The few problems that we have had aside, if the machine is still finding enough to keep us busy fairly happy for hundreds of hours each (about 500 total), it DOES speak well of the detecting experience with the V3, which we bought due to having such a FANTASTIC time with the MXT. The experience with the V3 has beat the MXT hands down, because as technophiles it is great fun for us to learn to adjust and interpret the V3. The ONLY problem is that depth seems to be consistantly much less than with the MXT...as in half or less. We would expect that, in multi-frequency mode the V3 could be expected to be not quite as deep on coins/small gold as the MXT, which is a high, single-frequency detector. Detecting in 22.5 single frequency does improve depth a bit, but it still doesn't come close.
It did take 2-3 weeks to figure out how to quiet the machine down and not be drowning in data, but after reading many of the posts here and learning, any falsing issues, EMI issues, and detector interference became as manageable. We still can't figure it out every time, but 95% of the time, if we want to detect somewhere, we can tweak it enough to have fun and find stuff. That, and the analyze screen is a dream for interpreting finds before the dig.
Regarding Problems: , as we have an early Vision, we had one pod explosion due to the wrong hardware and the original coil shipped recommended gain of 2 consistently. Those two weren't user error, though depth concerns may be. We're calling whites for advice today, having seemingly exhausted most standard adjustments as described in the manual and in the videos in terms of achieving depth greater than 4 inches or so using the 10DD. A V-rated 5.3 and 6x10 and a non-v-rated Bigfoot (Great fun coil!!!) have also been used, with similar results. There may be something we're missing and we have posted up for assistance from the experts on the forum here and look forward to advice.
So far, we have received two personal PMs on this site that the depth problems may be associated with a calibration issue on early models (we have #17 off the line) but I still haven't figured out whether that would impact depth reported (usually half of
Regarding Customer Service: When the BHID was also shipped with a bad coil, and then the replacement coil wasn't watertight, Whites went above and beyond in terms of customer service, eventually sending a new machine. We have no doubt that 1) If there is a mechanical problem whites with ID and fix it and 2) that if we haven't figured it out we are going to continue to try to learn, maybe seeking out someone in our area with a similar machine for help. Our dealer is far away, so its not possible to go there for help in person.
Tater