Explorer is confusing me..help.

[Anonymous]

I am the proud new owner of a Explorer XS. I like it alot, but it is confusing me a little. I certainly do not like the pinpoint feature as well as my old Spectrum XLT. Normally my XLT would give me a good, solid pinpoint signal and an accurate depth. The Explorer seems kind of vague about pinpointing(and depth indication). Today I hit three or four targets that looked good. High upper right on the 2-D Signagraph. Switched to digital, and they showed as "28". The depth indicator show 3/4 filled.(2 to 3 inches deep. I pinpointed. The dealer told me that the Explorer pinpoints directly under the Minelab sticker on the coil. I dug down three or four inches down, and didn't find anything. Swept the hole again, and it showed the target still there and it pinpointed in the same spot. Kept digging down to about 4 or 5 inches. Didn't find anything. Pinpointed again and it told me it was still in the hole. Dug a a little more dirt, and still nothing. Finally i stood up, switched it back to detect, and swept the area. No more target in the hole. Now, the signal was coming from my dirt pile. Checked the dirt pile, and found a clad dime. Man was i confused. My detector was still pinpointing like something was in the hole. Even after I recovered the target. I figured there must be two coins in one hole. Switched it to detect, and no signal at all. Switched to pinpoint, and it pinpointed the hole again. Started to experiment by digging other holes where there was no target, and it would pinpoint signal over the hole. Do these thing false pinpoint when put over void holes? My XLT would somtimes do that. Please help with pinpointing! And no, I'm not buying an X-1 just yet.
Thanks,
Chris Shilliday

 

[Anonymous]

Chris maybe something was in the hole you had disced out?

 

[Anonymous]

chris, give yourself some time to learn . when i first got mine it drove me crazy. now i find pinpointing very easy. i do wish minelab would have given us 8 inch coils to start out with but they didnt.
like i said it takes time to learn this machine but once you got it youll never want to pick up another.
what i did was to get the sunray 5 incher and just my opinion it really helped me in pinpointing. your useing a completely different type coil [ double D coil] and it acts alot different than your whites concentric type coil. after over a year later having the 8 incher and the x-1 probe . the explorer is a extremely deadly machine.
take your time,
stan sjmdc

 

[Anonymous]

Pinpoint mode is an all metal mode and does not use any of your discrim or iron mask settings. There was probababy a piece of junk in or near the hole that was picked up when you went to pinpoint mode.
The Explorer double D coil has a hot detecting strip running from the front of the coil to the back, about 10 inches long. Sweeping back and forth anything in this 10 inch path gets detected. I go back and forth until I can visualize a 10x2 inch strip under the coil, I know my target is in that strip someplace. Then I rotate 90 degrees to that strip and sweep back and forth, somewhere along the 10 inch strip I'll get a hit, thats my target pinpointed. I'm accurate with this method pinpointing to a 2x2 to 3x3 inch square.
At this point I usually put my foot down with the target just off my toe to mark it. Then I raise the coil in the air about knee high, pointing the coil to the horizon and switch to pinpoint mode. The manual explains why this nonsense is required. If there is a single target I will be able to easily pinpoint further to a 1x1 to 2x2 inch area using the same + pattern of sweeps. But if I find multiple targets in pinpoint (all metal) mode I'll go back to detect mode, double check my pinpoint and dig based on that. Sometimes there is a much stronger trash/iron signal near the good target so I don't rely on the pinpoint mode if I find more than one target or if the target seems to grow larger in size, indicating nearby trash.
The user manual says that pinpoint mode is 'supposed' to work like your old concentric coil with a hot spot directly under the coil. I have found that if your target is fairly isolated this is true, you can sweep at 90 degree angles and center right on top of the target. At other times, pinpoint seems to work more like the detect mode with a hot strip, only about 3-4 inches long. I don't know why but because of this I sweep all targets at 90 degrees in pinpoint mode also.
Another good reason to sweep targets at 90 degrees is that nails will tend to give a strong coin signal in one direction, and a trash or null signal at 90 degrees. Others here can explain why, I only know that its true, I dug some targets recently and confirmed all were iron, typically long and narrow like a nail.
I have found that depth is most accurate when centered on the target, if the target is more out towards the tip of the coil or back towards the rear of the coil, depth may show the target deeper than it really is.
Someone else posted a method for pinpointing in heavy trash, I'll try that myself next time out because the detect mode method above is marginal in heavy trash and pinpoint (all metal) mode is pretty much useless.
The above seems to work well for me up to a certain depth. In the 9-12+ inch depth my pinpointing is less accurate, or the device is, or both. I have abandoned some strong targets rather than dig a open pit mine trying to find it. I ordered a probe last friday, hopefull this will aid in pinpointing the deeper targets.
rck