Minelab SD2000 tips, settings, questions

it is 3g of flour g

Gave it a run today up the mountain. I think i balanced it well but still having difficulty distinguishing the difference between a signal and ground noise.

Hi spottedgum ground noise hay! dam nuisance isn't it, but there no escaping, it is part of the game, practice makes perfect dig every target until you are confident enough with your machine to walk away from a signal. As far as small gold signal goes it can also depend on what coil you are running the bigger the coil the deeper it goes and the smaller the coil the more sensitivity. If you are using the standard 11 inch DD coil get your self a small lead pellet from a shotgun cartridge and fold a bit of paper masking tape over it and carry it with you to throw out and run the coil over it if you can pick up the signal your doing OK.
Practice, Practice and Practice.

Capt.

Great Capt. I will give that a go. I just thought that there is noticably different shifts in pitch with different metals. For example: as you sweep over a iron target it goes low, high, low or lead high, low, high or something but maybe that was just wish of mine. I am really surprised that I don't get a signal from the vial of gold, I wouldn't have thought that it being flour gold would make such a difference. Is there an explanation for this? (I like to understand)
I have been digging pieces of lead shot, nails, bolts, mangled bits of lead in creek, wire, etc etc. so the detector works. I was just astonished there was no signal from the gold.

Thanks - SpottedGum

spottedgum said:

I have been digging pieces of lead shot, nails, bolts, mangled bits of lead in creek, wire, etc etc. so the detector works. I was just astonished there was no signal from the gold.

Thanks - SpottedGum

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Sounds like your on the right track spottedgum, just haven't walked over a bit of yellow yet!!!
Don't know about the flour gold, maybe put it under a butane torch melt it into 1 piece and try again???

Capt.

The SD2000 not so good on specimen gold,a goldbug 2 or whites GMT is good for them.With the flour gold is all about the eddy currents being produced.

Hi Spottedgum.

I bought my SD2000 in January and after doing some mods and maintenance I am finally getting some proper use from it. So far after 9 outings I am still trying to identify the difference in tone between ferrous and non ferrous. I was able to do this with my old Goldseekers 15000 of many years ago but the difference was very subtle and took about a year before I could be certain, but still you dig everything up.

The best thing you can do is get out there and use it as much as possible. On my last 2 outings I have found 2 nuggets, the last one a 13 grammer, the other one weighed only 0.09 Grams. This is less than a number 9 shotgun pellet. At this size it does give a different signal and I can only think because of one reason. At the time I was using an 8" mono coil and as I passed the coil over the nugget it gave a signal then as the nugget moved to the centre of the coil the signal diminished dramatically until it reached the other side of the coil when the signal increased again. The nugget is too small to affect the mono coil throughout the entirety of it's diameter as the wiring is on the outer edges. So the signal is really only audible when the nugget is directly under the wiring. A DD coil should make it sound differently if it can pick it up at all.

The SD2000 has no capability to discriminate between different metals, and neither did the 15000, but on the 15000 with non-ferrous metals the signal did not have the sharp edge on it that an iron did. I believe this is what you should be looking for in the signal, a slightly softer edge for lead and gold compared to a sharp signal for iron.

It also seems that the closer the target to the coil the more it will give that machine gun sound so this will make it even harder to differentiate targets which are extremely close to the coil.

As for discrimination, the best kind is the foot kind. If you hear a good clear signal just scrape the top layer of leaves and dirt away with your foot. If the signal is still there then you dig.

As for telling the difference between a metal target and ground noise it is reasonably simple. Expose the top layer of dirt then remove a couple of inches of dirt from the top again. Did the signal increase as the coil got closer to it? If yes then keep digging. If not then dig again taking off about 2 more inches of dirt. If the signal doesn't get any louder then it is probably ground noise. As a precaution dig about another 4 inches deeper and test again. If it is ground noise then it will either disappear or be spread over a larger area around the hole.

As for not picking up the 3 grams of flour gold, the P.I. detector sends a signal through each piece of gold, but these flakes are too small to take in that pulse from the detector and return it to the coil. The response is dissipating before it probably even gets out of the flake. It won't make much difference how many flakes you have. Try it again with a 1 gram solid piece of lead. If you don't get a signal then you probably have a problem.

If you are digging up lead bullets then you will find gold nuggets.

Regards Axtyr.

Question about my sd2000, on the back I have threshold knob and below that another knob between the tone and tune adjustment ports.
When I went out today for the first time with it, the threshold the other knob were hair feel sensitive you only had to touch it to make the detector sing soprano lol.
Does anybody know if this knob is aftermarket because there is no mention of it in the manual.

Also I started the day with a commander 14*12 DD and got nothing when we dug up a fat flake with the 5000 and put it on the ground the DD would not even see it even before we dug it up.
I changed to the 8" mono and once I balanced, it found that flake and did a nice little song and dance. So spent the rest of the day with a 8" mono on which worked beautifully what's up with that? Also does anybody know what booster works with the 2000? As we tried a baz booster but wouldn't make a peep.

That looks like a sd2100 to me boss' the 8" coil was always a favourite coil for my sd2100 the other coil I used was a 12x15 DD that knob you speak of could be some sort of gain control that I think would benefit a sd just to turn down when things get unstable, you might have do a small depth test with it turned down then up to determine if it changes sensitivity other wise see if you can work out what it's wired into? It's not standard.

Hi mate that picture you got looks like sd2100 not sd2000.

Hey Joe, great to see you got your detector. Might want to unwrap the leather cover on it and have a look at the side of the control box the name of the unit should be there.

Good to see that you have kitted-up Joe.

Will be even better to see you post some photo's of some yellow

You are at least 10 years advanced on my FT1600 so I can't offer you any advice at all, good luck.

The sides and base have been stripped of all stickers so they are just blank.

Big bonus for me if it is a 2100 as I paid for a 2000 lol
I see it has the "feet" of a 2100 and the 2000 didn't have that
But as you can see that control panel cover has been removed at some time as the sticker around the screws is a little twisted up.
But playing with either of the threshold and mystery knob are sooo sensitive you just touch them with your finger and they change the settings.
With the help of Tymor, I managed to get it calmed down enough to use the mono in Clermont soil, but Tymor was still not happy that it was quiet enough

It seems to replace the TUNE trimpot as tone adjuster is still in place. Also notice the extra Resistor next to the capacitor on the right

Dang there goes the warranty

It's a defiantly a sd2100 the knob could be faulty I'd say its a tune pot as the original was a PITA to get to but it shouldn't get angry when you touch it, it might be worth replacing it with the same value pot from eBay or jay car' it should say on the back, if that doesn't work what you could do is post some pic to woodys forum at link tech or Ismale jones site to find out its purpose as they worked fine without it.

Could it be so sensitive, because thre is an extra resistor in the system allowing fine tuning?

Does anybody have access to the minelab mods forum? As I click register and it says I don't have permission to view this resource?

Dosn't sound like Woody's work to me.

Yeah I checked his website, my mod is a little more low tech then woody's mods.
Although I have been thinking of sendin it off to be modded with a few options around these days.

Any idea why it wouldn't work with the DD coil today?