TTT2866

Bit of an odd one recently. Crazy coincidence though. I was detecting one of our old spots recently at about 10pm where we generally don't find much. Mainly out of boredom but it was a super low tide too. After a bit I got really really bored, with only about 5 targets recovered.. so I decided to head to a brand new spot about 20 minutes away. I wasn't going to, but I had already drove 15 minutes to the other spot and figured why not.. nearby on the previous night we found a lot of old coins, and the mrs convinced me to give it a go around the corner. First impression of this new spot - wow, a lot of sand had moved since I had last visited (not detecting). Not enough for massive drops in the sand between the shore and waters edge, but enough for it to look different and have some more dense sand layers, as opposed to light fluffy sand. We had a massive storm recently so a lot of sand had moved around, and since this spot is along the ocean rather than the bay it gets a lot of water rushing in and out. This is something to keep in mind for later in this post. It was edging on 11-11:30pm by now and I had just pulled up. First target, as usual, a sinker. Next target, an iPhone! Not sure what model, I think maybe iPhone 14? It didn't look *old* but it wasn't a fresh drop. Cool, in the pocket it goes. I'm able to return most iPhones, so I don't chuck them. Some people need the broken ones for insurance I guess. Broken or not, they're expensive hey? I'd want mine back. Trudging along for another half hour along this short stretch of beach with minimal targets, so I decided to turn back and call it a night. Lazily swinging along on the way back to the car and I got this whopping screaming signal. When I looked down, I was amazed to see another iphone! right on the surface. What are the chances?? This one a lot newer. Having the USB-C port on it like mine, I knew it had to be an iPhone 16 or 17 and would most likely work. the housing was a little corroded so I knew it had been there at least a couple weeks, but in shallow water (i assumed) so shouldn't have exceeded the water rating? I was happy with that, and didn't get many other targets along the way back. A broken bracelet, couple of coins, a lure, sinkers, etc. As soon as I got back to the car I plugged the newer iPhone in and it started charging. Slowly..it was doing its thing. It booted up. charge icon... Apple icon...black screen...default wallpaper...charging.. then suddenly this horrid annoying dumb alarm started to go off. There was water in the charger port which was making the phone play this sound. It wouldn't let me do anything else. It stopped after I sat it in front of the car heater for a bit, and I checked the emergency contacts to find nothing, it wasn't setup yet. Got about 20% charge, then the dumb alarm kept going off non-stop. Perhaps the contacts short-circuited, tricking the phone into thinking it had water in it still. Or maybe it was internal water. The charge port was definitely dry though. Whatever. Got home, put the Sim card in my phone, got the owners phone number and sent him a text at like 12:30am saying I found his phone. Come 10am next day, I got a call from that number. The conversation went a bit like this: "Oh so you just found it on the beach metal detecting??? ... Yeah mate, well I actually found two ... TWO??, I LOST TWO! Was one in a x coloured case and the other a y coloured case??? ... Yeah man, wtf!! " So it turns out, this poor guy was walking his dog along a rock wall about 15 meters from where I found the first phone and tripped then dropped the phone in the water, and assumed it was gone for good. He then got himself a brand new iPhone, only to be walking along the same stretch of beach a few weeks later and a few HUNDRED meters down, and the exact same thing happened. Tripped over at a high tide, and dropped his new phone. "oh well", he thinks. "good as gone". Didn't even lodge a police report or ask on Facebook if anyones found it lol. Well we then had the massive storm, which had dragged the phone along the shallow water, out in to the ocean, then back in. We can somewhat closely track this by the fact that the rock wall and pier goes out a fair bit and it had to go around that to then wash back in to where I found it. I was a bit skeptical at first, so put the other phones Sim card in my phone and verified that both had the same phone number attached. Crazy. I met him the next day and returned both phones. He was a great guy, absolutely thrilled to have both back. Though unfortunately the first one didn't work, the other mostly did. Overall great outcome and I think good karma. later on in the day they were returned I actually found two 1860's token pennies at another beach where i've detected probably a dozen times. I've lost count of how many iPhones we've found this year. Probably close to 10 ish? About 3 weeks before this, there was another lost phone posted on Facebook. Lost at x location somewhere near steps. We drove 30 minutes to get there, found it within 10 minutes. Mailed it back to them to save them a 2+ hour drive, as they weren't local. as much as she insisted to pay us for our time, we declined, to which she made a very generous donation to a charity on our behalf. :^)

Bit of an update. I received the SDC today. @GotAU? it just had the original SDC headphone port, nothing special. Got it home, and had a dig through the stuff that came with it. Some random Pro-sonic leads, a spare and newly replaced skidplate, some Black Widow Headphones and a single battery with no charger. Set it up, no power. Battery tested at 16 volts(?) though. Hooked it up to the power supply, accidentally at 12 volts instead of 7.2 and it went into overload protection mode, but worked to a degree. Quick flick of the switch and it did nothing. Took it to the local dealer and tried some other batteries and it still wouldn't power on, though possibly because of the overload thing. I ended up buying a new battery and charger. Got it home and took it apart. Tested it at 7.2v directly via the power pins on the board and it worked, so I figured it was time to play with the switch. Trying a battery again, it worked now. I did also fidget with the battery wire loom so maybe it wasn't plugged in properly to begin with. The $1400 question, 'what does it do'... Drumroll.... It switches the sound between low volume and high (normal) volume. The speaker was also unplugged from the board, hence why it was being sold as for-parts/broken. I also posted it in another group and found one of the original owners who actually returned it to the pawn store because the speaker wasn't working. Removal was easy. I desoldered the switch and soldered the wires back to the correct loom. Plugged the hole with epoxy and a bit of plastic and now it's like new! Aside from the small patched hole. Very happy with this pickup. $1400 AUD ($923 USD) is an absolute steal. I needed it for a purpose unrelated to prospecting but will probably take it out anyway now. Overall easy repair, 1/10 difficulty. I think most people could do this if they were comfortable opening up the machine and not losing screws.

Nice find! I work in jewellery and unfortunately with the price of gold lately, its pretty often we see people opt for lower purity replacement clasps.

Great haul, I know what you mean with those tungsten ones though. Especially underwater when you feel it before you see it. Smooth, heavy, ring shaped, low tone. Must be gold right? So disappointing hahaha I’ve been gradually selling mine but I like to find it faster than I sell it, which hasn’t happened much this year, so I’m holding off to fund a new car or EU holiday next year. this was one of my semi-recent hauls, both 18k. not much turning up lately unfortunately

Will do. Looks to be on track for delivery mid next week. all going well, I’ll post pics of the mod and repairs. fingers crossed that’s all it is. These cheap switches have the tendency to fail

I wouldn't do it. After working at a dealership for about 5 years, practically every international buyer we had via eBay was a scammer. They will generally claim it didn't arrive, arrived damage, or it was a mistake and "return it" to you. To which you will only receive a box full of weighted crap. eBay were less than helpful and generally sided with the buyer, giving their money back. Boss did a statdec once for eBay and they still sided with them and gave their money back. I wouldn't risk it personally.

Had a search through Google and I think maybe I found the original owner of this SDC. Same mod, but i can't view the pictures. How intriguing. https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/threads/modifications-to-the-sdc2300-audio-plug.28366/

It's been a while since I wrote this, yet I'm having the same experience over and over. I had a ring that i took in a while ago. Stamped 18ct but was told it was plated and he couldn't buy it. Threw it in the ashtray in the car and took it back a few weeks later. Same thing. When I went for the third time, I scuffed the whole ring with a diamond jewellers file. I'm sure 3000 grid sandpaper would achieve the same thing though. You wouldn't believe it, but suddenly it was real gold, and he didn't even question it.

I just picked up this secondhand SDC2300 for pretty cheap. It's listed as non-working/no sound. I assume a pretty easy fix, as I'm fairly familiar with the electronics and have a variety of parts to suit. I cannot however work out what this strange switch might be for? I haven't received it, but just putting this out there in case anybody has any ideas. Pic below. If I had to assume, maybe (hopefully) it has an amplifier integrated for an external speaker? I wonder why someone would go through the effort though? Or maybe similar to some aftermarket headphones it simply just switches the sound on/off In 4-5 years working at a Minelab dealership I've never seen anything like this personally..

That's super cool! Dont suppose you know of any extension cables for the GP/SD/GPX coils like this? I'm aware Coiltek make them, but they're very expensive.

Beautiful washout, nice finds! I don't mind digging the odd 50cal shell as we don't get many here. The 303's are OK, but wow you get a few! Are you allowed to scrap them? Our scrapyards will deny an entire load if there's any shells mixed in.

Funnily enough, I work in jewellery retail which was obviously heavily inspired by the stuff I find whilst detecting. It has lead on to recoveries, sales, and learning far more about the rings I've found and what repairs they require, as well as the different stones, what's valuable and what is not. I've even began to try repairs on rings I've found, which is a very affordable way to learn. Also cost almost nothing if something doesn't work out the way I want. If I continue with it, I'll do my jewellery making courses and be able to supply my own gold easily. Honestly a pretty good combination of job/hobby. My previous job was at the local Minelab dealership for a few years which also worked great hand-in-hand. Absolutely! We're blessed to have a lot of tourist locations nearby. It's well worth spending the time at "richer" beaches with a demographic of wealthier people. I'm on the work computer at the moment so don't have a picture but a couple years ago, one of my best finds was a 2.8ct diamond Pave 18ct gold ring. It was the only target I got in the water on a huge tourist beach where I generally find nothing of value. First time using the Deus 2 so I thought it said "925" whereas it actually said "2.85 [ct]" . was definitely a pleasant surprise when I got back. Pretty similar to this. I sold it for a couple thousand dollars. https://www.templeandgrace.com.au/buy/pave-perfection-diamond-ring Sort of off topic, but would anybody be interested in a book/guide if I wrote one about beach detecting? What I look for, techniques, equipment, recoveries, costs, etc? I'm aware there are already a few out there but I feel like there's more I'd cover that isn't really mentioned in most of them. 🙂

I’ve been extremely blessed this past year. After hitting 260 rings last year, with ~70 in a month being my best, I figured there’s no way I’d be able to beat that for 2024. Lo and behold, within the first few days of January I’d hit a honey hole of over 20 rings. over the course of the year, I had many good days producing sometimes 3-6 gold rings in a single hunt. It got to a point I was taking less shifts at my second job because I was earning more beach detecting lol. It wasn’t uncommon to make an easy $500 a day. One of my best days was when I found that 36 gram 18ct bracelet, now being worth over $3400 AUD in scrap. fortunately, both of my jobs have been very flexible with my detecting hustle. This year however I think I’ll need to take work a bit more seriously so I don’t think I’m going to hit 200 by December 2025. There’s also only so many rings a handful of beaches can hold. anyway I had around 280 rings by early December. I think that’s when I realised I could definitely hit the 300 mark by New Year. I hit every spot I could think of, including areas I’d obviously found tons of stuff at, as well as areas that should’ve had fresh drops, and remote areas that occasionally threw good stuff up. I also revived an old spot that was extremely weedy and managed to find all sorts of stuff including a working GoPro 13 and multiple phones. I got to December 27 and was up to 298 rings. December 28, back to the weedy spot, and boom! 2 more gold rings, and a Pandora gold plated ring. 301 total rings. Anyhow, on top of all the rings, I also found a plethora of “cool sheit ”. The gold bracelet I mentioned earlier, a 9ct belcher bracelet which I thought was a tarnished silver fob chain, my first gold half sovereign, a working GoPro hero 13, 2 other broken GoPros, 7 or so phones in December (6 returned), a rare Seiko divers watch (6039-7040) which I restored, many sunglasses, a massive 22ct ring with a real natural emerald and ruby, and so much more. I’ve also had the opportunity to do many recoveries and returns. Off the top of my head there were about a dozen ring and pendant recoveries, as well as a couple phones. here’s the numbers: 2024 tally: Silver rings: 108 Tungsten, titanium, junk : 90 Gold/platinum rings: 103 Total: 301 Average of 0.83 rings per day. I hope this inspires people for 2025! HH Some pictures were too large to add but here’s a small photodump 🙂

This is how I found the wiring on the Manticore Gray Ghost headphones. The 2 yellow arrows are meant to be soldered together. There should be 2 wires coming from the bottom right loom, 1 connecting to the black/white cables, and the other connecting to the red/white. (white being one of the Piezo speakers on this side) This is really really poor for how expensive these headphones are. I can't believe these retail for $260 AUD. There is literally less than $30 worth of parts. Here's another photo of the damaged wire connections. As you can see, nothing is protected. The shrink wrap isn't even covering the exposed wire at all, and there appears to be cuts in the red and black wires where it was stripped during manufacture. Here it is when joined together properly and shrink wrapped. Like mentioned earlier I also put silicone around the ends to further protect it from water corrosion. In hindsight I should've added more shrink wrap to cover the red/black wire but it shouldn't matter really.

Ok so a bit of an update. I put a picture earlier in the thread with my D2 headphones. The wiring on my Manticore version was completely stuffed. Looks like it was thrown together by a child. Little heat-shrink, no zip ties, and nothing even covering the wires properly. Salt water had just simply rotten the wires away. It's a very easy repair. I'll update with pictures later but I simply mapped the wiring, cut everything shorter, re soldered, re-shrink wrapped and glued it back in place with silicone for extra water resistance.