GaryD's Mucky Fingers
First off, I do not recommend anyone carry out any repair on his or her detectors. GaryD is not responsible for any damage done to your unit caused by repairs performed by yourself. I recommend all repairs be performed by an Authorized White’s facility. But But if like me your warranty has long since passed and if like me you like to fiddle then you could save some cash or not if you mess thing up. With a little care you could bring new life back into your old worn out detector. That’s what I tried to do with Angie’s XLT this detector must be at least Nine years old and it was on its last legs. The main grip stem had worn out, as the top plastic knuckle joint had gone. Every time you swung the detector the lower stem would wobble.. now this meant changing the whole top stem. Angie had put up with this for many months before I found the time to strip it down and renew the defective part. I had already been told that it was a pig of a job and should send it back to Whites. My thoughts on this is if the thing is fcuked then why not have ago.. .. This is the worn out top knuckle joint I don’t know if you can make out the worn out locking holes on the old stem. The armcup holes look like they have seen better days. This was caused by the lower stem wobbling. The tape was there to take up the slack, It helped for a while but when your stem get to this stage there is only one thing to do and that’s replace it!!!! So lets get started after removing the arm cup, “that’s the easy part” undo the screws and separate the two halves of the control box. Lay the two halves down and take a good look or like me take a couple of photos in case you forget where things go later on Pull off the speaker cable plug connector Next we have to pull off the ribbon connector the two halves are now separated so we can finely have a good nose around inside These two rivets hold the top housing to the main stem. these we have to drill out, to free the housing. The silicon seals the housing box from rainwater. At last the top housing box is free… “Now put the kettle on and have a cup of tee” You can now see the ribbon connector with the oblong washer thing on the end. At this point I marked the cable ribbon with a cross and scratched a cross on the connector before I separated them “makes life easier later on” Next undo the screw at the rear of the control panel and flip the two bottom plastic clips. The panel will open like a clamshell. There is enough slake on the ribbon cable to separate the control panel from the stem. Now you can pull the ribbon cable back through the stem don’t forget to take the plug off first. This is the new stem; I fished a wire coat hanger through the new stem. I taped the ribbon cable to the wire and pulled it back through, now it’s not an easy job but can be done. You can see the wire coming out in the next shot you see the cable and you can just make out the black tape that is attached to the wire… Now you can see the cable poking through, you see the two bolts. I put these in, as I haven’t got a rivet gun. Must admit they were a bit fiddly and when it comes to putting the nuts on then you’ll have fun…. I know I did !!!!!!! Here you see the top housing back in place, with the washer and nuts on. Don’t forget to re mastic around the cable After re connecting the ribbon plug to the cable (cross to cross) slip the speaker cable back into place, then put the kettle on as we have nearly finished just the arm rest to go Switch the old girl on Wow it works!! Oh look at the scratches on the xlt screen, lets replace it with a new one. Fitting a new XLT, DFX Screen First off I use a sharp knife. Just slip it behind and force the plastic screen off, with care it will come away. Here is the new screen Peel off the backing paper and just stick it on Simple!! Wow now don't that look good Here is the new rain hood must admit it’s a great improvement over the older style, just hope it last as long ……… Just thought I would show you this shot. You can just see the black lines running through the screen. This is caused by a low battery 8.7, once you replace it with a fully charged battery then it will be business as usual so don’t panic if see this.. CLASS 4 DC Phase: Occasionally the Spectrum xlt may develops a minor software problem. These can be very alarming when they happen, but they are not fatal and their cure is straightforward. If when you first switch on only half the screen lights up, don't panic, just turn it off and re start. This normally fixes the problem. White say if you have any software problems you switch on, remove the battery leave off for one minute and let the detector lose its short-term memory. Then replace the battery and switch back on. Another problem I had was, when digging a target. The xlt would turn its self off whenever I placed it on its side on the ground. I found a cure "not the most prettiest but it works and saved shipping it back to Whites." I slipped a slim piece of card between the side of the battery and the runners, After ten years I think the side runners are worn out, the card just take up the slack. I must admit that despite its complexity the Spectrum is a very dependable detector.

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