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My White's Sierra Pulse Pro (white's Spp)


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Well, thanks to forum member YubaJ I just ended up with a very slightly used White's Sierra Pulse Pro, or as it is more commonly referred to, the White's SPP. Bonus is it came with three coils, the standard 12" round mono, a 6" round mono that was part of an introductory special when they first came out, and a 5" x 9" Miner John folded mono coil.

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The Sierra Pulse Pro is nothing more than a White's TDI SL with the Conductivity switch and Pulse Delay knob both removed. The unit is locked into the hottest 10uS pulse delay. It is a limited availability machine only available from west coast dealers and in Australia. The whole story on how it came about is kind of interesting and detailed in my original thread on the machine from May 2014 at http://www.detectorprospector.com/forum/topic/213-whites-sierra-pulse-pro-whites-spp/

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Now you may ask, why did I get this detector? There is a story there also. My first detector was a White's Coinmaster IV that I purchased in 1972. My first detector dealership was for White's in 1976, and I have had good success using many of their detectors. I currently have a White's V3i with Bigfoot coil that is my jewelry machine for large parks and sports fields. Bottom line is White's and I go way back.

Whether I intend to use them myself or not I like spreading the word about on new models others might be interested in, so I perked up when the SPP was announced. I was more than anything just excited to see a ground balancing pulse induction machine introduced for under a grand, plus I always liked the ultra light weight of the previous TDI SL model. So I really was kind of pumped up to get one and posted on a few forums about it.

Now, I used to hang out a lot on the White's Electronics forum at http://forums.whiteselectronics.com/ to just offer some free help and support as one of the only people there that seemed to know much about the White's GMT and TDI models. I made a post there identical to the one on this forum at the link above, and I get this message from the moderator:

"Had to remove the Pic and "Sierra" name from the title of your post. The SPP is a Jimmy Sierra product, and as such isn't allowed to be "advertised" or "plugged" on the open forum."

I posted again, something along the lines of "WTF it is made by White's and is sold by White's dealers but because it says "Sierra" in the actual name of the product I am being censored?". I got another message saying my "rant" had been deleted and the issue forwarded to the admin. That was it for me - I banned myself and have not participated there since. Jimmy Sierra later contacted me to apologize and he did set things straight with the people at the forum but water under the bridge by then. Just another example of the strange and convoluted politics at White's Electronics.

I had been all fired up to get the SPP but just put the whole idea aside at that point. Yet down inside I still wanted one. So when by pure chance I saw this SPP for sale at a good price I pounced, purely as an impulse buy. I have no real use for the machine and will probably sell it but I want to play around with it a bit.

The main thing about the White's TDI SL and the SPP is they are crazy light weight. The machine weighs about 3.5 lbs with the 12" coil and right at a perfectly balanced 3 lbs with the smaller coils. This is what the Garrett ATX or Minelab SDC 2300 could have been and should be packaged like. After swinging a GPZ 7000 all summer the SPP feels like a feather!

Now, the TDI SL and SPP models are not high power pulse units and like the Garrett Infinium they really do not do any better in low mineral ground than a good VLF detector. However, as ground mineralization and hot rocks get worse there is a crossover point where the problems these conditions cause on a VLF (loss of depth, false signals) can be overcome by using a ground balancing pulse induction (GBPI) detector. Something many people do not understand is that by adding a ground balancing circuit to a PI some depth is lost in an absolute sense, and this is very easily illustrated with the TDI/SPP models in air tests by just turning the ground balance off. The machine gains quite a bit of extra punch, and a nice thing about the White's GBPI models is they have this ability to be run in pure PI mode in low mineral ground. In particular this makes the original TDI and TDI Pro models some of the best beach PI detectors you can get your hands on.

In the case of the TDI SL and SPP however running the machines with ground balance off is almost the same as running a good VLF in all metal mode. The only difference is you do get the ability inherent in all PI detectors to ignore some ground conditions due to the pulse delay and how it works. See Understanding the PI Metal Detector by Reg Sniff for details.

More about the SPP versus the TDI SL. The SL comes with what White's calls a Dual Field coil, which is basically a small mono running inside a large mono. The coils look like doughnuts, the outer rim being the large coil, and the inner circle being a smaller mono coil, both running at the same time. The theory is the depth of a large coil with the small gold sensitivity of a small coil, all at the same time. The problem was these coils were a bit too hot for Australia, and so the SPP coils are just regular mono coils. Easy to confuse also because a 12" Dual Field looks identical to the regular 12" mono. My unit has both the 12" mono and a 6" round mono that was part of an introductory special (now over). The SPP was a killer deal at introduction with two coils for $999.95. It is now being advertised new with a single 12" coil for $999.95 but is being offered by at least one dealer for $899.95 with the single coil.

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I really like the little 5" x 9" folded mono coil and scuff cover that came with my unit. What is a folded mono you ask? Something Reg Sniff came up with, details at Link deleted since Findmall Forum update broke all old links Basically his answer to the White's Dual Field, which was patented. Miner John sells these for $199 at http://razorbackcoils.webs.com/apps/webstore/products/show/6277891 and it is probably one of the best coils you can get for a TDI to hunt gold.

Finally, the SPP is interesting because it really is a TDI SL under the hood. The plug in connections for the Conductivity switch and Pulse Delay control knob are still on the circuit board, and the SPP can be upgraded back into a TDI SL for just a few dollars in parts. Here is a thread on adding the Conductivity switch back in at https://www.prospectingaustralia.com.au/forum/viewtopic.php?id=13934 You can see the little white plastic sockets on the control board picture below marked conductivity and pulse delay.

Anyway, just got this and no time yet to do more than take pictures and post but when I get time more will be forthcoming.

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Good write up Steve but I have to question the following? TDI's use draw more than  twice the power as the ATX. The ATX uses about 250 ma/h where as the TDI uses about 500 ma/h.

 

Now, the TDI models are not high power pulse units and like the Garrett Infinium.

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Oh, I get it. You are talking about batteries. Frankly, I was talking more loosely in terms of actual performance in the field as prospecting detectors. There is a correlation when it comes to battery power and PI performance but battery power is not everything by a long shot. Probably more important is ground balancing efficiency and the sensitivity of the receiving circuitry.

The original TDI and TDI Pro do have higher power batteries and do pack a bit more punch than the TDI SL and SPP so it is unfair of me to lump them together. I modified that line to read "TDI SL and SPP models" instead of just TDI. Thanks for pointing that out.

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On 11/19/2015 at 1:33 PM, Steve Herschbach said:

So what was your question? I was talking about the Infinium and TDI but if you want to toss the ATX in there that is fine by me.

LOL I did read it as the Infinium so lord knows why I got the ATX stuck in my head. Agreed the Garretts are probably more suited to prospecting than the TDI due to their sensitivity to the smaller stuff, but they cant be classed as high power PI's.

Yes the TDI and Pro have higher voltage batteries but even the SL and SSP throw out about twice as much power as the Garretts and I think the Minelabs throws out about three times, but as you say Its what they do to the received signal that counts.

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Yeah my ATX will run twice as long on 8 AA batteries as the TDI SL or SPP. They suck down the power. Some of that is getting lost as heat however. White's excuse for never making a waterproof TDI was too much heat buildup in the control box if the sealed box was used above water.

I don't think the Infinium is any better at prospecting than the TDI SL or SPP. The ATX on the other hand I would rather use gold prospecting than any of the TDI variants, even given its weight and touch sensitive coils. So far it comes closer to giving a Minelab a run for the money than any other brand PI I have used but Garrett made a major strategic error with the physical design if their true intent was to make a dent in the prospecting market. Despite that the ATX has what I believe to be better across the board performance as a gold prospecting detector the TDI still beats it in the real world from a practical perspective.

I would love to hear some TDI success stories from you.

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