I have a tube of it. Any silicone grease would work, but I have to think the stuff made for electrical connections would be best. I know it makes it easy to remove boat trailer bulbs after years of use.
Interesting! Might be worth trying. I was almost struck by lightning once (close enough to the strike that the electricity fried my digital electronics). Would certainly like to minimize any risk to my detector.
Congrats. Was also 1 of my 1st machines. After about a year or so I would also hip mount, vco mode, pre sets. Easy to pinpoint and discriminate by sound.
Highly recommended pulsepower by Clive Clynick... It will really help the learning curve.
Good luck and I suspect some really good finds in your near future
For the grease just go to ebay and type in divers o ring grease or lubricant. Choose 1 or 2 and check the reviews. I used that on the SS without any problems.
Thanks for the operating tips! Definitely looking forward to using a machine with meaningful control options! I'll definitely check out ebay for the grease as well. Dive shop might be faster, but I also don't want to get ripped off, and most of the dive shops are a bit on the tourist-trap side, ne.
Its also a pretty good idea to use food grade silicone spray on the headphone wires and coil wires occasionally. This will help protect and keep supple these wires. Two well known brands are Trident and Mcnett .
I have 3 detectors that I have done this with and am very pleased with the results.
I also had an excal years ago before I started with this maintenance schedule and saw the outside rubber slowly crack and degrade.
Ooo, thank you for this-- yeah, especially since this machine is used I was hoping to learn how to keep the wires in good shape! I will see if I can get one of those sprays. Definitely want to extend the life of this thing for as long as possible!
This may be the most informative thread I've read in a while.
Right!? These guys seriously know what they're talking about!
One thing I would like to add is a minuscule design flaw for me. The battery pack, at the point that it makes contact inside, can sometimes lose contact due to the battery pack terminals not making contact with the inner spring terminals. I believe that its caused by the weight of the battery pack just pushing down on the spring terminals over time and use until one day battery contact becomes intermittent and maybe lost. At this point you just need to use some type of tool to gently bring up the leaf spring again so it can make good contact.
Thanks! This is good to know! Since I don't know how long this one has already been used, it's possible the contact could already be iffy when I get it. If I experience battery issues I'll definitely check on this!
I forgot to mention on the sand shark that after I had my coil replaced I noticed the replacement coil was just a tad smaller , hardly noticeable. I then put on the old coil cover and it was loose and would easily fall off. The easiest and cheepest fix .. strips of duct tape.
Thanks for the heads up! This one comes with a coil cover (presumably it's been used before, but ya never know) so I'll make sure it's fitted well. Don't want to accidentally give some beach doggo a new frisbee. I've never used a coil-cover before. Anything else I should know about that? Is it a good idea to use one if you have it? Any disadvantages?
great little vid... i almost bought a Sand Shark... its a great machine.
besides the Grease... another thing i do from time to time is Spray some WD40 on a clean rag and wipe everything (i mean everything) down with the rods taken apart... wipe everything
dont over-due it... just a little bit and wipe it till it seems the shininess starts to fade... this will leave just a little on all the metal and plastic and help protect it from the elements and the sun... i do this every month or so.
i wash off my detector at the beach before i put it in the jeep with a little pressure pump washer i have... then when i get home... i remove the coil protector and hose everything down... dont forget to shoot water down the tubes as well... sand builds up in there.
Get ready to DIG !!!
Cool! Thanks for the tips! WD40 is actually something we have over here (not just a Japanese version of it, but the actual brand!) so that should be easy enough. And i didn't realize that sand gets in the tubes! I'll make sure and clean those out too (in part because my husband's not a big fan of me accidentally dumping sand all over the apartment when I get home from a hunt! hehe).
