CS4PI

[ray77]

Review C-Scope CS4PI

Now I’ve given the CS4PI a good workout I thought I would try writing a full review, my first one so please forgive any rambling.

Out of the box the detector is easy to put together and you can have the control box on the detector or belt mounted. That brings us to the first bad point, the lugs that hold it on the belt mount seem to be too soft and as you bend if you catch the bottom of the control box it can pop off. I solved this problem by cutting a small piece of wood to fit between the lugs to stop them moving.

There are two controls, sensitivity and pulse both marked with a green section to show the advised range. On one beach I do it is necessary to turn the sensitivity down out of the green zone to get the detector stable. If your after gold (aren`t we all) the pulse setting needs to be in the 3000 and above range.

So how does this perform on the beach? The first thing to do is set the CS4PI for the beach you are on. Do this by holding the coil in the air and turn the detector on putting the sensitivity mid way in the green then set the pulse to the position you want, the detector will settle down in a few seconds, then adjust the sensitivity to either give a low threshold tone or just to where it goes silent. I have found that on some beaches you need to back it off a slight bit more to stop false signals but this seems to be beaches with a lot of water running underneath, 3 of the beaches I do are like this.

With the lack of discrimination on PI detectors you do end up digging a lot of junk so you need to keep that in mind before buying one. On good targets the CS4PI will beat the detectors I have used in the past and the ones I have been able to test it against over the past few weeks. The only thing it’s not good on is smaller gold rings. After testing with a thin white gold wedding ring I have I even sent the detector back to C-Scope for a check up but it came back as OK. The ring in question weighs 2.1 grams and the CS4PI only gave a very faint signal at 2” in wet sand were as my Whites Coinmaster gave a good signal at the same depth and a Whites DFX that I have borrowed from the friend I sold it to gave a good signal down to nearly 5” using Bob Baileys beach 2 program. Once you get to 3 grams of gold the CS4PI holds its own against the Coinmaster and is only just beaten by the DFX, from about 4 grams up it beats the DFX on depth. For me this has now made it so if I go on the beach with the CS4PI I`m thinking what small rings could I be missing and if I go on with the DFX I`m thinking what big deep rings could I be missing.
As for other targets it beats the other detectors easily, I tested it with the full range of modern coins and a Roman coin as a beach I detect has a chance of Roman. I have also found a good range of other items while searching with it including a 1919 penny at about 5” and my best find with it a silver child’s bangle with a piece missing at a measured 6” that give a very good signal even though it only weighs 2 grams, so its good on silver.

So overall a very good wet sand detector but with limitations. If you do mainly beaches this will find you the deep goodies but also the deep junk so the best thing is take a friend along to do the digging.

Ray.