Handy Infinium Info

For those who think the Infinium is not a good detector; Check this out.

http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,384975.0.html

A very interesting article, Adrian

Not really applicable to Oz ground conditions though.

Case in point, Larry303 had one for a long time the first imported and upgraded to latest spec's by all accounts, I beleive that he still owns it, but within a short time of trying to pillage the Heathcote ground put it to pasture and grabbed a ML4500, I think.
Hasn't looked back in regret to my knowledge.

Horses for courses would apply here.....after all the Whites TDI had to be modified at production before it would work over here.....Larry303 may be able to confirm that the upgrades to his Infinium may have been to improve its performance in Oz ground.

Cheers Cranky

G'day Cranky, The Infinium had two upgrades to current specs......one was to do with handling mineralisation and the other the 'Mono' upgrade..to allow use of Mono coils as they originally came out with just the large lunker 12 x 14 DD..still comes with it but there are 5 coils now available.
The current Infiniums come with these upgrades included....
I use a GPX5000 now having upgraded from GPX4000......when I'm looking for gold in say the Golden Triangle I want to give myself the very best chance of finding it....the Infinium first introduced in 2002 <9 years ago> whilst great for coin/treasure/beach/ water detecting..in fact best I've seen.....is not in the hunt compared to a Minelab GPX and the performance gap has widened very considerably with the 4500 and now the 5000....
I have found a nugget 1.6grammer with Infinium however I also walked around in the Triangle for many months to find it....and I knew how to use it..after 8 years.....at the time....
Cost wise is where the waters always muddy and inevitably start another 'war on the ranges'..the Infinium is great value at about $1400..however if you want to give yourself the best chance by quite a large margin..spend the extra dollars and get a GPX.....straight performance wise disregarding the huge difference in initial cost...IMO the Infinium has had its day <which was against lesser Minelabs> for gold detecting....
My wife and my detecting mates 16 year old lad love following around taking it in turns to use the Infinium..neither has found gold.<not a conclusive result in itself>..but they finds heaps of Goldfields trash.....and its light to carry..and easy to use with 8" Mono round coil.....Infinium will definately be coming with me when I complete my round Australia trip I've already started because its so versatile...but so will my GPX5000....hope this helps..I've tried to be fair by both Company's with my comments....Hoo Roo

cranky wrote:A very interesting article, Adrian

Not really applicable to Oz ground conditions though.

Case in point, Larry303 had one for a long time the first imported and upgraded to latest spec's by all accounts, I beleive that he still owns it, but within a short time of trying to pillage the Heathcote ground put it to pasture and grabbed a ML4500, I think.
Hasn't looked back in regret to my knowledge.

Horses for courses would apply here.....after all the Whites TDI had to be modified at production before it would work over here.....Larry303 may be able to confirm that the upgrades to his Infinium may have been to improve its performance in Oz ground.

Cheers Cranky

HI Cranky,

I know the development history of the Infinium, Who initiated its development and who instigated the waterproofing of the machine and why it required further upgrading.

The TDI was never intended for Australian gold fields which is why it was not stocked by the Australian Whites Importer. But it became apparent that it could be made to perform quite well in our gold fields and eventually the designer of this very good machine came out here and determined what mods were necessary in order to get it functional in iron mineralisation. It is now a very capable gold detector in our ground conditions.
There are two versions of this detector and the Australian version is call the TDI OZ.

G,Day Larry 303.

Thanks for the heads up on your experience with the Infinium, confirmed what I have believed for some time, only having sighted one many moons ago in Finders Shop when Ken was explaining some pointers to a purchaser. Must admit to having my interest provoked on that occasion but I had just a little earlier bought a Whites Quantum XT from him and having been duly impressed by this machine I was actually in his shop to purchase an MXT "E" series having been convinced that was the way to go....As it happens I was right to take on an MXT....love to use it, particularly on thrashed areas where my GP Extreme is driving me batty with noises from deeper scrap metals....I like its ability to give a % indication of the composition of the target ferrous/non ferrous...have scored a few nice relics as a result.

AdrianSS
Thanks for putting up this thread and initiating Larry303's input, believe that we are all a lot wiser from his reply.....While ML is the leading supplier of detectors it is important to follow the development of other products if only to measure against the benchmark set by ML...who have recently been extending the range to include non PI instruments as in the XTerra series to serve a market that requires them.

Regards Cranky

Adrian SS wrote:

The TDI was never intended for Australian gold fields which is why it was not stocked by the Australian Whites Importer. But it became apparent that it could be made to perform quite well in our gold fields and eventually the designer of this very good machine came out here and determined what mods were necessary in order to get it functional in iron mineralisation. It is now a very capable gold detector in our ground conditions.
There are two versions of this detector and the Australian version is call the TDI OZ.

hi adrian
the way i remember it was the tdi was intended for australian but tony refused to stock & sell it cause it did not work here, thats
why the maker came out and did tests and change it for australian conditions.
he even used tony shed to do it
i'm happy for anyone to correct me if i'm wrong
cheers

fencejumper wrote:
he even used tony shed to do it
i'm happy for anyone to correct me if i'm wrong
cheers

There is a picture of Eric in the G&T 2010 Yearbook tweaking the TDI - Have a look at the RHS of piccy.

This will give you a clue to the location...of said tweaking..

fencejumper.

I remember asking Tony about this machine shortly after its release and asked if he would be stocking it. At the time he said no because it was not quite good enough in the goldfields. I was looking for another beach machine.

The Surfmaster PI was the go for beach work at the time. Most coin and relic hunters did not use PIs for their type of detecting because of their lack of good discrimination and the fact that they sounded of on the tiniest piece of rusty iron plus the fact that whites already had some excellent VLF coin and relic machines.

The notion of a PI detector with reasonable discrimination ability was good but PI detectors for beach work did not sell as well here as did good VLF machines that could handle salt. But because the TDI showed signs of being able to perfom in our gold field mineralisation and PIs in the gold field were the go at the time, therefore if the TDI could be tweeked to run well in iron ground then it might sell a bit better.

Well the machine does perform well in the gold fields but it still does not sell well as a gold detector and most operators use it for beach, coin and relic hunting

I believed it was designed as a salt beach, relic and coin PI with much better discriminating capabilities than current PI detectors (at that time) and that was how it was marketed overseas, not as a gold machine.

ML have got the gold field PI game sown up but detectors like the Infinium and the TDI have each their own niche for those who need that type of detector.

hi adrian
yes i agree that the tdi has it's place
theres no point comparing it with a minelab as there in two differant leages, but for the price i have been hearing good
things in regard to it handling our minerals now and being pretty good on speci's.
i will be having a look at one next month for the wife as she don't like the x-terra 80 i got her
if i like what i see i might even have a play around some reefs with it myself.
cheers

I have placed another link to more TDI & Infinium info in the OTHER DETECTORS section.
It's a bit techo but worth a read to anybody contemplating getting one of these machines.

Where the Infinium is concerned I will continue to say that it is an excellent gold prospecting machine and is a lot of detector for the price.

Cheers,
Adrian SS

It seems that Minelab is infiltrating peoples qustions about certain detectors,, but Minelab answering how good theyr Produckt is, Stuff the minelab !

The Infinium coupled with an 8" mono is one of the best detectors I've used to date. Highly sensitive, accurate & quiet. Tested nuggets that a 5000 found and picked them up. Not at the same depth, but still hit on them. Will the infinium leave my arsonal of detectors that I personally use, no way. As for the Minelab guys, yes the 5000's are the best on the market no doubt about it. But there are detectors out there othen then Minelab that find gold.