I have not been detecting in several years. Was using a DFX for land use and a Excalibur for my water detecting but sold those when I wandered out of the hobby. I have been getting the bug back to get out again so I ordered up a new V3i which arrived last Wednesday. Finally had a chance to get out with it this weekend to give it a whirl. First stop was a local park that is pretty trashy. Friday night after work, got home and grabbed the detector, pouch and rechargable battery and head out. Get to the park and power it up, do a ground balance and started searching. Within 30 minutes the detector powered itself down. Try to restart it and get a low battery message?? Had to run back home to get the alkaline pack so I could finish. Spent several hours playing with the detector digging all targets to help figure out this new detector and some of it's great new features. Charge the nimh battery overnight and back out Saturday morning to a local school. Pop in the freshly charged pack and head out again. Less than a hour through hunting battery dies again? Pop the alkaline pack back in, which I rememberd to bring this time, and got another three hours of hunting in. Back out Sunday for a additional 4 hours with the alkaline pack and I am starting to get comfortable with all the features/menus this detector has.
Today while at work called up the factory and spoke with a technician regarding my battery issue. Explained that I was pretty sure the problem was in the pack and not the charger, based on the fact that when taken out of the charger and first put into the detector that battery voltage appears right where I would expect it to be, but voltage falls off very quickly. Also since I put quite a few hours on the alkaline pack and it is still going strong I do not think it was a problem with the detector. Told the tech I had a coil on order from them(for that trashy park) that was suppose to be shipping today and asked if they could just drop a replacement battery in with my order. The tech said he would run over to the order processing department to check the status of my order and call me back. 10 minutes later I get a call back saying he found my order and he gathered up a new charging base, adapter and battery and would be shipping it out with my order and I could return mine once I receive those. Great customer service like this is why I chose to buy another White's machine!
I am very pleased with the new V3i. After my intial digging of all targets to get a feel for the machine I started using the analysis screen. What a great feature! So many times with the DFX I would get fooled by a deep rusted piece of small iron that would ID like silver. Once I started using the analysis screen to check every target I only dug a couple pieces of trash that fooled me, plus the few pull tabs I dug hoping for a ring. All in all for the weeknd I ended up with a little over $11.00 in clad and one plated silver ring.
Have been reading through the forum and past messages trying to pick up as many tips on this new machine that I can. Now I just need to hit some other places and see if I can find the other $289.00 I need to order up some of the wireless headphones for it.
Thanks to everyone for all the great information here and I hope I can add to it in the future.
Gary
Today while at work called up the factory and spoke with a technician regarding my battery issue. Explained that I was pretty sure the problem was in the pack and not the charger, based on the fact that when taken out of the charger and first put into the detector that battery voltage appears right where I would expect it to be, but voltage falls off very quickly. Also since I put quite a few hours on the alkaline pack and it is still going strong I do not think it was a problem with the detector. Told the tech I had a coil on order from them(for that trashy park) that was suppose to be shipping today and asked if they could just drop a replacement battery in with my order. The tech said he would run over to the order processing department to check the status of my order and call me back. 10 minutes later I get a call back saying he found my order and he gathered up a new charging base, adapter and battery and would be shipping it out with my order and I could return mine once I receive those. Great customer service like this is why I chose to buy another White's machine!
I am very pleased with the new V3i. After my intial digging of all targets to get a feel for the machine I started using the analysis screen. What a great feature! So many times with the DFX I would get fooled by a deep rusted piece of small iron that would ID like silver. Once I started using the analysis screen to check every target I only dug a couple pieces of trash that fooled me, plus the few pull tabs I dug hoping for a ring. All in all for the weeknd I ended up with a little over $11.00 in clad and one plated silver ring.
Have been reading through the forum and past messages trying to pick up as many tips on this new machine that I can. Now I just need to hit some other places and see if I can find the other $289.00 I need to order up some of the wireless headphones for it.
Thanks to everyone for all the great information here and I hope I can add to it in the future.
Gary
Good luck with the V3I.