Sand Shark / Infinium LS / Dual Field:unsure:

[S.TexasKevin]

[size=medium]Please feedback welcome. Pros's, Con's, indifference's. I thought I had decided on the Whites until my Excal initial repair cost started me thinking on the Tesoro lifetime warranty. I am kinda fond of the Tesoro's, owned a Lobo ST and a Tejon. Loved them both. This will be my first PI and would like to hear from all.

Thanks, Kevin[/size]

 

[Philc40]

S.TexasKevin,

Had the same thoughts, so eventually I went with the Sand Shark, good price and the life time warranty sold me.

 

[scrooge]

I use mine in the Atlantic ocean in Florida and was having similar problems; posted the same questions here and on other forums only to find most owners have had some type of problems with the machine.

Here is what I have learned after a year of owning the Infinium, It has been sent in twice for repairs that included the DD coil being replaced both times (shielding problems), a loose solider connection on the circuit board and recalibration on the second trip. The folks at Garrett were great , they fielded my questions and made the repairs at no charge as they were covered under warranty. Once I got my Infinium back I read posts where users did everything from turning the threshold all the way past max and back, to running the unit with the threshold at zero and a ton of other things. I decided to conduct my own test so I took my Infinium with the DD coil to my local beach dug two six inch deep holes in the dry sand tied a strings to a 14K ring and 10K ring buried each in a separate hole, ground balanced the machine set the threshold at 4 and listened (the 4 setting on my unit is just above silent) and I was able to run the discrimination at zero......as I increased the discrimination the obvious happened past 4 the unit began to give erratic signals and could not identify the rings . The below 4 the unit had no problem giving the HI/LO but as I decreased the threshold to zero the unit had a harder time identifying the rings and the tone seemed to give off echos. I then moved to wet sand and conducted the same experiment and had similar results but to get the unit relatively quite I had to move the discrimination to 1. That being said it still gave the HI/LO.... until the discrimination was turned past 4 the results were the same as the dry sand...I have never been able to get the unit really quite in the surf but it is better since the last trip in for repairs.
Here are some tones my machine makes on certain items: zinc pennies give an echo as the coil comes to the end of the swing. Bottle caps give a HI/LO but the LO tone seems drawn out or longer , bobby pins have there own distinct sound. Clad coins LO/HI. These sounds are what I have found on my unit it may or may not be that way for others. MOST IMPORTANTLY SLOOOOOW DOWN THE SWING!!!!!!! I have used a Whites Pi for twenty years and could swing it much faster than the Infinium. I found that slowing down the swing has allowed me to find deeper items I was missing, as the coil approaches a target you will start to hear a tonal change even if you don't get a solid signal( HI/LO or LO/HI). If this happens I stop then go over the area extremely slow to check for a solid signal.

My opinion of the Infinium: it is a deep PI machine but I can't say it is any deeper than my Whites PI , with the DD coil it is heavy , not a machine for beginners,costumer service was great. Over all in spite of the problems I have still found clad coins, silver jewelery (really seems to like silver) and a nice 3 gram 10K gold medallion plus the expected ton of junk from using a PI machine. If I had it to do again I would have purchased the Whites duel field but that's just me....

 

[UK Brian]

You might like to re think the DF wish. I recently ran tests against the Sovereign, Deepstar, Goldquest SS even my old modified Beachscan and there was no way that it could deliver the depth figures that are often quoted on the U.S. forums so I still stick with Eric's machines.

I do a similar thing to you and have coins and rings attached to a marked string. Push down in the liquid sand as the tide retreats, pull upwards as the sand solidifys to a set depth then try all detectors on the same target.

With the Garrett you have the problems you detail and a heck of a lot of I.D. checks that have to be made to clarify the I.D. of a target ie you should dig anything thats low/high at zero discrimination that changes to hi/low in reverse discrimination. Coke cans at zero discrim./reverse discrim. are low/hi. Now the problem with this is that on my beaches to balance out the salt you need to set discrimination to 2 or even 3 (the point that sensitivity to gold is starting to drop off). So I can't detect at zero to help speed up the checks. Then add that gold can be hi/low or low/high, pure silver is low/high but alloyed is hi/low etc etc

Other more beach specific P.I.'s don't need the salt balanced out and don't require the slow sweep speed.

Most people would be better having a little less depth but be able to cover twice the ground in the same time period.

I'm a little suprised you don't find the Infinium deeper than your old Whites. I did, just not enough to warrant long term ownership.With any detector, pulse, VLF, whatever, the greatest advantage to good in ground depth figures is a large coil and poor pinpointing to allow targets to be missed and drop deeper into a hole. Mewnorton test pegs twenty five years back had a plug on metal at the end that gave the exact target response of a coin flat in the ground even though the peg was hammered in at 45 degrees so as not to disturbed the ground matrix. The results really upset the "I dig half way to Australia for coins" crew as they could not illustrate their claims. This led to the "halo" debates though how much halo does a ring on a beach develop ?

A great post. Its a pity that on many forums you would have been flamed off by now for suggesting a detector is not perfect.

 

[scrooge]

You might like to re think the DF wish. I recently ran tests against the Sovereign, Deepstar, Goldquest SS even my old modified Beachscan and there was no way that it could deliver the depth figures that are often quoted on the U.S. forums so I still stick with Eric's machines.

I do a similar thing to you and have coins and rings attached to a marked string. Push down in the liquid sand as the tide retreats, pull upwards as the sand solidifys to a set depth then try all detectors on the same target.

With the Garrett you have the problems you detail and a heck of a lot of I.D. checks that have to be made to clarify the I.D. of a target ie you should dig anything thats low/high at zero discrimination that changes to hi/low in reverse discrimination. Coke cans at zero discrim./reverse discrim. are low/hi. Now the problem with this is that on my beaches to balance out the salt you need to set discrimination to 2 or even 3 (the point that sensitivity to gold is starting to drop off). So I can't detect at zero to help speed up the checks. Then add that gold can be hi/low or low/high, pure silver is low/high but alloyed is hi/low etc etc

Other more beach specific P.I.'s don't need the salt balanced out and don't require the slow sweep speed.

Most people would be better having a little less depth but be able to cover twice the ground in the same time period.

I'm a little suprised you don't find the Infinium deeper than your old Whites. I did, just not enough to warrant long term ownership.With any detector, pulse, VLF, whatever, the greatest advantage to good in ground depth figures is a large coil and poor pinpointing to allow targets to be missed and drop deeper into a hole. Mewnorton test pegs twenty five years back had a plug on metal at the end that gave the exact target response of a coin flat in the ground even though the peg was hammered in at 45 degrees so as not to disturbed the ground matrix. The results really upset the "I dig half way to Australia for coins" crew as they could not illustrate their claims. This led to the "halo" debates though how much halo does a ring on a beach develop ?

A great post. Its a pity that on many forums you would have been flamed off by now for suggesting a detector is not perfect.

UKBRIAN , what machine are you using in saltwater? I like to get wet up to my chest and with my old unit I used a snorkel. As for being flamed off on forums that has happened some people can't seem to handle an honest opinion. I agree with you I prefer a faster sweep speed to give me the opportunity to cover more area.

 

[diggindirt]

[size=medium]Please feedback welcome. Pros's, Con's, indifference's. I thought I had decided on the Whites until my Excal initial repair cost started me thinking on the Tesoro lifetime warranty. I am kinda fond of the Tesoro's, owned a Lobo ST and a Tejon. Loved them both. This will be my first PI and would like to hear from all.

Thanks, Kevin[/size]

Take a look at the "Garrett Infinium Forum Classroom" section to read all about the machine (plenty of great posts to help answer your questions)

 

[prospector 55]

I heard the Tesoro was lacking in depth!!! buyer beware