Mark Gillespie

Awesome review

That is an awesome settings chart Mike.

You're right

Found out one thing, every coil I got with the v3i are not V rated. All failed the test. Now I must admit the main reason I wanted the V3i was to use the high frequency to jewelry hunt. Now I'll have to find a v rated coil and maybe sell the others. Ever learning and never learning any lessons.

Recently bought a used V3i from a hunting buddy. He bought the V3 new and later updated to the V3i version. The machine is fairly clean and the 10" D2 appears to never been used. He bought two SEF 10 x 12" coils, one white and one black. I was very concerned about the lack of air test distances, but with a few reductions in settings the coils will be sufficient for while as long as I don't run multi-frequency and keep the tx boost off. Did the simple test to see if they were V rated and all failed and one will not ground balance while in multi-frequency. All this makes sense since he originally bought a V3 detector. Now I understand why he bought the SEF coils (he thought they would add depth). I originally bought the machine for only gold/jewelry hunting with the 22.5 frequency which will require a V coil if I run with high sensitivity settings.

Care to expand on "nulled"

I remember the trouble they had with the first D2 coils but never thought it might be my problem. Oh well ....... I'll do the test described in the post and see if the coil passes or not.

So it is highly likely the coil I have might be bad. He bought the V3 new in 2010 and sent it in for an update to V3i. I'll do the overload test tonight and post my results. Doesn't sound good since the machine is out of warranty by now. But I did receive a white and black 10 x 12 SEF coil in the deal, maybe one of those might work okay.

The reason I was asking about air test figures is I recently bought a used V3i from a guy I hunt with 3-4 times each year. Two years ago the machine, (same machine) was sent to me to run though my test garden. The machine performed almost flawlessly, detecting each target at many different depts. One target in particular is extremely hard for most detectors to respond to. The target is a very small copper rivet at 7" deep. After buying the machine, the test garden was one of the first stops, surprise the three deepest targets failed to respond. Did some simple air test and the air response failed short of the depth of these targets. I checked the coil connections, all are tight, then after exhausting all my options I did a master reset on all settings and programs and still no change in the air test. You are absolutely correct in the fact bad ground subtracts from depth, by huge amounts at times. I was really wanting a starting point of an air test in the coin/jewelry program to see where I machine actually is. I'll chance to another coil tonight and hit the test garden again.

What could a person expect to be the normal air test on a dime and nickel using the stock coin/jewelry program with the v3i and the stock 11" D2 coil? Thanks in advance

I agree Steve, seems like the majority of detectorist have given up or just quit (in my area). Only until the past year have I devoted more time to hunting gold rings instead of deep silver. Mostly I have started re-hunting the hunted out sites of the past.

No doubt an exciting moment for sure.

Awesome, that is why I never pass up a nickel. Congratulations.

Steve, how do you think the GM1000 compares to the Fisher gold bug 2?

I can say the new CZX will have me hooked if it will meet or beat my TDI SL. I've dug a lot of nice barbers since getting my SL. Most are pounded areas and void of all good targets, or so I thought.

I love this site. Straight forward and to the point.

One of my hunting buddies uses the CTX, he always seems to beat us out with more finds.

I had the opportunity to test the Gold Bug Pro with the 11" DD coil and it performed very well. In fact I took it to an area littered with soda pull tabs and pulled a very nice ring out of the mess. Ideally the gold bug with a 5 x 10 DD coil would do me well, or maybe a F19 with the stock coil for my ring hunting adventures. Of course the Gold Bug failed also in the coal waste fields.

After reading Steve's post I decided to keep the SL for a while. It works great in the coal waste areas but my largest draw back is it loves nails. Regardless of settings a nail will still break through with a low tone. I've found many masked silver coins in these area during the past two years. Now I must add I've tried the Fisher F75, White's DFX and V3i, Minelab Explorer, Etrac and the CTX 3030 in these areas and the CTX performed better than them all. Needless to say, even the CTX is affected by this coal waste, but did pull more old relics and coins at depths just out of reach of the other machines. Many side by side comparisons revealed the CTX would indicate a non-ferrous target was there while the others would give either a solid ferrous or no audio at all. I was mainly wanting the 705 to hunt gold jewelry. The SL works great for the gold but I can't distinguish between the rings and pull tabs. And before you say, well some rings fall in the pull tab range, I'll say of all the rings I've recovered only one read in the upper pull tab range. All others read from foil to nickel. Since the vast majority of gold rings sold are for women and nearly 100% of the ones I've either found or tested fall in the upper iron to nickel range that is what I hunt for.

Steve, saying the above would it fulfill my request? I've got an opportunity to trade my TDI for a XTerra 705 with 3 coils, but not sure if it is what I need. Thoughts. please

I agree Steve, the started with a short video of something to come then as excitement was building out comes another short video with more information and mystery. They know how to use social media to boost sales. That will give the edge and boost sales. Other companies will wait until a machine completely finished and then release information. But by that time some loyal customers might have already switched to Garrett. The same thing happens in industry, customers are always on the look out for something that interest them, then they buy. Garrett is on top of their game.

I'm still patiently waiting on 1st Texas's new detector. The Fisher F75 was a game changer for me when they first came out and I trust the next flag ship machine will be to.

I know a guy down in Lake Charles Louisiana who has a Shadow X5 along with some 15 other detectors. He states it is great for gold on the beach, most know him by "Tinfoil"

When I did a field test review for Fisher using the the Gold Bug Pro DP I found a really nice gold ring, buried with a multitude of pull tabs and trash. I really like that machine too. Extremely fast recovery and great audio attributes. Oh, did I forget, light and easy to swing.......

Many good points, one I 100% agree with is the ergonomics of the F75 and Gold Bug Pro, very easy to swing for hours. The ground where I live also reduces the detection/ID depth to about half. Most good coins, deeper than 7" will give a solid iron tone and ID in the extreme bad ground areas. That is one reason why I use the TDI even though it loves iron. I keep waiting for 1st Texas to release the machine you had posted and hope it will be a variant of both a PI and VLF when it comes to ground rejection, or rather see through abilities. I can only imagine a machine with PI functions with good ID capabilities. I guess time will tell. Also wondering if the new Minelab Monster will hurt the Gold Bug sales at Fisher. If it is prices right, simple to use and performs = to or > than, the answer is quite obvious.