need for an upgrade

Hi everyone

Brand new on the scene , been looking at all the posts, just brought a 2100 sd with 4 coils on ebay , old technoligy I know but affordable
as every one is talking about the 4500 am I needing to up grade as I would like to make this more than a hobby.

john123

I think at the end of the day the 4500 has a few advantages, quieter I guess, but by far the biggest advantage is forgetting the technology race and just get out there and detect....... upgrade when you can do it, but you will still find gold with what you have....just become an expert at using it well.

Hi John and welcome!

Deffinately not in need of an upgrade especially if you just bought the thing. The 2100 is still a very capable machine and a lot of the pros still use them and wont part with them. Learn the 2100 first to make sure it is the hobby you really want to get into.

Serve your apprentiseship with it and you can pretty much garrentee it will make you much more successful in future if you then choose to upgrade.

Madtuna & Harb

Thank you for your advice you guys are incredible in the information you share
Hope to meet you soon
john123

Hi John and welcome,
Mate stick with your 2100 they are a great machine and go deep. Dont think for one moment that u have to upgrade cause u dont... do ur time and learn ur to use machine...

Gday John


You have made a good choice for your first detector as the sd2100 is probably the most popular of all the earlier minelabs and still a very capable machine today, you can however do a few things to it to enhance its performance and give it a bit more sensitivity, although they are well known for their depth capability they do lack in the area of sensitivity compared with the much later machines.

First off you might like to give yourself some time to get to know how it all works and see if the detecting game agrees with you, some people thrive on it and some find its not quite what they expected and sometimes they will spend up big, go in boots and all just to discover its not for them.

I dont know how much detecting you have actually done but if you have been out and about enough to get the idea and you are suffering like most of us with terminal "gold fever" now then its too late to turn back.

So back to your sd2100, there are quite a few things you need to learn and like any other activity experience comes with time on the ground, so that you can learn the ins and out of the machine and gain some experience in ground balancing and recognition of the signals the detector will make, as you will need to learn to do this with any machine you buy anyway.

Their are several things you can do to enhance the performance of the 2100, the very first thing is to have a good look at the coils you have and see what sort of condition they are in if they are very old models then maybe getting hold of a couple of later ones to start with will help, another thing is to purchase a signal booster/enhancer, there are quite a few available, some need a battery in them and some are run from the detectors battery, then there is the batteries, you can upgrade from the standard gel cell batteries to a regulated battery set up like the reeds system or the coiltek pocket rocket, and lastly a good set of headphones or external speaker set up is worth while too.

It would cost you far less to do these things than to upgrade to a 4500 and you will also find when and if you do upgrade to the 4500 you will still find your self looking at other coils etc etc, and as we all know that there is a later and greater model about to hit the scene then the price of the 4500 will drop again and you might pick up a bargain.

cheers


stayyerAU

G'day stayyerAU

Thanks for your advice on the sd2100 and the other posters as well. As far as experience ,very limited...had a go with a Garrett in the old diggings in the Adelaide hills in the 80's
no gold but lots of snakes and have done some beach detecting with a nugget scoop up here just to get the feel.
The detector is still in transit,so I don't know the condition of the coils etc. The Ebay rundown on the coils & batteries etc is as follows.

:Depth booster
:Nugget finder signal enhancer
:1-11"Minelab monocoil super goldsearch
:1-11"Minelab super goldsearch
:1-8.5" Minelab super goldsearch
:1-18" super goldsearch monoloop
:2x vision cp1245 12v 4.5 ah rechargeable batteries

Probably older stuff because it doesn't seem to match up with current suppliers lists
Would welcome any further feedback.

Cheers john

John,

The 2100 is still a very good machine. Looking at the coils that come with I would update to one of the late model mono`s (c/t or n/f ). Both will work well on the 2100.

Later when you have mastered that machine use the gold you found with it and up date to latest and greatest and keep the 2100 as a back up .

My mate bought a brand new 2100v2 just before they finished production as a back up machine for a smidgin over 2 oz of yellow metal. It has already paid for itself and showing a tidy profit.
You got yourself a good machine. Still plenty of gold out there. Get out and get stuck into it !!........... .

Driller

I reckon the 2100 found more gold than any other model..........

Gday John


Well I see that it comes with a booster/enhancer so thats a start, a few of the coils are also going to be useful the 8" mono, 11" mono, and the 18"mono are all reasonable coils, depending on condition and age of course.

See how you go with those and depending on where you detect you might want to consider getting a mid range sized dd coil, say bout 14", for general use where the monos might get a bit noisy.

The batteries are the ???, it says 12v 4.5 ah, if they are 12v then the first mentioned devices perhaps might be a regulator?

:Depth booster--could possibly be a 12v regulator

Its more likely that the batteries are 6v 4.5 ah gel cells, as I dont think I have ever seen a 12v 4.5 ah battery, someone else may have more info on them.

If they are 12volt batteries then you can't run the machine unless you have a regulator or you will cook the circuitry, as they will usually run ok up to about 7.3/7.5 volts but not 12v as far as I know.

If you add the item number I might be able to have a look at it on ebay and see what the batteries are.


cheers

stayyerAU

Gday John


I think I have found the machine you bought item no (230451006987 shtzu1)

The batteries appear to be 12v judging by the size of them, but what worries me is that there is no mention of a regulator, only a booster, unless it is a combined regulator and booster unit, I am not familiar with it if it is, someone else may have used one, but I cant see anything else and there are no cables etc shown either.

cheers


stayyerAU

Hi John,

I am a techno idiot, so I cannot comment on the technical side of the various ML models.

I noticed you were from Tweed Heads. Last year I stayed on a dairy farm near Bilambil. It had three shafts on it and I think they were exploratory ones, looking for the source of the alluvial in the local creek. They did not find it.

I did some research and found out that there had been a couple of gold mines in the valley, but I would say they were probably not successful.

Anyway, what I am saying is, you are in an area where gold has been found and maybe you should have a good sniff around.

My normal computer with a picture of one of the shafts shat itself on Friday. When I get it back healthy (?), I will add a photo here.

Cheers,

Jig

G`day John,

I`m with StayyerAU on this one . They are 12v 4.5 amp batteries. I cannot see any regulator amongst the gear in the photos. Do not plug them directly into the 2100 or you will probably fry it. You need a 12v/7.3v regulator to use those batteries.
I have two 12v/4.5 amp that I use to drop the weight down a bit from my original 12v/7amp .

Driller

G'day StayyerAU/Driller/Jig

:RE the battery for the 2100, I've since downloaded the user manual from Minelab the battery issued is 6V 12Ah Gell Cell Battery and a smaller option 4.5Ah
I reckon the Ebay entry could have been a typo and he got the "v" in the wrong place. Minelab also give an item number so I can check that against what I get.
Thanks for all your info and help provided.
Jig thanks for the local info for here around Tweed I'll check it out and see what I can come up with.

Cheers John

Gday John


No worries, its just that the batteries shown appear to be larger than the 6v 4.5 amp hour ones, they look to me like 12v ones as they are a bigger and more square type battery.

Get someone to have look at it for you, dont be tempted to just plug them in first as you will cook your machine, if the previous owner has used it like that then there may be an issue with the machine already, I dont mean to scare you but as there in no mention of a regulator thats a bit of a worry.

The 6v 12 ah battery is a lot bigger than the ones shown, longer and more flattish approx 7" long x 2'' wide x 4" high, the 6v 4.5 ah battery is half the size again.

Hope all is ok with it.

cheers



stayyerAU