pinpointer999

Beautiful rig. If you ever decide she needs a new home, msg me... i would love to own it.

when you say small, you really mean tiny.  you are right.

I picked up a Deteknix Wader from an online UK site for 109.00 Can funds last year.

It's a PI pinpointer and uses both aa and 9v batteries. Waterproof to 10 ft.

I see this as another case of US makers being slow to market. Deteknix even has lithium versions good to 200ft.

On 9/15/2017 at 7:37 PM, auminesweeper said:

To be honest about it, many years ago I was on one of the forums and someone posted a picture of an old Bounty Hunter Red Baron and it was taken back when they were new and I was in awe of it and it stuck in my mind because it was the all singing dancing model and from that day on I searched every where and then last year I saw this one on ebay and because it was a Whites I just had to have it, Anyways I was determined that I was going to win the bidding it got up to about £120  /$156.00 USD so right at the last couple of seconds I bid about £260.00  /$338.00 and I actually won the bidding and got it for £170.00 /$221.00USD.

It was around mid winter when it got here and I was not going to go out testing it in -10* degrees and so it was down to indoor testing and the US Quarter seems to be the standard so everyone would understand what I was talking about So I fired up every machine I have here and used them in mixed mode audio (Third Tone) with the quarter as my test piece it turns out that the 5900 using the standard 950 coil has in excess of 37%+ more horsepower than some of the best modern machines at the bare minimum when other machines are also fitted their factory coils, So what modern machines can see at 15 to 17" the 5900 can see at 22" + and the bigger the target the bigger the difference,

I believe that where some of the horsepower comes from is part of the reason of Minelabs success at prospecting with using that Velvet type threshold, because the 5900 does not chatter or waver when maxed out and it has the best ever threshold,  The 5900 has the edge over the 6000 because the 5900 was the last in the series to have manual GB, and at the time of purchase I did not realize that I was actually buying the better model so that was more luck than judgement,

Keith Southern plays with these quite a lot and he has adapted them to use a straight shaft which makes them more like what we are use to, I was going to post a link to it but photo bucket has removed all the photos and you have join or do something to see them,

I took the 5900 out side for some proper testing and I found all the targets my PI machines could find even through the heavy clay layer that is usable enough to make clay pots if needed, It's discrimination works pretty well and it is very accurate in the above soil conditions and in Air tests it ID's all targets perfectly, Below my apartment there is a huge subway tunnel that is about 5 or 6 feet deep and like the PI's it has no problem seeing it due to its size,

Weight wise people keep saying the 5900s are wrist breakers, But the thing is it is a Porker weighing in at 6.3 lbs but the way it is set up it naturally sits at a 30* angle so no matter what you do the coil is always hovering about 2 inches above the ground so the weight is very easy on the arm etc, The 5900 can easily be adapted to a belt or chest mount because if you look at the picture where it is in the box you could make a belt mount out of pipe and mount the coil on a modern shaft because the coil lead is over 8 feet long without destroying the originality of the machine,

I phone Whites and they gave me all the info about this machine and I asked them why was it so powerful compared to what we have today and he told me that when we changed over from analog where components were use to make things happen that something got lost in translation when converted to digital, So this is why modern machines can't keep pace with machines that we had in the late 1980s and with the birth of the digital age detector companies have basically had to start all over again, Target ID and recovery speed is very useful but speed does not go hand in hand with depth, just ask any CTX or GPX user about that. and It has a lockable pinpoint non motion mode just like Whites added to the MXT Pro and All Pro which is useful for tracing Items under ground. 

As old as this old timer is, It is living proof of what Steve was saying on another thread about BFO/TR machines, Are they any better ? I don't know but it does make me smile when people start talking about deep machines and bragging rights,

My final thoughts having compared such a classic machine to the modern greats is that I wish Whites would use the exact threshold and fit it to modern machines because being able to pick out the faintest of wavers or signals from that threshold is the secrete to such depth and making modern machines chatty where we have to reduce the gain in order to get them to run smooth is an instant depth loss baring in mind when modern machines are maxed out and these old machines are maxed out the older ones already have that 37%+ depth advantage so when you turn down the modern machines so they are stable it makes you think and ask just how much depth are we loosing , and the Ground Balance system with the aid of the Disc to wipe out ground noise is another thing we have lost too,  Our modern machines can do a heck of a lot too and they really deliver but modern machine reached their peak years ago but if a company could put back what we have lost from the old machines then we would see what a VLF can really do,

hope this helps.

John.

Here is a pic of the 5900 Di Pro Plus  mod that Keith Southern sold me last year.

The rod makes the machine swing a lot easier. The Minelab arm-cuff is gel padded, but lacks a strap. The rubber grips he installed help a lot to tame thisbeast LOL. I am in awe of this machine. I just got a 6000 Di Pro SL with a hip mountat a steal of a price - 150.00 .... ah, detecting heaven :)

I find it interesting that the meter is black/grey. I have the same machine and seen others all have the blue background with yellow numbers/letters.  That is so great that you found one brand new. I love mine. The four filter design blows away all my other machines except my Fisher CZ 6a. The 5900 ignores iron better though, the CZ6a gets fooled on deep nails.

Meh.... I'm 3rd season into the hobby and have already realized, when it's all boiled down, I've had much more success with my old second hand classic analog machines than with the hyped up bells and whistles machines I have purchased. I'm sure there are more than a few that will scramble for the latest and newest.

As for me, well.... I will just sit back and enjoy the drama LOL

I understand some not needing multi-tone. For me, being a noob, 8 tone on my mx5 was an amazing

new option for me that made recognizing good targets amazingly easy. Just saying.....