Why does my Ace250 tone sometimes only once and quit?

Why does my Ace 250 beep sometimes and when I go back over the same area it does nothing? Or sometimes it seems to work to go faster but when I try to pinpoint a tone it won't sound at all? I am new to metal detecting and so any help would be appreciated.

For one thing you own an Ace.

It's very common for Aces to do this because of their early-80's SUPER-S-L-O-W Red Baron-like circuitry. Slow down and listen. Slow down and realize the Aces are not as fast in retuning like most Fishers, Tesoros, some Whites, some Bounty Hunters, ALL old Compasses, most Chinese, and Polish, etc detectors.

Slow down to 1-3 fps, and then check both directions again at 90 degrees. This may help some. With the Aces you will not get as satisfactory of a result as with a Tesoro or F-4 though. With the Ace I would dig it anyway because of it's inability to differentiate/fast re-tune/discriminate well.

When you experience this remember too that a "goody" could also be lieing right next to a bad target. Dig it and learn the different sounds it makes for different situations.

I've owned Aces and F-2's too, (and about 100 other detectors too). The F-2 rarely does that but it's common with the Aces, ALL of the Aces.

Hope this helps

LL (AKA "EasyMoney")

Maybe try turning the sensitivity down a notch. Mine will sometimes false a lot if the sensitivity is too high. I usually don't turn the sensitivity up any higher than 5 notches.

-Swartzie

I would agree with both of the previous posts and I love my ace 250. I turn my sens down to 4 or 5 notches and I swing slow, especially in trashy areas. I have made some great finds next to guys swinging high end minelabs that weren't finding much and didn't know their machines very well. Keep digging and you will figure out your machine and what its telling you. The only way to get to those good targets is to keep swinging. Welcome to the site and good luck out there.

My daughters 250 was going crazy, and we saw the battery was down one notch. Put new batteries in, and it worked perfect.

I remember when I was working for a certain metal detector manufacturer (name withheld) that had often had some of it's circuitry farmed out to a smaller firm.  During those times nearly EVERY metal detector did the usual delayed response thing resulting in fractional on-and-off cancelled signals, including Bounty Hunter, White's, and of course Teknetics. We were assisting in the re-engineering of some of the electronics PC board designs back then and working out some of their flaws. Design is one thing, but real-life use is another. A few companies wenty onward in their engineering and some kept the older early design base. Nautilus and Garrett still need to step up to the plate with faster more decisive circuitry but they may be counting on some of the newer innovations regarding magnetic properties when it gets down to coin-sized utilitarianism instead. They may have quite a wait though and I think the Germans or Czechs or Poles will beat them to it.

LL

Another possibility is rusty bottle caps (old style crimp on caps) can fool a detector. You may get a quarter signal and then nothing or a negitive signal on the back swing. You can test this by turning dow the disc and re-swing the spot, get a signal, dig it up and see. Try it, if nothing else you can rule this out as the cause.

Thanks for all the responses! I haven't much chance to go out and try any of these ideas yet but I sure will try as soon as I can! It has been pouring rain here in the Pacific Northwest and the ground is all mud.

I used to use an ace, and I got what u described a LOT, do what they said above and go SUPER slow.......a lot of times you will get a beep and it is the edge of a piece of iron. My biggest complaint about the ace I had was how many times it said it was a coin and it was iron. I got sick of digging iron with that darn machine. I switched to minelab and never looked back.

some times it hits once on a trashy target --figgers out it junk and omits it from farther ringing up -- like a single "blip" -- thus its going metal --nope junk never mind -- thus the "dig repeatible signals" -- normally if a good type target it will ring up repeatily -- low batteries can cause odd behavior as well as rusty bottle caps -- rusty items due to the metals break down process that occurs --can cause odd readings -- a lot of folks run the ace 250 too hot at max sen level this can cause falsing -- 5 or even 4 bars often seems to work best in land  with 2-3 bars in salt water wet sand areas.

If i was you i would listen to ..LuckyLarry..AKA..Easy Money ... he has more knowledge than most about the working of metal detectors. As he worked on them for many years............... and he took down the picture of his red car

Your detector's fine. Videos about the ACE 250 being used in videos is here. They also have archived shows.

http://www.lostandhiddentreasures.com/novembershow.htm