Hey guys, very new to the hobby, I just picked up my first real detector a few days ago. It was a ground efx swarm mx200e (read: Chinese knock off minelab) at a pawn shop for $75 that I got because it had some good Amazon reviews. I tried to use it for a few days, and in that time found 2 rusty nails and a bucket handle maybe 2 or 3 inches down. I couldn't have been more frustrated trying to use it though. I constantly got false positives, worthless pinpointing, and ever changing results for what an item was before I dug it up. I could be pointing the detector up into the sky and it would indicate there was a quarter 3 inches away, then it would fluctuate without being moved and say a dime or pull tab 5 inches away (I didn't see any floating metal though). Pinpointing would just have a constant hum everywhere I pointed it until I turned it off and on again. Then after a couple minutes, it would do the same thing. No matter how I fiddled with settings, it was pretty much unusable. Fortunately though, the pawn shop also had a Garrett ace 250 for $150, and they let me trade in the swarm (titled that because flies surely swarmed to it) for full value, and they knocked $20 off the Garrett. Couldn't be happier now, it lives up to its reputation. Lesson learned, buy tried and true.
Just wanted to post this up as a little introduction, and maybe as a warning to anyone else new that might be looking at the mx200e or Googles the name in the future. Maybe I just got a bad egg, but from what I read on another forum after getting it, it doesn't sound like that's the case.
Just wanted to post this up as a little introduction, and maybe as a warning to anyone else new that might be looking at the mx200e or Googles the name in the future. Maybe I just got a bad egg, but from what I read on another forum after getting it, it doesn't sound like that's the case.
