C-Scope CS4PI

[Fishers Ghost]

I have purchased another CS4 off EBay and am enjoying comparing what I think of it now as against my previous one several years ago..
I can not get satisfactory operation on my back yard test patch due to excessive EMI but it performs fine at a local river picnic ground.
There is some response to the ground minerals that settled down quite well with careful fiddling of the sensitivity and pulse rate controls.
A nice quiet threshold was achieved with the Sens at mid way and the pulse at 3.0 which also resulted in good sensitivity and depth to Aussie coins in dry river gravel. Response to river granite boulders was minimal and of no bother at all.
Weak EMI can be controlled through careful setting of the pulse rate adjust, but as the control is set bellow the green sector depth is lost on Aussie decimal coin. Depth is lost if a silent threshold is used.
The CS4PI has poor response to gold chains when compared to the Sand Shark, Infinium and SDC 2300. You will likely not find many gold chains with this detector. Response to gold & Sil rings is fine.
I have not taken it to a salt water beach yet but if it is as good as my previous CS4, it will be quite good and is where this detector is best suited..

Some approx air test results for Aussie decimal coins: (Sens at mid way and Pulse rate at 3.0
5 c.....18cm
10 c...24cm
20 c..39cm
50 c..40 + cm
2 dollar...28cm
7g 18ct gold ring...38cm

Response to a 1.0g gold nug was poor at approx 4 inches tops.
The Infinium, sand Shark & 2300 gave much better response to this lil nug. So it is likely that the Delay Timing of the CS4PI is different to that of these other tectas.
Also the measured TX field strength of the CS4PI  is similar to that of the Sand Shark and approx 10 times weaker than The Infinium....So battery life of the CS4 should be good compared to the Finny.  

Some gold ring test results:
Child size 9ct........0.07g  to 1.75g....... = 11cm approx
Adult size 9ct.......1.33g to 3.3g .......... = 15cm
Adult size 18ct to 22ct   1.4g to 4.0g....= 20cm
Adult size 18ct  to 22ct  1.75 to 6g..... =  25cm
Adult size 22ct   2.0 g to 8.0g..............=  28+ cm

The SS gives better response to small gold rings than the CS4 plus it is water proof.
The SS does not have any form of EMI cancel capability. The CS4 does to a limited degree.
So as a relatively inexpensive PI; Which of these two is better for salt beach work??......Maybe the SS because it is water proof  and has slightly better response to small jewellery items.

Just an opinion.
Not Gospel  

PS.
Something that has just made itself apparent with this detector and which I had not tested before is that the CS4PI has very poor response to some white gold and most platinum jewellery when the detector is set to the generally accepted ideal settings with the Sens at the 12 o'clock  position and Pulse rate at 3.0.
Setting the detector to Pulse rate 4 will improve the response to this jewellery but the sweep rate must be slowed down dramatically and even then the target  response is very broad  instead of short and sharp.
So it is very likely that during normal searching at the ideal settings for gold jewellery and coins, this detector will be missing a lot of white gold and platinum items.
It would be interesting to know if any other CS4PI operator have noticed this??

 

[brissietex]

Hi Fishers Ghost,

How are you liking the CS4PI in actual field use?

I got one of these CS4PI with the new elliptical coil as a bit of a replacement for my DetectorPro HHPI which was off being repaired at the time. Got the HHPI back now but it is so sensitive now that it is now relatively useless if there is any EMI around. Turns out that they didn't have a coil to test the repair and I only sent in the headset. I could send the whole unit back but from Oz it is just too dear to do and with the new owners of DetectorPro, I don't think they have Gary Storm's expertise with his older units. I may take it out again to a "clean" beach area to see if I can settle it down.

Anyway, I definitely have a love/hate relationship with the CS4PI. It pays to fiddle with the pulse rate. I usually keep it at 4.1 with sensitivity of 12 o'clock but you are right, you definitely have to keep it slow to use it at the higher pulse rate. I don't seem to get the depth that I do with the HHPI and having to slow it alot more down is a bummer as well.

I have noticed a few things with the CS4PI. I sometimes lose targets. A good repeatable target signal that just seems to disappear. It is odd and I can't really explain it. I also never seem to find anything with pulse rate = 3.0 but as I come from a PI user background, I tend to prefer the higher freq anyway (HHPI worked well in the 4.1k range). As for the waterproof-ness of this unit...one wash will probably do the unit in.

I would love to get a better salt beach unit but I am tossed up with either getting a FBS or another PI unit. PI units take patience to learn and then use but the benefit is definitely there.

cheers...Keith

 

[rottonr]

All I can say is WOW.

All I am capable of is turning on the X-cal II, threshold and volume and start a swinging. If I find something good and get within taking distance of a hunting buddy and say "look what I found." He says "What did it sound like?" I say, "It was 5 minutes ago, I don't remember." Funny but true.... And sad also.

 

[staffydog33]

Mt father has a CS4PI solely for use on the wet sand.

Only last week he dug a .925 Pandora ring at 16"

Yes, you will dig a lot of trash with it, but oh my god...the CS4PI is very...VERY deep machine!!!

Matt

 

[Fishers Ghost]

Hi Brissietex.
Sorry for the late reply. We have had some family probs and I have been off line .

I did find that the CS4PI could go quiet on some targets for reasons unknown to me. Also at sens 4 the tone could sometimes stretch out a bit, making pinpointing difficult.
Pulse rate 3 works very well for me
Outside of that the detector worked very well with good depth on our Aussie coins in saltwater beaches......Our coins have a high copper nickel content.
If you are looking for a great Disc/All metal beach machine the Excal is hard to beat even by today's standards.

There is also a very good German mine detector available second hand for approx 360 AUD. This tecta has ground balance and a high and low iron mineral mode and a data logger output.
This is the Vallon VMH3CS . A bit of a search around the on line auction sites should reveal one of those.