Tesoro 120 disc. setting in iron?

I was wondering what you longtime 120 disc. Tesoro guys set your disc. at hunting in iron? Do you totally disc. out iron? Or set it where it breaks up? Or in My case with the Golden uMax just leave it at 0 setting and let the tones tell you what do dig? Thanks.

It's been a long time since I've had a 120 Tesoro but I believe the setting is 0. 180 was to all metal disc.

I am certainly not a long time user of any metal detector but with my 120s in iron, I use the lowest discrimination setting. If it sounds good and seems small, I dig it.

My experience with 120 disc Tesoros is that at the minimum setting, they are already knocking out a portion of iron. On those, that is where I preferred to hunt. I always preferred 180 disc because I had control over the minimum setting. Once you got into mineralized soil, the majority of deeper non ferrous targets were knocked out on the 120 disc machines because the machine was "seeing" them as small iron and there was nothing you could do about it. A lot of the seasoned relic hunters down south figured that out a long time ago and started utilizing machines like the Lobo in all metal mode and started tapping into those deeper non ferrous targets. In sites with heavy iron, where unmasking was the ticket and depth was a moot point, then the 120s were fine. Most opted to set them at the lowest setting and then dug everything that repeated. My first seated half dime was found in a site like that with a Bandido II uMax. It wasn't but 3 inches deep but surrounded by large roof tin, tin cans, nails, etc. It was where people had taken a dozer and pushed the remains of an 1800s home site that has been lived in up to the 1980s. All along that path the dozer pushed stuff is a detectors hell.

Hi to be honest i always put it a 0 on 120s and 2.2 on my lobos which are 180s on cibolas i think i was just under the Iron setting i like to hear the cracks....

I am always running super low on any machine in infested iron (Thames River foreshore)

FYI i am also running at -4.0 on my deus

RR

Harold, for the benefit of those readers who don't understand what the ED-120 and ED-180 or other references relate to with the Tesoro metal detector line, let me make a quick explanation:

Early-on, after we got Discriminating detectors in the early '70s, the use was to ignore or Discriminate the more annoying pieces of trash Coin Hunters encountered. The bulk of that common urban trash was bobby pins, nails, safety pins, other ferrous targets as well as foil from gum wrappers and discarded cigarette packages. So the minimum setting for perhaps most TR-Discriminators at the time rejected most iron and very low-conductive foil.

For decades I've used the term 'D-90 or D-100 to describe that early range of rejection as it would apply or relate to a 180° scale, such as a protractor. That 180° covers the range from the lowest, least conductive' ferrous targets on up through the Ferrous range, based upon the conductivity, and then span the Non-Ferrous range, from the lowest-conductive targets, such as small foil or tiny gold jewelry items on up through the conductivity range to include the US Nickel coin, Pull-Tabs and Pry-Tabs, Screw Caps, and on into the more conductive common coins to include Pennies, Dimes, Quarters, Halves and Silver Dollars.

Usually there wasn't a reference to a range of Rejection or a range of Acceptance until Jack Gifford brought out the term ED-120 when he introduced the original Bandido bask in March of 1990. The ED-120 was a term used to describe it having an Expanded Discrimination range that Accepted the upper 120° of the overall conductivity range (as viewed with the 180° on the left side and '0'° on the right side in a visual depiction). By increasing the range of Acceptance from about 90° or 100° to Accept 120° of the 180° conductivity range, that reduced the amount of targets Rejected and enhanced the range of Acceptance to include more of the lower Non-Ferrous range, such as to accept small, low-conductive ear ring studs, very thin gold chains or smaller-size gold rings, etc.

Lowering the range of Rejection (viewed on the left side) put the 120° point very close to the Ferrous / Non-Ferrous division such that some of the peskier Iron might still give an audible response, or that some very, very low-conductive Non-Ferrous objects might actually be rejected. This can be true with most any detector when a target's conductivity puts it very close to any break-point where it could 'read' slightly higher or lower due to many factors. The intent of expanding the Disc. range of Acceptance by reducing the Disc. break-point was to try and get it close to the Ferrous / Non-Ferrous break-point so that most common ferrous trash was rejected. That would then provide a better response from most Non-Ferrous targets.

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Harold,ILL
I was wondering what you longtime 120 disc. Tesoro guys set your disc. at hunting in iron?

I use an absolute minimum Disc. setting on all of my Tesoro's w/ED-120 Disc. I never increase it from the 'minimum' Disc. setting because that would be the most functional setting to try and separate Ferrous (usually Unwanted) targets from Non-Ferrous (the Desired target range) targets.

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Harold,ILL
Do you totally disc. out iron?

On a Tesoro with the ED-120 Discrimination circuitry, a 'minimum' Discrimination setting is very close to the Iron and Non-Iron break-point. I'd forget the labeled setting on an ED-120 circuitry if they use the term 'Iron.' We are referring to motion-based Discriminators which differ from the good old standard TR-Disc. designs that did a much cleaner job of rejecting most problem ferrous junk. Our modern, motion-based, ground cancelling devices that are trying to reject the ground signal as well as trash-target signals from pesky man-made trash, such as Bottle Caps, round washers and other challenging magnetic-metal objects which make us have to deal with the errant responses from some problem trash.

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Harold,ILL
Or set it where it breaks up?

On an ED-120 Disc. circuitry, a 'minimum' Disc. setting is generally going to knock out most common iron trash, such as bobby pins or nails and other wire-iron as well as a lot of the other less-conductive iron. Trying to adjust the Discrimination to handle targets that cause a signal to "break-up" might easily leave you with too much rejection and miss some desired, low-conductivity targets. That also means it would increase good-target masking in a dense iron contaminated site.

Keep in mind that Tesoro devices are based on a 2-Filter or Double-Derivative circuitry. This was the early slow-motion circuitry design used by Fisher when they brought out their 1260X in '82 and Tesoro employed for their main-selling entry slow-motion model, the Inca, in July of '83. The 2-Filter circuitry design was most popular for designing the circuitry for slow-motion detectors, and is usually that used for most of the lower-end, budget-priced entry level models from most manufacturers.

The early fast-sweep detectors, like the Teknetics 9000 and 8500 Coin Computers, White's 6000 series models and others, made use of a so-called 4-Filter Disc. circuitry. They required a very brisk sweep to process both the ground signal and target signal. The first significant improvement in motion-based detectors after the 4-Filter and 2-Filter circuitry designs came in '87/'88 with the Compass 'Vari-Filter' design used with their Scanner series. This was their term for what would later be called 3-Filter which allowed the operator to use a moderate to faster sweep speed w/o negative effects in higher mineralized areas, like the 4-Filter designs, yet be swept at a slow and methodical sweep speed for the benefits in brushy or heavily littered sites like a good 2-Filter (Tesoro-like) circuitry design. The next popular detector to use a 3-Filter circuitry approach was the White's MXT. That design included all of the MXT versions and M-6.

One reason people have difficulty using most Tesoro models comes from using a too-fast sweep speed, and that's especially true if hunting in a higher mineralized and more challenging environment. Black sand, pea gravel, a rocky environment, etc., etc.

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Harold,ILL
Or in My case with the Golden uMax just leave it at 0 setting and let the tones tell you what do dig?

Here we have a difference because you have the Golden µMAX which, like a few of the latter Tesoro models, does not use an ED-120 Disc. circuitry. There were some that used an ED-180 Discriminate design, such as the last Eldorado in the µMAX housing, and that meant a minimum Disc. setting Accepted ALL metal targets to include Iron and Non-Iron. You would need to adjust the Disc. level up to try and match the rejection point of something like a Bandido or Silver Sabre to get comparable iron-target rejection.

But the Golden µMAX and a few other Tesoro models, such as the Vaquero or Cibola to name just two, use more of an ED-165 Disc. circuitry. What is ED-165? It is a design that expands the target Acceptance range by using a lower rejection setting. With ED-120 representing roughly a Ferrous / Non-Ferrous break-point, and ED-180 setting having NO ferrous rejection and accepting ALL targets to include all iron and non-iron, the ED-165 is a lower Disc. setting than ED-120 and at the minimum it is now accepting SOME iron targets but not all iron.

That's why those models will produce a low-tone Iron Audio response in their 4-tone design. Therefore, with your Golden µMAX, you WILL hear some iron at a 'minimum' Disc. setting and would need to increase the Disc. level to reject, aka Discriminate, unwanted iron like common nails and some of the detected Iron trash.

Note, too, that I have generally found it difficult to get an exacting Disc. setting on ED-165 and ED-180 models to duplicate a cleaner audio quality of most ED-120 Tesoro models.

Monte

Monte, is the Pantera also a ED-165 Disc.?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/26/2019 10:42PM by Harold,ILL..

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Harold,ILL
Monte, Is the Pantera also a ED-165 Disc.?

Harold, good question and a simple answer ... NO. The Pantera is NOT an ED-165 range of Acceptance and is considered one of the Tesoro models labeled as having the ED-120 Disc. circuitry. The Pantera essentially does have the ED-120 circuitry and the performance like most of the other ED-120 Disc. models, but technically, it is just very close to that

I immediately took on the Tesoro line as a Dealer in July of '83 when they released the Inca. The model that really set Tesoro apart from the others due to the very functional Quick-Response / Fast-Recovery performance in the motion disc. mode. Most of those earlier models had the more limited lower-end of acceptance since they used more of a traditional Discrimination rejection setting. High enough to reject almost all Iron and a lot of the very low-conductive Foil such as gum wrappers and cigarette pack wrappers. There were a lot of newer models introduced and along the way some notable changes, such as the ED-120 Disc. on the Bandido (3-'90 release) and earlier than that the models with Notch Discrimination, especially the 2-Tone Notch Disc. on the original Golden Sabre (2-'85 introduction) then the Royal Sabre (4-'86 introduction) followed by the Golden Sabre Plus (3-'89 Introduction). All of those Notch models were based on the earlier higher Disc. setting which had the more limited range of Acceptance on the lower-end.

Later they had the newer Notch Disc. models, the Pantera (my favorite of the Notch models, introduced in 7-'90)and Golden Sabre II (introduced in 7-'92). Both of these latter-release Notch Disc. models were based on the ED-120 Disc. circuitry. I used to speak with Jack Gifford often about models they released to clarify some of the circuitry design when I noticed, or questioned, some of the performance in doing model comparisons, especially those using the ED-120 circuitry. I used to give casual classes to customers, but in 1981 I started hosting full-day Metal Detecting Seminars so I started contacting any and all design engineers I needed to in order to have the best knowledgeable answer for frequent questions I would be asked. Both as a Dealer and in holding the seminars.

One question I had to discuss with Jack was the Discriminate rejection and acceptance range of the Tesoro Pantera. I had noticed a wee bit of different performance with a non-notching model that also used the ED-120 Disc., and Jack explained that the Pantera, as well as Golden Sabre II, were basically the ED-120 and there wasn't really a numeric comparison value to use, but they were just slightly less than ED-120 because he had to design them that way in order to get the Notch Disc. to function as he wanted. However, it was only a minor reduction and they still functioned almost the same.

Oh, an interesting side note here regarding Consumer Preferences when it came to models that featured a Manual GB design compared with the "Turn-on-and-Go" models with the internally Pre-Set GB. I liked a couple of the Pre-Set models, especially my favorite, the Silver Sabre µMAX (microMAX) and the Silver Sabre II. But overall I favor the models with a manual GB design, such as the 'original' Bandido, Bandido II, and my all-time favorite, the Bandido II µMAX. One other I liked a lot was the Pantera.

I enjoyed using most of the Notch Disc. models, but, again, my favorite of them all was the Manually Ground Balanced Pantera. Back to Consumer Preferences. I noticed a few decades ago that most typical consumers, who are average urban Coin Hunters, had trouble mastering the simple act of manually adjusting the GB and favored the pre-set GB for easy 'turn-on-and-go' operation. If you have a good working Pantera, then you have one of the tougher-to-find Tesoro models. Notice above that they introduced the Pantera in 7-'90. Just four months after the ED-120 Disc. circuitry was used to make the 'original' Bandido. However, they dropped the Manual GB Pantera 1n 2-'92 .... only 1 year and 7 months later!.

Then they brought out the Turn-on-and-Go' preset GB Golden Sabre II in 7-'92, just 5 months after dropping the Pantera, and continued production until 5-'99, making it last just 2 months short of 7 years of production. The Golden Sabre II was basically a pre-set GB Pantera since it used the Pantera circuit board. All they did was change from the stacked two-knob Disc. & Notch Disc. control to having a separate Disc. and Notch Disc. control. Easy to do since they had the extra control-face hole from removing the manual GB control

Life of the Manual GB Pantera? 1 Year 7 Months.
And the Life of the Preset GB Golden Sabre II? 6 Years 10 Months.

I hope Pantera owners appreciate what they have.

Again, sorry to ramble but I am very partial to my favorite Tesoro models, and just hope to help others learn about really great detectors that have gone from the scene.

Monte