Minelab Excalibur: Going Underwater Treasure Hunting with the Minelab Excalibur

Some of the best treasure finds were found underwater. This sparked the imagination of many people, which is why they decided to do underwater detecting. Minelab, seizing the opportunity, released several underwater metal detectors. One such detector is the Excalibur.

Getting the Excalibur up and running is a simple task. The manual shows exactly how to set the Excalibur up. The Excalibur is 52 inches long when in maximum Waders mode and 47 in minimum. It weighs in at 4.1 pounds and can be taken to depths of up to 200 feet or 60 meters. Out of the box, the Excalibur is ready to be used for detecting. The Excalibur uses the BBS or Broad Band Spectrum technology. This technology allows you to operate at different frequencies between 1.5 kHz and 25.5 kHz. This wide range of frequencies provides the user with a clear and distinct signal that can distinguish between different objects. The Excalibur also has the capability to discriminate between objects made of metal. This is a great feature when in places where there is a high concentration of unwanted metal objects.

Setting up the Excalibur is a process that involves tweaking 5 different control knobs. These knobs are the Mode, Threshold, Volume, Sensitivity and DISC. The DISC or DISCRIMINATE mode will not detect objects that are ferrous and will instead beep on non-ferrous objects. The tone of the beep will depend on how conductive the object is – the higher the tone, the higher the conductivity. Combining the power of the BBS technology and the Discriminate mode will yield one tough resistance against false signals. The Excalibur is equipped with an 8-inch Double D coil. The whole coil is sensitive, allowing you to search a large amount of area with each sweep of the coil. The Excalibur also has the Pin-point Mode which you can use to pin-point an object. This will save you a lot of time since you would know exactly where the object is. However, you will only be relying on beeps and without visual confirmation, the process of searching for the spot will still have the element of hit and miss. While the Excalibur is built mainly for underwater, it can still be made into a land metal detector.

The Excalibur comes with a battery pack that contains a NiCad rechargeable battery. When fully charged, the NiCad battery of the Excalibur is rated at 10 hours of use. On the whole, for those who want to experience the thrill of underwater treasure hunting, the Minelab Excalibur is a solid choice.