Input wanted...Submersible detectors

[jopher]

Im a new but enthusiastic detectorist.I've been shooting with an IDX Pro for about a year and a half.I cant complain as this unit has paid for itself several times over,however, it leaves me wanting to go deeper.Deeper into the ground and deeper into the water.I cant put out for two machines at this time so Im trying to commit to one deep seeking submersible.I think I've got it down to a CZ20 or an Excalibur.Ive looked at the techno jargon and the field reviews but I really need some advise from the people who use these machines.Whats the learning curve? How do they stack up on dry land? Are you more likely to have problems with one or the other down the road?.....Leaks....etc.
It looks like both detectors are priced about the same. The fisher comes with a lifetime warranty.The Minelab seems to go a little deeper on most targets(In wet sand).Ive seen no "dry land " tests on either unit. What to do...what to do I live in Michigan so salt water would rarely be a factor.
Any input would be greatly appreciated....Thanks JO......and HH

 

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[GarrettDealer]

Honestly I'd have to say neither of the above . I am now a minelab dealer . I also sell whites and a few other brands . I'd have to say go with a Tesoro Sand Shark PI.
It comes with a life time warranty and just plain works better than the other two you named .

http://www.tesoro.com/sandshark.html

If you can't find a good price online drop me a message and I'll hook you up .

 

[Charles]

I assume you coin hunt because you use the IDX Pro and you said you would mainly be hunting in fresh water. Hard to find one detector that will do great for both. You loose notch discrimination, id meter and depth meter on the waterproof detectors. The closest I found to working well for both was the Excal. The Excal will id with sound,full range, not 3 tone, so you can notch discriminate with your ears and you can get an ideal of depth pretty easy with practice. When my wife would go detecting the Whites Spectrum was the only detector she would use(Now she won't go till I get another one Doh.) I would use the Excal for land hunting when she went and did fine. It is a bit heavy feeling due to the balance but one of the new shaft/reconfigure kits looks like it might fix that.
A PI detector of any brand is not suitable for coin hunting anywhere accept a saltwater beach because it does not discriminate iron. Some use it in fresh water but allot of iron would drive you nuts. Kinda like detecting in all metal mode.

 

[Gold Digger]

Any reviews on the new Garrett Infinium?? Supposed to be a water and land detector with "Advanced Pulse Induction"... Is it on the market yet?? May be worth checking into... ??

 

[paratrooper]

http://bb.bbboy.net/alaskagoldforum-viewthread?forum=2&thread=349

The Infinium is part of this report on MD's popular in Alaska . Tons of info .

 

[bakergeol]

The Infinium is a submersible PI and has been on the market for some time. It offers rudimentary 2 tone metal ID(low and high conductors). As a PI it will detect deeper than all VLFs(including the Excal and CZ) and is in it's element in highly mineralized ground where VLFs falter. If you were in salt water it would be something to look at as iron readily rusts away in sea water. However, you are in fresh water where iron remains for a long time. You would be digging a lot of iron as iron ID for the Infinium is nowhere near the effectiveness as VLF ID.
Iron ID has always been a problem with PIs.

A new PI is about to be released Eric Foster's Goldscan 5. It will offer a new 2 tone metal ID system. ( Also $1400 more than the cost of the Infinium)
The coil is submersible but the hip mounted unit is not. Perhaps if the iron ID system proves very effective it could be incorporated into one of Eric's submersible PI units. Here is a link to a couple of submersible PI units.
http://www.surfscanner.com/

However, for the time being the two choices you gave are the best.

George

 

[GarrettDealer]

Honestly I'd have to say neither of the above . I am now a minelab dealer . I also sell whites and a few other brands . I'd have to say go with a Tesoro Sand Shark PI.
It comes with a life time warranty and just plain works better than the other two you named .

http://www.tesoro.com/sandshark.html

If you can't find a good price online drop me a message and I'll hook you up .?

Of the PI detectors I have, the Sandshark is the most stable in the surf. The Surfmaster PI Pro, Garrett Sea Hunter MkII, and Beachscan Mk II all have thresholds that vary with surf action, whereas the SS runs pretty smooth.

Unfortunately, the SS is about the least sensitive of the bunch, esp to small gold. This is due to the excessively long sample delay, and the printed spiral coils that Tesoro uses. I have reduced the sample delay on my SS back to about 15us, and picked up more depth on small gold, while still maintaining good stability. I have been planning on winding some custom coils, but haven't got round to it.

The 10" coil is much better than the 8", but as Jerry pointed out, they flop all over the place in the surf.

- Carl

Sand Shark is great in the water. It will hit on items so small they are sometimes hard to see. Eight to ten inch deep targets will hit hard in the water, when you get a softer, quieter hit be prepared to go well over a foot.I always hunt in vco mode, really easy to pin point. Once you set the threshold tone the way you like it the only adj. will be changing the pulse width once in awhile depending on bottom conditons where you are hunting. Turn it on, check batteries ( will need to return threshold to what you are used to) and go hunt. I have the box rear mounted for good balance when in shallow water or wet sand and there seems to be less resistance of the box on the sweep when submerged. Just remember it will hit on any metal so a trashy area may wear you out digging.

The Shark is a great detector,just be ready to dig alot as it will hit on any metal. I use mine in deeper water where the steel trash (nails, screws, etc) isn't too bad. It will hit on extremely tiny targets. Fish hooks, open earrings,open rings(toe rings) bent nails will give a wavering tone, sometimes two or three irregular beeps. But it may sound the same over jewelry like crosses and small bracelets. So ya have to dig alot. I run mine in the vco mode, pinpointing is easy. Power or pulse width setting will give good performance at the preset, put the threshold and volume where you like it. Listen for soft weaker hits and be ready to dig deep. One thing I have noticed is that when the coil is in or touching the water and you get a hit and the water recedes, you may loose the target hit. Just wait until the next wave comes in and the hit will come back. Definitely hits deeper when in the water. The small stock coil has a rather narrow field so just swing at a relaxed pace that's comforatable.
Mount the box at the rear for great balance and hunt for hours.
HH
Jerry

These are just some reviews from various people off another forum on the Sand Shark by tesoro .

 

[paratrooper]

Purely from the financial perspective . The Sand Shark is in the $600's . The Infinium with underwater headphones shipped is $999 from the guy giving the report on that website I posted . If you just need an underwater machine for fresh water and have other machines for land then the Sand Shark is the one for you . Fresh water lacks something that salt water usually has . Waves . The lost items in lakes are usually in the first few inches and that is probably because someone stepped on it . The Sand Shark will do well .The Sand Shark is also a PI so it can be used on land if conditions are so bad that a VLF is useless .

 

[jopher]

Thank you all for your input....Keep it coming and I'll be in the water soon.....JO

 

[Charles]

Hey Jobber please tell us what kind of detecting you plan on doing on land and I believe you said you would be hunting mainly fresh water. Just wondering because Pulse Induction keeps pop up in replies and it is not a viable choice of Coin hunting on land on jewelry in fresh water. Some Relic hunters may use a PI on land. But then they hunt in allot less trashy areas.

 

[jopher]

The dry ground areas where I would like a deeper seeking machine are typically wooded areas with rich humus soil and lots of vegetation.The ground is black and soft and things seem to get incredibly deep in the ground.These areas are typically not trashy and the depths at which I hit small iron targets are out of range for my IDX to hit small coins and the likes.As far as water is concerned I hunt a few sandy, silty lakes where I commonly dig items 10-12" into the sand and Im sure there are deeper targets.I also hunt the great lakes shorelines when possible.The sand is white and clean and the WAVES here in MI can and do sink freighters, so I would like to be able to look as deep as possible into these shorelines.I guess my biggest question here is if any of these heavy hitting water machines might give me a more enhansed search of the first descibed "dry ground "areas?? Any info would be appreciated.Any info from experience would be really appreciated.

Thanks again....JO

 

[GarrettDealer]

The dry ground areas where I would like a deeper seeking machine are typically wooded areas with rich humus soil and lots of vegetation.The ground is black and soft and things seem to get incredibly deep in the ground.These areas are typically not trashy and the depths at which I hit small iron targets are out of range for my IDX to hit small coins and the likes.As far as water is concerned I hunt a few sandy, silty lakes where I commonly dig items 10-12" into the sand and Im sure there are deeper targets.I also hunt the great lakes shorelines when possible.The sand is white and clean and the WAVES here in MI can and do sink freighters, so I would like to be able to look as deep as possible into these shorelines.I guess my biggest question here is if any of these heavy hitting water machines might give me a more enhansed search of the first descibed "dry ground "areas Any info would be appreciated.Any info from experience would be really appreciated.
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Thanks again....JO

PI Technology
A less common form of metal detector is based on pulse induction (PI). Unlike VLF, PI systems may use a single coil as both transmitter and receiver, or they may have two or even three coils working together. This technology sends powerful, short bursts (pulses) of current through a coil of wire. Each pulse generates a brief magnetic field. When the pulse ends, the magnetic field reverses polarity and collapses very suddenly, resulting in a sharp electrical spike. This spike lasts a few microseconds (millionths of a second) and causes another current to run through the coil. This current is called the reflected pulse and is extremely short, lasting only about 30 microseconds. Another pulse is then sent and the process repeats. A typical PI-based metal detector sends about 100 pulses per second, but the number can vary greatly based on the manufacturer and model, ranging from a couple of dozen pulses per second to over a thousand.

Photo courtesy Garrett Electronics
This Garrett metal detector uses pulse induction.



If the metal detector is over a metal object, the pulse creates an opposite magnetic field in the object. When the pulse's magnetic field collapses, causing the reflected pulse, the magnetic field of the object makes it take longer for the reflected pulse to completely disappear. This process works something like echoes: If you yell in a room with only a few hard surfaces, you probably hear only a very brief echo, or you may not hear one at all; but if you yell in a room with a lot of hard surfaces, the echo lasts longer. In a PI metal detector, the magnetic fields from target objects add their "echo" to the reflected pulse, making it last a fraction longer than it would without them.

A sampling circuit in the metal detector is set to monitor the length of the reflected pulse. By comparing it to the expected length, the circuit can determine if another magnetic field has caused the reflected pulse to take longer to decay. If the decay of the reflected pulse takes more than a few microseconds longer than normal, there is probably a metal object interfering with it.





The sampling circuit sends the tiny, weak signals that it monitors to a device call an integrator. The integrator reads the signals from the sampling circuit, amplifying and converting them to direct current (DC). The direct current's voltage is connected to an audio circuit, where it is changed into a tone that the metal detector uses to indicate that a target object has been found.

PI-based detectors are not very good at discrimination because the reflected pulse length of various metals are not easily separated. However, they are useful in many situations in which VLF-based metal detectors would have difficulty, such as in areas that have highly conductive material in the soil or general environment. A good example of such a situation is salt-water exploration. Also, PI-based systems can often detect metal much deeper in the ground than other systems.