ON THE HORIZON = MDT-8000

Yes I have done some- Larry no. I am pleased with it's performance in old, hard hunted park. I went to a spot where they have dumped the dredged soil from the duck pond for years- eats coins like you can't believe! It ran smooth and did a good job of cleanly ID targets.

Past(or)Tom
Using a Legend, a Deus 2, an Equinox 800, a Tarsacci MDT 8000, & a few others...
with my beloved, fading Corgi, Sadie

Thanks Tom.

El

I want one. Please

Me Too!

PM sent .

Deleted remarks.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/13/2018 09:25AM by texkinzee.

NASA-Tom Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Jesse - The unit 'has' been tested in fairly bad d
> irt.... in a relic hunting capacity. But..... not
> by me. So.... I'm reluctant to report. Where I liv
> e (Florida)….presents extremely low mineralization
> . There are other units that I would rather use...
> .. in my exceptionally low (silica) dirt; yet, thi
> s unit is quite deep. If I'm in carpets of nails..
> .… I'll grab the Impact, F75 or Deus. (GMP ….in my
> case). If I'm in highly trashy areas; I'll grab th
> e F75, Impact or Equinox (w/6"-coil). I have one p
> articular area.... here in Florida.... that presen
> ts 4-bar bad dirt.....that I am very anxious to te
> st this new unit. But...… right now...… the grass
> there …. is 13" tall. I cannot get the coil within
> 6"-7" of the ground. This 'variable' therefore 'fa
> ils' my prerequisites. It's a 5-hour round-trip fr
> om me.
> On this same note...… food-for-thought: This unit
> will air-test a U.S. Nickel at 12.7". In my Florid
> a (almost zero mineral) dirt..... It'll detect a N
> ickel to 12.9". IN the wet-salt..... it'll detect
> a Nickel to (at least) 14". I've never seen/witnes
> sed something like this before. Not to this order-
> of-magnitude.
>
> I'm still trying to get use to the audio; yet, not
> doing bad at all. So far..... the true All Metal M
> ode remains 'best choice' in the wet-salt. ID Mode
> comes in at #2 choice.
>
> It is difficult to call this unit a 'single freq'
> unit...… especially when it can work so well in th
> e wet-salt.....and acquire a Nickel (the only coin
> -of-interest for me to test.... in the wet-salt en
> vironment) …… knowing how 'true' single Freq units
> perform (or not perform) in the wet-salt.

Deleted remarks. Sorry



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/13/2018 09:26AM by texkinzee.

What do the other machines you bring along air test that nickel at to give us some kind of comparison? Im guessing it significantly more based on your depth on a dime in another thread of those machines. Hows it handle bottle caps?

I would like to advise Mr. Dankowski to be VERY wary when looking for 'high performance' 26650 size Li cells. There's no shortage of fraudulent manufacturers/sellers of Li cells claiming nothing more than entirely made-up specifications. They're not just exaggerating, or claiming the 'best possible' figures at the ideal ambient temperature/discharge current/moon phase. They are selling old/sub-standard/half-empty cells, printed up with whatever figures they like on the plastic sleeve.
My research suggests the highest capacity cells that look credible, are about 5500 mAh, they may in practice give higher capacity at the low current draw of the zak 8, but anything claiming over 6000 mAh is very suspicious.
It's often said on the net, that any brand with xxxx-Fire in the name is to be avoided.

Thanks Pimento! I had a hunch on this; yet, somewhat unfounded. All-hands need to 'beware'.

Dimitar Gargov has tested several of the available batteries and says he does not believe there is a performance improvement beyond the included ones. They are easily purchased and affordable. I find they charge slowly, but I am not sure that is a bad thing. You really don't need more than the two it comes with but more are about $8 each on the big river.

Past(or)Tom
Using a Legend, a Deus 2, an Equinox 800, a Tarsacci MDT 8000, & a few others...
with my beloved, fading Corgi, Sadie

In general..... on 6, 9 & 12-Khz.....the Tarsacci ID's a:

Nickel = 06
Zinc penny= 12
Clad dime = 17


In 18-Khz:
Nickel = 06
Zinc penny = 14
Clad dime = 19

Elbert Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Pasttom Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > As counter intuitive as it sounds, I don't think
> t
> > he lack of secondary coils will be an issue. I
> ha
> > ve all three coils for the 800 and am very happy
> w
> > ith them, but I have no inclination to get a dif
> fe
> > rent coil for the 8000. I know it's subjective,
> b
> > ut I personally don't see the need of a smaller
> co
> > il or a bigger one. You really have to run this
> d
> > etector to appreciate what it is and does. The
> 11
> > x9 inch coil is exceptionally well designed.
>
> Tom have you and or biglry had a chance to do any
> inland hunting with the MDT8000? I'm up the coast
> from you in Hollister and our coastal and inland g
> round is very similar.
>
> Thanks,
>
> El

El you think this will eek out some reales and Pheonix buttons? Or better yet, gold coins missed at a particular rodeo ground?

HH,
Brian

Cal_cobra Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>>
> El you think this will eek out some reales and Phe
> onix buttons? Or better yet, gold coins missed at
> a particular rodeo ground?
>
> HH,
> Brian

I hope so. Which rodeo grounds are you talking about, the one still in use or the one where they use to have the bear and bull fights?

tnsharpshooter ill be waiting for your review here then =) thanks in advance.

Yesterday Big Larry and I met at our beach and buried an 8 gram, 14k ring at 14 inches to test maximum depth. We couldn't get any deeper as the hole would collapse and we were down to the saturation point. After filling in the hole we swung over it and looked confused. It just barely saw the target. So thinking what the heck we dropped down to 12 kHz from 18. Bang! It hit hard and then for grins we started to lift the coil. Holy crap! It faded out AFTER 7 inches above the sand! That is a combined 21 inches! Now I know this is a one time test and I am sure there are many guys thinking of ways we could have done it different, but the bottom line is, WE DID IT! Tuning to target and conditions made an insane amount of difference. We have used the Tarsacci enough to be comfortable using the controls, but we are still discovering how to wring better performance in changing conditions (a life long process with any detector, no?). We started using the new settings and pulled the smallest silver ring I've ever seen at 8 inches in a couple inches of sea water.

Past(or)Tom
Using a Legend, a Deus 2, an Equinox 800, a Tarsacci MDT 8000, & a few others...
with my beloved, fading Corgi, Sadie

Pasttom Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Yesterday Big Larry and I met at our beach and bur
> ied an 8 gram, 14k ring at 14 inches to test maxim
> um depth. We couldn't get any deeper as the hole
> would collapse and we were down to the saturation
> point. After filling in the hole we swung over it
> and looked confused. It just barely saw the targe
> t. So thinking what the heck we dropped down to 1
> 2 kHz from 18. Bang! It hit hard and then for gr
> ins we started to lift the coil. Holy crap! It f
> aded out AFTER 7 inches above the sand! That is a
> combined 21 inches! Now I know this is a one time
> test and I am sure there are many guys thinking of
> ways we could have done it different, but the bott
> om line is, WE DID IT! Tuning to target and condi
> tions made an insane amount of difference. We hav
> e used the Tarsacci enough to be comfortable using
> the controls, but we are still discovering how to
> wring better performance in changing conditions (a
> life long process with any detector, no?). We sta
> rted using the new settings and pulled the smalles
> t silver ring I've ever seen at 8 inches in a coup
> le inches of sea water.

I was there and what Tom is posting really happened.
Just to note: I had a small plastic mold we set the gold ring in, then we put it in the hole so we knew positively the depth, we also had salt water wash over the filled in hole as we were testing.
One other test we did was with a silver dime. The Tarsacci would hit it at 14" in all kHz while flat in the wet, covered hole and it would hit swinging left to right and heel to toe. We also noticed a stronger tone in 9 kHz. We also turned dime on side(it was hot glued on a wooden paint stir stick) and was able to detect it at 6" in all kHz swinging side to side & heel to toe. We did not go any deeper on the dime on its side test due to we wanted to hunt a little before sundown and that is when I found the very small, thin silver ring at 8" in wave covered sand using 9 kHz, all metal, 7 on sensitivity 25 salt and -2 threshold.
Something I have noticed is adjusting the sensitivity is a major adjustment while adjusting the threshold is a minor adjustment so if running a 9 kHz with 7 sensitivity in the water and a small amount of chatter I could cut out the chatter or reduce it significantly by reducing the threshold one or two numbers while still having all the power 7 sensitivity..

A 14” Dime even in mild ground would be a game changer in my book!
Is that with a proper high conductor ID?

Bryan



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/14/2018 08:28PM by Cabin Fever.

I think guys are all about that kind of depth until they actually start having to dig holes that deep.

I took the GPX to my favorite beach yesterday. I had the 14 inch CoilTek DD on it. The water was down lower than I have ever seen it. I was stoked but bummed at the same time as someone had beaten me to it by mere hours. I hunted with the Equinox first with the 12x15 coil and had trouble getting it to not false when down in the saturated mud and sand. Once I got out of the totally saturated stuff, it settled down. But I only recovered targets in the extremely lower digit ID range...which told me the other person that hunted it had foil and tabs disced out. Must have been coin hunting. Anyway I put the Nox up. Grabbed the GPX as I had a hunch there might be a couple or few deeper targets here as I had dug fairly deep and not hit a clay layer while recovering targets with the Nox. Boy did I open a can of worms. I had no idea what I was in for.

First signal was a smooth low tone...no sign of a break in the signal which meant it was no chance of iron. I started digging and had to go retrieve my relic shovel because my hand trowel was not getting the job done. Sand kept collapsing and water filling up in the hole requiring me to scoop it out with my hands. I'm not a fan of doing that in a blind hole with as many glass shards as I find. The relic shovel helped a lot. I have my shovel marked at 15 inches on the handle and when I finally got this target out, I was past the 15 inch mark by my F Pulse pinpointer length. So 20 something inches down. I recovered a 1970s clad quarter. A few yards later, same line that I was working...a stronger low tone. I assume its a shallower quarter. Wrong. At the same depth zone, up comes a 1970s/80s Pepsi screw cap. I ended up recovering 19 screw caps from the 70s and 80s at that depth layer and several more clad coins. No jewelry but to be honest with you, after digging around 30 holes and not a one of them shallower than 16 inches, I was done digging. I finished my grids and left a dozen or so deep sounding signals in the ground and was trying to concentrate on the shallower stuff but there wasn't any...the VLF machines have cleaned up the shallow stuff. It was surprising to me at just how deep the 35-40 year old layer of stuff is there. I have two guesses...either the stuff in that weight density range actually sank that deep due to there being no hard pan to stop it...or at some point in time before I started hunting there, they brought in sand and covered it all up. I'm not sure. But one thing I am sure of...even if its just wet sand...after you dig a dozen or more 20-25 inch deep holes, you will be feeling it afterwards. Better have you a supply of some Aleve Back & Muscle pills. Haha

Daniel Tn Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I think guys are all about that kind of depth unti
> l they actually start having to dig holes that dee
> p.
>
> I took the GPX to my favorite beach yesterday. I
> had the 14 inch CoilTek DD on it. The water was d
> own lower than I have ever seen it. I was stoked b
> ut bummed at the same time as someone had beaten m
> e to it by mere hours. I hunted with the Equinox
> first with the 12x15 coil and had trouble getting
> it to not false when down in the saturated mud and
> sand. Once I got out of the totally saturated stu
> ff, it settled down. But I only recovered targets
> in the extremely lower digit ID range...which told
> me the other person that hunted it had foil and ta
> bs disced out. Must have been coin hunting. Anyw
> ay I put the Nox up. Grabbed the GPX as I had a h
> unch there might be a couple or few deeper targets
> here as I had dug fairly deep and not hit a clay l
> ayer while recovering targets with the Nox. Boy d
> id I open a can of worms. I had no idea what I was
> in for.
>
> First signal was a smooth low tone...no sign of a
> break in the signal which meant it was no chance o
> f iron. I started digging and had to go retrieve
> my relic shovel because my hand trowel was not get
> ting the job done. Sand kept collapsing and water
> filling up in the hole requiring me to scoop it ou
> t with my hands. I'm not a fan of doing that in a
> blind hole with as many glass shards as I find. T
> he relic shovel helped a lot. I have my shovel ma
> rked at 15 inches on the handle and when I finally
> got this target out, I was past the 15 inch mark b
> y my F Pulse pinpointer length. So 20 something i
> nches down. I recovered a 1970s clad quarter. A f
> ew yards later, same line that I was working...a s
> tronger low tone. I assume its a shallower quarter
> . Wrong. At the same depth zone, up comes a 1970
> s/80s Pepsi screw cap. I ended up recovering 19 s
> crew caps from the 70s and 80s at that depth layer
> and several more clad coins. No jewelry but to be
> honest with you, after digging around 30 holes and
> not a one of them shallower than 16 inches, I was
> done digging. I finished my grids and left a doze
> n or so deep sounding signals in the ground and wa
> s trying to concentrate on the shallower stuff but
> there wasn't any...the VLF machines have cleaned u
> p the shallow stuff. It was surprising to me at j
> ust how deep the 35-40 year old layer of stuff is
> there. I have two guesses...either the stuff in t
> hat weight density range actually sank that deep d
> ue to there being no hard pan to stop it...or at s
> ome point in time before I started hunting there,
> they brought in sand and covered it all up. I'm n
> ot sure. But one thing I am sure of...even if its
> just wet sand...after you dig a dozen or more 20-2
> 5 inch deep holes, you will be feeling it afterwar
> ds. Better have you a supply of some Aleve Back &
> Muscle pills. Haha

After digging about a hundred of those holes, you might get an idea of the trash to treasure ratio. Or not. LOL

Anyone have a youtube video up yet? I would love to see it's responses and hear the audio.

Here’s a thread where gent seems stumbled onto a person using Tarsacci.

[metaldetectingforum.com]

Not just using the Tarsacci, but it was the inventor/developer Dimitar Gargov, that he ran into. I met him last October in much the same way. 20 years ago he was an engineer with Fisher, Los Banos and worked with our NASA-Tom.

Past(or)Tom
Using a Legend, a Deus 2, an Equinox 800, a Tarsacci MDT 8000, & a few others...
with my beloved, fading Corgi, Sadie

biglry Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Something I have noticed is adjusting the sensitiv
> ity is a major adjustment while adjusting the thre
> shold is a minor adjustment so if running a 9 kHz
> with 7 sensitivity in the water and a small amount
> of chatter I could cut out the chatter or reduce i
> t significantly by reducing the threshold one or t
> wo numbers while still having all the power 7 sens
> itivity..

That's exactly the way the CoinStrike threshold works, as well. (No surprise, of course.)
An actual threshold for trigger level...not a volume level.

I use mine all the time to mitigate chatter/noise in exactly the same way.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/14/2018 10:40PM by Mike in CO.

Tom had said it was deeper than the Xcal ...21” on that ring in Calf sand... it’s more than a bit deeper than the Xcal then. What would we get here in Fl.... beyond any PI I know. Now get it wet at neck deep someone.

Cabin Fever Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> A 14” Dime even in mild ground would be a game cha
> nger in my book!
> Is that with a proper high conductor ID?
>
> Bryan

I would like to know that as well.

Depth means nothing if it can't ID the target as non-ferrous.

.

It was a clear steady non ferrous target ID all the way. Just before the signal faded out (6-7 inches above the sand) it would blink a negative number ID at the extreme ends of each swing.

Past(or)Tom
Using a Legend, a Deus 2, an Equinox 800, a Tarsacci MDT 8000, & a few others...
with my beloved, fading Corgi, Sadie

The IP68 standard allows the max underwater depth to be more than 1 meter; the manufacturer determines the maximum allowable depth.

Makro max depth for the Anfibio is16.4 ft (5 meters) with 2yr warranty
Minelab max depth for the Equinox is 10.0ft (3 meters) with 3yr warranty
Minelab max depth for the CTX-3030 is 10.0ft (3 meters) with 3yr warranty
Garrett max depth for the A/T Max is 10.0 ft (3 meters) with 2yr warranty
White's max depth for the MX-Sport is 10.0ft (3 meters) with 2yr warranty
Tarsacci max depth for the MDT-8000 is 5.0ft (1.5 meters) with a 1yr warranty? (user manual is silent)

From the info available, the IPX8 standard is based on testing using distilled water in a laboratory setting with calm water (as in a tank).
The MDT-8000 appears to be the least able to handle underwater conditions found on a salt water beach where turbulent water and breaking waves are present.
It seems strange that an expensive niche detector designed to handle wet conductive salts and magnetite, obviously meant for beach use, would be built with such a risk for water damage (or am I wrong)?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/16/2018 04:37PM by Johnnyanglo.

I noticed something that may cause some possible confusion on the MDT...

The metal plate and battery contact spring in my battery compartment's endcap is labeled with a cut-out PLUS sign...implying that the plus side of the battery faces up/outward.

This is wrong...at least on mine.

The battery goes in plus side down. (again, at least it does on mine)

May need to update the manual with some battery installation instructions.

Also, there are two (silicon grease covered) o-rings at the cap...an orange one on the detector body side, and a black one on the cap itself.
The black one seems to be slightly too large in diameter, and will easily jump out of it's track/groove.
You'll need to be extra careful when removing and screwing the battery cap back on, so as not to let the black o-ring fall/jump out of it's track/groove (and thus affect sealing).



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/2018 09:07AM by Mike in CO.

Dimitar should consider a contactless charging system on the 'next model' . The type of system used on some cordless battery toothbrushes, and also some submersible pinpointers.
I have a couple of Philips Sonicare toothbrushes in bits at the moment. For charging, they have a wire coil wrapped around a short ferrite rod in the base of the handle, presumably the matching charger has similar inside it. The toothbrush has a single Li battery 14500 size ( AA ).
Such charging systems are really best for slow overnight trickle charging. It would require using proper contacts ( like the Deus coil ) if you were wanting charge-up in a few hours. But salt-water resistant contacts , titanium ? stainless steel ?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/2018 10:40AM by Pimento.

My Oral B 1000 toothbrush has the same type of contactless charging system to prevent a short circuit if the toothbrush is wet.. That might be the way to go in the future.