Tom V3

Tom how come no testing from you on this machine. It seems the way it has all of the controls NASA built it. Would be nice to see how your take is on it.

LowBoy

TAKE A LITTLE TIME KICKBACK AND WATCH SOME OF MY DETECTING VIDEO'S BELOW ON YouTube

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If you don’t dig it, then how are you going to know what you’re missing!
How can you have your pudding if you don’t eat your meat!

I just simply do not have one.

I would think Tom the V3 would be something you just had to have tested! There must be a club in your area with a few. Maybe you like myself really don't think it is anything more then a new whites detector. And is not really doing anything different that would make you want to see what is under the hood.

From what I have read the machine needs to be tweeked alot even when you are in an area you are hunting. We know the F75 can be tweeked in a few secs if needed.

LowBoy

TAKE A LITTLE TIME KICKBACK AND WATCH SOME OF MY DETECTING VIDEO'S BELOW ON YouTube

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If you don’t dig it, then how are you going to know what you’re missing!
How can you have your pudding if you don’t eat your meat!

that's understandable tom!..whitey isn't exactly givin' 'em away at 1,700.00 a copy!

Here's the first report of a V3 against an Explorer/Etrac/Soverign and a T2 with the 5" DD coil. Very surprising results!

[www.findmall.com]

Better view it soon before it gets pulled!

Very interesting........but......on a couple of the buried targets......... it sounds like there may be something tiny that is NOT directly over the Quarter..... but off to one side by just a couple/few inches.......w/resultant of partial masking. OR.....fairly high mineralization/bad dirt.

Yes, a quarter buried at 6", fresh or not, should be easily seen by any mid/high range unit swinging the coil in ANY direction. I suspect that the area may not have been 'sanitized' before the burial of the coins.

I really don't get it about detecting knowen targets. The true test is to go relic hunting and when you get a hit that you are happy with try the other detectors and see what they hit on or mark the tagets and go back later and test them and then dig them...Then see what is in the ground and see what units hits the most targets. I wish I had a V3 I have a field in the back of my house that dates back to the 1840 and I have pulled a lot of nice relics and coins.

I would see what the F75 hit on then try it with the V3 and see what it does. I would then tune it to hit the same way the F75 did and move on to the next target. What we want any new detector to do is be able to unmask tergets better and have better depth with good readings or a tone..

LowBoy

TAKE A LITTLE TIME KICKBACK AND WATCH SOME OF MY DETECTING VIDEO'S BELOW ON YouTube

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If you don’t dig it, then how are you going to know what you’re missing!
How can you have your pudding if you don’t eat your meat!

Working a test bed is one of three test scenarios that can provide information that cannot be gleened by another method.

1) Air tests: Provides some determination of maximum sensitivity at depth and allows limited feel for changes in performance (tone/VDI) based on user adjustments. Obviously, this is very easy and quick to perform. EMI problems found in the basement/house/garage can disrupt the tests, however.

2) Test bed: Provides more information related to comparisons between different hardware (detectors + coils) and considerable information related to changes in output (tone/VDI) based on user adjustments. There is never any doubt about what is being detected and the user can choose to plant simple and complex (masked) targets to test. I would never take a unit to the field that could not pass a minimum of tests in a well designed test bed (= small bed w/complex targets).

3) Comparisons in the Field: Data from real targets can be attained however the potential detrimental effects of partial masking and silent masking are always present and will alter your understanding of the machine (you don't know what you don't know!) Also, you'll need to bring along two or more machines to the field (which may be problamatic if you're alone) or hunt with a buddy (I nearly always hunt alone). Very good information can still be attained at the expense of spending more time in the field, which may be difficult depending upon the setting. In addition, the myriad adjustment possibilities of some of the newer high end machines could put you over a single target for very long time, and this might not be practical in a public site. Still, in the end, after testing a large number of potential targets, a good understanding of different machines can be ascertained.

*****

I have created one complex target in my test bed with a silver dime buried at 4". I cannot see it with any combination of hardware except for the F75 coupled with the 5" DD coil. Granted, I've obviously not compared every potential hardware combination available on the market but my testing done with a variety of Minelab products with large and small coils cannot see it. Had this target been in the field, most probably I'd never know it existed.

Maybe I'm different than most, but I usually don't detect with buddies and I never carry two machines simultaneously out to the field. I will often put another coil in the car, but I'm not taking two machines to a site. I'm certain that I don't detect as often and as long as many others in the hobby so I still feel that I'm learning the machine as I go.

The only way to tell the difference of what a detector can do is for Super NASA Tom to get his hands on it. Tom has told us things about the F75 we would never have learned from Fisher.

The V3 I am sure is a good detector but Tom would do the best job and being able to look under the hood and test drive this machine. I know Tom is really to busy to worry about every new machine that comes out. And Tom really is a F75 user and I can see why.

LowBoy

TAKE A LITTLE TIME KICKBACK AND WATCH SOME OF MY DETECTING VIDEO'S BELOW ON YouTube

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If you don’t dig it, then how are you going to know what you’re missing!
How can you have your pudding if you don’t eat your meat!

Nothing against Tom, but I'd like to make my own decision based on my own testing in my own test garden. Of course Tom's opinion would influence me as to if I would get the unit in the first place. There are still differences in swing style, hearing ability, menu structure, ergonomics, etc., that might have me go in a different direction than Tom. In fact, I'm still torn between the F75 and my old Explorer II and have yet to be convinced that anything newer is substantially better than either.

I'm sure that Tom would be an ex-F75 user if he found something better. And I'm sure that he'll get a hold of a V3 sometime even if just to satisfy his curiosity.

------

I really wonder if White's made the right decision having all the adjustability available in the V3. Imagine if you could tweak a car like a V3, adjusting things like the gain of the knock sensors, the damping of the throttle response, and the decay of the timing curve with rapidly changing engine RPM. I'd be lost! It's no surprise than an increasing number of users now run the V3 in single frequency mode, "depending upon conditons and target type". What does that mean? There seems to be so much uncertainty reading the sine-wave spectograph even among the experts. Why even include it?

I'd buy a Minelab Sovereign with no meter if they could add a fast processor, give us more audio options, and greatly improve the ergonomics.

no text



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/04/2009 06:10PM by Streak!.

Good thread!

So tell us mora about the TDI how you like it and what you don't like about it.
The V3 is a lot for the money and when you can program it in so many ways it kind of loses its charm. If you could find gold better and dig really deep targets then maybe but so far I will pass..thanks for the honest thoughts

LowBoy

TAKE A LITTLE TIME KICKBACK AND WATCH SOME OF MY DETECTING VIDEO'S BELOW ON YouTube

[www.youtube.com]

If you don’t dig it, then how are you going to know what you’re missing!
How can you have your pudding if you don’t eat your meat!

Another thing that discourages me about the V3 is the fact that most users say that they need to significantly tweek the unit to get the best performance. Unlike my EXII where performance is pretty close to 100% using a mainly open screen, or the F75 where you just turn the sensitivity knob, the V3 appears to require much more tuning. So a 1st time user could never give it a fair test because the argument would be that the unit was not set up for optimal conditions; a user "expert" would be required to put it to the test against another platform.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/28/2009 01:17PM by go-rebels.

As is the case with every new high-end machine it usually takes a while for the reports to start coming back about how good it is. I have not heard any yet, extolling the great depth and ability of the V3. Maybe it will take another 6 months? In my mind, if a machine is that difficult to learn and adjust, or takes a year before you really know what you are doing, it aint for me, I dont care how good it is.

The F75 seems to have achieved great depth along with ease of use and great features. Everybody has their own likes and dislikes and styles of hunting, types of conditions, but the F75 seems to fit very well with a very large cross section of detectorists. And you can swing it all day without arm fatigue.

By the way Streak, I like your videos, very done. Great job.

Scully

The other thing is the coils no one seems to know which coil works best.

LowBoy

TAKE A LITTLE TIME KICKBACK AND WATCH SOME OF MY DETECTING VIDEO'S BELOW ON YouTube

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If you don’t dig it, then how are you going to know what you’re missing!
How can you have your pudding if you don’t eat your meat!

The F75 ergonomics and controls layout is superb! I only wish it had less chatter and a volume amplification for weak signals, like the Explorer.

go-rebels Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Another thing that discourages me about the V3 is
> the fact that most users say that they need to
> significantly tweek the unit to get the best
> performance. Unlike my EXII where performance is
> pretty close to 100% using a mainly open screen,
> or the F75 where you just turn the sensitivity
> knob, the V3 appears to require much more tuning.


I've always thought the Explorer was one of those machines that required a long learning curve with many possible options and tweaks, and that's why I've always shied away from one, even though they appear to be the deep silver kings of detecting. I hunted with a guy last week that's got a lot of time on the V3. He was one of the beta testers for White's and for the most part he has good things to say about it. We hunted a park scrape last week, and he had his Exp SE, and I couldn't hear the deep signals in the park he got on his SE with my F70, and that was with the 11" DD and the sensitivity set at 90 :-( He was only using the 8" coil too.

He's going to let me use the SE at one of our hunts to test out. He said he could get me up to speed on it in a couple of weeks I like Fishers, but I just don't get the depth. I do wish I had my CZ70 with me to see if it would've heard the deep targets the SE was getting that the F70 either couldn't hear at all, or would just barely hear as a broken up signal with the coil mashed to the ground, definitely not something you'd pick up while hunting.

If you were in Mono tone and a disc of 6 or less you may have heard it but the minelab is a different beast it is heavy and it is a great machine. Yes Fisher needs to address the depth on their next machine. I think sometimes if a company does something that works for another company then they would be called a copycat. But hey I like Fisher and expect their next machine to really be the next level or I won't buy it and will buy from another company.

Someone has to do something different that works or we are just buying a new machine hoping we can find the deep stuff.

LowBoy

TAKE A LITTLE TIME KICKBACK AND WATCH SOME OF MY DETECTING VIDEO'S BELOW ON YouTube

[www.youtube.com]

If you don’t dig it, then how are you going to know what you’re missing!
How can you have your pudding if you don’t eat your meat!

i am just curious!..what was the "depth" of those "deep" signals the se was hitting?..both the 70 and the 75 are "deep" detectors,and should hear everything the explorer "sees!"..if "set" peroperly of course to INCLUDE proper ground balancing for the site hunted!

(h.h!)
j.t.

so far I really like the TDI. no negatives as of yet. SUPER deep even in my good soil! I gets every real deep target in my test garden with ease in Ground balancing mode. In regular Pulse mode (GB turned off).....its astonishingly deep!(deeper than GB mode)

It DOES have a language that will require a few hours in the field to learn, but so far seems to be an easy machine to use. there ARE a few Gbing tricks that stand out a bit (for best performance), but other than that...it seems pretty easy. pulse delay and Gb seem to be tied together...........or affect each other profoundly. The only thing that concerns me is the huge difference in field reports from different guys, and their seemingly different rates of sucess with the machine. Are the machines THAT different......or is it simple user error?? Time will tell.......but my initual reaction is a real big thumbs up!! Streak!

Cal_cobra Wrote:
> We hunted a park scrape
> last week, and he had his Exp SE, and I couldn't
> hear the deep signals in the park he got on his SE
> with my F70, and that was with the 11" DD and the
> sensitivity set at 90 :-( He was only using the
> 8" coil too.

Were the 'deep signals' dug and proved to be actual good targets? If I crank up the sensitivity of my F75 to "99", I've got 'good targets' everywhere!