Modified my AT-PRO

The new Garrett extended shaft is nice and the cam lock's are nice too....But the weight distribution still kills your arm after a couple of hour's....the S-Rod combined with the large DD really put's a strain on your forearm.....

I got into my extra part's and assembled me a straight shaft.....Used and X-Terra Pistol grip...white's middle and lower rod....Tesoro armrest...Till my Sovereign armrest arrives....

Had to re-angle the top of the pistol grip to get the screen angle right...still might be tilted a little too far back might need to re-angle after a full sun hunt....After than I will weld the contact point down with an aluminum welder ..the rod that holds the housing is just screwed in right now using the X-Terra screw holes in top of the grip.....

a whites lower rod works great just need a couple of 1/8 inch thick vinyl washer's inserted on either side behind the stock whites rubber washer's....the center rod line's right up into the xterra upper rod no problem......

plus made me a headphone adapter....from the land phone's so I can use My killer B's....

One thing neat on the adapter is if you take the red wire and jump it between the Left and right contact's on a stereo jack you can turn the internal speaker on and off with the flip on the stereo mono switch on headphone's....great for letting your partner hear a target without unplugging !!


I must say it swings way better like this....way better.....

I have about $45.00 in the whole setup..


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Thanks

Keith



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/30/2011 02:33AM by Keith Southern.

Looks like a nice job....hope you didn't kill whats left of warranty......ever think about applying for a job designing detectors?.....Dan

Thanks Dan!!!

The warranty is fine....Just mounted it to a different rod using factory configuration...I can put it back on the stock pole at anytime...

That's funny about a job designing detector's Dan....No one would want me doing that ....The detector would never get out the door...I would never be satisfied with the final product LOL!!!Would always be one more tweak....

Detector manufacturer's are slow to change the mechanical aspect of there machine's...Lot of tooling has to be done to just reshape a pole....They work off of the evolutionary process so change is slow...They use what's in the part's bin even when going to a new design they stay with the staple's ....

I am sure Garrett spent quite a lot of money just to design the housing for the AT Line...Probably would make your jaw drop if we knew what it cost to develop just that one piece...But they made the mount to fit a rod design they all ready have available..It might take another decade to get a modern design rod Like an F-75 uses or the x-terra even....

Nothing wrong with the lazy-S pole but with the newer larger DD coils with super tight separation becoming the norm machine's are becoming front end heavy and a more ergonomic design is needed....

That leads me to another thing....Think about it....Detector manufacturer's are now offering large coil's that cancel ground better and separate better than anything in the smaller design a few year's ago..I actually have better luck with the tight big DD coil's going behind other detector's with small say 6 inch concentric size coil's in trashy area's........We are moving forward with detector tech it's just slow....I love seeing the new coil design's....FT has the Bi-Axial and Garrett has given us the Blunt tip DD.... Minelab has there awesome Pro coil that I hope they make for the X-Terra before too long...Coil design is very important now days more than ever in hit hard site's....

I'll bet in the future coils will be designed with some sort of way to even manipulate the transmit shape and pattern at user setting's mode...

It would be awesome to see on a display what is actually happening to your transmit field in the soil and be able to tune/manipulate it to get the best penetration .....Right now we are really going blind and assuming we know what a scan field look's like under the coil but in mineral's and clay's and such I bet it is really warped or squished out of shape unlike anything remotely resembling a text book field....???


Keith

LOL.....Dan........I never want to let go of the computers I fix, cause there is always another tweak I want to do to the software/hardware. Of course we should design, they just have to lock us in a room while they get the prototype out the door.

Hmmm......I think a coil within a coil that could be switched from lets say 11" to 6" is possible. Wonder what Tom thinks?

The straight shafts are just becoming a requirement if you are using the heavier coils. Nice job. Thats one thing i do like about those machines that can be hip mounted... you have so many options to MOD your own equipment. Seems like they would be smart to sell just the coil and detector without the rod now days lol.

Dew

Keith smart move saving the warranty by being able to transfer back as original. Understand fully the cost of retooling that goes into metal detectors. Guess thats why basic styles never changes or rarely change from manufacturers and one wonders how many XLT rods have been used to modify many as ergonomically hard to beat...

TerraDigger Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> LOL.....Dan........I never want to let go of the
> computers I fix, cause there is always another
> tweak I want to do to the software/hardware. Of
> course we should design, they just have to lock us
> in a room while they get the prototype out the
> door.
>
> Hmmm......I think a coil within a coil that could
> be switched from lets say 11" to 6" is possible.
> Wonder what Tom thinks?

I asked Tom this a while back. If I remember he said he had been tried but never perfected. I too think it would be great to have a single coil that could be switched from one size to another.

Tom in SC

Keith, I was out with the AT Pro yesterday and my arm was ready to fall off too, I find if I find things, it relieves the stress, but finds were far and wide apart, I had my XLT out in the morning and I had no problem, I can swing that machine all day, I going to try and copy your pic and see if I can balance mine too, thanks

Great job Keith!
I ended doing the same thing for my Excal, TigerShark and Au-21x. All 3 machines use the same upper rod which is a old Whites pistol grip and hip mount the boxes. Those S poles just are tiresome to use in the water.

Garrett made such a setup in 1964....it was a 4" inside a 8" and a 6" inside a 12"........This was pre disc circuit's so not sure how it would work in a disc circuit since it's different principal of transmit....I believe the old BFO just needed one single coil winding in the coil...but still neat to look back on the ROCKET age design's.!!!!!!

Had switch to select coil size on the detector.....




Keith



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/30/2011 06:54PM by Keith Southern.

Yes..... a coil within a coil.... can be done; yet, the problem was in the low 'sales' numbers.

I had one of those for a while . Did not like it.

Funny how those in Europe have been for years producing detectors that come stock with 10" and larger coils.
Nice set-up Keith.
Found I could use the lower rod and center section of a Fisher and a middle section of a vintage metaldetector. All fits together to make a straight shaft.
Just add a handle and arm cup.

DeepTech Vista X with 3 search coils.
Works for me

Keith, my setup looks identical to yours. My CZ21 rod has been sitting on the shelf since I bought it new
a couple of years ago and replaced it with the Anderson. Just a minor mod for me and works great.

Keith,

That is a nice mod to the At-Pro, I may have sold mine to quick, just hated using it because of the ergonomics and small display size. Looking back, I think it was the best detector I have ever hated.

Thats funny Iskirkra you stated "Looking back, I think it was the best detector I have ever hated."

It does have a couple of Draw backs and if you are a screen watcher that is one along with the balance... Well the balance can be solved and I give up screen size for the untouchable audio ....I hardly look at the screen but when I do I can see it...To me I never trust I.D.'s to much extent so that's why it's a non issue for myself...

The audio to me has a lot of Explorer sound to it the way it lope's the mid and high tone together in a flutey type sound on the deepie's that is unmistakable...Then in iron it will blend the low and mid together and give a certain sound on a previously missed target being masked...The low tone high tone jump is iron false when in thick iron for the most part because the coins/high conductor's when severely mixed with iron will drop below 76 and mid tone in with the grunt's...

It unmask extremely well ...not with lightning speed but with audio nuance blending of target's...It can stay with the top machine's very well once the audio is learned I mean this in depth and in trash...Actually it handles bad dirt as well or better than any offering I have ran across..Up till a year ago I would not even turn a Garrett VLF machine on..

I discovered something else the other day it works perfectly noise free under the High line's the steel tower types that run through rural America..Ad with no loss of performance as I have noticed...I ran it wide open under them and it pulled target's at some amazing depth's that were in the coin size range's over a foot deep....


So yes it has had it's issue's and yes there are a coupe of drawback's here and there ..But for pure raw performance at the price point it has it is a machine that people will like once they become comfortable with it...And It is right there with the best of them...Lot of nice machine's being built now-a-day's whatever you choose they all are very close to each other now ...

The digital age has caused alot of the hot/cold machine scenario to almost be obsolete ...So the manufacturer's are getting the full potential out for each unit more than ever and by doing this the gap from machine to machine is narrowed..They all are using the same part's I'll bet nowday's for the most part but everything is to a more exact tolerance..


Ive picked up T-2's///G-2's//gold bug's////F-75's///x-terra's///AT-Pro's and they from model to model are alway's almost dead even in performance...Do that 10 year's ago and see what you got....

Whatever you choose learn it wisely..

That leads to one last point...I like Tesoro machine's but if they do not get with some new tech and tighter tolerance's I am not sure what will come of them...
At least Garrett has decided to move on I hope Tesoro want's to make a technology leap also...




Keith

I built a straight shaft setup for my AT Pro right after I got it ....Made a world of difference .....Jim