Teknetics Delta 4000 First Thoughts Review

[bobbydadario]

OK, just got my Delta 4000 tonight and wanted to put some thoughts together to help others and perhaps others can help me too. These are just my thoughts and opinions. I am posting here for others that are interested in purchasing this model. I bought the detector for $279 and it came with the Teknetics case and pinpointer. First thing that struck me was how light is was. Surprising light, and that;'s a good thing. Packaging was good and the installation went smoothly. The hardware is not as good as my old Fisher 1265 that I have. The 5-pin connector is not as robust and the coil is held together with a plastic bolt and nut. These two parts do not inspire a lot of confidence that it will last 10 years. The detector length can be easily adjusted. The coil and the rods fit together nicely with no slop when you swing. The coil wire wraps on the outside of the rod - it would have been nicer to run in inside the rod ala Minelab. My unit came out of the box with a bump on the touchpad on the lower left corner. No arm strap included although there are holes for one. Come on First Texas! Include an armstrap please (and a nicer bolt/nut to hold the coil) - seriously, were are talking less than $2.00.

After I assembled the detector, it was time to go outside to do some air tests. Quarters and dimes ring out with a high tone (why not nickels?). Newer pennies and nickels have a medium tone. My hope and expectation was that I would get 8" on the quarter airtest. That was not the case - I had consistent hits at around 6.5 - 7". At 7" the tone started to deteriorate. Pennies seemed to hit at about 6" and nickels 5".

Out to a newer ball field at 9:30 at night. I wanted to test the performance and pinpointing capabilities. I detected a section that I detected with my old Explorer XS. I found my first coin sound 5 minutes after setting up the detector. I had a solid hit at 75 - Zinc penny. The Delta pinpoints impressively - easy and accurate. The next hit was a 1974 penny, and it did register with a higher ID number. The Delta is so light that you can easily grab it while on your knees to check out to see if the target is out of the hole. I didn't worry about the depth scale.... it was dark and all the targets I found with the Explorer were 2-3 inches. Each target I found pinpointed accurately. I notched out all items accept for coins. The machine runs very quiet, no pops, hisses, or nulls. A few minutes later I get a repeatable signal that registers at a consistent 82. I am thinking another older penny, but no - a dime pops out of the small hole. My airtests tell me that nickels register at 58... so does pulltabs. I dug quite a few. Anyone have advice here (and yes they were repeating signals). Maybe I can tell by the sound after I put enough hours in. The target ID resets itself quickly.

Overall I am pleased. I think that it's priced about right for what you get. My biggest concern is that it doesn't seem to go too deep. Perhaps the 11" DD coil will get me to 8-10"????. I sure could have used an optional backlight tonight! I plan on adding more commentary regarding this detector as I get more experience with it. I also plan to comment on the pinpointer and case, stay tuned. Please, if you know how to differentiate nickels from pull tabs - comment. Oh yeah, I found 2 dimes and 3 pennies.

 

[BuckeyeBrad]

I don't see where it says you bumped the sensitivity up from the pre-set. Depth difference between 8 (the preset) and 10 or 11 is quite a bit! I can run at 11 but not 12 and depth is not an issue at that setting.

 

[bobbydadario]

Brad,

Good point. I didn't mention that I bumped the sensitivity up from 8 to 10. For the hour + that I used it in the CT soil, it ran smooth and quiet. Running the Delta at 12 just made it chatter. I'm not sure about 11 though. The Delta has another interesting feature - You can set the discrimination sensitivity and the All Metals sensitivity at different levels. I did toggle between them on occasion, I need more experience before I comment on the A1 All Metal mode (seems the numbers were "jumpy", even on good targets). But even air testing in All Metal mode (A1), it only went about an 1/2" deeper. I did experiment using different sweep speeds - Doesn't seem to make a difference. In fact, the excellent manual does not mention sweep speed at all. Setting up notch was an easy, straight forward affair. Using it in this mode made for a really quiet hunt because I only accepted coins. I still need to figure out the nickel/pull tab issue. I thought that even though they both ID'ed at the same number, the pull tab would not hit consistently. I dug 4-5 pull tabs however that were consistent even when I X'ed them.

 

[BuckeyeBrad]

Depending on the makeup of the soil and target depth, ID's can and probably be relatively jumpy. Dryness will affect that also. How wide of a sweep you use when sampling the target for ID impacts this also. If you make sure you are only sweeping about three or four inches across the exact center of the target, then that is about as good as it gets on the ID. The most recent version of tabs are virtually the same as a nickle on any detector and if they're relatively shallow, there is little you can do to differentiate them from nickles. One thing is as you sweep over the tab or nickle, slowly raise your coil as you continue to make that 3" wide sweep and watch how the ID's deteriorate as distance to the target increases. The deterioration rate of the two targets should be slightly different and that is your best bet in discerning which it is. There may also be a subtle difference in audio "quality" if you slow your sweep speed way down as you do the 3" "inspection sweep". A-1 in ground performance (the actual depth you can hear the target) should be more than 1/2" better than disc. Chances are you can run AM just a tad hotter than disc using overall stability as the common measure. Again, depending on the ground and or potential type of localized interference, that may or may not be true. Just keep experimenting and paying close attention to the cause and effect of different settings and your actual detecting procedure and you'll soon discover for sure what delivers the best results. Good hunting and enjoy the fine detector you have!

 

[bobbydadario]

Brad,

Thank you for your input and advice. I have been going slow once I have identified a probable target. Since I am just learning [this machine], I want to see how how the sweep speed affects the ID and how consistent the numbers are. The numbers did jump around last night, but it has also been very dry. This did not prevent me from finding coins however. I will try your ideas on nickels and give All Metals more time so I learn it. I was hoping that the nickel would sound more "round". Maybe that works more for analog machines than digital. I will try your techniques later today. I know that if you want the nickels/gold, your going to dig pull tabs.... but any little advantage that I get is a +. My thinking here is that lots of detectorist pass over the iffy tab signals on their way to silver. Sure would be nice having a nickel "killer" on my hands. With the Explorer, I found no nickels because I didn't have any confidence that it wouldn't be a pull tab. I also found it very difficult to accurately pinpoint. At least the Delta is simple to pinpoint, so I really don't mind digging a bit. I found tons of nickels with my old Fishers 1265, but without target ID, I just did lots of digging.

 

[bobbydadario]

It takes a big man to admit I was wrong, but I need to correct my air test numbers. After rereading Brad's post and speaking with the dealer, I double checked the sensitivity setting. When I tested again, I verified that the sensitivity was indeed at 11. On 11 the quarter read at 10" and dimes, nickels, and pennies came in around 9.5. The sensitivity is vital to get good depth. At 9 I was getting only 7.5" on the quarter. I did not test sensitivity 12 because I cannot hunt that high in my soil. This is more inline with what I expected with the stock coil. I hunted my backyard at sensitivity 11 this afternoon and found 5 pennies. Three pennies came from one hole at 6-7" deep. The target ID number jumped around just a little, but it was clear it was a good signal. I didn't get any better results using All Metal. That's OK because I really like the audio sounds in discriminate mode. This unit amazes me how accurate the pinpointing is. Doing these air tests got me a bit curious on how well my old Fishers 1265 would do. Well at almost full sensitivity (I turned it down till it didn't chatter). 6.5" on a quarter.... and that was pretty faint. I remember digging a 1895 Quarter a few years back on barely hearing a faint beep. That quarter was about 5-6 inches.

Does anyone else have air tests for the Gamma of Omega? I would be very interested in numbers testing the 11" dd coil.... anyone out there willing?

 

[Bill_S]

I have not used the Delta but I do own an Omega. On the Omega most nickels will read at 56-57. I have never dug a nickel that hit at 56 or 57 and then jumped to 58 or 59. In other words if I get a nickel signal that is mostly hitting 56-57 and then jumps occasionally to 58 or 59 it has never been a nickel. I am not saying that deeper ones will not jump around but signals that do have not been nickels. Most of the nickles I dig will stay at a solid 56-57. The square tabs lock on at 57 so they are hard to tell apart from nickels. I tried sweeping both ways, etc trying to figure out a way to tell them apart. No luck yet....;o)

If you can figure out what number the nickel comes in at on the Delta and then just dig those signals that do not jump around you may have better luck. I will see if I can do some air tests on coins and post that for you too.

 

[Mark ( ohio )]

when I had my omega, nickels hit everywhere from 52 up into the low 60"s... That was just one of many complaints I had about that detector...Needless to say I don't have it any longer, it was horrendous in my ground.

Mark ( ohio )

 

[bobbydadario]

Thanks Bill S and Mark (ohio) for your feedback. My experience so far is that nickels air test at 57. When I get a target at 57 and the number doesn't jump around.... I dig a pull tab. Most of the times though the numbers do jump around. When this happens, the manual suggests that it will be trash. Since I'm new, I will have to experiment more. So I guess my experience so far is more like Mark's. Out of the 25+ coins I have found, none have been nickels. It's important the the target ID numbers are somewhat accurate because unlike other detectors, the Delta either sounds off or it doesn't. Where my old detector would chatter and sputter over pull tabs, the Delta sounds right off. I did bump up the sensitivity to the maximum of 12 will no ill effects.

 

[BuckeyeBrad]

There's just so much that can be going on around the range of nickle ID's. A lot of folks think along the lines of "well my old (fill in the blank for whatever detector) used to nail nickles!" What they may or may not be thinking is that was then and this is now. In other words, comparisons other than in real time are practically useless. It's been an exceptionally dry summer in a lot of locations and that can cause ID to jump around more than typical. Is the nickle that is jumpy perfectly level as it lays? Do you take the extra time to carefully excavate a jumpy target to try and determine why it was doing such? So many that are left aren't laying flat and that's why others opted not to dig them in the first place because of their less than perfect ID's. CZ's have always been touted as good on nickles but remember it is detecting an acceptable range of ID's for nickles, not a single number or two. The very first Buffalo nickle I recovered using a CZ came in as a high coin/ zinc bounce. The real rule is that there aren't any. If someone doesn't want to dig trash occasionally, they certainly are potentially missing a lot of old good stuff because those types of targets usually aren't going to display a lock on type of ID. It's all part of the learning process of knowing your detector and the sites/targets that you are hunting. Bobby, keep up the good work, you're on your way for sure!

 

[bobbydadario]

Brad,

Thanks for the encouragement! I know from experience that you are right.... you're going to dig a lot of trash at the nickel ID. You're right, I don't have enough time into the machine to know it's ins and outs. I did try to go by the manual.... If the number jumps around it's probably trash. I do see my numbers jump around (sometimes on good targets), but it's usually clear enough to me to dig. For example, a dime might jump from zinc up to quarter (and back to dime). Even a tight sweep, the number can vary a bit. I dig and I find a dime (or an older penny). If the numbers hop from quarter to foil and make a quick stop on aluminum, those target are trash (I haven't hit a good one yet under these circumstances). I didn't stop to dig very many jumpy signals yesterday because; I was finding good coins and wanted to focus IDing those targets that I would want to keep, and this was a really trashy inner city ball field. There were bottle caps all over the ground! I was happy the get the number of coins that I did with all that trash. If I had been searching a cleaner area, I would have dug those iffier targets because I would think there would be a higher percentage of a nickel vs pull tab. I did dig a few of those targets that locked on to 57 (solidly - both sweep directions and not jumping) only to find a few screw caps and pull tabs.

I really cannot compare this detector to others because I never used the ID numbers on the Explorer XS (only the graph) and I found 0 nickels in 2 years. I also used a Fisher 1265 (with no meter) and found my share of nickels and a boat load of trash I will say that's it's not a big deal to dig because of the accurate pinpointing. I was able to run the Delta at sensitivity 12 yesterday, and it ran smoothly.

Now if I could only figure out All Metal! When I do hit on an iffy target, I toggle into A1 All Metal mode. I don't find that it makes a bit of difference.... number jump and I don't seem to get any additional depth. It's actually hard for me to use this mode because the targets don't sound off "crisp" and you lose the audio tones. I only use this mode to better ID only the deep target. So far, it doesn't seem to help me.

 

[Mark ( ohio )]

in 2 yrs you NEVER found a nickel !!!! A couple of things must be happening... A) your notching out the area where nickels fall...B) you are not understanding where on the grid nickels fall, or C) how much actual hunting time have you put on the explorer in those 2 yrs?? Was this your primary detector, or something you used 1-2 times a month.....I can say with accurate certaintity when my explorer passes over a nickel, no matter what the depth, or how dry/moist the ground is..its a 5 cent piece....Thats a fact.

Mark ( ohio )

 

[BuckeyeBrad]

detector performance can be connected to location because The XS and II were my primary for several years and I hunted almost daily at the time. Despite the dual axis ID, they were not superior for nickel detection around here especially at depth.

 

[Mark ( ohio )]

I have personally, as have my hunting partners taken nickels from beyond the 10 inch mark from an old fairgrounds here in Mahoning CO. with correct id...As would be expected at those depths they were shields and of course V's... So you can go on believing, and writing what you want... I certainly know better!! And remember something else.. I've had 2 omega 8000 and both were horrible at iding nickels.. VDI's ran the gamut from 52-63/64.. You might as well dig everything, odds are you'll hita nickel sometime..

Have a nice Day.

Mark ( ohio )

 

[bobbydadario]

I really don't want to bash the Explorer XS, but........ I did not notch out nickels.... maybe I had a hard time hearing them. I found that the Explorer was a difficult machine to learn. I would run the detector at All Metal -12. I have heard all the stories about how great the machine is, but I just never clicked with it (on land). I had three issues with it 1) When the cursor hit the upper right hand corner, sometimes I got canslaw or screw caps. 2) Very difficult for me to pinpoint - I was digging craters because it sounded off over like 3-4" 3) It was very slow to reset - I ended up inching along.

I know that the Delta is not in the same league as the Explorer (and in all fairness, there were a few later versions out that I didn't use). But, the few times I have used it, I had fun because I could go faster and pinpoint easier. The depths that you are pulling those nickels out is impressive.... I wouldn't even come close on the Delta. And the Explorer was a real monster on the beach (I got tired just digging so deep). I bought the Explorer for the beach and it was great (excellent backlight for early morning hunts!) But when I would go to an old, trashy parks, it just sounded like a jumble of sounds. I didn't have a mentor to teach me the sounds and I guess I gave up on it. i

I think Brad is right that it might depend on your location. I remember in the late 80's early 90's just poppng out old coins from 2". Of course the low hanging fruit is gone by now and the deeper targets remain. I also wonder how many coins really sink 10" in New England. Well maybe with all our freezes and thaws. But how come I found lots of old coins shallow? Why do some sink that far down?

 

[BuckeyeBrad]

and perhaps re-read my post again. I did not say you were full of it and I did not say I don't believe you've experienced what you say you did around your Explorer doing a good job ID'ing nickles up your way. What I said was to acknowledge what most experienced hunters already know to be true and that is any given detector's performance (or lack thereof) may work a certain way at one location and not the same at another. What I said was that the Explorers I've had did not have stellar nickle performance around here. That too is a fact. If you think I was bashing the Explorer in general, you might want to ask yourself why you read my words and heard something else.

 

[texasyankee]

I would like to upgrade from my Delta 4000 8" coil to a 11"DD coil. I have found I would have to pay $129.00 for the 11"DD coil. Is the upgrade in fact worth the investment? Does anybody know where I can find a better price?

texasyankee

 

[ran60]

I would like to upgrade from my Delta 4000 8" coil to a 11"DD coil. I have found I would have to pay $129.00 for the 11"DD coil. Is the upgrade in fact worth the investment? Does anybody know where I can find a better price?

texasyankee

I don't know about the DD11 but I'm glad you found this post...It proves I'm not the only one having problems and it's the Delta not me..thanks