Garrett Infinium Forum Classroom

Hi All

I have been told the infinium is equivilant to a minelab 2200!!! Can anyone say otherwise as i have been going to a mates lease and finding nothing. :-( Another guy showed up with the new GPX5000 and found 40oz in a week!!!!!!!! Is the infinium any good on australian soil? I am starting to lose faith in my machine but can find lead bullets as small as 2gm but no gold . :-(

Glen

Hi Glen

There has been a lot of discussion on other forums as to where the Infinium lines up with the minelab models. I guess the fair thing to say is that there are those that agree and there are those that disagree strongly that the Inf is not the equivalent of the 2200.

My personal view is that there is no comparism with any of the minelabs from the GPX4000 on, these machines are deeper and much more sensitive to small gold. So I would expect the GPX5000 to out perform it by a country mile.

However if you are finding led bullets in the 2 gr range then there is no reason why the Infinium cant find gold of that size.

I have no doubt that if you pass the coil over gold in the 10gr and up size you will hear it, you may also find smaller pieces it just depends on their shape and orientation in the ground

I have compared the Infinium with the GPX4000, GPX 4500, and GPX 5000 in Clermont and in the Victorian golden triangle. The Infinium handled the mineralized ground with ease and on one occasion it ran quieter that the GPX 4000. However it does not have the sensitivity to small gold that the MLs have and unfortunately a lot of the gold being found is in the sub .3 gr range.

The 10x14 mono is more sensitive than the stock DD and some users believe that the 8in mono is slightly deeper than the 10x14 coils.

Mate I would not be too discouraged if you pass the coil over gold from 10 gr up you will hear it and anything over 22 gr will blow your years off.

Try this setup process
Turn the machine on and place in the lock position, check and tune out external interference
Change to fast track, ground balance
Change to slow track, ground balance
Turn back to lock
Set threshold to between 4 and 6 ( it does give you more sensitivity)
Leave discrim on 0
Keep swing speed slow

Dont give up remember the Infinium is less than a quarter of the price of a GPX5000

All the best I hope you find some yellow soon.

Dave

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Located in Tasmania

Glen...I rarely post on this forum but must say that Dave has given you excellent information.

Dave...the 8" mono is not deeperseeking than the 14" mono on most target sizes...although its a close thing... however it is noticeably more sensitive to stuff at a gram or less in my ground.

Snowman.

This is how my Infinium (2004 Model)responds to small gold in air test.
Later models seem to be not as sensitive as reported by other operators.

Coil: 10 x 14 mono.

Headphones used: Standard Garrett HPs supplied with the Infinium.

Sound level meter weighted for flat frequency response between 100hz to 10,000hz.
1/4 inch from HP speaker element.

Nugget= 4.7gm solid.....80db (max voume) at 8cm.

60db (75%) at 17cm.

54db (65%) at 22cm.

0.55gm solid................62db (77.5%) 3cm.

54db (67.55%) 8cm.

0.14gm solid flatish.......58db (72.5%) 3cm.

53db (66.25%) 4cm.

below 50 db............ 6cm.

If your Infinium is not as sensitive as this (and this is pretty ordinary sensitivity)and needs a 10gm nugget to give a good response then it might be time to upgrade to something else or maybe give the AT Gold a try and stop trying to compare the Infinium to 4000 dollar + detectors. or get a second hand whatever you can afford. If you have more money than you know what to do with or are a very serious prospector then by all means spend it on a GPX5000 or something and give yourself the best chance of finding gold. As a professional prospector you need the best equipment you can afford
If you went out and bought an inexspensive coin n relic detector for 400 bucks you would not be comparing it to the likes of the AT Pro or GTI 2500 hey! are ya?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/07/2011 09:39PM by Fishers Ghost.

Hi all
Thanks for the responses all, I think i just need to find some new ground, have a spot to look at this weekend so will try your setup cymro. The biggest problem here in the NT australia is everything is under Exploration lease by the by the BIGGGGG mining companies and when you try to contact them they dont seem to care about hobby prospectors.(trying to get permission from them is like getting blood from a stone.)
I got the Infinium as i liked the idea of waterproof but it is hard to detect in water around here as you need to get rid of the crocodiles first.:-) I have the 8" mono fitted now so will see how it goes.
Again thanks for the responses, just gotta keep getting out there.

Glen

Fit a skid-plate and minimize the distance between the coil and the ground.

ivanll

Hi Dave
Went out on the weekend here in the NT and found plenty of 2gm lead bullets, it was near one of the shooting reserves here so thought i may find some. You mention ground balancing the Infinium in slow and fast, I may not be doing that right as the book says it has automatic ground balance????? Could you please explain the procedure in more detail?

Glen

Quote
razor66
Hi Dave
Went out on the weekend here in the NT and found plenty of 2gm lead bullets, it was near one of the shooting reserves here so thought i may find some. You mention ground balancing the Infinium in slow and fast, I may not be doing that right as the book says it has automatic ground balance????? Could you please explain the procedure in more detail?

Glen

Hi Glen
There are many on this forum with more time on the Infinium than I have and I hope they will jump in and correct or add to this post for you. I have gleaned this information from various posts on this and other forums and anyone who recognises some of the things I write here as being very similar to any posts they have made, then I thank them for their input.

Try this setup process
Turn the machine on and place in the lock position, check and tune out external interference
You should always check for external interference in the lock position, there is a chance that if you try to adjust this in fast or slow the Infinium may try and ground balance the interference out, which would give an incorrect ground balance.

Change to fast track, ground balance
Pump the Infinum slowly up and down, and when it settles rest it on the ground for a few seconds. (this point will probably be contentious)

Change to slow track, ground balance
Repeat the process in slow

Turn back to lock
Lock will give you the best depth, but if the INF is still chatty and this will be fairly rare on the goldfields turn it back to slow and leave it there.

Set threshold to between 4 and 6 ( it does give you more sensitivity)
I have found the INF makes a clearer target response with this setting in my case on 5 and highlights some small targets that I cant hear with the threshold on 0

Leave discrim on 0
Keep swing speed slow

Again I hope that others with more experience and expertise than I have will add or give their points of view which you can then experiment with and develop into your own system.

Hope this helps and remember if you are finding lead or other targets there is no reason why you cant find similar sized gold nuggets. You just have to pass your coil over it and that is down to perseverance and a lot of luck.

Dave

Once you are done doing the frequency check, MAKE SURE you turn the threshold knob back into the 5-6 range and the discrimination knob to 0 before doing the ground balance.

One thing I have learned is that when running in tough conditions, start hunting very slowly in the SLOW mode until the unit settles in and you have a nice, smooth threshold, then you can switch it to LOCK. If the ground conditions are changing frequently as you hunt, then just hunt in SLOW mode.

Last thing...the threshold and discrimination settings can be finely tuned to enable a smooth threshold. Much better to have a smooth threshold where you can hear the subtle changes and the clear hi/lo or lo/hi signals than a very erratic and chatty unit until you learn the machine.


My 2 cents.