Got an oldie Tesoro

[Sven]

Parcel arrived today from China. It contained an older Bandido II with a 10x12 SEF search coil.

The seller was a fellow Canadian who moved to China for schooling who bought this unit from the owner who lived in Louisiana, USA who actually shipped
the Bandido to China. talk about getting around..............

Needs a bit of cleaning and mounting on one of my Tesoro rod handles......just in time to play with it before the snow flies.

 

[GaryF]

That was alot of postage...lol

Should be a good setup...Keep us up to date on the finds.


HH
Gary

 

[Relic Relish]

That's a great set-up, enjoy !

 

[SkiWhiz]

That's nice Sven, I bet it will be deeeeep with that coil. Let us know how it does for you when you get a chance to try it out.

 

[Hombre]

Sven,

...Great detector you bought, one of Tesoro's best in the iron nails and small ferrous trash. I just love the two speeds of all-metal, Normal and Auto-Tuned....I use the Auto-Tuned all metal mode to search thinned out areas, then when you get a signal just flip the switch to motion discrimination mode to check the target out with. The Normal or non-motion all metal mode is great for sizing up a target. It is one of the better detectors with it's ED-120 disc.circuit that discriminates out iron nails at minimum disc. setting. It is great for relic hunting around old building/house sites where you can use a shovel as your discriminator, it's surprising what you may find in the trashy places. GL & HH

 

[Relic Relish]

This is one detector I would get, and the coil too...
I currently have a Silver umax, Eldorado and Cibola.

 

[Sven]

Today pulled out a Tesoro S-handle, attached the control box and searchcoil to it. Curious to see how it would balance. Balances nicely with the control box in the position pictured.
Further rearward would have been nicer and a lot harder to adjust the controls.

Did some air testing and in all metal mode it's awesome, slightly sounds off on a Fishy at 8-9" ( Canadian silver half dime), on edge about 6" and my wedding band at around 12-13".
Did find that the threshold and the disc control settings effect depth in all metal mode. If I set the threshold for a slight sound with sens at max and the disc control at 50%.
I will get near max depth (air test). Then fine tuning the threshold using the disc control will be loudest at 50% setting and diminish as you turn the disc control greater or lower.
Then push the re-tune toggle. Now switching to disc mode for hunting, I like a lower setting on the disc control to get some more depth and if I turn up the main threshold now a touch, it's much better. I guess the threshold and disc controls somehow interact with each other. It might be that it is connected to the SEF coil and not a stock coil. Remember reading something about not being able to increase sens or threshold or ? when using the SEF coil.


From my air testing seems to be hotter on brass shells, copper and gold than silver in general. Because it has ED120 discrimination, it doesn't see iron nails or hair pins well or at all.
Which translates it doesn't like smaller denomination Canadian steel clad or the new $1 Loonies. Could be a good cherry picker for older Loons, $2 Toons and gold.


This is my first Bandido, and a new tuning experience with me.
I am interested to see how it actually works in the field.

If anyone has any tips on tuning Bandido II I'm all ears.

 

[Hombre]

Sven,

...Tuning a Bandido is as easy as doing a search on this forum, key words are Bandido and Monte as the author. I use his method of power balancing sometimes in mineralized soil, but, most of the time I use a neutral setting of the Ground Balance. Once you have attained a good GB for your soil, run the sensitivity as high as you can and still retain stable operation. I run my theshold at just audible with headphones on because I like to use all-metal mode quite often and since the threshold trimmer is located at the rear of the detector instead of control panel it is not easy to set it to marked position. Of course, I run my Bandido at the stock position on the pole where I can reach the controls with my fingertips, and I just don't fiddle with the threshold much. I would say that the Bandido goes low enough in discrimination to pick up the ferrous coins you have in Canada, my Bandido loves rusty deep steel washers, they just do not sound as smooth as the more nobel metals such as silver and gold. My Bandido hits good on higher conductive coins such as silver dimes and quarters and that is because I tune my GB to a neutral setting. I believe that it is because going to a positive setting of ground balance reduces the responsivness of higher conductive coins. JMTCW.

 

[Sven]

Went across the street to the school I have been pounding to see if something else would come up.
And yes it did, had about 45 minutes before the sun went down and my fingers almost fell off.
Ground balanced the Bandido and scouted around in all metal mode, switched to disc to check. Took about 10 minutes of hunting before my first coin was found. A lowly penny.
Then a few pcs. of foil and canslaw. Then remembered in disc mode if you get a signal and you think it's foil, sweep across it fast a number of times. Foil signal will disappear and coins will still sound off. A couple more pennies then got a nice deeper signal, wasn't sure what to make of it, it read "dig me" in disc mode. So I did, a $1 Loonie. Nice. Then 1 more penny and a deeper nickel. At that point couldn't take it any more, my fingers cold. Walked back in the house and it the sink with warm water..........there's always another day.

As for the SEF coil, it works really well. Took a number of targets to figure out how and where to pinpoint with it. It's a DD coil. Once figured out, no problem. Find approx center of target by sweeping back and forth, once centered pull the coil backwards until the signal is no more. That area will be right at the coils tip v crotch area. Target will be right in that v- section. A plus is for pinpointing within the hole or plug or dirt, using either front or rear tip edges of the DD coil.
Looks like it will be a fun machine.