My first gold with the SD2200d

[Reeks]

After around 25 hours on the goldfields i finally got my first gold.
Using a Minelab SD2200d, i have found it a pleasure to use.

It has a coiltek camcorder battery setup which clips on to my belt. It maintains 7.3 volts to the detector and one battery lasts 5+ hours depending on coil and number of targets.

I have also been using a supersound amplifier through Koss Td/80 headphones.
The booster uses the battery power and doesn't require it's own batteries which is handy.

I find that running the booster/amp is almost totally necessary. I'm 27 and i did well in a hearing test in a medical examination not too long ago and i think the 2200's capability is impressively increased with the addition of a booster.
The threshold can also be set lower when using the booster and i feel i now have the machine running quite nicely.

I recently purchased a Coiltek 14" DD Pro Elite coil and have been very impressed with it.
Being a DD and a fairly medium/largeish coil i was impressed with it's sensitivity to small pieces of trash.
Tiny shoe tacks, nail heads, bullet fragments etc have been keeping me busy and testing my pinpointing patience, but i am becoming confident with the setup.

When my first nugglet was between my fingertips it was an awesome rush. Weighing 1.57 grams i was so stoked.
The second one went 0.27 grams and at 3 inches i was surprised/impressed with the 2200's clear signal on a small piece of yellow.
The third went 0.75 grams and i remember saying out loud "what do you reckon dad? Trash?" and then seeing that awesome polished gold nug moment's later i couldn't help but start laughing. He definitely keeps guiding me to the gold. Miss him greatly but feel him around when im out there.

Hope you all enjoy the pics.

 

[Guest]

Beautiful nuggets bud well done '

 

[noncents]

Congratulations on the three little beauties, must be divine intervention.

 

[Guest]

AWESOME~~~~~~~~!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Jim.]

Hi all,

Reeks, congratulations on scoring your first gold with the SD

The Coiltek DD Pro Elites Coil are the bomb on the SD series, it sounds like you have a good handle on the 2200

Jim & Kerrie

 

[Guest]

Great work Reeks!! You must have that SD purring picking up those sub grammers. I was told by "experienced" prospectors that you wouldn't find them with an old SD but I to picked them up. They are a great old machine & will go around some of the new PI's from other brands IMO.
The 14" coil is a good match on them & so is the Super Goldsearch 11"" DD.
Using a booster on them is a must in my opinion. The audio is very quiet but a good booster does brighten it up.

 

[Heatho]

Well done Reeko, beautiful pieces mate. Many more to come hopefully, can't fail with your Dad helping you out, great story. When my first one popped out the other day I was trying to visualise a nugget coming out, I did and next target was Gold.

 

[Beagleboy]

Well done mate. They are very nice pieces. Keep them coming.

 

[G0lddigg@]

great work that's some nice gold for sure, no doubt your old man is laughing with you

 

[loamer]

Well done mate. I still have my 2200D and love it and I take it out for a play every now and then and it is my back up and my grandkids are learning on it - find gold with an old 2200D running a DD - find gold with anything. They are well known for having very average audio - good to see you use the booster. The cam-corder battery set up is the way to go - figured out the red light is also the level of power indicator? (It fades as the day progresses) the old battery in harness was a heavy bloody nightmare. I see lots of talk about the new detectors floating about and cleaning out patches. The 2200D was the most awesome detector for finding excellent big gold in flogged patches especially with lots of trash,hence the D in 2200D. That's a fair bit of junk you have collected - digging every target? That will wear off as you learn the wheezes, farts and burps of the 2200. When and if you upgrade to a newer quieter PI you will be in the happy category of being able to run them a bit harder as you are used to deciphering ground noises and the like - old PI users just seem to have a better hearing tolerance.

 

[Guest]

Awesome Reeks.. well done

 

[dwt]

Good to see the old girls still kicking goals....

 

[Reeks]

Well done mate. I still have my 2200D and love it and I take it out for a play every now and then and it is my back up and my grandkids are learning on it - find gold with an old 2200D running a DD - find gold with anything. They are well known for having very average audio - good to see you use the booster. The cam-corder battery set up is the way to go - figured out the red light is also the level of power indicator? (It fades as the day progresses) the old battery in harness was a heavy bloody nightmare. I see lots of talk about the new detectors floating about and cleaning out patches. The 2200D was the most awesome detector for finding excellent big gold in flogged patches especially with lots of trash,hence the D in 2200D. That's a fair bit of junk you have collected - digging every target? That will wear off as you learn the wheezes, farts and burps of the 2200. When and if you upgrade to a newer quieter PI you will be in the happy category of being able to run them a bit harder as you are used to deciphering ground noises and the like - old PI users just seem to have a better hearing tolerance.

If someone like yourself still owns one and has good things to say about it, then im glad to also have one.

Yes, the audio quality i feel is very good but just much too quiet. I set up the threshold with the booster off, then turn the booster on crank some volume and it allows me to back off the threshold quite a bit, but still keeps it nice and steady.

After having a few problems getting a good Tune the other day, i disregarded the minelab instruction of holding the detector at waist height while the detector does it's tuning cycle and just found some quiet ground left the coil face down on the ground and hit tune, it somewhat made the machine smoother and i soon found a nug.

I think i figured the red led was an indicator, but it's a bit hard to tell in direct sunlight. I did run one battery flat and the light on my booster was flashing and the machine went bazerk.

I don't dig every target usually. I am becoming more confident in calling things from what tone they give, bullets are easy as are shells, screamers get a visual check (can lids etc) but like i said i did think one of the nugs was going to be junk so still got to tune the ear for gold, might put that 0.75 in a zip lock bag for practice next time im out.
As you could imagine being my first detected gold i did start to dig everything that came from this patch.
There's 131 bits of junk there and a few heartstoppers as they were well into the bedrock (pointy nail heads)

What coils do you run on yours Loamer?
Im still deciding on a small coil, but was impressed by the coiltek.

I have been using the machine in fixed, all metal and manually switching over to discrim + ID and using that as a fair guide. If the tones are high and steady i'll definitely dig it (usually either bullet or shell) sometimes a target will be too small for the discrim + id to give a different tone so i dig those also.

Screamers although being annoying are also potentially hiding fainter targets within that zone, so that's another reason i will pick them up. These nugs came from a 5m x 2m patch ( if i was to put a boundary around the holes)

Could you give me an example of where your 4500 would pants the 2200 on let's say a 1 gram nug?

Thanks mate

 

[loamer]

Your 2200 settings are good. Fixed is the way to go and you will GB as second nature eventually. Start up = two schools of thought. Start up in tracking then during the coil bounce switch over to fixed. Or just GB in fixed to start with. Both ways,coil nice and low to the ground on a clear area - yes, I have tried to GB on hidden trash and scratched my head. Iron reject in trashed areas is very accurate but it errs on the side of caution with very small ferrous objects - hence the boot tacks. A great urban myth - iron reject may wash out big nuggets. I have found good gold and its never washed out. On large test pieces, its never washed out including at our test pit with big blocks of aluminium. having said that, my old mate who was a whizz on the 2200 (who also only upgraded to a 4500 very late) never trusted the iron reject. For belting through high trash - excellent bit of kit.

the 11" DD is a good coil of any make - Coiltek, ML etc. the 14" is also good for general patch hunting. I have the 12 x 8 DD and it is great amongst trees and grass etc. I pinged very nice gold with the 11" on mullock heaps- just go slow.

the 4500 versus the 2200 - all down to the timings and ability to use the mono. detecting with monos and DDs is different, given the electronic foot-print it gives. for example, the mono can be swung at any angle at a tree but the DD its best to detect sweeping at the tree as opposed to face first using the sides of the coil. monos are now the standard coil for detecting and it can be hard to actually find DD coils. lots of folk have hung on to them or scooped up the second hand ones when monos became the rage.

i did some testing of the 4500 on some old 2200 patches and i found some smaller gold using a nugget finder mono the 2200 missed. i guess if I had of run a really small coil it would have found the same. then again, i ran a 5000 in fine gold over the same spot and found even smaller.

modifications for 2200 - yes there are some. auto GB switch can be fitted. i have seen some botch jobs on this mod where the machine will not GB afterwards so treat mods with some caution. in any case ML will not service /fix any of their machines that have not been modded by them so beware.

here is some info on the DDs

Double D Metal Detector Coils

The Double D has two loops of wiring (like reversed D's that meet in the middle of the coil) which overlap in the middle of the coil. One coil used as a transmit and the other as the receive signal antenna.

Where the two coils overlap in the middle of the search coil is the main detection zone which is narrow but consistent at depth.

This means that the speed of sweep is very important, if the coil sweep is too fast it will not pick up or eliminate small targets or weak signals a the edge of detection.

Unlike the monoloop coil which has a cone shaped detection zone the size of the diameter of the coil wiring at the top. The detection zone decreases in size at depth.

DD coils are less sensitive to ground noise than Monoloop coils because the coil wirings are smaller than those on the perimeter of a Monoloop coil.

The smaller receive wirings un the coil means that less ground noise is detected and amplified so it is not as noisy.

The DD wired coil has a natural tendency to eliminate most of the ground signal, while at the same time it still responds with a strong signal from target objects.

 

[Reeks]

I don't mind flicking the switch over to ground balance and i don't have any plans to add a quick track button or get any other mods done on it.

Your right about the DD coils being harder to find. I rang nearly every shop in Aus that sells coiltek gear and no-one had the Pro Elite.
Ended up getting it second hand from a bloke in W.A on Gumtree.

Do you know if there is any truth behind certain serial numbers on the 2200 being better than others? Was told my machine is a "good" serial.
Happy with the machine either way.

Hoping my next gold is not too far away.

Cheers for all the advice mate

 

[Reeks]

Great work Reeks!! You must have that SD purring picking up those sub grammers. I was told by "experienced" prospectors that you wouldn't find them with an old SD but I to picked them up. They are a great old machine & will go around some of the new PI's from other brands IMO.
The 14" coil is a good match on them & so is the Super Goldsearch 11"" DD.
Using a booster on them is a must in my opinion. The audio is very quiet but a good booster does brighten it up.

Thanks mate, looked through your post history- seems you didn't own the 2200 for very long? What was your smallest gold with it and do you remember what serial number it was?
Cheers

 

[Guest]

SD2200D control box S/N - 65499

Had it for about 6 months but had to sell it to finance the GPX. Was a shame as it purred for an old girl.

The smallest bit I detected was just under yours @ 0.26 gram from memory with the 11" DD Super Goldsearch coil. Got it out of the ground but then couldn't find it. Used a mates GPX to locate it.

 

[Reeks]

Just checked mine 65672.
Not long after yours mate

 

[loamer]

The later models, which yours is one, were made with any issues ironed out. Same with any model if the truth be known - eg early 4500s etc. ML were overwhelmed with orders for the 2200 because of the discrimination. I review old GG&T regularly and love reading the old ads. Each model, including up to the latest releases states they are the best yes. This will no doubt continue for ever!! The 2200 is a very good machine, have no doubt about that. Simple to use and each one has its own personality - I kid you not. The later ML models (4500/5000) are better, chiefly I feel because of the ability to use monos and the variety of soil timings. The 2200 is on mineralised soils as good as anything on deeper gold. It is not and never was a tiddler machine - that was left to the VLFs at the time. With smaller DD coils it will find small wheat gold, especially close to the surface where they tend to live. Also, have a run around any surfaced/paddocked areas amongst the bedrock cracks with a smaller DD.

A big plus is that the 2200 does not seem to suffer the same EMI issues of the newer stuff. They are very robust and the controls, while chunky, are accurate, responsive and hard wearing. The big pay-off with the 2200 IMO is that the DDs just about negate hot ground unless its those mongrel red clay domes which create havoc with any machine. The great thing is with a 2200 is that you dont have to dumb it down to shut it up - just re GB constantly, slow down. If running in fixed, if you raise the coil or walk over logs etc, GB. As I said - it will become second nature. Couple of quick coil bounces and away you go. Edit: While this constant GB may raise some eyebrows from newer PI users who never used the old stuff, what is the first thing you have to do with a 4500/5000 when you get a target?GB away from the target to discount ground noise)

Do I love the 2200? You bet - found some excellent gold with the old girl. A great training machine as well.

 

[Reeks]

Happy with it for my first gold detector, i also use it down the beach and it's great, although wet sand makes it moan.
Considering they usually sell between $1000-$1600 these days they must be one of the best value for money machines out there.
Very happy to pull the 0.27 with mine. Gives me confidence in my technique and that i'm not leaps and bounds behind a 4500 or 5000 while in the fields.

Maybe the sdc2300 was named after the sd2200, being that people are labelling it a "game changer" on small stuff just like the 2200 was on big stuff.

Reeko