PRIZM II Tips or Tricks??

[DevilDocST]

Hi MA_Hunter001 here,


I have a Prizm II, which I love and have been using for a while now.
I was wondering if anyone came across or knew of any tips or tricks for it. Or any ideas which would be helpful when using it.




HH,


Steve

MA_Hunter001

 

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[khouse]

It's a simple detector. All I can tell you is just to notch out iron and dig all good repeatable signals. Good luck.

 

[Pulltab Parson]

DIDDO. . . .

You have a great detector, it just takes time to get use to it. I too am in the learning curve, but, for me thats half the fun

 

[BobinSouthVA]

I agree it seems to be a great detector for the price. We just got ours the other day and a quick trip to the back yard (1984 house) got us 2 pennies, one dime, one budweiser can and a bit of an old matchbox car. Needless to say we are hooked and will be heading to a local beach this weekend to hunt.

But all the finds were fairly shallow, which may just be the age of our property.

Curious if anyone can provide any depths of items they found with their prizm detectors.

.

 

[absalon]

I've been using the prizm II for a couple of years and really like it. Here's what I did to help me learn it and I would suggest the same thing.

Go to the local hardware store (Home Depot, Lowe's, Ace, etc) and pick up about 8 paint stirring sticks and a tube of superglue.

Go home and glue a coin on the end of each paint stick. Also glue a bottle cap or pull tab or rusty nail or whatever on the remaining sticks. Use these to air-test your machine. You can adjust the settings (discr and sens) and check different depths.

I found that in most cases, I can discriminate everything except silver coins and turn the sens all the way up (as long as it doesn't start chirping erratically) and get about 4-6" on dimes and quarters. If you turn the discr all the way off and sens all the way up, you can pick up a quarter (air-tested only) at about 10", a dime at about 6" to 7".

Since the II doesn't have tone discrimination, you can't use this as an additional tool, but after you have used the machine for a little while, you can tell the difference between a quarter and a piece of trash by the strength of the tone. BTW....headphones are highly recommended. Not only will these drown out noise, they help the batteries to last longer.

Best of luck with the machine and make sure you post pics of you finds.

Scott

 

[Gypsy Heart]

We have a Prizm also and this is what I have found out....Its got big bang for the buck! The built in pinpointer works like a charm and saves lots of digging. When using that one,I usually discriminate iron and if the meter goes beyond (the tone will tell you ) then I take discriminate off to double check the mark (to see if it goes straight to iron or back to 50cent) I love it....I see that often on big copper and IH ...it will jump back and forth from iron to penny...Gold will ring loud and be all over the place jumping from foil to tab back up to 50 cent.....
Definitely earphones....I didnt use earphones for a long time ,but then got a pair of Koss and they let you hear the tones you might have missed
Depth ....is not as good as other detectors I have used....best at 4- 8 inches....but I have a Bounty Hunter that goes deep....so often when I hit a faint tone on the Prizm I will have the girls run over the spot with the BH to tell me how deep it is......

 

[HaveFaith]

I have only been detecting for a few months and have made some cool finds. When I find a target I put it in P/P mode, make the X. Then I lift the coil up until it stops. I do this a couple of times. It helps me to understand about how far down to dig. Sometimes it is right on top, down to about 4.5-5" down. It has been a learning curve. I forgot where I learned that tip, but it is very helpful. I have also found that the P2 will jump around on a good target. 2 weeks ago, I went to a school, and started to detect around a basketball court. My MD got a hit of 1c-5c/zcent/pulltab/ then settled on zcent. I did my P/P trick and determined that it was only down about 1-1.5" I dug it up, and gasp! It was a sterling silver womans ring, w/a triangular type setting w/ black onxy it.

Also I have found that my P2 will find a tiny, I mean tiny pieceof candy foil. It was jumping around like crazy finally settled down. I dug. It was around 4" down. I removed the foil, scanned it again and nothing. I found a tiny camel charm at a school yesterday. It is a great MD.
Hope this helps some.

Eileena

 

[BobinSouthVA]

Thanks for the great tips.

But I'm still having a heck of a time pinpointing and digging some monster holes. Im scared to dig in any other yards than my own at this point. It seems I am always an couple of inches off the target. Ill pinpoint and dig and it seems the target has mysteriously moved an inch or two.

anyway, is the best chance for a target hit under the entire circumference of the coil or a line from the top to the bottom of the coil. If the latter is true should I move myself 90 degrees after making my first pinpointing swipe to get a true X and thus the actual target? just read this article which made me wonder

http://www.goldbummin.com/detecting_tips.htm

Next weekend Ill get a chance to put the prizm to the test. A coworker has a property on which the house was built in 1840. He said he has already found some civil war bullets while gardening and I am welcome to give it a go. Hopefully I'll have some nice finds to share.

 

[Gypsy Heart]

dead center of your coil....make a + movement with your pinpointer....find the center of the strongest signal and dig the middle of the +

Go really really slow....no fast movements ....with the coil flat on the ground...Sometimes you will get acouple of different tones if a coin is next to a nail or pulltab....but it should be dead center of that +

 

[khouse]

Madmardigan,
Pinpoint the best you can. Then move the coil about 1 inch to the side of where you pinpointed. Release and push the pinpoint button real quick while your coil is just off the target. Without releasing the pinpoint button X the target again. You will find that the tone gets smaller. That way you'll be more accurate in pinpointing. This is called detuning the target. Good luck.