Monty
Gold Member
- Jan 26, 2005
- 10,746
- 166
- Detector(s) used
- ACE 250, Garrett
- Primary Interest:
- All Treasure Hunting
- Thread starter
- #21
I've had the Sunray probe for quite a while now and have had a chance to get out and use it several times. I'm going to be brutally honest in my final evaluation. I do not think it is worth the selling price and I don't think it works any better than my Automax II, sometimes not as well. Here's why. Sometimes it "over powers" the target. That is to say it may be sounding on what you think is your original target, but find that it is actually hitting a target two to four inches deeper or even a target that far off to one side. Trashy areas are especially problematic. You may carefully scan and locate a coin target among the junk, say at 4". If there is a larger target with more resistance nearby it may falsly signal on it instead of your coin. Ditto a larger target that is deeper, when in fact you may have already dug up your coin and it is lying beside the hole in the dirt. For whatever reason, it may not pick up your initial target at all. Several times my 2500 was showing a coin or target at 4" when after digging down and using the probe, it would not sound off at all. At times I would use my Automax II and find it immediately. Several times I inadvertantly dug the target out of the hole and it was in the peripheral dirt along the edge of the plug. Running the Sunray probe through the loose dirt failed to turn it up. The Automax found it! I noticed that if the hole was very deep it would sound off just as loud in the middle of the hole as it would when the target was on the side of the hole. You never know which way to look. Why it is not reliable? I don't know. I expected much better performance for what I paid for it. Would I recommend it? No I would not. I'm almost sure someone from Sunray will read this and I hope they do. Maybe I just have a defective unit? I don't think so. Maybe I'm just too dumb to operate it properly? It surely isn't that difficult. Maybe they have a ways to go yet to make it compatable with the Garrett lineup? Quite possible. It pains me to give a less than favorable report. Sunray has a good reputatioin with Minelab users. I had much rather say it is the answer to the metal detectorists dream! It isn't. Monty