Sphinx 03 Pinpointer

[phrunt]

Earlier there was a post by Cipher about a pinpointer he was gifted by the sounds of it, it sounded great in his post so I thought I'd get myself one being a pinpointer addict.  I asked a friend in that part of the world from X-coils if he would buy one for me and I'd pay him for it and ship it over, thankfully he did that for me which I appreciate.

Now please keep any replies about pin pointers and not about country of origin or any political views or feelings about countries as really that's not what matters here and that appears like it happened to Ciphers post as it was locked down. 

I know a few have been wondering how it performs compared to pinpointers they currently own seeing it had such a glowing review.  I haven't had time for that yet as it only just arrived but I'll keep this thread updated as I learn more.

At this stage all I'll say is it looks good quality, it was very easy to pair with my Iphone and the Sphinx app so I can adjust settings and so on from my phone although the App is only in Russian so I used a translator app to work out what each setting is, I'll probably print out a little cheat sheet until I get used to it, it really needs an English language app if they ever want to sell these things in the English speaking market. To connect it to your phone you just load the app, turn on the pinpointer by holding down the button until a jingle and it pairs up and you can adjust settings, save them and it's all good to go.   I  suspect I may just set my favourite settings and not need to change them again.

I currently have it on charge seeing it's new so I won't do much with it yet as I've got it plugged in charging as I did when i tested the phone connection.

I quickly changed it to maximum sensitivity and swung it around a bit and no false signals like my TRX and Pro-Find35 do by moving it around in the air.

I tested a few shotgun pellets and the TRX is more sensitive which counters what Cipher was saying although early days and I will do proper testing once its charged up and ready to use without being tethered to my USB charging station by it's very short USB cable. 🙂

I know @jasong was particularly interested in this pinpointer for reasons similar to me, so I'll see how it handles the GPZ and GPX detectors soon, or rather how well they handle it.

I like you can just turn it off and on by inserting and removing it from it's holster, something Quest has now also done on their latest pinpointer, I believe Sphinx was first with this function, it works well.

It comes with a tip protector with a scraping end fitted and nice loud speaker.

Rather than just my opinion I'll put some videos on as I like seeing videos rather than just hearing peoples opinions, I prefer to see what they're saying in cases like this.

I'll update as I get more time and information on it.

Here is the link to the App on the Apple App Store App Store: SphinxMD (apple.com)

I managed to translate the manual from Russian to English so I'll attach it to this post so if anyone wants it they can have it in English, not a perfect translation but good enough.

Manual pinpointer Sphinx 03 2023-01.ru.en.pdf

 

[bigtim1973]

The guys over in that part of the world make good stuff!!

How does the unit turn on and off coming out of the sheath??

Magnetic switch maybe?

Looking forward to your videos on it.

[phrunt]

15 minutes ago, bigtim1973 said:

How does the unit turn on and off coming out of the sheath??

Magnetic switch maybe?

Yes by the looks of it, the use of magnets.

[AlwaysCocaCola]

I use Sphinx 02 + XP Deus II for 2 years.

Magnetic is awesome. 

This is a very popular device in our country. Many have switched from XP Mi 4/6 to these pinpoints. Personally, I did it for the sake of speed of search. The number of signals and finds extracted from the ground has increased significantly.

There are minor inaccuracies with the holster. Better working If had added more magnets or slightly changed its shape. So that the device automatically turns on/off in all possible positions.

[TC-AZ]

Never heard of it. Some day I'll explore it throughly but for now I am happy with my Garret.

TC-AZ

[TC-AZ]

Thanks Phrunt for feedback and testing 👍   TC-AZ 

[phrunt]

1 hour ago, TC-AZ said:

Never heard of it. Some day I'll explore it throughly but for now I am happy with my Garret.

There is nothing wrong with the Garrett AT, currently my favourite pinpointer.  I have my doubts the Sphinx is going to be be my new favourite but it's too early to know.  I really like the phone configuration app, so much easier than trying to get these stupid button sequences some pin pointers have to do settings.  The Garrett is easy enough on the button, so is the Pro-Find, the TRX and F-Pulse are a pain to do settings on but this Sphinx just has so many settings that having the App just had to happen really, you can set your preferred audio tone and everything.   You can even do a custom sensitivity setting by configuring it with a target to get the depth you're chasing on that target, I guess in some situations being able to do this maybe handy.

I may end up preferring it for coin hunting than gold prospecting as in early testing it's not showing this incredible sensitivity that was mentioned in the review by Cipher with it blowing the TRX away.  Just not seeing that.

[pavelka72]

On 7/27/2023 at 7:26 AM, bigtim1973 said:

The guys over in that part of the world make good stuff!!

How does the unit turn on and off coming out of the sheath??

Magnetic switch maybe?

Looking forward to your videos on it.

https://patents.google.com/patent/RU201117U1/en?oq=RU201117 

[phrunt]

8 hours ago, pavelka72 said:

https://patents.google.com/patent/RU201117U1/en?oq=RU201117 

Is this pinpointer your creation? I've not had it long enough to form a proper opinion but it seems pretty good, the phone app although not in English is easy to use and excellent to make settings control easier than annoying button and beep combinations of other pinpointers.  If someone can use a Nokta detector like the Simplex or Legend they can navigate the app easily enough without speaking Russian 🙂 I suggest making an English app though, it's not that many words to translate and would make a nice difference rather than just using the little icons as a guide as to what settings do.

It's not as sensitive to small gold as the Whites TRX (Discontinued anyway) but appears slightly better than the Minelab Pro-Find 35 and better than the Garrett AT.   

The TRX had the sensitivity in air tests although I was never able to run in maximum sensitivity in the ground as it would be unstable, the Sprinx so far has ran mostly stable for me.  Sometimes after large metal it continues to sound off until I turn it off and on but other than that it's ran perfectly stable in maximum sensitivity.  It was pleasing to see maximum sensitivity is default, often it's not as you can't run maximum anyway like the TRX.

I will be putting up some video comparing it when I get time.

I had not yet compared to my XP Mi-4 as I'd lost it, but found it this morning on my GPZ harness.  I haven't used the harness in ages or the Mi-4 🙂

 

[phrunt]

A little update, after a bit of testing I'm seeing it as more sensitive than the XP Mi-4 so the only one more sensitive than it out of my pinpointers is the TRX when set to maximum sensitivity, and even then the TRX for me at least can't be used in maximum sensitivity as it reacts to the ground too much and is unstable, so far the Sphinx remains stable and doesn't react to the ground on maximum sensitivity.

I'm yet to test how it affects the GPX 6000, 5000 and GPZ 7000 but I believe it doesn't cut off the coil like the Pro-Find and XP-Mi4 do when turned off so it's likely to be problematic with the GPZ.

I'll try get a video or two up next week, I'm very busy at the moment building myself a little cabin for my detecting stuff to go into and when not doing that I'm skiing so I just have no free time to make videos.