lafatlife said:
Go to harbor freight online and order it that way. I have had one for 2 years and I am quite happy with it. The case/holder for it is not very good and falls apart easy, but you can rig up something else for it. If it breaks, it's only 16 bucks. If you get a propointer and it breaks, that's over 100 bucks. The difference is what 1/2 an inch or so?
The Pro Pointer comes with a two year warranty. Primarily pinpointer failure is going to be due to moisture or dirt contamination that gets into the switches. The Pro Pointer has a sealed switch and the manual states it can be washed off under water. If you seal the speaker hole with silicon (shoe goo) and put an o-ring under the screw on battery cap (to be sure that won't leak, though it doesn't look like it will) I bet the unit could be made completely waterproof down a few feet anyway.
When I had the Harbor Freight unit I thought about making it more waterproof, but that would require modding it by changing the switch and sensitivity pot and sealing the entire box. Not sure how you'd even manage that with the slide on battery cover. It's bulky square housing makes getting it out and sticking it in a hole more of a hassle. Even after modding the holder it was still useless as it grabs at the unit when I try to remove it with one hand. The Pro Pointer's holster never fights the holder removing or re-holstering it with one hand like the Centech did for me. I was also going to add a pager motor and do a few other things to it but didn't feel the performance was worth the extra money and time.
My primary dislike of the Centech (and many other pinpointers for that matter) is they are very picky with sensitivity settings to get any kind of depth out of them, where as the Pro Pointer automaticly adjusts that when turned on. Once you think you've got the Centech set at home and get out in the field I found the amount of moisture in the air would cause it to false at that setting. Once I thought I had it set right the unit would false when touching the ground with it's tip. By the time I'd tweak that low enough to not get so eratic the depth was at best 1/2".
I played with the internal POT to adjust the sensitivity but so far as I could tell it was simply a way to raise it or lower it, offering the external switch a different window of adjustment range. In other words, the only benefit people would get from adjusting the internal pot is if the external sensitivity setting is maxed out and the unit still hasn't reached a level of unstability. I found mine was already unstabile with the external knob no where near max so adjusting it made no difference. Also be careful because you might think it can handle a higher adjustment level at home and so adjust the internal pot, but once you've got out in the field you might find even the lowest external knob setting is now falsing.
Somebody above said..."By the way. I do wonder why people need a hundred dollar pinpointer that that will detect at 3+ inches." Simple reason. It allows you to find the target without getting back up and re-pinpointing with the machine. After a long day of hunting I got real sick of getting back up because the Centech couldn't find the target. My pinpointing skills with my new Sovereign GT are not as good yet as they were with my Whites. Besides, when you are using a machine like this that can get some really outstanding depth you'll find that targets can be much deeper than originaly thought. With the Centech I'd start to wonder if I was off with my plug since I couldn't get a signal. As soon as a friend would throw me his Pro Pointer I could instantly find the target, often deeper or off to the side more than I thought. After many long days of the Centech not finding it for me and bugging my friend to throw me his Pro Pointer I finally had enough.
Not to mention that if you are using a screwdriver like you should in ball fields or other areas where we might lose our right to detect if people keep digging plugs all over the place on shallow targets when they don't have to, the Pro Pointer will give me that extra depth stock or even much more super tuned to really get down there and locate my target so I can pop it
I'm not trying to discourage people from buying the Centech. Like I said, it's better than nothing, but I would caution people who might think from reading these threads that it's just as good as say the ProPointer or Vibraprobe. It doesn't even come close, and the difference for me was whatever mild satisfaction I got using the Centech was more than overwhelmed by a lot of aggrevation on most targets. It would false enough on ground minerals to have me chasing my tail, or be so picky with it's adjustment that I could have dug the target out without a pinpointer by the time I got it tuned properly. You've got to ride the edge of unstability with it to get any kind of depth, and there's a very thin line between decent performance and falsing.
In the end, though, it's only $20 and you can not go wrong for that price. If you plan to do a lot of clad or other very shallow target hunting it will be useful to find some of those without digging and then popping with your screwdriver. When targets are three to four times deeper than that you'll still be able to locate them with the Pro Pointer but not the Centech. It saves time trying to find it with a screwdriver without digging. And, if using a machine that gets really good depth you'll find that targets are going to be further away from the initial plug you dig, either deeper or slightly off to the side, and that's also where the Pro Pointer really shines.
