Infinium question

[Reno Chris]

I was out prospecting last weekend and found 1.5 dwt nugget. I was talking with a guy in the camp where I was staying who is new to prosepcting and owns an infinium. He asked if he could swing the nugget over his coil to see what it sounded like (he's not found any gold yet). I told him sure and that it should scream if it were close to the coil. He went and got his detector and I could hardly get any response at all. Litterally with the coil touching the nugget I got a weak wisper of a signal. I told him something was wrong, but I know nothing about running and adjusting an infinium. He had his discrimination set at three, and I thought that might be a problem, so I turned it to zero and that made no difference. I thought later it might have been wildly out of ground balance, but I dont know anything about which knobs to use, etc. I cant ignore the possibility of a broken unit, either. A few minutes later another guy brought out a TDI and ran the nugget over the coil and it screamed, just as you might expect.

If I see the guy again when I return over labor day weekend, I'd like to offer him a suggestion or two. Is there some "never do this" setting for the infinium like running a minelab with a mono coil in cancel mode? Is it likely broken? Could it have been tht badly out of ground balance? I know some of you know a lot more about the infinium than I do.

Chris

[Steve Herschbach]

Hi Chris,

It is hard to screw up tuning an Infinium. Turn on to slow track, set disc for 0, and go. Should easily hit nuggets down to about 1/4 dwt.

Could be low batteries, bad headphones, bad coil, or bad control box. Which is pretty much the order in which I'd check.

[Adrian SS]

The infinium should pick up a 1.5 dwt solid nug with the 10 x 14 mono, 8 inch mono and 5 x 10 DD quite loud an inch from the coil and clear at around 3 or 4 inches after which it drops off to a weak signal quite suddenly. The 10 x 14 DD is not a good coil for small nugs and although it will pick up small nugs at around the 3 or 4 inch mark the signal will be a bit wishy washy and may consist of multiple tones. This coil is best used for deep large nugs in mineralised/noisy ground.

Make sure your sweep speed is slow ( 1 to 1.5 foot per sec).
It does sound as though the detector has a problem. It is not a good idea to set the disc higher than 2 in the gold fields although at a setting of 3 you should still be able to detect a 1.5 dwt nug at a few inches. If you are looking for small nugs then the 10 x 14 DD ix not a good choice. I would suggest the 10 x 14 mono,(great sensitivity and depth, 8 inch mono, Ditto. The 5 x 10 DD Ok sensitivity at the sacrifice of a bit of depth). The 3 x 7 is good for small stuff but not very deep.

Adrian SS

[Adrian SS]

If anyone is interested, I could post my Field test of the infinium here (in part less photo's)
This FT was published in Australian Gold gem & Treasure 2009 Year Book & the March edition in two pts.
It is not a particularly brilliant Field test and is non technical where I describe my impressions of this machine from a first time operator point of view.

Cheers,
Adrian SS

[Steve Herschbach]

Hi Adrian,

Post away please! But may as well start your own thread. I've been an Infinium fan since day one.

[Adrian SS]

HI Steve,

HI Steve.
I have learnt a lot from reading your posts.
I waited a few years before buying the Infinum after it had gone through several upgrade phases to make it more suitable to our Australian ground conditions and it is now my most often used detector for beach and gold work.
Since the coils have had the original cable replaced with a much better type, the machine seems from all reports to be even more stable and quiet on salt beaches and less effected by EMI.
The odd thing is that my least noisy coil is the original big DD fitted with the old style flat soft cable which after seven years is still working fine. I purchased my Infinium second hand and it had plenty of gold field use before that.

Cheers,
Adrian SS