Anfibio Arrived! Initial impressions and a lot to learn!

[Fish N Chips]

I got the Anfibio today. Of course I was so excited I air tested a few targets and hit the park. Looking back i should have tried my test garden first but got to that later. Take this for what it is, I only have a few hours on the machine and a lot to learn on it!

The unit is well built and very easy to navigate. It has a lot of options but all make sense and nothing really threw me off. I had read the manual several times before getting the unit which helped. It assembled well and I like the shaft layout with the cam lock so much better. Coil changes are quick and easy.

First park was a WW2 park with the radar unit. EMI is terrible at this park, my Teknetics T2 is almost unusable. My Tesoros loose a lot of depth. The Anfibio was quiet in 3 tone, and a bit of chatter in 4 tone. I could run the gain to 90 without too much issue. I switched the frequency between 5, 14 and 20 and all seemed to run pretty quiet. The radar did come through on signals though creating a rough sound on targets which made good targets sound trashy, especially not knowing the machine yet. I only spent 30 min and dug a nickle, some pull tabs and a few quarters. I think it will be usable once I learn the machine more and know what to listen for through the EMI interference. I got behind a few building which shielded the unit from the RADAR and the difference was noticeable, targets sounds really becoming clean and crisp.

I headed to another old park, it is light to moderate trash and is pretty old. I know silver has been found there so I had high hopes (but it was not to be). EMI was very light with just a few WiFi routers in houses around the park. Again 3 tone was smooth and stable, it runs so quiet in that mode and you can really listen for coin signals. 4 tone is pretty hot but the increase in depth is very noticeable but I got a lot more falsing on bits of deep iron and nails. You just have to listen for the good signals through the chatter. I put the 7" concentric on which worked great around the trash, but of course lost depth. I was no longer digging those 6" plus coins, most my finds now being surface to 4 inches with the smaller coil but the separation in the trash was great and the coin lock was solid. The larger 11" coil was finding much deeper targets, one dime close to 7 inches with a good light but solid tone on it. I am not sure what the depth potential of this park is on most coins as I have only hunted it a few times, most coins I have found being surface to 6 inches, with just a few rare deeper targets. All coins I found were copper, nickles and clad.

The 11" coil worked surprisingly well in the light to moderate trash, locking onto good targets. I expected a lot of issue with the larger coil but it worked much better than any other machine I have with larger coils. There was no doubt when it was on a coin, iffy signals were junk, usually can slaw or bottle caps. I like that bottle caps are very easy to distinguish even with the DD coil dropping to the mid 70s and very unstable. My T2 LOVES bottle caps, they are very manageable with the Anfibio! The 7" coil had great separation and bottle caps dropped into the iron range.

I came home and used my test garden. I have coins buried for the last two years 6,8,10 and 12" deep and an assortment of trash items, and light to moderate EMI (close to the RADAR base). The 11" coil easily hit the 10" coins, and whispered on the 12" quarter. The 7" coil did great on 6" targets, ok on the 8" quarter, but lost the 10" coins, it hit them but I would never have dug the signal. These were much better in 4 tone to get the extra depth, the 3 tone lost the signals or became jumpy on the deeper targets. Setting the TID ID depth to the max seemed to help the machine lock onto the deeper targets and gave pretty stable TIDs on the deep coins.

What I like: It locks onto coin targets! Very stable on good targets, good TID (especially adjusted to deep TID setting). 3 tone has great separation and very quiet operation. 4 tone gave a lot more depth but a lot more falsing and instability, something practice will overcome to find deeper targets I believe. The wireless headphones are great, no more ear pain, no chord, and very responsive. It has a great TID scale with good separation of trash and good targets, not much seems to fall in the same range (except gold of course).

What I didn't like: The depth meter on the screen works, but the pin-point depth meter is way off. It showed coins from the surface to 8 inches as 2-4 inches. My measured 10" deep quarter shows 2 inches on the depth meter, but the main screen shows it being very deep. Hopefully this is something they fix in an update. I should try switching back to centimeters and see if it is more accurate,it may be a conversion error? It is slightly top heavy, but not too bad and I was able to hunt 4 hours without any noticeable arm fatigue. Turning the gain up above 89, or switching to 4 or 5 tone gave a lot more depth but the signal became more digital sounding. Likely digital enhancement of the signal? I liked the truer tones of less gain or 3 tone more, but just need to learn the language more at higher gain. The extra depth and target lock is noticeable at the higher settings at a loss of tone quality in my opinion.

I am excited to try out the 5" coil in my iron laden sights, separation with the other two coils was pretty amazing. The way the machine uses the 11" DD coil is much better than my T2, not nearly as much falsing on trash. I got out my nail board to put it through the paces with the coils and settings. I have a lot to figure out to get the most potential from the machine. So far I am impressed with it as a park hunter, but have a lot more to learn. I admit it seems to be a pretty incredible machine, I am excited to learn its potential.

 

[dfmike]

Nice report. I think I want one !

I'd like to test it out against my CoRe. I know the Anfibio is deeper but I'm wondering about every other important characteristic. Sadly, they still don't seem to have the pin pointing depth right.

 

[lytle78]

One thing jumps out right away. They have repeated the ergonomic flaw that the Equinox has. The straight shaft has a low armrest position. The result if this is that the axis of force when you swing - starting with the center of the armrest and passing through the center of the handgrip - meets the ground well ahead of the coil/shaft connection or center of the coil.

The result is that each swing start (or reversal) introduces a twisting motion as a result of the misalignment. Is it a big issue? Perhaps not, but it’s a serious ergonomic flaw and could have been easily avoided by making the arm rest higher.

 

[LTimedigger]

F&C s Im as impressed by your analysis as I am with the machine. What other machines have you owned? This is the 1st machine I'm aware of where the tone breaks affect depth interesting. Did you try increasing your gain with the smaller coil? Some good MD theorist have shown that the smaller coil can be run hotter thus offsetting some of the depth loss. I tend to believe that finding the more shallow coins with the smaller coils is more a function of the deeper coins being masked as much as it is the size of the coil. Of course in a clean test. the larger with the same settings would be deeper. Apparently depth determination is as inexact science. My CTX under estimates depth and my Deus overestimates, but yea this seems to be more of a problem. HH

 

[Sven]

One thing jumps out right away. They have repeated the ergonomic flaw that the Equinox has. The straight shaft has a low armrest position. The result if this is that the axis of force when you swing - starting with the center of the armrest and passing through the center of the handgrip - meets the ground well ahead of the coil/shaft connection or center of the coil.

The result is that each swing start (or reversal) introduces a twisting motion as a result of the misalignment. Is it a big issue? Perhaps not, but it’s a serious ergonomic flaw and could have been easily avoided by making the arm rest higher.

Rick, I never noticed this happening with the Anfibio. Now that you have mentioned this about the Nox. Grabbed the Anfibio and swung it as I would normally do, not fast and not slow, did not notice the twisting. There is no need to swing the Anfibio fast. Now, I did find when I would swing the Anfibio very fast, there was some twisting

So next you mention about raising the armrest. Hmm, found the armrest and handle in perfect alignment for my wrist. If you raise the armrest, with a spacer, just to see what will happen, the angle of the handle is wrong and forces the wrist upwards, which to me does not feel comfortable.

I am quite happy with the Anfibio armrest, handle set-up. I think they got it right. It works fine for me. I might add, I am 6'1" tall and have larger hands--so my wife says.
The Impact handle was horrible position wise, tried all sorts of foam pads here and there to make it work. My wrist has some slight issues and the Impact handle would make my fingers go numb ( had carpl. tun.). Did figure out how to improve hand positioning with a simple pc. of foam.

Just a note, on some straight set-ups, I have found a higher arm cuff did provide a better grip set-up when using a Minelab Sov. straight shaft handle and the Fisher CZ20 straight shaft handle.

 

[Tom Slick]

I added an "S" shaft to my Nox and I think it swings much better now. No more Torque or twist at the end of each swing. On the Impact, like Sven mentioned above, I added about 3/8" padding in the arm cuff which helped with the grip angle. In standard form it was slanted too far forward for my taste. The Anfibio grip works very well for me and even though it's a straight shaft design, it swings better than the Nox's straight shaft, and I don't notice the end of swing twisting that the Nox displays. Good thing as the triangle shape of the shaft would be a real bitch to change. All three detectors swing better with smaller coils but for factory 11 inchers I feel the Anfibio works the best along with the S Shaft Nox.

 

[nenadgbeepin]

For me the Impact handle still feels the best, I have large hands and the way the handle tapers out towards the display pod keeps my hand in a perfect position. The handle angle is also spot on. The Anfibio is 95% as good, the handle diameter is just slightly thinner at the top, but probably will suit more users. The swing ergonomics of the Anfibio though just feels right. Not sure what it is, maybe the fact it is slightly lighter than the Impact.

I've never been a fan of S-Bend shafts except for like the Fors series (also X-Terra and some fishers) where you get a stick handle before the bend. I think this design is the perfect compromise.

The retractable shaft of the Anfibio and quick adjust armrest is pretty neat though. I was recently detecting a park while my 8yr old son was playing. He got bored and wanted a detect. It literally took 15 seconds to adjust the detector for him.

 

[dfmike]

For me the Impact handle still feels the best, I have large hands and the way the handle tapers out towards the display pod keeps my hand in a perfect position. The handle angle is also spot on. The Anfibio is 95% as good, the handle diameter is just slightly thinner at the top, but probably will suit more users. The swing ergonomics of the Anfibio though just feels right. Not sure what it is, maybe the fact it is slightly lighter than the Impact.

I've never been a fan of S-Bend shafts except for like the Fors series (also X-Terra and some fishers) where you get a stick handle before the bend. I think this design is the perfect compromise.

The retractable shaft of the Anfibio and quick adjust armrest is pretty neat though. I was recently detecting a park while my 8yr old son was playing. He got bored and wanted a detect. It literally took 15 seconds to adjust the detector for him.

Can you retract the Anfibio small enough to fit in a large back pack without taking it apart (with 5 X 10 or small 5" coil) ?

 

[Sven]

29" retracted from the end of the upper straight shaft to the center of the lower rod coil mounting hole

 

[Fish N Chips]

I took the Anfibio out for a relic hunt today. I am still digging all signals to learn the detector but starting to figure out the sounds. The digital tones are becoming more familiar and I am adjusting well to them, there is a lot of audio information in the tone, I am just learning the language. I am finding the detector really locks onto targets, iffy signals are rarely anything good. Honestly I have yet to have an iffy signal be good. Clean signals are 'good' targets. It locks onto signals much better than my T2 in both sound and TID, the clear notes of the tone coming though from the nails and iron. It is like my Tesoros, when you hit a good signal you stop and go wow, that's coming out of the ground, lol.

Setting were mainly 3 tone due to the speed (targets were 1-5 inches deep), frequency 20 kHz, iron volume 1, other volumes 5, discrimination 3 (seems to knock out most nails really well).

I used the 7" coil at the first site, it did well in the light to moderate trash. It was able to discriminate out or give very jumpy signals on most the rusty tin. I dug a few pieces that sounded great, but most I could tell before digging them. It locked onto the brass targets and was able to discriminate out most the square and round nails. A few round nail heads oriented vertical sounded nice tough.

The second site was full of nails, it was absolutely littered with square nails and iron trash. I used the 7" coil at first but soon switched to the 5" DD coil. While the DD coil was fooled by the rusty tin a bit more than the concentric but rusty tin always sounds good! I must say that coil is a laser in the iron, it really could sniff out the signals. While I did not make any great finds, any of the brass and pewter pieces could have been something great. I am VERY impressed with that 5" DD in heavy iron!

The discrimination on the Anfibio is much better than my T2, I find the nails much easier to discriminate out and the raspy/crackle of iron targets is noticeable. I am happy with how it can lock onto a target even in heavy iron. My TID was obviously affected by the iron, but the targets gave good clean two-way signals. The collapsible shaft is fantastic, I was able to easily collapse the detector to fit into the ATV or backpack. I am also a convert on the wireless headphones, it will be hard to go back to corded phones on my other detectors.

TID is much different that my T2. Brass shells and other good brass targets were coming in around 20-30s (they are 50s on my T2). I just need to learn the #s for my targets, but honestly as I usually do when more off of tone and quality of the signal.

I think I am starting to fall in love with the Anfibio.....

 

[dfmike]

29" retracted from the end of the upper straight shaft to the center of the lower rod coil mounting hole

Thanks Sven. That's good.

 

[Sven]

The Anfibio grows on you, for me the more I used it, the more I started liking it. For kicks, try 99 tone at least for 3-4 hours, it may take an hour to get the feel for it. Don't be swayed to go back to another mode until the time is up.