Best Caribbean Shallow Water Detector Conclusions

[cabochris]

After several posts and informative responses and reading many old posts here, I'm nearing some conclusions on what the best Caribbean travel detector for me is. My criteria have been waterproof machines that are easy to use and travel with, have good battery life and are prov-en gold finders. I'm also interested in a machine that might have a bit more sensitivity to gold chains (if there really is such a thing in saltwater?)

Then all this applies to a couple of self-debated searching styles- moving slowly and listening for whispers of possible deep/small gold and platinum responses with a more complex detector, or using a K.I.S.S. machine and covering more ground and upping the odds that way?

I have had good success with Excaliburs and know what to expect of them in the Caribbean. (when it is good 5 to 10 pieces of gold per day) For the most part I have to hunt slow with them, intently listen for deep gold sounds and often have to reset threshold- sometimes every few feet! But Excaliburs will find gold- so any other detector I use/try has to be just as good or better at doing that.

I feel that I have to eliminate all pulse machines. There is such little time on Caribbean treasure hunting vacations to dig each and every signal. Besides, all that digging in the surf can become exhausting. Plus a pulse detector will hit extra deep targets and one might spend a long time digging a piece of junk instead of covering more ground for gold.

So what is left? In my opinion the Tesoro Tiger Shark, Fisher 1280X, Fisher CZ21 and Detectorpro Wader. Unfortunately this is a very short list of discriminating machines. All have their good and bad points. The Tesoro probably would hit the best on gold chains- but at a cost. All here indicate the Tiger Shark will not go as deep on rings in the salt. If true, then that is a compromise to consider. Plus battery life is on the low side. Then it needs to be ground balances and the sensitivity control is on the inside. But the Tiger sure packs small for travel. The DP Wader is super light and would travel well. Waterproof to only 6' battery life is some 50 hours. The downsides are that the Wader is a bit more fragile and when one sets sensitivity down from maximum there seems to be dramatic depth loss in air. Max sensitivity on the Wader is 10. When I tried the Diver version (no longer made) the noises it made in the salt drove me crazy at a sensitivity setting of 9 (for max depth). But I did not want to lower sensitivity in fear of too much depth. Now I might be wrong about this, because testing the Diver on land, I once got a good signal and found a small piece of copper wire at a depth that I could not believe! So perhaps the Wader will actually go deeper on gold than I think in the salt, even with sensitivity set lower around 8 to quiet the machine? I have never tried a 1280X in the Caribbean but have seen others find gold with them in the salt. I like how tough the 1280 is. Also the 70 plus battery hours! And how simple it is to use. While similar to the Wader, I'm not so sure they have the same electronics? The Wader might work better in the salt, but then perhaps not. While there seem to be some some poor performance reports in the salt with the 1280, there are also some great reports. As an all-around detector I think the 1280 hip mounted would be a better machine on land than an Excalibur! But will such a simple machine find the gold for me in the Caribbean? The 1280X is so very tempting to try. The CZ21 is too. Deep all metal mode, tone target ID... it would almost be like having both a pulse detector and a VLF machine in one detector! Battery live is good and the machine will fit in my suitcase without taking it apart. The 21 has excess horse power and I could choose how much to use while still getting good depth. I do not like the idea of having to Ground balance. What does seem like a good tool might be the audio boost on the 21 in trashy areas on deep or small gold? Might be able to sniff that stuff out? But after all of this is the 21 any better than my Excaliburs? I would have to say the 21 would make for a better all-around use machine. Boy, this is going to take more thought. Any more opinions? CC.

 

[grumpyolman]

Why the fear of the pulse? It sounds like one of the attractions of the Excal was/is it's ability to match near depth of a PI. You state yourself you are going after "deep gold sounds." That sounds like a PI to me.
I would contact the creator and manufacturer of the Detector Pro and visit with him for a bit. If I have it correct, he was the first person to put the electronics from a Soveriegn into a waterproof housing. He made the first and original Excals. Big business as usual reared it's ugly head and he got cut out of the loop. Now he builds the Detector Pro. It's not necessarily fragile. It won't take the abuse, like throwing it in your dive bag, like you might a Fisher or a TS. He's aware of that issue and is having his new ones made out of a more idiot proof plastic housing. Those may be available. I understand the guts of the DetectorPro are Fisher 1280-Xs with an improvement mod he does himself.
I hope this is accurate and it's what I think reliable sources explained to me If not I'm sure I'll be corrected soon and abruptly.
Two other points. The TS doesn not eat batteries. It may not give you the time a Fisher will but I've been using the same batteries for that last 4 water hunts, some diving and some wading, and I'd guess I have about 15+ hours on them. When it first turns on it beeps a number of short beeps that tells you what the remaining battery capacity is. I think mine started with 6 quick beeps and now it's down to 4. I don't know what the battery drain curve is for that machine. It might last another 10-15 hours or it might be drained in 10 minutes.
Are you aware of the Sanyo Eneloop NiMH? You could charge 8 of those now, and in a year they'd still have 80% of their original capacity. That is not the case with 'regula' Nimhs. Other folks make them besides Sanyo but Sanyo has the solid rep for those batteries. I found 8 for $23 including shipping on line. They are 2000 mah and I don't think any of the manufactures supply a battery with that much capacity. If you had 16 of those with you and the charger, you can get em faily compact, you'd never run out of power. Just 16 batteries and a small charger.
Kered stated the important fact. Any new detector has a learning curve. You know the Excal. You want to spend your vacation learning a new machine? Sounds to me like you want the loot and as much of it as you can find. For some folks learning a new machine on a nice vacation would be total fun. Not for you though. Consider trying a new machine in your home area for a year and then you'll know whether to take it with you or not...next year. Have fun and post your loot. I have enjoyed following you concern and reasoning. Jim

 

[mtpockets]

Most Excellent Post grumpy....

Very Informative

Why the fear of the pulse? It sounds like one of the attractions of the Excal was/is it's ability to match near depth of a PI. You state yourself you are going after "deep gold sounds." That sounds like a PI to me.
I would contact the creator and manufacturer of the Detector Pro and visit with him for a bit. If I have it correct, he was the first person to put the electronics from a Soveriegn into a waterproof housing. He made the first and original Excals. Big business as usual reared it's ugly head and he got cut out of the loop. Now he builds the Detector Pro. It's not necessarily fragile. It won't take the abuse, like throwing it in your dive bag, like you might a Fisher or a TS. He's aware of that issue and is having his new ones made out of a more idiot proof plastic housing. Those may be available. I understand the guts of the DetectorPro are Fisher 1280-Xs with an improvement mod he does himself.
I hope this is accurate and it's what I think reliable sources explained to me If not I'm sure I'll be corrected soon and abruptly.
Two other points. The TS doesn not eat batteries. It may not give you the time a Fisher will but I've been using the same batteries for that last 4 water hunts, some diving and some wading, and I'd guess I have about 15+ hours on them. When it first turns on it beeps a number of short beeps that tells you what the remaining battery capacity is. I think mine started with 6 quick beeps and now it's down to 4. I don't know what the battery drain curve is for that machine. It might last another 10-15 hours or it might be drained in 10 minutes.
Are you aware of the Sanyo Eneloop NiMH? You could charge 8 of those now, and in a year they'd still have 80% of their original capacity. That is not the case with 'regula' Nimhs. Other folks make them besides Sanyo but Sanyo has the solid rep for those batteries. I found 8 for $23 including shipping on line. They are 2000 mah and I don't think any of the manufactures supply a battery with that much capacity. If you had 16 of those with you and the charger, you can get em faily compact, you'd never run out of power. Just 16 batteries and a small charger.
Kered stated the important fact. Any new detector has a learning curve. You know the Excal. You want to spend your vacation learning a new machine? Sounds to me like you want the loot and as much of it as you can find. For some folks learning a new machine on a nice vacation would be total fun. Not for you though. Consider trying a new machine in your home area for a year and then you'll know whether to take it with you or not...next year. Have fun and post your loot. I have enjoyed following you concern and reasoning. Jim

 

[cabochris]

You do make a good case for the Excalibur and brought up a point I never thought of. I have owned many Excaliburs and every one has done this same thing. In discriminate (0 discrim) with a steady low threshold (I prefer it very low) and correct sensitivity setting for the conditions, often every few feet I get the iron growl. Not because sensitivity is set too high, but because machine is rejecting iron and often bobbi pins every few feet. I do not like hunting in the iron growl threshold partly because I do not like listening to the low tone for long times. But mostly because on every Excalibur I have tried, when changing to the iron growl threshold, the growl comes back louder than the original search threshold I set. Actually the growl threshold comes back too loud for my likes. So if I lower the iron growl to a lower threshold search volume and detect in the growl threshold, as soon as a good target is detected such as a coin, coin threshold tone returns too low to hear. So to continue detecting I have to raise the returned coin threshold volume. Then as soon as iron is rejected that volume cycle starts all over again. This would not be a problem if the returning iron growl threshold returned at the same volume as originally set by user. I once asked Minelab about this and they said that's just how it was.

So what I have been doing is every time I get an iron growl threshold return, I pass my coil over my aluminum scoop to bring back a higher threshold return tone at the volume I originally set. In some places I have had to do that every few feet because of all the iron rejected targets present. After many hours in the water this is a real nuisance! If anyone has a solution for this, please let me know.

But you may have let the cat out of the bag here! To actually hunt in the iron growl threshold return, even if it is louder, while listening for the smallest of gold range signal tones/responses? That might prove to be a very good technique for finding deep gold! As I got better with Excaliburs I find deeper gold by listening for tiny gold tone responses, that would easily be passed by if detecting in a hurry. That does take some concentration. Hunting in the iron growl might make it easier to hear small deep gold signals?

On one mucky beach our group of 5 had hit hard twice before and that held quite a bit of gold, we returned a 3rd time on our last day because we ran out of new beaches to detect and it was late in the afternoon. At the time I was upset about something that had happened earlier and was not paying attention while detecting. Suddenly I started finding gold missed before! One after another as it was starting to get dark. I remember each ring or medallion was deeper than usual. Some at a good 12 inches with an 800! I must have found 6 or 7 pieces missed before. Later when I got home I began to wonder why I had found that deeper gold, while the other 4 Excalibur users found nothing else there? Only after some thought did I recall detecting that beach while listening to a buzz kind of sound. At the time I was not paying attention because of being upset. But perhaps I was actually searching in the iron growl threshold with a higher than usual volume/sensitivity? That may be why I hit on those deeper pieces? Since you mentioned hunting in the growl, this kind of makes sense to me now, and come to think of it there is one fellow in our group who always finds the most gold. I thought it was because his machine seemed a bit hotter. But now I'm wondering if his closely guarded secret (we do keep some detecting secrets-right?) is hunting in the iron growl threshold? Thanks, you have given me something to ponder and test in the field. CC.

 

[cabochris]

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