3030 Owners Forgotten by Minelab

botics

Jr. Member
Dec 6, 2012
47
15
Miami, Florida
Detector(s) used
Minelab CTX 3030, 17" and 6" Coils
Minelab Excalibur II, 10" Coil
AT Pro, AT Gold
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Iā€™m happy with mine !
This has been beat to death,
If it ainā€™t broke donā€™t fix it.

The CTX has its place and a big following , itā€™s a great machine and sure there are new machines but it has a place in many hands.
BD
 

I think the basic statement/question botics is trying to say....where are all of the updates that were expected as more is known about the CTX...I donā€™t think heā€™s complaining about his machineā€™s performance as much as he is saying I dropped $2500 on a machine and one of the selling points was ā€œupdatesā€. Discoveries about the CTX over the past few years of use that Minelab has tried to address or improve in performance..
 

Exactly what I was trying to get across. Thanks for breaking it down.
 

For me it doesn't matter that much, ML added the pp lock and saltwater update, what do newer models offer the 3030 doesnt have, not much other than lighter weight.

3030 is deeper, much more TID range, the ability to see multiple targets at same time and see the difference in the targets with Target Trace and GPS, 3030 is still the flagship, at least for now.
 

That's a good question; it was a selling point and a main reason I bought it. It is a hard detector to beat and so many programming options. But I would have wanted more support/changes to the operating system. Some of the CTX 3030 programming seems clunky.. but it is what it is. An upgrade to a more streamline OS would be nice but at this point I doubt it will happen.
 

The CTX is obviously capable of handling a broad range of frequencies. Wouldn't it be nice to see something like a Multi-IQ mode added. To be able to toggle between FBS and Multi-IQ would be something. I suspect that might not be possible without the kind of processing efficiency of modern chipsets, or for all I know maybe it is, but just a hypothetical "wouldn't it be nice" idea.

I'm not new to detecting, but I'm new to the CTX so I can't say with any authority that Minelab has shirked it's responsibility to update the CTX, but I would say that I find it hard to imagine they haven't learned many new things they could've done better software wise since 2012. At $2,500 making sure the CTX is the best it can possibly be should be a top priority even now in 2020, until such time as they replace it with something else. That aside, it still seems to be miles ahead in some respects. To me, it seems to have no competition for what it excels at other than the Whites V3i. I can see why they wouldn't want to fiddle much more with it.
 

Just went to the Minelab website ( https://www.minelab.com/metal-detectors/ctx-3030 ).
I found a listing for a software upgrade in 2016, and a new version of the 'Exchange-2' application released in October 2018.

Not sure if you all saw these or not, or if you already had this info.

Capture.JPG
 

Consumers are funny.

Company A puts out a great product that requires no changes, and people complain about a lack of updates.

Company B puts out a product that has many faults, requires numerous firmware updates, and people believe thats great customer service, and that a company is listening to them!

Almost comical!

Ill stick with Company A, thank you.
 

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