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White's TDI Hi-q Metal Detector


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Read earlier threads, mostly about the coil.

Does anyone have experience with this pulse detector and do they find it to be an excellent detector for prospecting the desert?

Would love to hear opinions from users. Not a lot of reviews out there.

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The TDI Hi-Q is exactly the same as the most recent versions of the TDI SL light brown version with straight shaft and the TDI SL black version with the S shaped shaft. Only the coil selection is different. So any reviews on the TDI SL since roughly 2016 apply to the TDI Hi-Q.

When you say "prospecting the desert" hopefully the desert you are thinking about has gold that is 0.5 gram weight or bigger. With the 12V batteries and stock coils, you will have a hard time detecting gold any smaller. If you upgrade the 12 V batteries to 14.8V and upgrade the coils to smaller Coiltek, Nugget Finder or some of the most recent Minelab coils you might be able to hit .25 gram nuggets.

So, for larger gold, the TDI Hi-Q/TDI SL with 14.8V batteries and very sensitive coils will be great in high mineralization. For moderate to low mineralization any higher frequency VLF gold prospecting detector would out perform the TDI Hi-Q/TDI SL.

Jeff 

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The TDI Pro, TDI OZ and the TDI SL are very different detectors. I actually like my TDI SL with the higher capacity 14.8v battery pack and Nuggett Finder coils. That said, in my test garden and when prospecting I have never detected any lead targets or gold smaller than 0.2 grams. That is with the excellent Nugget Finder Sadie and Nugget Finder Advantage coils. The stock Miner Johns coil that came with my TDI SL Special Edition will not hit targets that small unless they are basically on the surface down to 3 cm deep.

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The TDI SL is a very light weight, inexpensive "old school" ground balancing pulse induction metal detector. The design is derived from the earliest Eric Foster pulse designs. As such the machine simply is not as sensitive to tiny stuff as a hot VLF or a modern PI detector. That does not make it a "rotten" detector anymore than a two-box cache hunting detector is "rotten" for prospecting. It is a matter of knowing your tools and using them for their best application. Trying to stuff a square peg in a round hole is an operator error and no fault of the tool.

That said it honestly is an older design and if you have the money there are better PI options. Using a TDI SL in a location hunted by the last several generations of later PI detectors is an exercise in futility. Personally I think the Goldmaster 24k will be a far better value for most people than a TDI SL.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I use my SL exclusively for gold jewelry hunting and deep silver.  These are old school properties where the burnt coal waste has been discarded for many decades.  This smelted material attracts to a magnet and limits VLF depth to about 4".  For the VLF, any target beyond that is detected as iron.  Since the SL is a PI, I can adjust the pulse delay to basically see past this waste.  In other words, the detector can wait until the signal from these small pieces (coal waste) has dissipated to near zero.  During my 5+ years of SL experience I've found some really nice silver coins and the best gold jewelry items.  A PI is not for everyone and for sure there is a learning curve but I've really enjoyed mine from day one.  I don't always find good stuff but I know the detector can perform, if I just stay with it.  Just my 2 cents.

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