First detector

[IMF2020]

Hi am new to metal detecting ..after watching many videos on Fake Tube i have it down to just 2 models.. Quest scuba tector pro and vanquish 340 ..both of these are in my budget range ..Any input on which detector would be my best choice is welcomed ..i plan on detecting the wet salt water beach only due to the fact that its legal to detect where am at ..

 

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[Terry Soloman]

Minelab Vanquish.

 

[Tony in SC]

Terry has good advice! What ever you decide, take time to learn and understand your machine.

 

[IMF2020]

I just seen a video of the Quest detecting a brick .. Am having second thoughts now because black sand worse then bricks where am at ..

 

[xr7ator]

I was going to advise that if you can borrow or rent one and get out and put in 10 to 20 hours to see if it really is something you are interested in would be good advice, accept that might not be an option where you are located.
You are going to dig a lot more trash than treasure because there's more trash dropped or lost, than treasure.

 

[IMF2020]

xr7ator ..renting impossible here ..thanks for pointing out the trash problem ..after seeing the brick being detected am having second thoughts on P.I detectors maybe my dad right a shovel is your best detector ..VLF or P.I. ??

 

[IMF2020]

After looking at the owners manual on the Quest i realize that this P.I has no advantage over VLF on the wet beach ..maybe my dad was right excalibur II is minelab #1 beach machine

 

[IMF2020]

i just seen the Stp20 8" coil machine and this Quest seems to have problems in black sand conditions ...what machine and what size coil works the best in heavy layers of black sand ..I have no ideas maybe this area of beach is impossible to detect or would a small size coil 5" or 8" give a advantage what i see in videos all machines seem limited to a few inches and totally worthless on small gold chains ..Maybe the excalibur II is the only good machine for these conditions and vanquish is just for a normal beach ...most rocks here stick to a super magnet ..My dad been laughing at my questions and tells me to get a 8 foot coil ..

 

[TheGreenBoy]

Get a PI with delay and sampling width control or even better, a modern one where you will be able to adjust integration conditions. You might kiss the discrimination good bye, but at least you will be able to detect metal.

 

[JerV3]

Vanquish line up.

Great little machines for a great price.

I have two of them both 440 models.

We are pulling silvers with them almost every hunt in pounded out sites.

Certain days the vanquish is out performing our nox's.

Jer

 

[CASPER-2]

I would say i get more treasure than trash - but i hunt in places that myself and others have taken most of the trash out of
over the yrs
my last 2 hunts
i hunt in all metal too

I was going to advise that if you can borrow or rent one and get out and put in 10 to 20 hours to see if it really is something you are interested in would be good advice, accept that might not be an option where you are located.
You are going to dig a lot more trash than treasure because there's more trash dropped or lost, than treasure.

 

[CASPER-2]

i believe everyone should start with a PI and then move up
learn to dig everything and go deep - take everything out
i use to hunt "cleaned out" places with PI and killed it cause I could go at least 6 ins. deeper than others that crank their discrim.
plus i would pull out all the trash and find goodies with or under trash that others missed

Get a PI with delay and sampling width control or even better, a modern one where you will be able to adjust integration conditions. You might kiss the discrimination good bye, but at least you will be able to detect metal.

 

[IMF2020]

I what to thank all of the members for there advice and after a long talk with my dad i have to make a choice between what he says is big game hunting (P.I.) or small game trash hunting (MVLF) I realize he sent me to worse beach where others have failed over the years

 

[Richard Guy]

You might want to check out the Simplex

 

[IMF2020]

My dad asks is this a Joke ? I see that u use many types of detectors ...u listed them ..You believe that the simplex works good on a salt beach , thick layers of black sand , and iron rocks ...to be honest i never looked at any videos on the simplex ..my dad told me with vlf single freq in the past were worthless ..But hes old world and am new world i give the simplex a look on fake tube i hope that not made in china my dad would never buy me one ..Thanks for the advice

 

[TheGreenBoy]

Simplex is produced by very reputable Turkish company Nokta Macro. The word has it, it is rather good and quality made machine. Under conditiones you have described however, any VLF - multi or single frequency- will most probably fail you. I would not even try.
The Chinese products, however, are not what they use to be any more. There is a range of bogus chinese detectors, considered more as child toys, then there is a range of chip, for the price top quality machines with some serious performance. I personly own a tx850, among others, and i would clasify it as high end of middle class detectors, performance wise. Then, there is a professional market with machines not handicaped by any means, but the prices are unfortunately quite regular too.

 

[Richard Guy]

The Simplex is made in Turkey. My experience in Virginia is that there has not been a geographical condition where it could not perform smartly

 

[TheGreenBoy]

The Simplex is made in Turkey. My experience in Virginia is that there has not been a geographical condition where it could not perform smartly

The guy is from Filipini and complains about iron bearing sand. There is simmilar kind of sand in parts of Istra region in our country. It is hard nut to crack. Most of VLFs wount even ground balance. My tx850 reports overload when coil is on the ground. Some best VLFs performs stabil, but depth is cut to near zero. 2 EUR coin dissapears under 1/2 inch of sand. PIs are more resistable to bad ground conditions, but under such circumstances they are affected too. Using a simple DIY PI circuit, such as old Mark Steuart's ee Tresure hunter, the detector starts to scream when the coil is near the ground. Using the adjustment potentiometer, the electric zero can be set to hush the machine. Every change in proximity between coil and ground produces a signal sound. Luckily, those can be easily distinguished from a signal of a real target. More subtile are changes in ground mineralization. Luckily the change is seldom abrupt, non the less it takes some experience to different those from real target. Some changes, however, looks just like the real target. Though the overall depth for large items (max. depth) is considerably shortened, i did not noticed any less depth on coin size objects.
Better PIs, which allow more flexible adjustments of detector, beginning with an old White's TDI, threw a bunch of DIY PIs such as DBP2010, XR71 etc, as well as most modern commercial ones, can be adjusted to perform stabil under such conditions. However, not without the price. More than the detection depth, the kind (conductivity wise) of metal that will be filtred out is important. Iron nails would probably be blended out, but other objects might fall out of detection too. One may never know, since this differs from settings, detector and coil in use. It is best to carry some different metal objects of interest in the pocket and test the performance before the hunt.

I hope that helps.

 

[IMF2020]

In the videos i watched which were upland in bad Usa soil P.I ATX clearly beat vlf and Mvlf that without salt ..My dad pointed out the coil way to big on most machines ..his rule 6" or smaller in the water ..6" to 8" wet beach and 10" or bigger dry beach ..He also told me that scuba detectors hand held are worthless on the small gold chains that i wear

 

[IMF2020]

I want to thank Thegreenboy for all the above info ..would a minelab sdc 2300 be my best choice or is there some handheld scuba detector out there .. i notice that Nokta makes one but in videos it looked worthless ..I dont remember my grandfather find any small chains with his sand shark .. i dont understand are metal detector companies all hype to just finding worthless junk let me point out coins here are worthless made out of steel the gold rings and chains are very small my dad told me that small game is a waste of time its only good for learning ones machine