My First Impression of the new SDC 2300

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Dmnz, the signal was obvious but not booming. Clean sweet sounding repeatable response that you wouldn't miss.

Yes, I don't think someone would get an SDC as a go to beach detector, but for someone getting their first ever gold detector, or upgrading from a VLF gold unit, then as an added bonus you can use the SDC on the beach and get jewellery that most discriminating coin machines would miss, especially on wet salt.

The headphone connector is a unique one. CTX is different. Not sure why the CTX one just wasn't used? Anyway, a solution to connect other headphones is coming soon - but still in the testing phase.
 
I gave the SDC another bash at the beach this arvo at a more northern Adelaide beach. Here is purred on Salt 2, and I even had it on Salt 3 at one point. No goodies, but I dug several bottle caps 1.5 times the length of my shovel!

I mentioned earlier that I would check the audio responses on different targets, so I grabbed some beach junk, and my stash of jewellery finds, set the unit on salt 1 and just passed the targets over the coil. Everything you see in the pictures produced a signal.

Here's a selection of jewellery and junk targets that the SDC picks up with a hi-low (small gold) signal

1405419386_hi_low_targets.jpg


And here's some jewellery and junk that gives a low-hi signal. Interestingly, all these are 9ct.

1405419571_low_hi_targets.jpg


The long chain that's in both photos seemed to flip between low-hi and hi-low.

So basically, if you don't want to leave jewellery behind, you gotta dig everything, but if you were in a spot riddled with crown caps and pull tabs, you could choose to ignore the low-hi's and save yourself a lot of digging!
 
g'day nenad
just wondering if you tried changing the tone over the same targets before digging?

the reason I ask is I normally use a low tone, but when I was in some really horrible mixy ground
I found some targets in low tone and before disturbing the ground I change to high tone and in a couple of different ground types the high tone had a clearer target response which surprised me as I have no high pitch hearing (the targets were small gold at 4-5 inches)
I came to the conclusion that the low tone can help smooth the machine in really crappy ground but even though the high tone had a bit more movement in the threshold from the grounds sudden changes the targets sang out a bit better.

this ground has a mix of mineralised rocks including nasty purple ironstone that you could weld together on very mixy clay bed with red claydomes popping up through it all just for good measure, but the signals just sang in high tone.
this ground gets the bigger minelabs groaning at you like a boss on Monday morning.
have you noticed this with the 23?
regards tm
 
Only a couple times to check. My general feel is that I prefer the low tone, the sound of it, the smoothness of it, but I feel that the high tone does seem to give me an edge on the small ones. On a couple real faint signals, detected in high tone, when I switched to low tone I couldn't really pick it as something I would have dug.
 
A Pom, living in south Florida and posting on an Australian prospecting, what is the world coming to? I saw this thread and thought I would chime in on a few SDC 2300 beach hunting findings. I am not a tester, just a new SDC 2300 user, and of course a big fan of Minelabs for beach and shallow water hunting. Gold chains and diamond ear rings are what I want the SDC 2300 to detect on the tourist beaches in south Florida. Only been using it since the release, and the new pi has impressed the heck out of me, in both depth and sensitivity to small targets on the lower beach. I have not spent much time in the saltwater with the SDC 2300 because I have the CTX 3030 & Excalibur, almost all my time spent using the SDC2300 has been in the wet sand, with water washing over the coil.
I started off in the normal 2 setting, as I am used to living with a little noise down in the wash. After a few hunts I changing to the salt 1 setting and boy does it run smooth and quiet, plus I heard targets going over the same area I missed using the noisier 2 setting.
I spent several evenings getting to know the SDC 2300 on the beach, digging plenty of sparkler wire after the 4th of July beach celebrations. Not many finds to write home about, but I did recover some small jewelry, toe rings, ear ring backs etc. This past weekend I found my first two pieces of gold jewelry in the wet sand, digging a ton of bottle caps and corroding zinc pennies. I reckon the junk was probably masking the two pieces of 14K. Over the next few weeks I will trying it in the shallow water opposite high end hotels, hopefully pick up a few of those hard to detect gold chains. It is definately deeper than my Excalibur on the lower beach, especially on coins. The down side is digging all the ferrous, but like I said I have plans for the SDC 2300 by playing the percentages at my productive sites. One nice half, three quarter, or one carat diamond stud ear ring will pay for the detector, maybe I will get lucky and find a thin gold ring with a big diamond in it.
Cheers Gary in south Florida.
1405427432_sat_gold.jpg
1405427472_sdc_silver.jpg
 
Hi Gary and Nenad - thanks to you both for your awesome feedback and great to see some beach finds! Gary - I have had the excal II also and the CTX3030 - both great machines for the beach, but lacking the power of a PI unit. SDC seems to be fairly on par depth wise with the ATX in stock configurations (maybe a slight advantage to the ATX given the larger stock coil) from the posts I have seen.

However, adding up the other benefits, and the possibility someone may release a bigger coil in the future, the SDC is very attractive!!!

Pity (and probably stupid) it is a different headphone connector to the CTX - so Nenads coming solution may prove a winner here.

Gary - I read with interest all of your blogs etc, have you used the ATX? If so, are you sold on the SDC over and above that machine?
 
HI Gary Drayton

thanks for chiming in and offering up your experience, a pom in Florida posting in an Australian forum, what a great world of information we live in.
All the best GD
 
Goldpick said:
I still can't understand why he didn't run the sdc through the speaker vs headphones, surely it would have been loud enough to hear?
Click to expand...

Agree. The SDC speaker is actually very loud, as long as the speaker is facing the mic.

I have used the ATX on the beach, and with a reduced sensitivity setting it didn't false like it did in the goldfields, which meant I could sweep it across the sand. This then took away the weight of the coil. So my short beach experience with the ATX was far more favorable than in the goldfields, so I know it is quite capable on the sand. However, a few things I noticed in that chain comparison video

1. They don't show what settings each machine is on
2. SDC headphones are plugged in
3. The ATX seems to be making quite the racket before it gets across the chain
 
Well I have almost convinced myself that the SDC is the way to go. I was seriously thinking of the Whites TDI but I will just have to save a bit longer. Mmmm patients Grasshopper. I just think that it could be better suited to where I live and my other addiction.... motorbikes. The SDC will fit in the topbox of my bike and can be set up in a minute.

My only worry is that I'm not sure if it will miss larger pieces if I head east or west. I guess it will pick them up, just not at depth.
 
g'day nenad
could you give any info on where you got the plug (I think I already know :lol: )
or any info about where I can get one made up, as that adapter is excactly what I've been chasing.
regards tm
 
Very sweet.
Also needs a cover for the body of the unit to help maintain appearance .... mine is showing signs of very light scratching and the ML tamper proof label on the bottom is 'Fraying at the edges.
(neoprene with cutout where the controls, speaker connection and speaker are ???, thought I had an old wetsuit laying around somewhere, or I'll have to stitch together a ***** load of stubby holders)
 
Same armrest cover as the GPX's Nenad? Had a bugger of a time the other day with the armrest folding in, it's fine in you have a thin shirt but with a thick jacket it is very difficult. Nice fix for it.

The jack would be handy too as I'm not a fan of the supplied HP, they move around all over my head.
 
Haha nows there's a thought Tee I think we all have a collection of old stubby holders hanging around. Will be watching the diy section keenly.
 
Teemore said:
Very sweet.
Also needs a cover for the body of the unit to help maintain appearance .... mine is showing signs of very light scratching and the ML tamper proof label on the bottom is 'Fraying at the edges.
(neoprene with cutout where the controls, speaker connection and speaker are ???, thought I had an old wetsuit laying around somewhere, or I'll have to stitch together a ***** load of stubby holders)
Click to expand...

DD Leather near Bendigo are working on a cover for it as we speak, going by all there other gear it will be good.
regards tm
 
Heatho said:
Same armrest cover as the GPX's Nenad? Had a bugger of a time the other day with the armrest folding in, it's fine in you have a thin shirt but with a thick jacket it is very difficult. Nice fix for it.

The jack would be handy too as I'm not a fan of the supplied HP, they move around all over my head.
Click to expand...

Yep, but first you have to velcro in a solid armrest, then slide the cover over the top. The cover stops the straps from flopping around as well.
For the solid armrest I just used the minelab plastic armrest (still used on the Excalibur) and just cut the bottom off it. I've done a video on it, but haven't got around to uploading yet. I can tell you, it makes swinging the SDC so much sweeter.
 
Looks good Nenad. Much better than the poly pipe and duct tape jobs I've seen :lol:
Do you think Minelab will iron some of these little issues out for future releases?
 

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