Makro Racer

[Funfinder]

moisture volume failure repair solution (solved)


Thx for your help, Skippy. This was real tricky, because sometimes the volume started to get
loud again out of nowhere and then it went back to quiet again.
Some sort of electronic-lose-contact, but not by cable or oxidated contacts! Crazy stuff.

After some tests with the potentiometer I found out by chance that the volume gets back
to normal - all the time! - after some 1-5k resistor was added! 2,2k Ohm was the optimal value.
In the beginning I thought that water created some rusty contact inside of the poti,
but this wasn't the case. The poti acts now with the 2,2k resistor complete normal -
from quiet volume to pretty loud and both channels - speaker and headphone.


But the speaker will get real quiet if some thicker plastic-sheet was glued over it.
So some air-holes are a must and are also better to save battery-power,
cause that way the volume just has to be turned up a little bit.
2-3 stripes of duct-tape over it and it should be water-proofed enough.


And I found another 2 holes where water could come in (see pix below).
This is where the pole gets attached to the plastic.
Water-resistant but not too strong glue is the solution!

Not too strong so everything is still openable if it should be needed.
So don't use super-glue to make this housing water-proofed.

btw. I have covered now the complete PCB with black color-spray - both sides!
Creates no electrionical-problems but helps to keep the moisture away!


Anyway, we are on the way to perfection with the Racer and perfection is great and important!

Meanwhile we can detect stuff double that deep as 25 years ago and
we can watch movies and we have video-games in full-HD!
Mobile video-chat via smart-phone also was nothing than science-fiction before, now we have it!
Modern kids have no idea how this was 20 years ago or how it would be today
without improvements and perfectionating stuff.

So its worth the fight, even if many just wanna enjoy all the improvements and
think they just have to spent some money to get it.
btw. perfection is just another word for well made or improved creativity
which is a motivation for many people anyway.

What's now is still missing is a 66cm (2ft) coil, ultra-light-weight!
Because those real deep 1m coils are not that easy to handle
and for most treasure-hunters too expensive.
Some 55-60cm coil also would be already a very good step forward.

Per instance 2 days ago I found a 1 pound cannon-ball 300 meters
further away of an already very far away know find-region!
Without a real large coil someone simply can't handle such huge distances and areas!

Especially those far too many and stressing sweepings with small coils (25-30cm)
can became very annoying after a short time - much more than the coils weight.

But for the moment I'm really happy with the Makro Racer and that there is
a 40cm coil available! Compared to the also very deep CoinFinder CF77 it's now
much easier and better adjustable with its LCD-screen and all the additional features.

[Funfinder]

Within a few days I found already a second cannonball with the Makro Racer,
but this time by vibration.

I was hunting at a very steep forest-region where it's already without
detector problematic not falling down.

But with the 40cm coil I searched through ten-thousands of square-meters
in a pretty short time thats why its possible to make such finds!
A 66cm coil even would be better.

The sensitivity (gain) was set to just 37 because of nearby big electricity-lines
but it was still powerful enough to sweep very fast 10cm over the floor.

The grip is to in-ergonomical. The forefinger gets pressed into that
space where the pinpoint-switch-plastic directly is nearby.
This is a little bit uncomfortable and should be improved.

And the plastic of the battery-unit also should be made broader so the
detector will stand more secure on the floor and doesn't falls to the side.
And its water-protection and speaker location also could be improved.

But seen from the fast find-recovery this detector really is a Racer!
Lightweight enough even for very steep and complicated regions.

And working with vibration signals is fantastic: listening all
the time to great music while searching and digging without breaks!

This way metal-detection also is much less boring sometimes because
some additional entertainment can be made possible every time needed!

And when the detector is quiet and only vibrates its better to recognize
if something nearby happens or if animals or persons come closer.

Of course the most depth still yet is reachable by listening to the
audio signals and to its very weak and repeatable differences.

[6666]

What was the origin of the cannon ball ?

[Funfinder]

@ 6666
I don't know but perhaps swedish or french.


And exactly the next search day (with 1 day rest inbetween) after the above find I got
already the 3rd cannonball with the Racer!
Again at the same steep forest region and by vibration while have some drinks and listening
to loud rock music! The center of the ball was 60cm deep while the signal still was very strong.

And meanwhile I found out how the vibration-mode really works perfect:
The detector must be set to all-metal-mode so it detects much deeper!
This way the vibration can be used on the same gain (=sensitivity) level
as it is also used with audio-signals and it will react even on the smallest things.

Seems the 2 tone mode confuses the vibration-alert-circuit too much.
In this case even the Metal-ID doesn't shows up. This is a bug which should
be fixed in the next version.

btw. the Metal ID of such larger cannonballs is around 60.

Of course if somebody uses the vibration in All-Metal Mode there is still the
possibility of discrimination - because here the Metal ID works well and a
fast look to it will decide if a target is interesting enough to dig it or not.

Per instance stuff from Metal ID 15-25 is iron and depending on the size of
the signal it can be ignored while hunting for all the more better stuff, first.
Rusty empty rounds from 2nd Worldwar show up with ID 19 and you won't find them all.
The audio 2 tone discrimination is very strong so if the ID-filter was set to 25
such stuff doesn't give any signal at all but in all-metal mode and vibration
the discrimination also works very good by a quick look at the display.

And in All-Metal-Mode also the threshold-setting is available which is not in 2 tone mode.
That way the detector can be set to special sensitive and when the vibration starts.

And if it's night time and the LED and LCD-display-light was set to on while
vibration-detection the detector will switch the LCD on for a short time when a find
was detected so someone can check very fast if the Metal-ID is ok for digging or not.


Anyway - because of the lightweight design and the new detection-output-methods
treasure-hunting feels really great and even steep regions are available for deep search.

[Funfinder]

Today I hit the jackpot - found 1,5 cannonballs and the half one
is exactly half - and broken by stonewall-impact.
btw. the new cannonball represents a cool celebration number - which is higher than 10.

This was only possible because of the lightweight Makro Racer because
I'm hunting for this stuff at some very steep mountain region.

Of course the Makro Group DeepHunter with 45cm motion coil would give the same
good results but wait - with the Makro Racer I'm hunting with vibration
(I found those 1 and a half balls by vibration) while listening to super music so
it's much more motivating while searching.
And of course the Makro Racer is easier to handle at steep regions without the big
box the DeepHunter needs. Especially in hot summer-times.
And the Makro Racer also has LED light for night-searches.


What I'm doing could be called: "hedonistic-treasure-hunting" ! No hard work - no no -
but drinking good stuff and beaming the brain into another world by powerful killer songs!
The Makro Racer's vibration made it possible! I'm innocent.
But only this way it works that you are motivated and feel no pain the whole day long!
Every hard and tough work can be turned into joy and fun if you know whats needed for compensation!
This way even digging very deep holes is no longer a pain in the *ss but a fine diversification.


But what has to be improved is the metal-ID displaying time!
If you sweep back and forth multiple times over the find very fast and directly over it,
you will get a very good metal-ID result but with usual sweeping
the metal-ID vanishes already within a half to one second.
It really needs some patience until the detector shows a reliable metal-ID,
but this is not really a failure but has to do with the very fast recovery speed.

The best solution would be some new special menu-entry where everybody can choose
how long should be the metal-ID display delay (0,5sec, 1sec, 2sec etc.)

So far the only solution is to sweep very narrow and directly over the find
and even from left-right back-forth to receive a countable metal-ID.


Anyway - the Makro Racer ABSOLUTLY is a profi-detector for an unbeatable low price
and especially if it is used all the time with the 40cm coil it will find almost everything!
Even 8mm small hammered shoe-nails, 10cm deep! And meteorites and mineralized stones!


Makro really should provide the 40cm coil for the standard selling package!
And this coil is still super useable below heavy electricity lines while using sensitivity 70!
This means depth for 8cm cannonballs down to 60cm - at high e-smog regions.

Some 50x50cm metal box will be detectable with the 40cm coil 1,2m deep minimum!

But what we really need now is a minimum 55cm coil for the Racer!
I see it all the time, for the real large and deep stuff even a 40cm coil is pretty weak!
Of course for coins at a not very big area some 30cm coil may be perfect -
but for larger stuff deeper than 1 meter I'm pretty convinced that only coils larger than
50cm are really useful. Especially if the search has to go fast and very efficient.

[bernte_one]

Hello Funfinder,

can you please measure the inductivity and resistance of the coil, or is it not possible because of additional electronics inside the coil?

found a dealer which offer for 444€ in germany

best regards

[Skippy]

Good question, I would like to know if it is compatible with the Fisher F75, or F19/GoldBugPro/Greek Series/F5 coils.
I also wondered if it had any form of electronic identification built in, particularly for coil-size. Users seem to report the 5 inch DD coil works well, and I considered it may be because the machine recognised it as "small", and modified the gain / filtering / etc to suit.

[Funfinder]

Hi bernte_one,


you're guessing was right, there is additional stuff inside and already in earlier times
Makro and Nokta used some special capacitor-circuit board directly mounted inside the coil.

444 Euro is a great price, perhaps special turkish import-export connection.
But I really would try to get the 40cm coil, too, if it's not included,
because only that way this detector works on its full power.


@ all

I found out that if any e-smog sources are further away than 300 meters
the Racer with 40cm coil is absolutly quiet, almost too quiet for my taste,
especially if used with 2 or 3 Tone mode.

The best depth is achievable in All-Metal mode with gain and threshold
set to as high as possible.


btw. meanwhile I found already the 5th cannonball with the Racer!
It was just 15cm deep so I would have found it with every detector but hunting
very fast through large areas really works great and comfortable with this detector,
because the whole combination incl. 40cm coil still is pretty lightweight and
without disturbing box and cable. It has vibration, which makes the whole
work over a longer time much more energetic if listening to music or radio etc.
Even enjoying the silence can be refreshing - hunting without artificial noises.


Of course detection-work not always is just a walk in the park:
After digging a deep hole at high mineralized ground for nothing
I found out that the very high standard GEB value of 90 especially
at loamy and hot-rock-regions really has to be changed to alot lower!

Otherwise it is even possible that the mineralized ground creates
repeatable signals incl. metal ID at ca. 40 - perfect fake-finds!
Of course its also my fault because sometimes listening to very
weak signals could be everything and is not simple to pinpoint!
It could be an 1m deep 10cm thing or it can be a nail at the side
of the hole that is 20cm deep but because of its direction it
get's detected 15cm offset!

However - the solution is simple:
Manually change the Ground-Setting to zero and if the signal no
longer exists, it was just the special ground-formation itself.

So please don't get scared off the Racer just because I'm writing
about digging some empty hole, this can happen with every good
and sensitive detector if the coil is bigger and the ground contains
high mineralized pockets of loam or hot rocks etc.
Picking up very deep signals also sometimes needs alot experience.

It is no failure of the Racer, because it even can detect mineralized stones
if used correct - even very small meteorites pretty deep if the soil is ok.
Of course this way the GEB should be set to ca. 20 or something.

If the GEB is set as default to 90 this is the optimal setting for silver
and valuable metal at very low mineralized locations.
No wonder it will create failure signals if used at very high mineralized soil.
But if someone searches for very deep iron or steel artefacts or relics
he will get the best depth everywhere if the ground-balance will be just
at around 35-50.

Anyway, after my experience further away (300meters) from high-voltage lines
now I'm absolutly shure that the Racer also would work still very good and quiet
enough with some 60cm coil!

With such a coil all the larger objects will "jump" directly in the face of the treasure-hunter!
And the depth will be amazing, as long as the soil is just medium-mineralized and no larger
e-smog sources are nearby. And this is just the beginning, because I'm shure that within the
next years the Racer will be further improved.

[WM6]

444 Euro is a great price, perhaps special turkish import-export connection.

No "special connection", according his words, seller (German distributor) withdrawing from the business with Makro/Nokta, so such discount selling of Makro Racer.

[bernte_one]

yes it´s direct from a dealer here in germany, but i think they fool us all with these prices
reason which was named was that the buisness with the racer dont works as good as they hoped
so the prices falls within some weeks step by step

i suppose the will offer a new version next weeks and they want to get place for the new detectors and also a good price for the older version which does not hurt the dealer
so it is best to offer the racer for a lower price as to throw them away as soon the newer versions appear to the market thats the only think whats make sense to me and my wisdom of buisness and market behaviour- i dont like dealers which tell wrong reasons for selling products

at the other side i have a goldbug (clone) fs2 from China which works perfect with an extra buyed original coil from teknetics all togehther i got for 200€

so i think a racer itself could be sold also much lower then 444€ and the make still a buisness with them or do you think they are produced in europe or Turkey? i suppose if they are clever they produce a bit more in the east. ;-)

[WM6]

i suppose the will offer a new version next weeks and they want to get place for the new detectors and also a good price for the older version which does not hurt the dealer

According some announcements, new version of "Racer" is not intended to be replacement for ordinary Racer,
but more specialized to field of "Gold" detectors:

http://www.detectorprospector.com/go...l-detector.htm

[Funfinder]

There are many factors involved how high or low or changing is the price.
In the beginning you pay 50 bucks for a Commodore 64 game (30 years ago)
and meanwhile you can dl all high quality Playstation 2 games for free which
10 years ago also have costed alot.

For selling out the older technical stuff of course lower prices are needed,
but I doubt this is the case for the Racer. So far there is no new Racer model
and it will take at least until 2016 when such will be released.

Seen from "making good business" of course a company can reach
alot more customers if it can produce and sell products for a lower
price than its concurrence.

The metal-detector-business is not that huge so someone has to
be creative. If 1000 persons buy the new apple-watch perhaps 1
buys a metal-detector.

And of course there are costs like development, taxes, promotion, delivery,
patents, storage, warranty or repair work, employees and investments into the future.

We may ask why does the Garrett Euro Ace just costs 250 bucks while
the not much different Ace 2500 costs 3-4 times more?
Printing the 2500s PCB will cost not much more seen from the components,
but of course special needed chips and ICs may have indeed a higher pricetag.

But for luck the prices of electronic-products have a good potential to drop
because nobody wants to buy some already 2 years old smart-phone or computer
if the new games or apps or programs no longer work on them.

And of course the more rare technical products are, the more expensive they are.
Per instance the Lunokhod, the first moon-car from Russia, ca. 50 years ago, did cost millions
of rubels. So perhaps we have to see some metal-detectors also as "rare finds" which
therefore costs more than million-selling products of the mass-market.

But what really counts in the end for metal detectors?
The price-quality-features-customer-service relation!

And if a product really satisfies the wishes of its buyers.
This also means how many people and how long they are happy with it.
Because the info spreads pretty fast if something is it worth or not.
Or if something is worth the special features no other detectors have.

Same with drinking water or Champagne - if for someone it's worth the price.
Or more extreme:
Is it worth to spent 1000 bucks for one or a few hours of "painful" domina-entertainment?!
Pleasure or pain... not just the price.

Of course if seen Turkey as a low-loan-country where jeans and clothes are produced almost the
same low as at India also electronic-products should be much less expensive.
However there are worldwide trade-connections with electronic-parts and stuff has to be imported.

But back to the question: is the price for the Racer acceptable seen from the:
price-quality-features-customer-service relation?!

My opinion: It should be incl. 40cm coil and accessoires 499 Euro so it will be able to beat all
other detectors and because of the higher sellings more of them can be produced for an even
better price.

But compared with most other detectors, which costs alot more or even the double
as the Racer, the price-quality-features-customer-service relation already now is pretty good.
We will see from the sold units how much the treasure-hunting-worlds likes and wants the
Racer. I guess at the moment after ca. 1/4 year it's too early to think about it.

And not every treasure-hunter or metal-detectorist buys every year all the newest
detectors, fresh available on the market. Often they have already 5 different detectors
and use one of them.

There also is no "20cm more depth +" each year - too bad !!!
The improvements are more subtle and therefore also the motivation is more special or specific.

However if we get the 60cm or even better the 66cm coil, we will have more than 20cm better depth!

But even this will be a special tool and most of the MD-buyers will stick to some 25-30cm coil
because so far this is the mainly used standard. Great for coins and relics but of
course nothing for huge areas or the really deep stuff!

[Funfinder]

Metal-ID

Back to the technical questions:

Yesterday I found cannonball #6 with the Racer in just 3 months!

This is no coincidence because I can estimate how many square-meters at what kind
of region I can cover with what size of coil and how good I can filter by discrimination.

And the Racer makes it extremly easy going just for special kind of finds!

Cannonballs have metal-IDs from 40 to 60 depending on its size so every other
stuff can be ignored if detected, even if it gives a huge signal.

Some 3 pound cannonball has Metal-ID 48. And if its buried 25cm deep,
the 40cm coil still detects it 30-40cm above ground! 30cm if somebody
runs over the area and sweeps the coil with highspeed. With sensititivity at 75.

But also some alu-foil-juice-pack has metal ID 48.

Created you some picture below with metal ID 82:

Musket-balls, bottle-caps and large steel-rings - they all have 82.

If a find is ring-shaped it always will have a higher metal ID compared
with its usual metal-ID value, the same if its ball-shaped.
Because the eddy-currents can flow "directly".

And the most "nice" metal IDs are created by alu-conserves or cans:
They will give values around 88 incl. super massive signal.
Some silver treasure may have ca. the same metal ID, or a huge piece of bronze.

btw. its pretty cool to hunt with a turkish metal-detector while listening
at the same time to pretty loud turkish Disco-Hits and drinking Raki thinned with enough water!

But yesterday I also enjoyed the complete silence of the morning! Its also nice - at least for some time.
Vibration of the metal-detector and the modified pinpointer only.
Pinpointers should have vibration only, anyway!

And finding the cannonball at 6:45 AM!!!
The early treasure-hunter-bird catches the cannonball-worms!


btw. It is well known that completly different finds can create the same Metal-ID!
All MD have this "problem".
And detectors which work with induction balance have already a very good discrimination
or metal recognition - compare with P.I.

It always depends on 3 factors: what kind of metal or alloy, what shape, what size.


The best method to avoid or fast remove junk is using directly the pinpointer after detection:
If its just a few cm below the surface, often its junk. If the pinpointer detects nothing but
the detectors sigal is big, the chance to dig out something interesting already is 50% higher!

And btw. I found out that for normal speed walking a 66cm coil would be the best match!
Even with the 40cm someone has to walk more slowly to cover the complete area by the sweepings.
And walking slow is not good if the area is huge and the time is short!

And I can promise that I do not just sweep over 100 squaremeters per 6-10 hour search-day.
My success is the result of scanning areas the size of at ca. 100x100 meters per day -
depending on the finds and digging-work sometimes less but sometimes also alot more.

Cannonballs per instance most of the time have a distance of about 40-80 meters until the next one.
But this means that someone has to search at least an area of 50x50meters with the found
cannonball seen in the middle of this area. So the bigger the coil, the better, and for real deep
buried treasure-stuff a larger coil is a must, anyway.



And last but not least:
Look at the attached jpg with the 8-15mm little stuff I've found with the Racer and 40cm coil.
So who needs 30cm coils if some already very lightweight 40cm coil also can catch all of this?


The Racer is super high sensitive if used the correct way, so I even find all the time
those 15mm musket-balls buried 10cm deep while almost running over the sites
and sweeping the coil 10-15cm above ground!
btw. this has to do with my actual priority:
First get all the big stuff and later search for the rest.

A person who uses the 40cm coil very slowly and directly over the floor gets even much better results.
Catching usual 20-25mm coins 30cm deep - no problem. And even 5-10mm stuff ist detectable.

[Funfinder]

Here the pic with the Metal-ID 82 finds.

[Funfinder]

Thx to the Racer meanwhile I've even found the "missing link" of my cannonball-collection - a very rare two-pounder.

See picture below from left to right: 6 pound, 3 pound, 2 pound, 1 pound (the rest is other and smaller old ammunition)


btw. now there is the first package with bluetooth headphone available for Europe:
http://www.nuggets.at/Makro-Detector...Metalldetektor
It's 719 Euro which is 100 Euro more as the usual price.

And the 40cm coil costs 229 Euro which is a little bit expensive but in my case this investment
really has paid off already now within just 3 months.


Of course this coil is still to small because I don't must find little 1 cm lead-bullets (see picture and also
in orig. size compared to the cannonballs) but better and more prefered the real big and very deep stuff!
You also see one of the usual 2nd WW bullets compared to this mini-bullet I've found with the 40cm coil.

And at the moment I'm searching not very carefully, I run over 1000s of squaremeters each day at a huge hunting-region
and still find with a 40cm coil this 1cm small stuff !! - btw. with vibration on and the sensitivity level only at 70 from 100.

If someone hunts really slow and carefully for 1cm finds and larger the 40cm coil is everything he needs.
Incl. super fast recovery speed and lightweight enough to handle even very steep mountain- or hill-regions.

Of course the 30cm coil is more lightweight and the actual standard but this has to be changed!
This "mini-coil" only is good for really deep and pretty small coins or rings (1-2 cm diameter).
For goldnuggets its too large and for normal to larger coins the 40cm coil even is better.
If you should buy this detector I really can recommend asking to get the 40cm coil
instead of the 30cm one and paying ca. 100-150 Euro additional.

But... - we will break all depth records when Makro creates some 60-70cm coil for the Racer !!!