Fisher Impulse or CZ-20

[Anonymous]

Could anyone please advise: I am interested in hunting Florida Gold Coast. I have narrowed my purchase selection to Fisher Impulse (PI) or CZ-20 (VLF) or minelab excalibur. What is the best of these three for Florida beaches?

 

[Anonymous]

over on the Beach forum. That would be the best place for your question. Most users here are fond of the PI detector.
You would do good with either of the choices.
Mr. Bill

 

[Anonymous]

Mr. Bil: Thank you and thanks for your words of wisdom in the HH pi and Florida mineralization series! -Harry

 

[Anonymous]

For beach and shallow water work in nonmineralized sands like you have most places in Florida, the CZ-20. Impulse is arguably better for underwater salvage and in areas with magnetite sand.
This is an informed opinion, since I designed 'em both. For comparisons with the Excalibur, you'd be best off getting the opinions of users who have used all three--- who, unfortunately, are not very numerous.
--Dave J.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Dave,
I have a question on the CZ 20. How come you didn't include the option of taking out of the Saltwater Mode when searching Freshwater? The reason I ask is that I hunted with the CZ6 for years and in my tests it lost some of it's depth and sensitivity to smaller peices of gold when I switched from the Normal Mode to the Salt Mode.
Thanks in advance
HH
Beachcomber

 

[Anonymous]

1. Adding a switch to an underwater detector rated for scuba diving pressures, can be a challenging undertaking. We had to stop somewhere, and that's where we stopped.
2. We figured that the overwhelming majority of users would be in salt water, where a non salt balanced mode has limited usefulness. .....Back then, little gold chain jewelry wasn't nearly as popular as it is now, so poor sensitivity to "small gold" wasn't such an imporant issue as it is nowadays.
You are right, that balancing out salt also causes a slight loss in sensitivity to all objects, and a marked loss in sensitivity to the tiniest stuff. Everything about good design is a compromise, and these are examples of those compromises.
The fact that there is no "one best compromise" is the reason why there are a number of metal detectors on the market, most of which have their fan clubs.
--Dave J.

 

[Anonymous]

That is the reason I have two water machines....one for Freshwater that can see the small gold and one that works well in Saltwater. As you said there are always trade-offs so there most likely always be the need for multiple detectors. Also whenver I waterproof a detector if I need to bring out the control for a toggle switch I change the switch to a rotary type switch that way I can use the more reliable method of bringing a rotary shaft through the housing. Trying to reliably waterproof a toggle switch can as you said be quite difficult...especially at diving pressures.
Thanks again for your response!!!!!!
HH
Beachcomber

 

[Anonymous]

Too bad they didnt think about putting a small slide switch inside the battery houseing, so you could change from fresh to salt settings. Most people would only need to change it once depending on where they normally hunt. Would it be possible to make such a modification? Didnt know if the freshwater setting was still on the circuit board, or if they had downsized the board and eliminated that option.

 

[Anonymous]

It was interesting to read the CZ20 is locked in salt mode as I^ve used it for yrs in freshwater lakes here in Germany sucessfully.I`ve a newer CZ20 now, replacement for my 2 previous ones.
Q 1. one thing I did notice with the latest CZ I have apart from the recent knob changes is that it is able to produce an audible threshold in autotune/allmetal,( something my two previous CZ20`s didnt or couldnt). Was this a recent mod or just a variable of manufacture?
Q.2 I hunt primarily in autotune /allmetal now in the water, just crosschecking in tone ID to eliminate all but the most obvious big solid iron targets (small iron I take as it can often be deep non ferrous stuff).Any ideas why my unit responds better in autotune/allmetal to all targets especially the marginal at depth small stuff than it does in zero disc tone ID. Occasionally a reasonably good deep signal in autotune is gone when I switch back to check in zero disc and I`ve been surprised on digging these that they were good non ferrous targets.
I`m not knocking the performance of the CZ (in fact quite the opposite) but compared to my two previous ones it is far superior in depth in comparison and has found me targets at depths in freshwater I considered were only the priviledged domain of high end PI units. It would help though if you could explain just what is going on when switching between the two search modes.
Tim

 

[Anonymous]

The slide switch itself would then become a mechanical reliability and sealing problem; and, inside a battery box is an inconvenient place to put a control.
I'm not saying that it can't be done, or that someone out there wouldn't like it-- just that in a machine that has to be mass produced, the additional cost in both manufacturing and in reliability would be greater than the overall benefit.
There are lots of things that can be done if one is willing to start with a clean slate, but a clean slate in this business is several hundred thousand dollars of investment-- which means most products have to use or adapt existing tooling, circuits, software, etc.
--Dave J.

 

[Anonymous]

As far as I know the most recent CZ20's are the same as the original; however, I don't actually know that. The differences you observed may be due to re-engineering or may be the result of the way the machine was originally calibrated.
On most metal detectors which offer both an "autotune" ("SAT") mode for all-metals searching, and a motion discrimination-ID mode, the autotune mode is usually deeper. The motion discrimination system relies on signals that are not fully ground balanced, and which have a wider noise bandwidth which reduces signal-to-noise ratio. These factors cost sensitivity.
--Dave J.

 

[Anonymous]

thats put this one to rest for me anyway,I long since suspected this was the case even though many CZ users claim otherwise.