Tesoro Silver µMax Owners - I need your help!

[mts]

I was doing some testing with my Tesoro Silver µMax and noticed something that was quite unexpected. If I turn the discrimination all of the way up to max, the detection depth on a dime (clad or silver) falls to about 1 inch (with a broken tone at that). I figured that this is surely unexpected behavior and that there must be something wrong with the machine. So I sent an email about it to Tesoro. Here is their response:

Hi,
Yes, the more discrimination you use, the less depth you will get. At max discrimination, a dime will only get an inch of depth. At max discrimination, you will only find quarters, half and full dollar coins....which is the only time max disc would be used. you should be able to disc out most trash, while still finding coins without having to use max disc. Everything sounds normal...you will notice different coins will get different depths....try it using minimum disc, using coins and different trash targets.

The Silver uMax will air test various targets at about 5.5 to 7 inches (give or take) depending on the conductivity/type of target, and settings. The Vaquero is much deeper as you already know. The higher the mineral content in your dirt, the less depth will get.

If you think your detector is experiencing less depth than before, you can send it to us per the instructions on our website.

Regards,
Casey Stern
Tesoro.com


So now I need your help. Can you test your Silver µMax with a dime at max discrimination and sensitivity set at 10 and tell me what kind of depth you get? My Vaquero and BH Tracker IV machines do not behave this way. I'm trying to verify that everyone else is seeing this same behavior. I understand that it is normal for a detector to lose depth as you turn up the discrimination. But I expect the loss of depth to be something more on the order of 20%, not 90%. And I certainly didn't expect this particular machine to basically ignore dime sized targets when the discrimination is turned all of the way up. If this is true then it completely changes the way I will have to use this machine. Trying to "thumb dial" the discrimination knob to figure out what is in the ground will be out of the question from now on.

Thanks for your help.

[Terry Soloman]

The more you tune out minerals and trash metals, the less depth and sensitivity. If you MAX the discrimination, you get exactly what you are describing. Turn on your expensive sound system and load up your favorite rock song. Now MAX the sound. Can you hear the words?

[mts]

The more you tune out minerals and trash metals, the less depth and sensitivity. If you MAX the discrimination, you get exactly what you are describing. Turn on your expensive sound system and load up your favorite rock song. Now MAX the sound. Can you hear the words?

Yes...... but this doesn't happen on my Vaquero or BH Tracker IV....

[mts]

The more you tune out minerals and trash metals, the less depth and sensitivity. If you MAX the discrimination, you get exactly what you are describing. Turn on your expensive sound system and load up your favorite rock song. Now MAX the sound. Can you hear the words?

By the way, I have an electrical engineering background and have dabbled in making my own detectors. What you are describing with maxing the sound on a stereo is not the same behavior. A small decrease in detection depth with higher discrimination is expected. Losing 90% of depth on a dime sized target is not what I expected.

[Terry Soloman]

The more you tune out minerals and trash metals, the less depth and sensitivity. If you MAX the discrimination, you get exactly what you are describing. Turn on your expensive sound system and load up your favorite rock song. Now MAX the sound. Can you hear the words?

By the way, I have an electrical engineering background and have dabbled in making my own detectors. What you are describing with maxing the sound on a stereo is not the same behavior. A small decrease in detection depth with higher discrimination is expected. Losing 90% of depth on a dime sized target is not what I expected.

Oh Gosh! My bad! I sure hope I can still get into heaven!

[mts]

Oh Gosh! My bad! I sure hope I can still get into heaven!

:P I'd still be interested in knowing what your results are for this test. Even if you don't have a Silver µMax it would be good to compare results from different detectors. Like I said, my Vaquero doesn't do this. It is being claimed that this is expected behavior for a lot of machines. But I wonder how many different machines really do exhibit this behavior in such a dramatic fashion? My Vaquero loses 28% of its depth on a dime by going to full discrimination. My Silver µMax loses a whopping 85% of its depth for the same test.

[RJH02]

I have a silverumax with the 7in deep search wide scan coil with no cover , I turned both knobs to max and I got 4 + inches with a silver dime and a clad one.

[mts]

I have a silverumax with the 7in deep search wide scan coil with no cover , I turned both knobs to max and I got 4 + inches with a silver dime and a clad one.

Thanks RJH02! Now I have to wonder if there really is something wrong with my detector.

Anyone else have any readings they can share? By the way, I didn't state this in my original post (I've since modified it) but I only turned my sensitivity control to 10. I can't turn it all the way to max without it chattering.

[EddieR]

I have the Silver Umax with the brown coil. I tried the same settings you used, max disc and sensitivity on 10. I got close to three inches on a dime, with a solid signal. One inch got a very strong "double blip" signal.

[mts]

Thanks EddieR!

So that would imply that there probably is something wrong with my machine. I think I'll take it out for one more spin and then send it in to Tesoro to see if there is anything they can do about it. Although I can use the machine as-is with a little care, I'm not always going to be the one using the machine. Someone else might crank it up to max discrimination without knowing about this particular machine's limitation.