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New V3i User

A

ATP-Relic-Hunter

New member
Hello all,

I have currently been using a Garrett AT Pro with the NEL coils. Well, I jus took a big jump and purchased a V3i. In fact, I am still waiting for it to arrive. If you have one piece of advise you could tell me about using the V3i, what would it be?

Thank you ,

Rodney
 
Hi Rodney and welcome to V3i ownership!

#1 piece of advice, don't get too crazy with adjustments until you really get to know your machine. Start with the preset programs and gradually start tweaking one or two adjustments and don't move on to other adjustments until you fully understand the previous ones. Even if you stay with the preset programs, it's a very capable detector.

#2 (sorry I had to add another pointer!) on the V3i it is very important to get a good ground balance. It's trickier than in most machines and has a big effect on performance. Carefully make sure you have a good ground balance and even consider locking it once you get a good balance.

There are many other pointers but if I had to boil it down to the most impirtant 2, these would be it.

Learning the V3i is a really satisfying journey. Good luck!

Darren
 
Hi Rodney,

Number 1 suggestion from me would be to lock your ground balance after you get it balanced.

Number 2 suggestion would be to cycle through the presets and find the program that you like the best and then using that as your base program, tune it to fit you needs. For example, I like the prospecting program the best so I used that as my base. As a base program it already has the basic performance and recovery speed in place. Then I turned multi-frequency on, turned on tone id, added a little disc and made some changes to the spectragraph to suit me and viola! I was good to go. For some reason I found that easier than trying to fix the Coin & Jewelry program. You may find it different.

Number 3 suggestion is to get that first 'turn on and go' program created as fast as you can. When that is in place you are hunting with it more than fiddling with it.

Number 4 suggestion is to keep the Gain about 7 and use the Disc sensitivity setting to maintain stability until you get used to it. Higher gain settings mainly affect the coil footprint size more that depth.

Good luck. Its a great instrument.
HH
Mike
 
Thank you for all of the great info Darren and Mike. I really appreciate it. You both have provided me with some great things to think about. In fact, I just received my V3i yesterday afternoon but I have not had a chance to take it out yet. About all I have done is put it together and register it.

By the way, what is your opinion on the Coils to use? I realize I will get greater depth with a concentric and a smaller coil has much better separation, but is there anything else I should know? I purchased a package deal and it came with a 10"DD, a 9" waterproof spider loop coil and the Detector 13" DD coil.

Thanks again,

Rodney
 
Rodney, either the 5.3 Eclipse or 4x6 Shooter would be great additions for those trashy areas. :thumbup:
 
Rodney,
Getting the package deal was a great idea. Start out with the 9" concentric and switch over to the 13" when you get into the wide open areas.

HH
Mike
 
Mike is spot on. The 9" concentric is a very good coil to learn on. It's stable, id's well, and has a nice symmetrical pattern that is straightforward and easy to visualize. And it's a good general purpose size.

You will want to add a small coil eventually and then you'll be set. The 5.3 is great, as wasp mentioned, and I prefer it over the 4x6 which is almost too small. Another option for a smallish coil would be the 8x6 sef. Out of the three coils in your package deal, the one I'd use the least is the 10"dd. The 13" and 9" are both excellent coils however, and along with one small coil, that's all you should ever need.

One of the nice things about the v3i is the huge coil selection and that it shares coils with the mxt making all these coils easy to find new or used.
 
The v does not need high RX to go deep . Sweep speed is important should be slow and steady for the best results.good gb is paramount . Trust the machine, once u learn this machine u will love it but u have to get know it . It's not hard u just have to pay attention to what it's telling u . I wouldn't trade my v for any machine on the market atm , imo the v is the best out there . So many tools to help us make good decisions . I never dig bottle caps anymore unless I wanna test the machine . It hasn't been wrong yet :)
 
Very good advice you've gotten!

Out of those three coils, I suggest you work with the 9" coil at this time. The next coil I woulda bought if I knew then, what I found out later, is to get the Detech 8x6. I wasted lots of good hunt time using the D2. The 8x6 was a real game changer.

Two settings you'll want to change for power savings is lower the backlight from factory. It comes set high and eats batteries, lowest setting is what I suggest. Second is dropping the wireless headphone's power. Setting level 1 is perfect for me.

You'll also want to switch "pinpoint audio" to VCO. None of these setting changes will effect actual detector performance except for the ease in pinpoint when set to VCO.
 
I have the V3i and AT Pro. Love the Bigger Nel coils. Anyway if you like the big coils go with the Ultimate 13. It's awesome. Start with Coin and Jewelry and modify form there. I can only get RX to 7 here in Spokane. But run AM 72 and Disc 82. Somewhere read you should keep DISC 10 higher than AM. Try Mix Mode Stereo. Keep modulation off, use VCO for pinpointing. When you feel comfortable use tone ID and then edit your tones to where you would like them. Don't notch out VDI's but assign 0 tones to the ones you don't want. The V can be frustrating but start using it gradually. When you get frustrated just use the At Pro because your familiar with it. Don't give up on the V though. Theses 2 detectors compliment each other.

Happy Hunting MackDog
 
I run with very little discrimination. Most of the negative vdi's are set with a #5 tone. The #5 tone is not an irritating sound but it let's me know why a target of interst is possibility intermittent because of the close proximity of iron.
 
Very important. Run 15 minutes on Autotrack, then switch to Loctrack. Why? Internal GB. Matrix must to work to get average values for area and ground conditions.
 
It might not be as important as one might think. I do a manual GB and lock it, my ground is pretty consistent. If your GB varies so much that you have to do a 15 minute average, you might be better off leaving it in Autotrac.
 
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