Help with Infinium problem

[Rockpile]

Just bought a new Infinium LS. It runs well on the dry sand and into the wet sand and water to about knee deep. This is where it becomes useless. My ocean has waves, today they were about 1 foot high. when I get into the area where the waves are rising over the coil and changing depth / salt mineralization the machine just freaks out and goes full tilt into HiLo signals that are ear shattering. Wont quit till I either lift the coil well clear of the water or shut the machine off. I tried ground balancing under the wave action, tried fast track all to no avail. Seems like this Infinium is incorrectly named Land and Sea . It will not run in the Sea. I had to resort to my 10 year old detector to get gold. The old Fisher was true and stable.

Anyone had similar problem and if so, did you find a solution?

I have emailed Garrett and will call them on Monday to see if I have a defective unit or they have a solution.

 

[Rockpile]

I did another test today. I swapped the hip mounted control box back to the shaft mount. i used the 8 inch mono coil and wrapped the cable tight around the shaft. I headed to a very calm salt water beach with a barrier reef so there were no waves, just flat water with a little south to north current.

Machine worked satisfactory out until I got deep enough to immerse the control box. It then went crazy again giving full volume HiLo signals. It would only stop when the entire assembly was raised completely clear of the water and still took about 30 seconds to quiet back to threshold.
It must be defective or poorly designed. I know the early Infiniums were poor in salt water but they told me the newer ones were stable. Yeah. I will call Garrett tomorrow and hope to fine some satisfactory answers. $1000 bucks is a lot of money to me just to throw in the trash bin. I will let you know what I learn. I am sure Garrett will have a solution. Years ago I had a Sea Hunter XL500 and Garrett was good as gold at fixing it when things went bad which was seldom. This machine is only a week old.

 

[diggindirt]

Sounds defective and Garrett will get it working for you.

 

[John-Edmonton]

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

1) You picked a quiet operating frequency?

2) You reset the discrimination knob to about up to 3?

3) You set the thresh hold knob to zero or until you hear a faint hum?

4) You bobbed the coil in slow mode till it was stable, then fast mode till it was stable then put it in the "LOCK" position? If you don't put it in lock position, it will be forever trying to ground balance itself with automatic ground tracking, having to compete with moving water around the coil and box. Have you tried another coil to rule out a bad coil? You may have to call Garrett if after all the aboce check out and it still does not work. On the plus side, Garrett will look after you, and they are home based in USA.

Good luck.......I feel your pain.

 

[John-Edmonton]

My experience has been that the machine (in fresh water) goes a little noisy after it gets wet and comes out with the box at or just above water level. however, when the box goes under water, it is very stable and quiet. So......I hunt the waist deep water either with my knees slightly bent to keep the box under water, or keep the rod more vertical to keep the box slightly above water. When the box does come out of the water, it runs a little unstable for about a minute, then calms right down.

 

[Joe Kononchik]

First the mono does not handle the salt well. The mono 's are to sensitive to use there. I find to big 2d stock coil is the best. I agree with john move the Disc. or delay up to 1.5 to 2.75. You may have to play with the knob to find your best setting. I find my to be a little different every hunt. Use lock of the bat. Using ground balance is useless in salt water. If you have ground minerals balance to wet sand first then lock and go into the water and find your disc. setting. If you still get noise you may have a older style coil also try touching the coil connector if you get noise your sheilding maybe bad. Then I would call garrett to see maybe what needs to be done. hope this helps. You get it running right you will like the performance. it will take sometime to really understand the Infinium.Good hunting,Joe

 

[scrooge]

I use mine in the Atlantic ocean in Florida and was having similar problems; posted the same questions here and on other forums only to find most owners have had some type of problems with the machine.

Here is what I have learned after a year of owning the Infinium, It has been sent in twice for repairs that included the DD coil being replaced both times (shielding problems), a loose solider connection on the circuit board and recalibration on the second trip. The folks at Garrett were great , they fielded my questions and made the repairs at no charge as they were covered under warranty. Once I got my Infinium back I read posts where users did everything from turning the threshold all the way past max and back, to running the unit with the threshold at zero and a ton of other things. I decided to conduct my own test so I took my Infinium with the DD coil to my local beach dug two six inch deep holes in the dry sand tied a strings to a 14K ring and 10K ring buried each in a separate hole, ground balanced the machine set the threshold at 4 and listened (the 4 setting on my unit is just above silent) and I was able to run the discrimination at zero......as I increased the discrimination the obvious happened past 4 the unit began to give erratic signals and could not identify the rings . The below 4 the unit had no problem giving the HI/LO but as I decreased the threshold to zero the unit had a harder time identifying the rings and the tone seemed to give off echos. I then moved to wet sand and conducted the same experiment and had similar results but to get the unit relatively quite I had to move the discrimination to 1. That being said it still gave the HI/LO.... until the discrimination was turned past 4 the results were the same as the dry sand...I have never been able to get the unit really quite in the surf but it is better since the last trip in for repairs.
Here are some tones my machine makes on certain items: zinc pennies give an echo as the coil comes to the end of the swing. Bottle caps give a HI/LO but the LO tone seems drawn out or longer , bobby pins have there own distinct sound. Clad coins LO/HI. These sounds are what I have found on my unit it may or may not be that way for others. MOST IMPORTANTLY SLOOOOOW DOWN THE SWING!!!!!!! I have used a Whites Pi for twenty years and could swing it much faster than the Infinium. I found that slowing down the swing has allowed me to find deeper items I was missing, as the coil approaches a target you will start to hear a tonal change even if you don't get a solid signal( HI/LO or LO/HI). If this happens I stop then go over the area extremely slow to check for a solid signal.

My opinion of the Infinium: it is a deep PI machine but I can't say it is any deeper than my Whites PI , with the DD coil it is heavy , not a machine for beginners,costumer service was great. Over all in spite of the problems I have still found clad coins, silver jewelery (really seems to like silver) and a nice 3 gram 10K gold medallion plus the expected ton of junk from using a PI machine. If I had it to do again I would have purchased the Whites duel field but that's just me....

 

[asanaman]

ROCKPILE... DON'T GIVE UP... It's worth the wait...

Well guys it's me and have I got great news... I was able to get to the Beach today on the ATLANTIC side at Tybee Island... Turned this bad boy on, ground balanced Locked it in and went to work.. This machine was so smooth in the salt water I actually started laughing out loud. The transitions from the dry to wet, into the surf and chest deep was great.. There was no falsing except from the cable at the coil. I had noted in another post that in fresh water I was only using one velcro strap to secure the cable, BUT I can see now I will be securing it a little better. I was using the 8" Mono, and as those of you who have followed know Garrett replaced mine with a new machine and coils. I was hitting targets good and bad without a miss.

After reading the post Scrooge had written on here tonight both here and on the post about what Phil recommended, I thought about what I had done when I set mine up. It appears I done the identical thing when I started this evening. I hunted well into the night and was really not wanting to leave. It was great to see the first Salt water run was so smooth and to me without a BLEMISH...

I wish I would have had about 75 pounds of diving weights because the surf was rough. I was getting knocked around like a rag doll. I guess it was actng up from the hurricane out there, but was fun.

NO RINGS OR JEWELRY, but I found quite a few coins and the trash that goes with it.

Hope one day that for all who shared an idea or thought, I will be able to pass through and get in a hunt with ya'....

Later,
Asanaman

 

[Rockpile]

OK, New Deal.. This morning i received a new Infinium from Garrett. Came with both coils. i headed off to a local beach and set it up. Ground balanced, selected a clear frequency with only minimal chatter. i waded into the water set up just as before with my first machine, 40 lbs of lead on my waste, face mask snorkel and mac chine shaft mounted with the 8 inch mono coil. when I got out to chest deep water it was still purring with a nice stable threshold. Had a little variation in threshold as waves passed over but nothing that messed up signals. I went over to a place I knew had some large rocks embedded in the sand. these rocks set off most machines with their mineralization. I ducked my head under water and still the machine was stable. The original would be running full tilt now with a constant signal blowing out my ears. This one was perfect. it was silent against the big rocks. I worked around the first one and then passed between two that were about 14 inches apart and standing two feet above the sand. I got my first signal with this infinium. it was a clean HiLo. I took a breath and sunk to the bottom, fanned away 6 inches of sand and passed the coil over again. Again a nice but stronger HiLo. another fan and yep, to my surprise was the rim of a nice gold ring showing through. I plucked it up and examined it. it was a nice, but small, Fredrich Goldman 14K wedding band. Pretty nice find for the first target on a new Infinium on it's first 5 minutes in the water. so now I have an Infinium that does work in salt water just as it should. Another 30 minutes of hunting produced a sinker from way down deep, a few clad coins, a stud ear ring (junk) and a nice 925 plumeria carved ring.

The test is satisfactory. So much betta than the first machine. Garrett folks were good as gold in making this right. Sent me the replacement machine along with a return mailer to send my original back. It would have been great to have had the original work with out a problem but you sure can't give Garrett a hard time when they try so hard to make it right. Good folks there.

 

[John-Edmonton]

Nice ring too.....

 

[Rockpile]

thanks to all. I took the new machine to a place with very adverse conditions. rough water with waves breaking on your head in 4 feet of water with a highly mineralized volcanic bottom. Much of the bottom is a conglomerate of volcanic rock and heavy sand all bonded together. there is a covering of sand that is from a couple feet deep to inches deep. I set the machine up and went hunting. i had some threshold variation even with the disc set at 3 but I have been doing this for years and my ear is tuned to know when it is a target. I pulled many coins from the deeper sand and one nice 14K carved band that was not very deep. Only about 6 or 8 inches.Looked like it was a fresh drop. any of my other machines would have claimed it. I went into the very highly mineralized part that i have hunted many times. It is difficult at best and takes full concentration. I figured I had it cleaned out of any old gold. The infinium gave many false signals or lets say, not false but responding to the high iron. Those were Lo Hi sounds so i just ignored them as i wanted any gold that might be present. I was able to hear a faint Hi tone that was not followed by the normal Lo. I figured it was deep or very small. The bottom was the fused conglomerate and the sound came from a natural crack about 6 inches wide. A good breath of air and i ducked under for some vigorous fanning. I had to pry several rocks loose and move them. I was down about 6 or 8 inches and i passed the coil again. the HiLO was now loud and clear. I fanned more , pried more till I was down about 10 inches or more. It took about 15 minutes to get down to my target, my second gold ring today which was a nice mans wedding 14K. band. Half an hour later i got another nice clear faint signal. a HI with no Lo. I followed about the same procedure and finally hit gold number 3, a very nice 18K Plat 900 that was engraved with a date in 1985. the engraving was as sharp as the day it was made so I guess this ring has been eluding me for all this time. The Garrett proved it's ability to work in adverse conditions. It must be hunted very slow like this. Sweep not more than a foot per second. My VLF machines like a much faster sweep in here but give up about an inch of depth.

so I have hunted twice now with the new Infinium and have 4 nice gold rings in two days. Not a record for me by any means but nice stuff for the tough conditions. I think I will still like my VLF's for the open less mineralized areas but this machine will get used plenty.

 

[John-Edmonton]

More gold rings to add to the pile...keep them coming

 

[diggindirt]

ROCKPILE... DON'T GIVE UP... It's worth the wait...

Well guys it's me and have I got great news... I was able to get to the Beach today on the ATLANTIC side at Tybee Island... Turned this bad boy on, ground balanced Locked it in and went to work.. This machine was so smooth in the salt water I actually started laughing out loud. The transitions from the dry to wet, into the surf and chest deep was great.. There was no falsing except from the cable at the coil. I had noted in another post that in fresh water I was only using one velcro strap to secure the cable, BUT I can see now I will be securing it a little better. I was using the 8" Mono, and as those of you who have followed know Garrett replaced mine with a new machine and coils. I was hitting targets good and bad without a miss.

After reading the post Scrooge had written on here tonight both here and on the post about what Phil recommended, I thought about what I had done when I set mine up. It appears I done the identical thing when I started this evening. I hunted well into the night and was really not wanting to leave. It was great to see the first Salt water run was so smooth and to me without a BLEMISH...

I wish I would have had about 75 pounds of diving weights because the surf was rough. I was getting knocked around like a rag doll. I guess it was actng up from the hurricane out there, but was fun.

NO RINGS OR JEWELRY, but I found quite a few coins and the trash that goes with it.

Hope one day that for all who shared an idea or thought, I will be able to pass through and get in a hunt with ya'....

Later,
Asanaman

Glad to hear your machine is humming along like it should!!!

 

[diggindirt]

thanks to all. I took the new machine to a place with very adverse conditions. rough water with waves breaking on your head in 4 feet of water with a highly mineralized volcanic bottom. Much of the bottom is a conglomerate of volcanic rock and heavy sand all bonded together. there is a covering of sand that is from a couple feet deep to inches deep. I set the machine up and went hunting. i had some threshold variation even with the disc set at 3 but I have been doing this for years and my ear is tuned to know when it is a target. I pulled many coins from the deeper sand and one nice 14K carved band that was not very deep. Only about 6 or 8 inches.Looked like it was a fresh drop. any of my other machines would have claimed it. I went into the very highly mineralized part that i have hunted many times. It is difficult at best and takes full concentration. I figured I had it cleaned out of any old gold. The infinium gave many false signals or lets say, not false but responding to the high iron. Those were Lo Hi sounds so i just ignored them as i wanted any gold that might be present. I was able to hear a faint Hi tone that was not followed by the normal Lo. I figured it was deep or very small. The bottom was the fused conglomerate and the sound came from a natural crack about 6 inches wide. A good breath of air and i ducked under for some vigorous fanning. I had to pry several rocks loose and move them. I was down about 6 or 8 inches and i passed the coil again. the HiLO was now loud and clear. I fanned more , pried more till I was down about 10 inches or more. It took about 15 minutes to get down to my target, my second gold ring today which was a nice mans wedding 14K. band. Half an hour later i got another nice clear faint signal. a HI with no Lo. I followed about the same procedure and finally hit gold number 3, a very nice 18K Plat 900 that was engraved with a date in 1985. the engraving was as sharp as the day it was made so I guess this ring has been eluding me for all this time. The Garrett proved it's ability to work in adverse conditions. It must be hunted very slow like this. Sweep not more than a foot per second. My VLF machines like a much faster sweep in here but give up about an inch of depth.

so I have hunted twice now with the new Infinium and have 4 nice gold rings in two days. Not a record for me by any means but nice stuff for the tough conditions. I think I will still like my VLF's for the open less mineralized areas but this machine will get used plenty.

Excellent report!!!