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A few discovery 3300 videos.

Thanks for the demo! I have a couple versions of the Time Ranger, and the 3300 is just about a matchup for the Time Ranger's disc mode. Where they differ is in the All-Metal mode, which is a no-motion mode on the T.R., but remains a motion mode on the 3300. The 3300 has the pinpont button for its no-motion mode. There's some other differences I had wondered about that your vids helped me to answer.

To make bench testing easier, remove the coil and lower stem, then turn the coil around to face you while you view the control box. Weight the stem down and place the coil to hang off the edge of the desk or table. With both coil and controls facing you, there's no wasted time going back a forth a couple steps for every test. The big advantage is having the controls and display right there while you sweep and adjust. Rubber band the object to a plastic ruler or stick and waving targets while you make fine adjustments is much easier on the wrist.

Sure, ground effects can alter bench readings to a varying degrees, but air tests can also give a ton of relevant info in a short time. If you expect a dime to read a "90" ID at a max 5 inches, for example, and at your hunting site, you see some differences, you know that it's ground effects at work and you can make mental adjustments or change the detector settings to better deal with it. Your bench tests helped make you aware of when things are different due to the soil.

Multiple targets and things near the edge of the coil, instead of being directly beneath it, will cause you the most grief in the field. You can simulate multiple targets on the bench by using a wider stick, with two varying targets held on opposite sides of the stick so they are separated by whatever distance you decide. The target separation is easily controlled by the width of the stick you choose.

It's a great way to while away a snowy spring day and you can learn a whole lot about how your detector behaves with different objects and settings. Or just toss objects directly on the ground. They don't need to be buried to check things like operation and adjustments. Experience will tell you how the readings are affected by the soils you hunt in, and that does take some digging and observation and/or note-taking for awhile.

The 3300 looks like a decent machine, but at the same time, not all that different from several others of the motion-based models offered by FT. I've never tried one to learn for myself, so thanks again for the demo!

-Ed
 
Thanks for the tips on testing. I will try it out next time I am bench testing things.

I have been pretty happy with the 3300. The only other detector I have used is the Tracker IV and while I like the tracker the 3300 is much more enjoyable to use and I find myself hunting more often and for longer periods of time with the 3300 than I ever did with the tracker. If the weather straightens out this week sometime I am going to try to get another video or two of ground balance setup and pinpointing along with some actual usage videos.

Thanks for the comments
Chadd
 
For sure try it with the stem and coil positioned to face you, it makes it all so much easier. Seeing the display screen and the targets as you swing them across the coil helps your brain relate everything. You can try coins, rings or trash. Swwep them flat, then tilted or on-edge and in combinations, all the while changing sweep speeds, depth and centering beneath the coil to simulate various what-ifs. All the concentric coils I've checked exhibit several "zones" of poor ID. Sweeping random targets in-ground won't quickly reveal where those false ID zones are, but some time spent on the bench will.

I have a 2200 here. I like it and think it's as deep and accurate as my Time Ranger in it's "standard" motion modes. It looks like the 3300 adds a no-motion pinpoint that is absent on the 2200. That, plus the manual ground balance are the major differences between them. For the way I hunt, a no-motion mode, even if only offered as a press-and-hold "pinpoint" button, is a very worthwhile addition. I'd be interested in seeing how the manual GB know works and which modes it affects. The Time Ranger has a ground balance, but it is under machine control, and not available for "user-tweaking" as the 3300 appears to offer.

-Ed
 
The pinpoint mode on the 3300 is toggled on and off. So you can just hit pinpoint button and it stays in no motion all metal till you put it back in to normal all metal or disc. The non motion all metal mode has better depth but no tone ID or vdi reading. You can still adjust sensitivity while in pinpoint and the tone it gives gets louder and softer based off of the location of the target to the center of the coil. If you wanted you could search in pinpoint "non motion AM" with no problem.

Also when you switch back to AM or Disc from pinpoint it takes you back to the mode you were running in and keeps all the settings you had when you switch to pinpoint. I have seen other say that it loses your disc, notch, zap settings when switching between modes. This is not the case on the 3300 I have. It retains all settings unless you power the unit down and back on. Then it defaults to all metal mode.

Ed in SoDak said:
For sure try it with the stem and coil positioned to face you, it makes it all so much easier. Seeing the display screen and the targets as you swing them across the coil helps your brain relate everything. You can try coins, rings or trash. Swwep them flat, then tilted or on-edge and in combinations, all the while changing sweep speeds, depth and centering beneath the coil to simulate various what-ifs. All the concentric coils I've checked exhibit several "zones" of poor ID. Sweeping random targets in-ground won't quickly reveal where those false ID zones are, but some time spent on the bench will.

I have a 2200 here. I like it and think it's as deep and accurate as my Time Ranger in it's "standard" motion modes. It looks like the 3300 adds a no-motion pinpoint that is absent on the 2200. That, plus the manual ground balance are the major differences between them. For the way I hunt, a no-motion mode, even if only offered as a press-and-hold "pinpoint" button, is a very worthwhile addition. I'd be interested in seeing how the manual GB know works and which modes it affects. The Time Ranger has a ground balance, but it is under machine control, and not available for "user-tweaking" as the 3300 appears to offer.

-Ed
Click to expand...
 
Thanks for correcting me on the pinpoint button. Push-on, push-off is much more to my liking. No-motion is good around here as it helps pick out multiple targets and also some of the iron patches in our soil. It's more likely to signal on small stuff like a gold nugget.

-Ed
 
Recorded some more video today, Will get it rendered and uploaded sometime tonight. Quality should be better because I used my other camera.
 
Here is the video I did yesterday. It covers ground balance, pinpointing and shows recovery speed. I will be putting up some hunting videos at some point in time so if you want to see the 3300 in action you may want to subscribe on youtube.

Ground Balance and Pinpointing


Thanks,
Chadd
 
Which Fisher coil did you get for it? I have the Titan 3000 XD which is basically the same machine. I wish they made a 5" or 6" coil for them. Does Fisher make a coil this size that will work on the Bounty Hunters?
 
If it has the push in connection, the 4" will work with it.
 
I might be wrong, but I thought that the ground balance on these units did not carry over into disc mode? I might be incorrect. If so I stand corrected :)
 
Thanks. I have the 8" and the 4" but would like one in between. I think you are correct about the GB but i have found that is seems to make a difference in Disc mode too.
 
From my experience with it the ground balance works in all modes.

I have read about "older and newer" 3300's and I know that some of the older posts I read mention things that evidently were different on the older 3300's. I have seen people mention on the older units that you would lose your disc settings when going between modes. Mine keeps disc settings unless you power it off so maybe the older ones didn't carry the ground balance over to disc mode but as I mentioned my 3300 seems to use the ground balance in all modes.

Also the coil that I purchased was the 11" DD coil with push in connector for the older F4/F2 detectors.

Thanks,
Chadd
 
Chadd, do you get a lot of falsing with the 8" coil? I do with mine even with the sens. turned fown. It works much better with the 4: coil.
 
The only times I have noticed any falsing with the detector is if the coil hits something while sweeping or if you have the sensitivity up too high it will sometimes false at the end of your swing as you change back to the other direction on the swing. A good ground balance will help with the falsing at the end of your swing. As far as it falsing when hitting something with the coil you can turn down the sensitivity to help but I think it is just the nature of the 3300.

As far as the falsing goes it behaves the same with the DD coil and the stock coil. I will note that I have a harder time pinpointing with the DD coil VS the stock coil. I have to pinpoint it in one direction then turn 90
 
For me, the DD coil settled down with very short sweeps when I got to pinpointing. It's all too easy for me to make a wide "normal" swing to pinpoint, and that takes in way too much territory. I try to shorten my swing extremes to just beyond target center. The same technique is allso good for those junky spots to single them out.

-Ed
 
Some more videos would be great chadd, I think this detector would do well here in the uk,Great vids buddy keep them coming, Andy
 
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