Minelab Pro-Find 25 pinpointer

[threemiles]

Do you have both Brett?

three

[BeRs3rKeR]

I Have the Profind & my mate has the Garrett, he`ll be round tomorrow night so ill ask him to bring it round & i compare them & post a Youtube as well,
I Used mine last weekend & had no problems with it at all, worked fine for me.
I Didnt notice any issues with mine on depth ect, apart from the beeps could have been Louder.

Dave.

[Tombs]

i have been using the minelab for about a week no actually 2 weeks. and as im doing 4 days a week detecting on a dig in a medieval castle i have used it a fair amount.
personally i dont think its as deep as the garret BUT its very good at finding small stuff and is way more precise than the garret and its so nice not to have you detector screaming at you every time you switch it on.
for me the jury is still out there are plus's and minus's to both of them.........oh the coin trick works better on the minelab because its more stable .

[BeRs3rKeR]

Well my mate brought his Garrett up as I asked, & I tried them both on a old penny under soil, they both worked equally as each other, so regarding the 1st post it's quite possible it was a faulty product, as I said previously, used mine last weekend with no problems at all.
Maybe it was due to a failing or Low battery.

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Dave.

[threemiles]

Just my tuppence, I cranked mine up today and it worked a treat.
Watched a few YouTube vids on it.. Can anyone explain the trick where you put a coin at the side ?
Anyway, my thoughts so far are all good. I have never possesed a garrett so can't compare, but have to say I'm happy with my purchase
Three

[Fusion]

The 'supertune coin trick' : turn on the pointer and let it self-cal as normal. Place a small coin/metal junk you've dug up/etc on the body of the pointer and hold it in place with your thumb. Slide it towards the probe tip until the pointer starts sounding off, then back away a few millimetres. Use as normal, you'll find distances can be 30% - 50% greater. There's a gadget called a 'sidekick' on the market that gets round the 'loose coin' issue. Some people attach a washer on a string to the pointer.

[threemiles]

One thing that did cross my mind though was how loose the battery wobbled around as you screwed the cap on. I ended up keeping it as straight as I could whilst tightening it up.
Three

[threemiles]

Hey fusion, sorry my post was worded poorly. I have seen that, but my question is why does that happen ?
Three

[BeRs3rKeR]

Yea I noticed the battery was a little lose when it was in, but that didn't realy cause me any issues,
It was the volume of the beeps, lowering the threshold tone on my machine helped, but my headphones cut out a lot of external sound out, so I suppose a pair of backphones or some other phones may allow me to hear the beeps better.

Dave

[aaron1969]

Just looked on utube it cant compare to the garrett only thing i like is the sound it makes if lost (you have been done you have been done over and over until you find it and turn it off lmao )

[Fusion]

You want the full answer?

The pointer has an oscillator in it, the probe tip ( a coil of wire ) is part of that oscillator circuit. Bring metal near the tip, the size of the oscillation steadily drops, say from 4 Volts to 3 Volts. This is measured by the pointers microprocessor. At power-on, the processor measures the oscillator level, and measures it at 4.0V, say. It then sets the threshold of detection a bit below this, 3.9V, say. So the metal target has to cause a 0.1V drop to get the beep starting. If you carefully bring your coin/washer near, you can make the oscillator volts drop to 3.92V, say. Hence only a small extra bit of drop (3.92V to 3.90V = 0.02V) is needed to get the beep. Result, higher sensitivity.

It doesn't do this sensitivity as standard because it's horribly unstable, drifting off with temperature changes, etc.

[threemiles]

Hey fusion
Thanks for the explanation. It doesn't frighten me, the reason I ended up in Huddersfield was because I studied physics and astronomy at Leeds university
Your explaination makes perfect sense, but I don't get why some would do that. The pinpoiner is just that...why would I want it to scream at me unless Im in the vicinity of the target ?
Three

[Fusion]

Why? Two common reasons:
a) You've no idea where the target is in a big hole - is it 3 inches further down in the bottom, or did you make a hash of pinpointing with the detector, and it's 3 inches off in the sidewall?
b) Finding the small target. The Garrett isn't that clever on small targets, eg. 0.22 airgun pellet just 5mm range. If this can be increased to 8mm, you've a better chance of finding it in the spoil heap.

[threemiles]

That's a fair point fusion. I was making the assumption you would be fairly accurate with the scopes pinpoint in the first place.
Thanks for the advice
On a more general note, I can see this debate raging for some time to come, especially those who simply say "garrett is better" without any knowledge of the product.
One thing that will not become apparent immediately is the build quality. I get the feeling I could drop this thing off a cliff and it would still work....time will tell
Three

[lewis69]

Went down the beach with the pointer,quite happy with it really,
I've never used a garrett,so can't comment on it.Definately saved
Some time.
So overall ,not too disappointed.
Nothing to report on finds yet,I'm still digging plenty of trash with the
Odd modern coin thrown in.

Lewis69