Steve Herschbach

I doubt Minelab cares as much as you all seem to think. This is just a standard “cover your posterior” statement. Frankly, Minelab would be negligent to its stockholders and customers not to let people know that if you screw something up doing this, you are on your own. People might think this would be obvious, but I personally have a lot of knowledge about warranty administration. I will never forget the guy that felled a tree on his Husqvarna chainsaw and wanted me to warranty it. His rationale? “If it was designed properly it would not have broken”. Minelab does not produce enough coils fast enough, period. Why there is not a 6 x 10 coil yet for Equinox or small coil for GPZ is beyond me. Take a look at Nokta/Makro for a lesson in how to do coils. They launch new detectors with a half dozen coils out the starting gate, and a dozen aftermarket coils follow in a few months. It is just one of the strategies NokMak is employing to win customers and it is working. People are still vastly underestimating that company.

Well, we need to remember this is still a prototype, not a production unit. Personally, I have mixed feelings about knobs. I like them from an operational aspect. I dislike them because they collect grit and are an inevitable failure point - the more knobs, the more chance of one failing. There is something to be said for a seamless sealed pod from that perspective. I prefer something like Garrett did on the ATX myself, but that’s just me. I don’t see the point in the shaft attachment design unless there is a possibility of the cable running up the rod, which might be the case. Again, this is a pre-production prototype so we don’t know for sure on anything.

Welcome to the forum Donna. They are out of business... nothing to renew.

Yes, the Tesoro website appears to be down.

Hi Gerry, Do you have a link to the statement? Or was this something sent only to dealers? Personally I have no doubt the SDC was very finely tuned to the 8” mono coil. Some loss of small gold sensitivity may occur with other coils. But if you believe ground coverage matters, and I do, giving up a little to get more coverage.... well, we have been making that trade off for as long as there have been detectors. Edit: found it https://www.minelab.com/usa/customer-care/product-notices?article=353456..... SDC 2300 PRODUCT NOTICE & WARRANTY STATEMENT Recently, Coiltek has introduced aftermarket coils that can be retrofitted to the SDC 2300. These have been developed independently of Minelab and Minelab has not had any involvement with these coils. Minelab cannot and does not provide any information or support regarding the use of these coils. Minelab does not guarantee the SDC 2300’s performance when used in conjunction with these coils. The SDC is manufactured by Minelab in a standard configuration designed to be robust and offering easy to use high performance; any changes to the product may alter its performance. Further, such modifications may materially impact the ability of Minelab to support and warrant your SDC 2300. The SDC 2300 is not designed for changing coils nor for use with other coil sizes and specifically any damage which is assessed by Minelab or its Authorised Service Centres (ASCs) as having resulted from such modification will not be covered by the Minelab warranty. All Minelab detectors are engineered in Australia, manufactured to exacting standards in ISO 9001/2000 quality accredited facilities, and backed by up to defined transferable warranties. Review the full Minelab warranty period, terms and conditions on our website.

The TDI rejects ferrous as well as any of them if not better due to the manual GB control. I wrote the original article about it. I can use a TDI and dig minimal ferrous, but then it gets no more or less depth than a good VLF. Paul has left all the forums. The last place I saw him post was Findmall. He might still be on Geotech. It would be nice to be free of monetary concerns. You own more PI detectors than I do right now.

Yeah, if this ends up being over 2K I will probably take a pass and wait for more models to appear.

Thanks for posting Rick. I am pretty much boycotting heavy detectors. In my opinion with proper engineering there is no reason today why a waterproof VLF should weigh over 3 lbs and my desired target for a waterproof PI in under 4 lbs. If the Manta were to come in at the higher range of 1.8 kg then we are looking at 3.97 lbs. El Paso, we have a winner!

Hi Joe, This thread is from 2015 and Luke is no longer a member of the forum. Personally, if you are not having luck finding gold with your TDI then I would focus more on getting into better locations with it. There are mods but they are not magic wands and right now nobody appears to be doing any of the mods anyway. Yes, ground balance off is the most powerful mode but only if you have low mineral ground and no hot rocks to deal with. The machine has to be adjusted for the ground first. The lower the mineralization, the more leeway you have to go without ground balance. Welcome to the forum!

Thanks Merton. I probably saw that but am going in a million directions at once these days so getting scatterbrained! I am glad they are working on this machine but personally I am not seeing enough to make me pull the trigger. I need a PI more than a VLF and don't need one of those enough to buy anything currently on the market.

Yeah, I have followed it closely. I set up a reviews page about it back in December... There are multiple threads about the Tarsacci on the Metal Detector Advice & Comparisons Forum including this one. Goldbrick also reported here. Impulse AQ - I like it. Referential to the old Fisher Impulse. If the machine is even remotely as pictured I will probably get one. It may not be designed for dry land use in extreme ground but there is plenty of ground in Nevada that is relatively mild but which does have a lot of alkali salt in the ground, maybe a few hot rocks. If nothing else it looks like a killer Lake Tahoe detector.

You are right, looks like they planned for a drain, etc. Good job Keene!

The discussion went crazy on the Prospecting Forum so here is the link. I will move it all here to the Minelab Forum once things settle down.

It’s always nice when manufacturers pay direct attention to their customers. Good job Trevor and thanks!

For me the key to using ground tracking is that the ground must be highly variable. It is not how highly mineralized the ground is but how variable it is that matters. If the ground is relatively homogenous I don’t see a need to track the ground and in fact I would tend to recommend against it. In very low mineral / low salt ground there may not be enough mineral content to track to and the machine could run away with itself as you have described.

Bharp Detecting Published on Mar 10, 2019 Compared the x35 9" coil and the High Frequency Elliptical coil on both XP ORX and the XP Deus using the same settings on 2 different targets next to iron and coal. The first target was a Confederate GA State Seal button and the second was a piece of ornate Colonial gold.

Glad you caught it before you had a real problem!!

Yup, what Chase said - nobody has implied anything but an Equinox coil will work on an Equinox. The whole point of the thread is asking Minelab to make one. They actually do read the forums. And yes, welcome to the forum!

Basically, no. The GPX is about as good as it gets with both tones and a shallow iron disc function, but it is far from perfect. Garrett ATX the same but not as powerful. Minelab GPX Discrimination GPX Iron Reject The Manta no matter what they say will have ferrous limitations. Nature of the beast.

Great video Shelton - thanks for posting! I think the Simplex is going to shake up the industry just like the Equinox has. At one point it has been mentioned as a 12 kHz detector and I see a note in your video it may be 13 - 14 kHz?

I hope they shave the excess hollow area off the bottom of the 4 x 6 coils like has been done with the 6" concentric. Never could figure that nonsense out - did White's never look at Gold Bug 2 coils?

Good news, sounds like we will see it before the end of the year. It’s the only detector I have much interest in at the moment but if it is a beach only detector I may pass. I just need something to replace my now departed Garrett ATX. Loved that machine, but manufacturers either get the ergonomics right or I am passing from now on. Surely Fisher can offer me something better than a TDI Beachunter? Fingers crossed!

Great work Julie. It really is all about being able to detect tiny non-ferrous targets. People tend to get annoyed by lead but looking at your finds tells me A. You are doing great at figuring the Equinox out and B. The location you are detecting, if gold bearing, still has gold left. You can’t get all the gold and leave the lead behind. Of course if the location has no gold that’s another story. I treat aluminum the same way when jewelry detecting. If I am detecting a park or sport field and can’t find much if any aluminum, somebody has hit it hard. That rarely happens but I have encountered it. It still amazes me how many 1970s era ring tabs are easily found in most locations however.... an obvious sign of low pressure jewelry detecting. Seriously, you are doing great. You just need to get over that nugget!

Yes, it is correct that Nokta/Makro uses a proprietary wireless system on nearly all their models to date. As Tom notes you could go with the Garrett Z-Lynk but that also is a proprietary system. You can find all sorts of dongle driven Bluetooth solutions on Amazon and elsewhere that will plug into the 1/4” headphone jack with or without an adapter.

The links are in the first post of this thread, so start at the beginning. Here is the manufacture website. Welcome to the forum!