As I mentioned earlier, I got a chance to take a little bit more of a close-up look at the Goldscan 5 yesterday. Although I didn’t use the machine, I did get a chance to take a good look at it and observe my new friend Scott using it.

Although it’s a bit heavier than I thought it would be due to the onboard battery, it’s still much lighter than a Minelab PI. Above it’s pictured with an Eric Foster made monoloop coil but it can also use Minelabe Coils, Coiltek Coils and Nuggetfinder XP coils. It may be able to use other Nuggetfinder coils but only if the phase is correct for the machine.

One of the more interesting features on this machine is the built in pinpointer tool which attaches to the side of the box
Check out a closeup and remember, you can always click the photos on this blog for the photo page:

The pinpointer is available at the flick of a switch:

This pinpointer seems to me to be the most brilliant part of the machine but I’m sure there is more to it than that. It’s different than a Minelab in the way it works. I don’t think I’d use it to replace my SD2100 but I would get one in addition to. It handles ground well, that much I do know because I was able to see that for myself watching Scott work. It has a switch for ground balance and pure PI mode which provided a quick demonstration of how well this machine negates hot rocks and ground interference.

Here are some shots of the control box:

Battery Meter, volume, headphones jack and threshold:

And the side controls with pulse delay and quite a few other things I don’t understand but want to:

I can’t wait to observe this machine more in the future. Thanks to Scott for letting Rod and I maul the machine!

Even though it’s getting closer and closer as the weeks go by, it’s still not quite time to start the desert nugget shooting season. Temperatures are still high and it’s difficult to get in a long hunt. In light of that, we decided to get out for some prospecting in the high country. Rod came up to my neck of the woods with Scott Huey who just moved back to Arizona from Maine.

We got a chance to look and some good bedrock and do a bit of panning before it was time to gear up with the detectors and do some nugget hunting. We had a nice bedrock creek picked out and as it turned out, the monsoons had totally slammed it so there were a lot of targets to have, both metal and hot rocks. Rod had his GP Extreme with a Coiltek Joey Mono, I my SD2100 with a Minelab 8″ mono and Scott had a modified, shaft mounted Eric Foster Goldscan 5 with an Eric Foster mono coil.

I headed up the creek and dug a couple of targets right before I popped this nice .6 gram nugget on bedrock.

I spent the rest of the day exploring the monsoon damage of the creek and cherry picking spots for nuggets but as it is, I was only able to recover iron and lead. I’m sure there is more placer gold in this creek and I’m more than satisfied with the take for the day.

Aside from the gold, it’s good times with good friends, as always. Plus, I got a chance to watch Scott work with the Goldscan 5 which was a really cool machine. I can tell you, it handles the ground well and the bedrock in this particular creek was hot. More about the Goldscan 5 soon.

It was a great day and a great way to avoid the heat. I can’t wait to do it again soon!