My Tesoro Sand Shark Review - (not so favorable)

Having owned and used a Sand Shark extensively I have to say I disagree with a lot you say. I was surprised to see that coil passed inspection but they will fix it or already did. I have to also say the SS is a great machine. It is very deep, the 8" coil swings in the water much better than my GT, Excal 2 and my Dual Field does. It slices through the water well so maybe you just don't understand water hunting is hard or this is your first water machine. ? Drag is caused by the shaft on the SS, not the coil. Also, diving or water machines are almost all are hard wired these days. Connectors corrode so they do not use them much any more. Older machines used them. They stopped using connectors for good reason. I would not buy a true water machine with connectors, that is a poor design. Ask anyone with a Garrett AT Pro who used it a lot in salt water. The connectors are the weak link.

That machine is backed forever by the Tesoro people. They rarely have any problem and will last a lifetime. I loved my Sand Shark and still kick myself for selling it. The guy who bought it loves it and has no complaints. That says a lot! He uses it all the time and has nice finds with it. To each their own. I would rather see a review from someone who used a metal detector extensively. Please post a review after using it for a while or sell it and get one with connectors that corrode.
 
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Hmmm..

I know the way I talk about the Sand Shark I make it sound like a bad machine, Terry just gets me worked up with his exaggerations...

...I have a feeling the Sand Shark is a completely different animal on the east coast, with the mild ground over there. It just doesn't perform like Terry claims over here on the west coast.

I love you man. It's real different in the goldfields of Central Arizona as well. I have heard a 0.5-gram gold picker (small nugget) at 5"-deep in the heavily mineralized soil near Rich Hill, with the Sand Shark. :shock: I know you don't believe me, but there WAS another forum member there and in all fairness, he didn't believe either till I made him put the headphones on! :lol:
 

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I love you man. It's real different in the goldfields of Central Arizona as well. I have heard a 0.5-gram gold picker (small nugget) at 5"-deep in the heavily mineralized soil near Rich Hill, with the Sand Shark. :shock: I know you don't believe me, but there WAS another forum member there and in all fairness, he didn't believe either till I made him put the headphones on! :lol:

Yeah, I don't know what is up with the sand on the west coast beaches, we have heavy concentrations of this black sand that sticks to magnets, I'm thinking it's Magnetite or something. I've talked to guys with Excaliburs, Sov GTs, and one guy with a Safari, and all said that this sand makes them turn their sensitivity real low and really screws up their depth and tone id. I've heard from a could people that smaller gold will id as iron in this sand, I guess because the auto ground balance is balancing to iron, so it sees foil and other low conductors as iron.

Anyway, the SS didn't like this sand either, it saw the whole ground as a target. Wasn't user error, I tried minimum pulse delay, silent threshold, lower volume, everything.

I think even your Arizona gold fields are mild ground compared to some of my beaches... :D If you're ever in San Diego, I'll take you to one of these beaches I'm referring to.

That's cool that the SS picked up that .5g nugget for you, I want to nugget hunt one day, finding a gold nugget is a dream of mine (and a gold coin....) but I just cant find anywhere near me to go, there is Julian/Banner, CA, but I don't even know how to find public land that I can hunt at.
 
Yeah, I don't know what is up with the sand on the west coast beaches, we have heavy concentrations of this black sand that sticks to magnets, I'm thinking it's Magnetite or something. I've talked to guys with Excaliburs, Sov GTs, and one guy with a Safari, and all said that this sand makes them turn their sensitivity real low and really screws up their depth and tone id. I've heard from a could people that smaller gold will id as iron in this sand, I guess because the auto ground balance is balancing to iron, so it sees foil and other low conductors as iron.

Anyway, the SS didn't like this sand either, it saw the whole ground as a target. Wasn't user error, I tried minimum pulse delay, silent threshold, lower volume, everything.

I think even your Arizona gold fields are mild ground compared to some of my beaches... :D If you're ever in San Diego, I'll take you to one of these beaches I'm referring to.

That's cool that the SS picked up that .5g nugget for you, I want to nugget hunt one day, finding a gold nugget is a dream of mine (and a gold coin....) but I just cant find anywhere near me to go, there is Julian/Banner, CA, but I don't even know how to find public land that I can hunt at.

Our beaches can have quite a bit of magnetite and hematite. Yes, even a PI will be affected. You'll have to back off on the gain and increase (not decrease) the delay some. Minimum pulse delay is the wrong way.

Having said that, recommending a PI to a --primarily-- dry land, urban, coin and jewelry shooter, should be a criminal offense. :lol: A PI has a definite place in the gold fields, in areas where man made trash is not wide spread or at a high density.
 
Having owned and used a Sand Shark extensively I have to say I disagree with a lot you say. I was surprised to see that coil passed inspection but they will fix it or already did. I have to also say the SS is a great machine. It is very deep, the 8" coil swings in the water much better than my GT, Excal 2 and my Dual Field does. It slices through the water well so maybe you just don't understand water hunting is hard or this is your first water machine. ? Drag is caused by the shaft on the SS, not the coil. Also, diving or water machines are almost all are hard wired these days. Connectors corrode so they do not use them much any more. Older machines used them. They stopped using connectors for good reason. I would not buy a true water machine with connectors, that is a poor design. Ask anyone with a Garrett AT Pro who used it a lot in salt water. The connectors are the weak link.

That machine is backed forever by the Tesoro people. They rarely have any problem and will last a lifetime. I loved my Sand Shark and still kick myself for selling it. The guy who bought it loves it and has no complaints. That says a lot! He uses it all the time and has nice finds with it. To each their own. I would rather see a review from someone who used a metal detector extensively. Please post a review after using it for a while or sell it and get one with connectors that corrode.


I took my Sand Shark to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk at about 7:45 PM and stayed out until 12:45 AM detecting.. Found a few rings, lots of coins, garbage etc. also.. But the interference was weird.. I'm sure it wasn't my mobile phone because I powered it off and the noise was still there...

Here is the ring..

found_ring_4-21-2012.png


I had terrible interference that I had experienced when I tested a Tesoro PIranha at the same location. However my White's MXT didn't seem to be affected at all by this. The weird thing is that when I would be pointing towards the water and a little SW the whoop whoop whoop noise was much less and sometimes gone.. but when I was pointing NE away from the beach the noise was terrible...

Luckily, when the detector finds a target somehow that noise goes silent and I can then hear the target.. but lacking targets, the sound comes back. I have recorded the sound the best I could through my cell phone.

Here is a video link to hear the sound: Video (Please excuse my comment at the end - dont know how to edit it out, I was frustrated listening to this sound all night through the headphones)..

I need to get input from other people who use PI detectors at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk and find out if it is just something PI's will pick up here.. Also the sand sure was making the Sand Shark make noises.. Luckily with the VCO on I could easily tell what was a real target but the noise was getting on my nerves.. earlier at another beach there was sand that was noisy.. was hoping the detector would be much more quiet than this in our mineralized sand. :no:

I'll give it credit that I did find things! - wonder if the fact that the electronics are not EMI shielded matters.. ok goodnight.. dead tired and babbling..
 
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All PI machines experience EMI at times!

That is EMI. Even my Minelab GPX 5000 goes wacky every now and then in particular locations - or when Air Force fighters from Luke AFB are training overhead. My VLF machines even go nutz sometimes around concentrations of power lines. :cool:

I took my Sand Shark to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk at about 7:45 PM and stayed out until 12:45 AM detecting.. Found a few rings, lots of coins, garbage etc. also.. But the interference was weird.. I'm sure it wasn't my mobile phone because I powered it off and the noise was still there...

I had terrible interference that I had experienced when I tested a Tesoro PIranha at the same location. However my White's MXT didn't seem to be affected at all by this. The weird thing is that when I would be pointing towards the water and a little SW the whoop whoop whoop noise was much less and sometimes gone.. but when I was pointing NE away from the beach the noise was terrible...

Luckily, when the detector finds a target somehow that noise goes silent and I can then hear the target.. but lacking targets, the sound comes back. I have recorded the sound the best I could through my cell phone.

Here is a video link to hear the sound: Video (Please excuse my comment at the end - dont know how to edit it out, I was frustrated listening to this sound all night through the headphones)..

I need to get input from other people who use PI detectors at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk and find out if it is just something PI's will pick up here.. Also the sand sure was making the Sand Shark make noises.. Luckily with the VCO on I could easily tell what was a real target but the noise was getting on my nerves.. earlier at another beach there was sand that was noisy.. was hoping the detector would be much more quiet than this in our mineralized sand. :no:

I'll give it credit that I did find things! - wonder if the fact that the electronics are not EMI shielded matters.. ok goodnight.. dead tired and babbling..
 
It's EMI if there is a police tower or a alarm system nearby that could be the cause... I have a beach where the EMI is a lot louder than that...
 
So it would pick it up from pointing the coil in a certain direction?, not just all around?....Thats wild....I've never had that problem directional, just all around at times in my back yard with any detector...
 
I would have thought that someone at Tesoro could have come up with a better pcb holder than hot glue. I've seen problems arise out of using hot glue for holding electronics in place, specifically a product that has the opportunity to get knocked around a bit. I realize that with the unit being waterproof you can't exactly put some screws through the case and hold it in that way, but perhaps with small clips mounted to the pcb and a modification to the housing they would slide back and snap in place. I'd actually have to have the housing and pcb in front of me to come up with something, but hot glue is just cheap and one of the ways they can provide a lifetime warranty.

As for the pcb's being small, in general the smaller the better. It may seem cheap, but the smaller you go with components the more expensive it is. With surface mount components it can get pretty pricey, but the power consumption will be less the smaller you go as well.

If they are really having problems with 30% of their coils, then that is a MAJOR quality problem. I don't care if 25% is cosmetic,(% was conjured in my mind, I am just making an example from yrekadude's OP) then there is a chance that customers will not be happy with it. A customer is buying a brand-new detector and they wish it to look that way regardless of the performance.

Another example: I work at a company that makes battery packs, chargers and power supplies. I make a perfectly functioning battery pack and put it in a case. The case has a scratch on it, the battery pack is going to work regardless of the scratch on the case, but I can guarantee that we will have a complaint or return.

Same goes for detectors, I'm buying new and I want it to look new. Most customers do. If my At-Pro that is back ordered comes in with a scratch on anything or a deformed coil that I wouldn't be happy and it will be going back to be replaced and you'll see my post on here about it.

In short customer satisfaction is part of quality and even if you cannot please them all, the goal is 100% customer satisfaction. Where I work, hot glue wouldn't fly for holding a pcb in place, I don't even know how it is a good idea. It is just cheap. The pcb's are fine, the smaller the better as long as the unit performs and that certainly seems to be the case. I eventually plan on buying a Tesoro and this thread didn't turn me away from it. I've seen them work in action(and it was awesome), but unfortunately functionality is not the whole picture of quality. Just my two cents.
 
I recognize that noise, it's EMI, my Sand Shark did that at one of my beaches, as I got closer to the big life guard station it would do that, and it's wierd because it was directional also. It would get a little better if I swept in certain directions, but never totally went away in those bad areas.

On the bad sand thing, some sand over here really, um... angers... the sand shark... :lol: Not really any way to adjust the machine too make it work better on those beaches. Wish they put a pulse delay instead of a pulse width setting... would have made the machine so much better... and maybe I would have kept mine.
 
I love you man. It's real different in the goldfields of Central Arizona as well. I have heard a 0.5-gram gold picker (small nugget) at 5"-deep in the heavily mineralized soil near Rich Hill, with the Sand Shark. :shock: I know you don't believe me, but there WAS another forum member there and in all fairness, he didn't believe either till I made him put the headphones on! :lol:

Dude - You're going to scratch your Sand Shark by setting it on the pick like that! :nono: - BTW that is impressive - I found one about that size and about that deep with my MXT in Redding..
 
I recognize that noise, it's EMI, my Sand Shark did that at one of my beaches, as I got closer to the big life guard station it would do that, and it's wierd because it was directional also. It would get a little better if I swept in certain directions, but never totally went away in those bad areas.

On the bad sand thing, some sand over here really, um... angers... the sand shark... :lol: Not really any way to adjust the machine too make it work better on those beaches. Wish they put a pulse delay instead of a pulse width setting... would have made the machine so much better... and maybe I would have kept mine.

Crumble, were you in front of the lifeguard station at Mission beach? Makes my SS go crazy.
 
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