Racer 2 review.

I posted this on Findmall. Not sure how long it will stay on there. Just my opinion folks, not intended to offend anyone! Good hunting.





Finally able to post a few finds from the past couple of weeks and my review of the Racer Pro pack.

First off I would like to commend the Makro/Notka companies for (imo) single handedly changing the customer/company relations concept in our hobby. It truly is a welcomed sight to actually incorporate consumer input so quickly into developing products.

I would also like to add that I don't, nor have I ever been compensated for any reviews. If I ever do, I'll post it with along my review of said product. This is not a dig towards any who are compensated for their time either with free products or monetarily. In fact, I think our product testers here and elsewhere do a great job in trying to be unbiased in their reviews and I commend them in their efforts. But I also think that some potential problem areas are often down played or slightly hinted at rather than pointed out. I'm referring to all brand detectors here. I prefer to not read between the lines, if there are issues, let's hear them.

That being said, I'll move on.

I'll be honest here. My initial observations with this detector were not good. I was expecting a Core with front facing controls and added iron volume. This is not that unit. That's not a bad thing, just different. I've given it more field time for a fair shake. Although I still prefer the Core, I think the Racer is a good detector for the park hunter and occasional relic hunter.

About the Racer 2:


The unit assembles easily and is well built. It has adjustments at the rod end and arm cuff to accommodate folks of varied heights and sizes. The rod collars are beefy and secure the rods well with no lateral movement. I have heard of a couple of Racers having loose collars, but I don't expect that to be the norm.

Coils... the coils are well built and perform as expected, but the coil covers are thin. Many do not use coil covers, but for those that do, use caution when removing for cleaning as it appears that they will crack easily. The coil ears are strong and more than adequate for their intended purpose, but I noticed coil ear flexing when attaching them to the rod end. This is attributed to excessive air gap at the coil end and can be remedied by using a thicker washer to compensate for said gap. I expect to see coil failures in the future if this isn't addressed.

Ergonomics... The Racer is nose heavy, no way around it. The mfg. did what they could by moving the coil attachment forward and changing the S rod angle. But, there is no real fix other than changing to a T rod design, or just using the 5" coil exclusively. Not a deal breaker, I'm just picky. But you will notice it after a few hours of continuous use.

Pro pack... A great option for those wanting multiple coils and rechargeable battery pack at a good price. The coil choices are spot on for both the park hunter and field/relic hunter. The Varta batteries are of good quality. I had over 20 hours use on my R2 and the meter still read full! I didn't receive the US charger adapter in my pro pack, but a quick call to Detector Electronics remedied the issue. Kudos to them for great service and quick shipping! The backpack style case is nice in that you can store the coils on the rod, but that's about it. The case itself is thin and the stitching poor. I wouldn't "back pack" anywhere with this case due to concern of its construction. I would prefer the Notka Core pro pack case, the best out there, imo. The hp are better than nothing, but I would suspect that most people who are purchasing a detector of this caliber and cost have a pair of killer b's or gray ghosts lying around. If not, a cheap pair of ear buds would fare better than these. I would recommend upgrading the hp or removing them altogether and putting the extra money towards a better quality case.

Features..... It's loaded with them. I'll be honest here. I don't use notch or much disc. in my style of detecting. But the adjustable iron audio and tone break are much welcomed editions for me. I also liked the adjustable audio in three tone. Not a necessity, but I definitely used it to better pick out non ferrous targets in iron laden sites.

Performance...... I can only report on MY style of detecting, which is in medium to heavy iron field sites, typically old home sites that have been gone for 50 to 100 years, therefore reducing the occurrence of modern trash. I cannot report how the R2 does in parks, or with aluminum bits and pieces, only relics and iron...sorry.

First thing I noticed was how much it overloaded on surface targets. I wouldn't think a shot gun head stamp would cause a surface overload, but it does, as did a 4" square nail. This was at 65 gain with the standard coil. The 5" coil behaved a little better. Again, this is not a deal killer for me. Merely an observation and an attribute of the Racer. You adjust to it rather quickly.

In what I call medium iron (think 10 to 20 iron targets in a single sweep) performance is excellent. Button and coin sized targets are hard to miss. Although large deep iron and bent nails do fool you.

In heavy, machine gun like iron, the audio tends to over saturate. The Racer tries to give you as much information as possible, which is a good thing, unless you are in the heavy stuff. Reducing the gain helps, but not entirely. My marginal targets averaged about 40% non ferrous, meaning 4 out of 10 "iffy" targets were non ferrous vs. 70% with the Deus or Core. Once again, subjective.....


One thing to keep in mind with this detector is not hesitate to throttle back on the gain. I found 60-75 worked very well for me at my sites.

Over all I think this is a great all around detector. Yes, it has its faults. But the perfect detector has yet to be made.

triplehooked, thanks for the review, what do you hunt for primarily? Coins, relics or a little of everything?

At these sites, anything above an iron signal....lol. I'm not sure what you call it. Field hunting? Coins are not a large percentage of finds, but they are usually old when I find them. Tokens are even cooler, imo.

Triple where did you set your tone break/s and where did you have your ID mask?

The R2 has the ability to unmask better than the CoRe but it can also be a hindrance as it can be more noisy till dialed in...

The Core is more turn on and go the R2 is more you have to get it dialed in..

Also if you would share the CoRe setting you use ?

It may help to see HOW you are running that unit to see what you are experiencing with this unit..

Hate to see you sell it ..It really can Unmask to the next level ..Yet its a bit more sparky unit..

Keith

“I don't care that they stole my idea . . I care that they don't have any of their own”
-Nikola Tesla

triplehooked Wrote:
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> At these sites, anything above an iron
> signal....lol. I'm not sure what you call it.
> Field hunting? Coins are not a large percentage of
> finds, but they are usually old when I find them.
> Tokens are even cooler, imo.


Pretty much the style of hunting I do, older fields/homeplaces without newer trash. I call it opportunity hunting...lol

Thank you Keith. I appreciate the offer for help. I sold the Racer last week, more for financial reasons than anything. I'm in the middle of purchasing a house and kind of jumped the gun on the R2 purchase...lol. But I would be interested in your thoughts.

With the Racer I varied the ID mask between 0 and 15, tone break between 15-20. Gain 60-75. A little higher (gain) with the 5" coil. I tried the mask higher but I like to know where the iron is in order to stay on the site. Kept the iron audio around 3. GB typically 60-75 with two bars on the mineral meter.

With the core I ran the mask at around 10-15, usually was able to max out the gain without issue/over saturation. I was pulling .22 cal. bullets out of machine gun iron no problem. Non ferrous seemed to "pop" out of the iron.

That would be the biggest problem right there Triple..

You had the Tone break to High 15-20..That was well past a nail and into the Non ferrous by quite a bit..cuff buttons and such were going iron tone at 20..plus mix that with the iron and you could loose alot of goodies through averaging...

See the Racer iron range stop at 10 and a Nail setting tone break is at 7 if you want to get really sleuthy..


The CoRe you were using was factory set to break at a setting of 40 for iron...so to of gotten the same performance as the CoRe you would of set the R2 break at 10...if you went to 7 for nail break you would of even got better unmasking that the CoRe.

The setting of 20 tone break on a R2 is like not digging a target on your CoRe if it reads under 60..

the R2 condensed the iron into the first 10 digits the CoRe uses the first 40 digits...

Your ID mask on the CoRe at 10-15 was taking care of Ground Burp noise..tone still went low to high at 40..

a setting of 3 on the Racers ID mask takes care of ground burps..the tone break of setting changes it at Iron nail.. as etting of 10 tone break is the same as your 40 on the CoRe..

the drop in finds you saw were right,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, to high of a tone break to compete evenly..

Keith

“I don't care that they stole my idea . . I care that they don't have any of their own”
-Nikola Tesla

I haven't played with the tone break adjustment yet, but I get the feeling it could make or break the R2.

I like having the iron audio @ 2 and the disc @ 2, seems to work really well, but have left the tone break settings at stock so far.

Monte had a good idea with his tone break settings which mimic the CZ3D old coins program, he suggested tone break at 10 & 65.

That would make sense, Keith. I kept the tone break set between 15-20 due to many of the nails at my sites were coming in at 6,8, and even10. I thought it was safe to run just above a square nail, as I typically do with all of my detectors. I initially tried running a lower tone break, but dug all iron, so I settled on the 15-20 range, (usually closer to 15-17) depending on the iron at each given site. As usual, what is not in the pics are the many scraps and bits of iron I dug to make certain I wasn't missing good targets. I typically never just turn on and go unless I've been to the site before. The .22 caliber shells you see in the pics of my hunts were coming in at around 25, which I thought was odd.

Regardless, my main issue with this detector was it's inability to discern targets in the heavier iron patches. By which I am referring to machine gun type iron where you cannot gb. The audio would over saturate and become blended in with the iron audio. Perhaps I should have reduced the gain further, say into the 50'S or 40's?

Thanks again for the info, much appreciated.

On my R2 the stock coil is a beast in the iron even with high minerization even at high gain. I put on the OOR coil on and alls I heard was overloading. Ran gain at 60 swinging 2-3" off ground. That's kinda weird huh?

That is unusual. It's usually the other way around. I wonder if you have a bad 5" coil?

My goal here isn't to knock this detector. I think Makro and Notka detectors are top shelf in the iron game. It's (R2) just not what I expected.

Triple everyone is entitled to an opinion. Thanks for keepin it real. Glad there is many machines to choose from. I really like mine and think it is one of the best all around machine out right now. For sure one of the best relic machines. I was helping out a friend today trying to find a part he lost off his old tractor. I found 2 quarters swinging the coil off a the ground 1 1/2 to 2 ft, and wasn't even in deep mode. I was swinging high and fast trying to find a large peice of heavy aluminum ha ha ha

Cal..I find the best unmasking is at tone break 7...

But 10 factory is stellar also..

Go above that though and risk loosing non ferrous in iron or even isolated targets quickly..

I like 65 on 3rd tone...makes big iron turkey gobble..if I'm using 3tone mode that's is..


Keith

“I don't care that they stole my idea . . I care that they don't have any of their own”
-Nikola Tesla

Keith Southern Wrote:
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> Cal..I find the best unmasking is at tone break
> 7...
>
> But 10 factory is stellar also..
>
> Go above that though and risk loosing non ferrous
> in iron or even isolated targets quickly..
>
> I like 65 on 3rd tone...makes big iron turkey
> gobble..if I'm using 3tone mode that's is..
>
>
> Keith

Keith I use 65 high tone break and saw that also. Didn't call in any real turkeys but they were around me all the time. Maybe I should have taken the headphones off. LOL

Racer likes horse shoes. So many at one site I had to leave most, no way to carry them all out thru a swamp, fording a creek to get back to the car. Maybe I found the blacksmith's shop. LOL



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/03/2016 08:59AM by Jackpine.

Kickindirt Wrote:
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> On my R2 the stock coil is a beast in the iron
> even with high minerization even at high gain. I
> put on the OOR coil on and alls I heard was
> overloading. Ran gain at 60 swinging 2-3" off
> ground. That's kinda weird huh?


OOR coil is extremely sensitive (and I mean ultra sensitive)

I had that same issue on my R1 with the OOR but all it was/turned out to be = is the dirt/sand trapped between the coil & coil cover

took the cover off and washed it/the coil too and problem solved

couple hunts later = same thing = as soon as too much dirt/sand got trapped between the 2 = the coil started constant overload again (non stop)

try washing/cleaning it and see if it solves the issue.

Mine was like new not scratch or flake of dirt on it but never know I'll check

I thought you purchased new, kickingdirt. I was surprised at how much dirt had accumulated under the coils so quickly, but I typically don't use coil covers for that very reason. I popped mine off and cleaned them before shipping.

I really like the tone adjustment on the R2. I would drop the first tone a bit, run the middle tone at 40, and the high tone at 70. It offered a nice wide spectrum in iron. Does the relic offer this feature?

Kickindirt, thank you for the comment and your candor. I'm glad you are enjoying the R2. I also agree that it is a great detector. I know fairly quickly if I like a detector or not. The R2 will make the third one I've tried in less than a year. I'm not a tester, not by any means. I usually don't say much other than "didn't like the tones" or "poor separation" but as soon as I put this one up for sale I was contacted by a few people with similar complaints as mine, before I even mentioned them. So I decided to post the nuances of this machine for people to better make their decision in a purchase.

Personally, my current top preferred detectors are the Deus and Core. I didn't know the Relic even existed when purchasing the R2, or I would have went that route. If I did any park hunting what so ever, I would have kept the R2.

Thanks all for the replies and views.

The Relic has the features of the R2 except isat.

I hate to hear nose heavy, even if it's just a little. Does Fisher have a patent on its rod design for the F75? It works just fine!

tabman

I agree tabman. The F75/T2, G2+, both/all are balanced nicely, the Core as well. From the pictures I've seen floating around, the impact remedies the issue. If they (pictures) are in fact the real deal.

I actually think the R2 balances better than a F19 with large 7x11..

Keith

“I don't care that they stole my idea . . I care that they don't have any of their own”
-Nikola Tesla

Keith Southern Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I actually think the R2 balances better than a F19
> with large 7x11..
>
> Keith

I do to.. The newer center attachment of the coil makes it very nice to swing..