Deeptech vista metal detectors
information and new products
"The deep tech Vista Mini is best described as a low cost Relic hunter, I
have been told the word "Mini" refers to the price" Information about DeepTech Metal Detectors
Last year Deeptek released 4 new machines : The Vista Mini, Vista Gold, Vista
Relic and the Vista RG1000.
Before I start I feel it is worth mentioning something about the electronic
designer and owner of the company Dipl. Eng. Plamen Rashkov.
Plamen started the company in 2003 when he designed and made deep seeking pulse
detectors, in the same year these pulse machine gathered a following and the
SDP-2014A was exported to the USA, in the years following, Deeptech designed pulse
machines, security detectors with micro processors and LCD displays mainly for the
highly demanding
German market.
Due to popular demand in 2008 Plamen Rashkov designed and marketed his first VLF series of detectors.....The Vista RG750 was released.
>>>Vista Mini<<<
Vista Gold 25Khz
Vista Relic 8Khz
Vista RG 1000 12.5 Khz
DeepTech Vista Mini high performance entry level metal detector at a low price
I would describe the Vista Mini is an entry level Relic hunter
The Vista Mini is best described as a low cost Relic hunter, I have been told
the word "Mini" refers to the price.
For those who are new to the hobby and looking to buy their first machine let me
very briefly describe the basic differences between a Relic Hunter and a
Coinshooter, although they both do exactly the same job, for the more seasoned
detectorists you may want to skip this section. Relic hunter V/s Coinshooter
The term coin shooter is possibly an American term where it is very popular to
"coin shoot" in local parks or sports fields and cherry pick desired items while
ignoring the trash. Coin shooters have a discrimination control and possibly a
notch filter to remove unwanted targets such as foil or ring pulls. Coin
shooting is not so popular here in the UK...probably because these days we are
not allowed to detect on most public places, so we are forced to search mostly
farmland for ancient coins and artefacts, this is where the main difference can
be seen between US and UK detecting....If we were to reject ring pulls and foil
we may be loosing ancient coins and small Gold as the range of metallic
conductivity can be exactly the same...so to play it safe here in the UK (and
possibly the rest of Europe) we only reject Iron and dig everything else.
Also Relic hunters tend to use bigger search coils of a 2D (widescan)
configuration to overcome bad soil conditions, where as coin shooters
prefer the concentric (polo) style coils to allow better target separation
between foil and coins etc in cleaner soil.
Vista Mini controls
To keep the Vista Mini on a tight budget without loosing performance the machine
has been stripped back to basics, the discrimination level has been pre-set to
reject most iron but allowing foil to be detected, we have volume and sensitivity controls, a unique ground
tracking system and all metal circuit. The search coil is a nice chunky 11" 2D
which should give us plenty of depth. Build quality The Vista Mini has a reasonably good build quality, equally the same
standards as other popular machines in it's price range, it utilises a 3 piece
stem so can be packed away in a holdall, the lower stem is carbon. The search
coil is very light only 500g which is quite impressive for it's size,the
overall package is well balanced and has a solid feel.
Performance
I found the Vista Mini very easy to operate, the audio signal has a very sweet
tone which is easy on the ears.
Beginners and novices will find
this machine simple but effective, the Vista looks quite a heavy machine in the
pictures, I found it extremely light and well balanced, throughout my tests I felt no
need to use the arm strap while searching short pasture.
Pin pointing was very accurate a quick sweep of the target left no doubt where
the centre was, deep targets gave a much softer tone, small targets near the
surface sometimes gave a double bleep which made locating them a little
difficult at times. Iron identification
The Mini was very accurate, I found inconsistent signals were always iron, like
all single frequency machines you will always dig a small amount of odd shaped
iron and the Mini is no different, the small amount of iron I did uncover gave
either a very loud signal even with the coil 12" away from the ground or a slightly
clipped audio sound.
Some pieces of tissue like foil from a cigarette packet
also gave a slight audio clip at the end of the sweep, so I would say the
manufacturer has got the pre-set iron rejection adjusted exactly to how I would
use any other machine.
Good targets were easily to distinguish because they sounded exactly the
same in all metal and discrimination mode. Tip
If you get a slightly broken signal in discrimination mode and broken in all
metal mode it is worth investigating as the target may be on the detectors depth
limit.
If all metal and discrim do not correspond in terms of audio signal and signal
strength the target will probably be iron. Ground Balance
This fast grab method really worked well, simply turn the sensitivity up
full...hold the switch down on the spring and pump the coil a couple of times
until the sound settles, let go and start searching. I found occasionally the
machine became unsettled, possibly because I walked over some different type of
soil.. a quick ground balance eliminated the problem straight away.
One thing worth mentioning is remember to switch the toggle into discrim after
ground balancing, I found myself leaving it in the all metal position, and also
remember to lower the sensitivity as it will still be on maximum. Sensitivity
Most of the time I used the sensitivity between the 12'oclock and the 3'oclock
position. Sometimes you may have to operate the machine at zero sensitivity if
your ground conditions will not allow to use more, rest assured you will still maintain
reasonable depths I found air testing a Victorian penny at zero sensitivity was
8" and maximum sensitivity was 13". Headphones
I used Sprite headphones for my tests, although I didn't get the impression the
Vista Mini relied on a specialist set. If you are on a budget a cheap set of stereo
backphones with a 6.5mm jack plug will work perfectly well on this machine. Tip
The Vista is wired to accept stereo type headphones, such as Minelab or
Fisher... machines such as Tesoro, Laser, Teknetics are wired for a Mono signal
so make sure your metal detector headphones have a facility to accept a stereo
configuration namely a reversible lead or stereo mono switch. Battery Pack
The Mini uses 8AA batteries, good quality re chargeable units will be fine,
there is no on board charger facility on this model.
To gain access to the battery compartment simply remove the small cross
head screw and slide the base down, here you will find the battery pod and the
PP3 clip. During my tests the cross head screw was
left out without any problems I think it is just an extra security measure.
Summary
For a budget machine the DeepTech Vista Mini is a great performer, I found using this machine on 2 different pasture site's really showed it's true potential....
I had a nice selection of targets and over 20 coins mostly Victorian. It's depth capabilities are way up there with some of the big boy's,
I would even stick my neck out and say the Vista Mini is one of the best entry level machines I have used in a long time.
Running at around 9Khz
it will find most targets at ease and is ideal for general inland searching,
don't expect to pay £280 and think this machine will find tiny fragments of coins on an
iron contaminated Roman Villa site because you will be disappointed...What the
Vista Mini
will do is give you a great inexpensive introduction to a fantastic hobby.
You may not be familiar with the Deeptech name, and feel more comfortable buying one of the more popular machines seen in magazines and talked about on forums,
if you are new to the hobby I would suggest you start thinking about what you really want from a metal detector, ask experienced users...
they will probably tell you performance and iron rejection are the 2 key features to look out for. I can honestly say from experience these Eastern European machines are sledge hammers...purely designed with depth in mind, sometimes it's good to step out of the box and see what the rest of the world have to offer.
I would like to thank Deeptech for sending the machine so quickly and well packaged, I am really looking forward to testing other machines in the Deeptech range.
This above coin gave a very clear audio signal at a depth of just over 9" (23cm) as you can see by the pictures it was virtually laying on edge.
To me this is proof that the Vista Mini has excellent depth capabilities.
Deeptech Vista Mini video
Here is a link to a short video clip, it shows how to set up the Vista Mini and will give you a good idea about it's audio sound and overall performance.
More Deeptech Vista Mini information is available from the manufacturers web site direct
DeepTech Metal Detectors
Or drop me a line if you have any questions about the Deeptech range garysdetecting@hotmail.com
