Fisher 1280-X Aquanaut - w/10.5" loop

[Terry In Florida]

Fisher 1280-X Aquanaut - w/10.5" loop

Okay I didn't see spending top dollar yet, so I felt a good mid-range MD would suffice for a while.

I had a Garrett's Treasure Ace 300, it worked alright but isn't up to par with the 1280-X, IMHO... The Garrett has been passed to my son now, makes nice father/son times together. A few years ago I owned a Whites Coinmaster 5000/D Series 2 MD, it was the mid-range MD of the time, it was quite a handful to work but definitely was my education to the MD world.

I wanted something I could take into the water to a descent depth, the 1280-X specs say 250' depth.
I liked the idea of possibly getting 80 hours on the battery life, better than most I have seen.
Love the lifetime warranty.

I did a lot of research for the price range and only came up with two main Md's, the Fisher 1280-X and the Tesoro Tiger Shark. I think the thing that made up my mind between these two machines was that I found a lot of reviews complimenting the 1280-X, whereas I didn't find many reviews for the Tiger Shark.

I have to say I am very pleased with the way the 1280-X performs, in and out of fresh and salt water.
The only problem I have seen with it is working the water line in salt water, you do have to be either in the water or out.

 

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[Sandman]

Re: Fisher 1280-X Aquanaut - w/10.5" loop

Terry,
The Fisher 1280-X is a fine water detector for fresh or salt. Yes it will have problems with the water line as that is where the black sand and salt are together. I've used an Aquanaut with the 8 inch coil for diving and the 10 inch wading. Natch, I at once had three machines. I now mainly use either a CZ-20, Excal. 1000, or the Tiger Shark. The CZ20 and Excal 1000 are very deep and have good discrimination but I use a low setting. CZ-20 has three tones so you can skip the low ones and mainly scoop the middle tones as those have a good chance of being gold rings. Excal doesn't need to be ground balanced. The 1280-x has a preset GB. Battery useage is longer than 80 hours too and now we can buy Lithium batteries which will last seasons.

The Tigar Shark now is slowly becoming a favorite. The major advantages it has is a Salt mode, changable coils, and the huge light weight Clean Sweep coil which is 18" X 3". This lets you cover more area per swing and cover more ground equals more targets per time spent! But the coil costs about $190.00 What I don't like about the Tiger Shark is you have to open it to change batteries or adjust Volumn, Sens. or Threshold. and make sure you seal it up correctly.

Visit this web site to learn how to hunt a beach. www.thegoldenolde.com/

HH.
Sandman

 

[osiris661]

Re: Fisher 1280-X Aquanaut - w/10.5" loop

I purchased a Fisher 1280-X on eBay for a little over $130.00USD. It had been flooded and there was all kinds of salt corrosion on the inside of the housing unit where the electronics were. This unit was being sold "as is" for replacement parts. I already had a Whites Beach Hunter ID and was using that on the beaches down here in Southeast Florida but decided to purchase the Fisher 1280X as a side project to send to the company and see how much it would cost to get fixed. My intial idea was to maybe get it fixed and re-sell it on eBay for a little profit. I wrote a letter to Fisher and sent the unit in, they responded and quoted 220.00 to completely fix the unit. I agreed and they had the unit back to me within two weeks all fixed up and ready to go. I took it to the beach and started to swing it around in the water not knowing too much about the controls or anything. Initially I was not pleased with the detector because I would always hear a signal with the wave movement. Once I returned home I put the detector in the closet and eventually listed it on eBay to see what money I could get back from it. While the auction was active on eBay I went to the beach again this time with my brother who wanted to try some detecting with me, I use my Beach Hunter ID and the only other detector I had was the Fisher 1280X in the closet so I told him to use that. While we were at the beach a guy with an Excal 1000 decked out in scuba gear came out of the water and approached us. He introduced himself and asked if we frequently detect this particular beach, I told him sometimes and then he noticed the Fisher in my brother's hand. He stated, "nice detector, I have two 1280's at home myself, they are great machines", I responded, "yeah nice Excal, I want to buy one". His response was to stay FAR away from the Excal because it is poorly made, he told us in the past year he has had to send it into Minelab three times to be serviced and to stick with the 1280 because it is a well-made reliable water machine. I told him about how I didn't like how sensetive the machine was to water movement and that I was selling it on eBay. Then he showed me what changed my entire opinion and what has led to soooooo many water finds with the unit. Put the sensetivity on about 5 and discrimination on 2, prvious to this I had the sensetivity on 9 and discrimination on 0. He also showed us how to rotate the discrimination knob once a target has been found to see the potential target ID which has really helped things. After that day I outbid my item on eBay using one of my ghost accounts and started focusing on really learning to use the Fisher 1280X. To date, and it has only been about 4 months now since I bought it, I have found some amazing finds with this machine in and out of the water. I still use my Beach Hunter ID but not as much as the Fisher 1280X, as for the Minelab Excal, I am still asking people about their opinions on the machine before I make any hasty decisions.

By The Way, here is a link to one of my recent posts on this forum in "Today's Finds" of two rings I found with the 1280-X.

http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,40508.0.html


The biggest lesson I learned and I always read this statement but didn't heed the advice, LEARN HOW TO USE YOUR DETECTOR!!!

 

[Rob66]

Re: Fisher 1280-X Aquanaut - w/10.5" loop

Thanks for the info!!!!

 

[Monk]

Re: Fisher 1280-X Aquanaut - w/10.5" loop

I also use the 1280X, I've found some nice things in the water with it. The only thing I feel bad about it is I can't find gold chains with it? And for coin shooting I find it works very well for me. I just turn it on and go, I really like that.------ I love my 1280X----- It's O.K. for cache hunting too. As long as one isn't looking for something buried to deep.

 

[joelt]

Re: Fisher 1280-X Aquanaut - w/10.5" loop

Sandman..

Are you saying that the clean sweep coil is waterproof? I had one for my DeLeon, but I sold it when I sold my DeLeon, never occurred to me it might work with the Tiger Shark, didn't think it was waterproof either.

 

[Sandman]

Re: Fisher 1280-X Aquanaut - w/10.5" loop

Since I am back, I will answer this question.

The CSC is water proof, but they make a special one ( or did anyway) for the Tiger Shark. The connectors are different on the Shark so your other one wouldn't have worked. Till Tesoro starts making them again, all you can hope for is finding a used one on ebay.

You have to watch as Tesoro still make the Clean Sweep Coil for the Sand Shark, but it's not for the Tiger Shark. Send Tesoro a message asking about the coil might get them thinking about it again. It runs about $199.00 new but is worth every penny when you sweep a beach with other hunters and the first one to put the coil on it gets it.

 

[Jim101]

Re: Fisher 1280-X Aquanaut - w/10.5" loop

I have a 1280-X, can you point me to any articles that cover using it on land?

Thanks,

Jim