The Minelab Safari "Review and Tips!"

Silver_Sn1per

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Ok now that I have over 60 hours of use on my ne Minelab Safari... I feel that I can now write up a good review and share my settings! I am going to start out with the cons... First off would have to be the weight of the Safari, your arm does fatigue pretty quick while using this beast. But you do get used to it, and it just reminds you of the quality American made product! Second and the largest con would be the battery life. The Safari does not come with a rechargeable battery pack, but you can purchase one. The Safari takes EIGHT AA batteries, and let me tell you... If you metal detect as much as I do, your going to be going through AA's like water, lol. My last con would have to be that the machine is not waterproof, the coil is but not the head unit! You would think with how much the Safari weighs Minelab would have made it water proof.

Ok now the PRO's... Wow is all I can say about FBS! As soon as you turn the Safari on, noise cancell, and start sweeping you can just tell its a quality metal detector! I have found silver coins as deep as 14 inches with the Safari, as well as small silver pins that are half the size of a dime at the same depth! The flute sounds or peeps are much more reliable than a standard beep or bell tone that you might find on a Garrett. I do not use the stock programs on my Safari because I feel that the less descrim you use, the better the performance is. I really like the fact that the coil wire is not wrapped around the outside of the shaft... Gives the machine a cleaner look and it also keeps the stress off your wire. The Safari comes with the same DD Coil that is found on the newer Etrac, which put a smile on my face. There are more Pros but my hand is starting to hurt so i am going to move on, lol. Well with all of that being said, below is a list of the settings I use for coin shooting!

-Custom All Metal Mode with discrim up to 0 and also discrim +40.
-Sensitivity: between 15-19 "depends on how trashy the area is"
-Trash Density: High "for faster recovery"
-Threshold: 9 "I wear headphones"
-Target sound: 20 max


---TIPS---
-Noise cancel is your friend!
-Do not rush, take your time and trust that sexy machine your swinging!
-When performing a noise cancel, place the coil ON THE GROUND. The Safari handbook tells you to hold the coil up off the ground, but I found that the machine performs better with the coil on the ground during a noise cancel.
-Everytime you change the sensitivity... Perform a noise cancel!
-The target ID numbers are very accurate, but you shouldn't have to keep your eyes glued to the screen, learn the sounds.
-Bring spare batteries
-Read up on DD Coils, and learn the many different methods you can use with a DD Coil.
-If you do not own a decent digging tool... Go buy one, lol this machine goes deep!
 
Ok now that I have over 60 hours of use on my ne Minelab Safari... I feel that I can now write up a good review and share my settings! I am going to start out with the cons... First off would have to be the weight of the Safari, your arm does fatigue pretty quick while using this beast. But you do get used to it, and it just reminds you of the quality American made product! Second and the largest con would be the battery life. The Safari does not come with a rechargeable battery pack, but you can purchase one. The Safari takes EIGHT AA batteries, and let me tell you... If you metal detect as much as I do, your going to be going through AA's like water, lol. My last con would have to be that the machine is not waterproof, the coil is but not the head unit! You would think with how much the Safari weighs Minelab would have made it water proof.

Ok now the PRO's... Wow is all I can say about FBS! As soon as you turn the Safari on, noise cancell, and start sweeping you can just tell its a quality metal detector! I have found silver coins as deep as 14 inches with the Safari, as well as small silver pins that are half the size of a dime at the same depth! The flute sounds or peeps are much more reliable than a standard beep or bell tone that you might find on a Garrett. I do not use the stock programs on my Safari because I feel that the less descrim you use, the better the performance is. I really like the fact that the coil wire is not wrapped around the outside of the shaft... Gives the machine a cleaner look and it also keeps the stress off your wire. The Safari comes with the same DD Coil that is found on the newer Etrac, which put a smile on my face. There are more Pros but my hand is starting to hurt so i am going to move on, lol. Well with all of that being said, below is a list of the settings I use for coin shooting!

-Custom All Metal Mode with discrim up to 0 and also discrim +40.
-Sensitivity: between 15-19 "depends on how trashy the area is"
-Trash Density: High "for faster recovery"
-Threshold: 9 "I wear headphones"
-Target sound: 20 max


---TIPS---
-Noise cancel is your friend!
-Do not rush, take your time and trust that sexy machine your swinging!
-When performing a noise cancel, place the coil ON THE GROUND. The Safari handbook tells you to hold the coil up off the ground, but I found that the machine performs better with the coil on the ground during a noise cancel.
-Everytime you change the sensitivity... Perform a noise cancel!
-The target ID numbers are very accurate, but you shouldn't have to keep your eyes glued to the screen, learn the sounds.
-Bring spare batteries
-Read up on DD Coils, and learn the many different methods you can use with a DD Coil.
-If you do not own a decent digging tool... Go buy one, lol this machine goes deep!

I didn't know that Minelab was made in America, I thought it was an Australian outfit that has their stuff made in Malaysia.

Joe
 
I didn't know that Minelab was made in America, I thought it was an Australian outfit that has their stuff made in Malaysia.

Joe

I was going to type the same thing. You beat me to it. Minelab is an Australian company & I don't believe their products are made in the U.S.A.
 
They are an Australian company with the parts made in Malaysia by US-owned electronics assembly contractor Plexus Corp. Plexus makes all sorts of high grade electronics products including medical scanning machines large & small, military equipment, microwave telecommunications equipment and of course our beloved Minelabs, as well as many other products.

If your Minelab wasn't made in Australia by Minelab itself or in Malaysia by Plexus, it's a counterfit.

For more information:
http://www.minelab.com/usa/consumer/where-to-buy/buyer-beware
 
It was purchased at Cabellas, so I doubt that my machine is "counterfeit." I was referring to Plexus materials... I have a Plexus located a few blocks from my house. Plexus plastics are made in America.
 
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I considered the Safari, my detector shop was hard selling it with major savings but i have adamaged right arm (titanium wire to put the muscle back) so cant handle that weight for that long, the ATPro's under 3 lbs won in the end but the safari has had good reviews...dont know why they are discounting it right now, a few seem to be doing it, kellys, md, etc
 
I have found the Safari to be much lighter than my old machine so it was actually a pleasure swinging this. One thing I don't fully understand is the noise cancel - what is it and why, and how often do I need to do it?
 
One thing I don't fully understand is the noise cancel - what is it and why, and how often do I need to do it?
The noise cancel feature is for elimination of interference from a variety of EMI emitters, including other detectors nearby. Actually very little interference is generated at the same frequency that your detector operates on. Most is caused by frequency harmonics. The NC feature is a frequency shift, that changes exactly where in a (relatively small portion of) the frequency that your machine is working at that time. Moving just a little off from a frequency (I'm talking about a few hundreths of a kHz) is often enough to escape the harmonic that's causing trouble.

Here’s an example of how the frequency changes for the 5 different Noise Cancel Channels for a 7.5 kHz coil on an X-TERRA 705.

+ 2 =7.580 kHz
+1 =7.540 kHz
0 =7.500 kHz
-1 =7.460 kHz
-2 =7.420 kHz


The noise cancel proceedure should be performed when you are working around densely populated areas, changing locations (even at the same site), or anytime that the machine seems otherwise unexplainably unstable. It should be the first thing that you do after turning on your detector at any site that you're hunting.
 
What would be an example of what one would hear if the noise cancel was not done?
 
What would be an example of what one would hear if the noise cancel was not done?
What you could hear would be too many random beeps (falsing). The machine could seem unstable even with the SENS lowered below "normal". Good targets could be hidden amongst the random beeps and easily be overlooked, or could be entirely missed due to abnormally lowered SENS.

Different EMI emitters effect your machine in different ways. For example, an electric fence interferes with pulsing signals, while the neighbor's wi-fi data stream will sound like your machine has lost it's mind, and the car going by with bad plugwires will be different yet. Some you can recognize for what they are, but so much is done with RF these days that it is often tough to know what might be causing the harmonic that's messing with your detector.
 
Mine lab Safari Problems

Hello everyone. I recently purchased a Mine lab Safari, and seem to be having troubles with it. To me, it seems it picks up way too much junk, and can't even discriminate between a silver coin and rusty nail. What could I be doing wrong? The high trash setting seems to not work very well and the pinpointer doesn't do that good of a job either. By comparison, I found a lot more coins with my cheaper $80 model. Shouldn't a high end piece of equipment do a better job of discriminating? Are there more accurate and recommended detectors out there? Thank you for your time and considersrion!
 
My Safari hits coins and junk deep, but man, it constantly beeps and chatters all the time if not in a barren field. This is with a noise cancel first, running high trash density, and cutting the sensitivity all the way down to 11. I put an 8" Sunray coil on it for more trashy areas but it still has constant chatter and falsing, usually saying silver, silver. I too often get fooled by deep rusted nails but that I don't mind as much as the constant beeping while swinging without repeatable signals. As for the weight, I just pump a little iron and it definitely helps. Mine seems to have a hard time holding an even threshold too, even hunting in the woods. The threshold is constantly dropping out as I swing. But it does find deep stuff, I just wish it weren't so noisy all the time.
 
My Safari hits coins and junk deep, but man, it constantly beeps and chatters all the time if not in a barren field. This is with a noise cancel first, running high trash density, and cutting the sensitivity all the way down to 11. I put an 8" Sunray coil on it for more trashy areas but it still has constant chatter and falsing, usually saying silver, silver. I too often get fooled by deep rusted nails but that I don't mind as much as the constant beeping while swinging without repeatable signals. As for the weight, I just pump a little iron and it definitely helps. Mine seems to have a hard time holding an even threshold too, even hunting in the woods. The threshold is constantly dropping out as I swing. But it does find deep stuff, I just wish it weren't so noisy all the time.

I don't own a safari but I have an etrac. Sounds like you're hunting in an area with a lot of iron in the ground. The threshold dropping out as you said is probably caused by swinging over an object that is discriminated out. If you're not finding as much as you'd like, you should probably try swinging the safari slower.
 
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