Juice in the hole
Full Member
Garrett pinpointer...it's dead Jim?
I have a Garrett pinpointer (the black one) that's about 3 years old and acting erratic for quite some time. It's always falsed when wet mud get's caked on the tip and eats batteries like a sailor drinks brews, but my first trip out of the winter season had it acting crazier than ever. It was a week ago with 60 degree temps. Ground was wet and the digging was easy. It struggled mightily with my first couple of targets and then I decided to take a closer look. I had recovered a copper piece of some sort about 8" down, so fairly old. Not sure what it is, but that's not important. The pinpointer couldn't find it in the clod of dirt, even after breaking it apart and down to only a couple of inches thick. I kept checking the clod with my Fisher F75 LTD to make sure it was still in there, finally locating it by trial and error with a bit of persistence mixed in. After pulling it out, I tested the pinpointer's response and could not get a beep unless it was directly underneath the shaft. No tip response and none on top. Other targets recovered that day only gave very weak responses from the pinpointer. This was on a fresh battery which was tested later with my fluke and was good.
So fast forward to today and I decide to test that same piece and it hits on all sides, but only weakly on tip. Other similarly sized metal objects get a response, but only if held very close. It gets a crusty zinc penny at 1.5". I'm not sure what's going on with this thing, but I'm about ready to give up and buy something else. It continues to ruin hunts because I've come to rely on it so heavily. On the plus side, when it's working well, it speeds up recovery tremendously.
So is this normal? Anyone experience anything similar?
Should I send it in to Garrett and pay them to fix it? My research indicates they charge around $40 to fix them, which seems a bit exorbitant considering the initial price of the unit. When I've had issues with Whites or Fisher equipment, they simply exchange or repair for free.
Should I consider buying something different and improved? The orange Garrett gets reviewed well, but I only half trust much of the reviews I read online and on Youtube because of the paid shills. Is it really that much better than the older model? Anything else out there worth looking at?
Thanks!
I have a Garrett pinpointer (the black one) that's about 3 years old and acting erratic for quite some time. It's always falsed when wet mud get's caked on the tip and eats batteries like a sailor drinks brews, but my first trip out of the winter season had it acting crazier than ever. It was a week ago with 60 degree temps. Ground was wet and the digging was easy. It struggled mightily with my first couple of targets and then I decided to take a closer look. I had recovered a copper piece of some sort about 8" down, so fairly old. Not sure what it is, but that's not important. The pinpointer couldn't find it in the clod of dirt, even after breaking it apart and down to only a couple of inches thick. I kept checking the clod with my Fisher F75 LTD to make sure it was still in there, finally locating it by trial and error with a bit of persistence mixed in. After pulling it out, I tested the pinpointer's response and could not get a beep unless it was directly underneath the shaft. No tip response and none on top. Other targets recovered that day only gave very weak responses from the pinpointer. This was on a fresh battery which was tested later with my fluke and was good.
So fast forward to today and I decide to test that same piece and it hits on all sides, but only weakly on tip. Other similarly sized metal objects get a response, but only if held very close. It gets a crusty zinc penny at 1.5". I'm not sure what's going on with this thing, but I'm about ready to give up and buy something else. It continues to ruin hunts because I've come to rely on it so heavily. On the plus side, when it's working well, it speeds up recovery tremendously.
So is this normal? Anyone experience anything similar?
Should I send it in to Garrett and pay them to fix it? My research indicates they charge around $40 to fix them, which seems a bit exorbitant considering the initial price of the unit. When I've had issues with Whites or Fisher equipment, they simply exchange or repair for free.
Should I consider buying something different and improved? The orange Garrett gets reviewed well, but I only half trust much of the reviews I read online and on Youtube because of the paid shills. Is it really that much better than the older model? Anything else out there worth looking at?
Thanks!
Upvote
0
