# Forum Home Renovation Tools & Products  Bosch GMS120 stud finder issues

## Woob

Hey all 
So I just bought the new Bosch model professional stud finder, gone to use it on my brick internal walls to find my laundry plumbing and nothing.. it wont find any power cables in the walls unless I load them right up with 3-4A of power draw, it wont find ANY copper piping, and its basically doing bugger all. It did find the flexi yellow gas pipe in my living room but thats about it. 
Any suggestions on how to improve the detection ability of these units? I have recalibrating it, and it claims a detection depth of 80mm for non-ferrous materials, so it should have no issues at all with finding the copper piping. For $180 I expected a lot better.. 
Cheers
Damon

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## Uncle Bob

I would've thought that a stud finder would never find anything in brick  :Confused:

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## Woob

Its a stud, metal and live cable finder, it finds ferrous and non ferrous metals, and live cables. It states that some factors can reduce the scanning depth of the unit, but none of the listed factors indicate that brick would cause issues. And it cost a bloody mint so I expected better.

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## METRIX

Specs on this unit as follows, max detection depth 120mm, a standard brick is 110mm deep, and with a 40-50mm cavity you will have bugger all chance of picking anything up behind it.
I have had numerous electronic stud finders, most of them struggled to even work through 10mm Gyprock reliably let alone a brick wall.  *Technical data: GMS 120 Professional* Detectable materials Ferrous metals, non-ferrous metals, wooden substructures, live cables  Max. detection depth 120 mm  Detection depth, steel, max. 120 mm  Detection depth, copper, max. 80 mm  Detection depth of live cables, max. 50 mm  Detection depth of wooden substructures, max. 38 mm  Automatic deactivation facility, approx. 5 min  Power supply 1 x 9 V 6LR61  Weight, approx. 0,27 kg  Length 200 mm  Width 85 mm  Height 32 mm  Dust and splash guard IP 54

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## Pitto

100% agree with Metrix, i have wasted countless hours with different brands and models. 
that said, i did see Dewalt USA have bought out a "radar" stud and services detector that isnt cheap, but looks impressive from the marketing BS

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## Whitey66

I was looking at buying this exact model a couple of weeks ago.
You can pick them up on Ebay for around $100 but I decided against it when I read the negative reviews.

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## China

For masonary walls you need something like this  Wallscanner D-tect150 SV Detector New Tools | Professional power tools for trade & industry
But you won't find it for anything close to $100 it will be in the range $600-700

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## Woob

Mm might be a refund job I think.. the claimed performance vs real world performance is just too far apart to be acceptable. 
I did notice that 20mm non ferrous pipes were detected perfectly with no issues at all, but 12mm copper is a complete no go. I am wondering if this is due to the larger diameter being detected, or the fact that they are gas pipes, and as the pipes are technically hollow, they are effectively easier to detect.  
I might try detecting copper with the water running tomorrow and see if it changes the results. If it is the case, then I will know to run water to detect water pipes, and plug and iron or something with a big power drain into power points to detect them. Fingers crossed!

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## METRIX

This was the last Stud finder I purchased Bosch DMF 10 Zoom SYDNEY TOOLS - Bosch DMF 10 Zoom Wall Scanner / Detector 
It was the biggest piece of garbage, my cheap $20 Stanley did a better job than this, as soon as you brought it near a tiled or villaboard wall, it just refused to find anything, specs were 100mm depth, 100mm my barse, this thing was so confused when scanning any gyprock wall, false detercting everywhere, I just gave up on it. 
I have nothing against Bosch tools, I have quite a few, but I put this detector in the "I never worked as promised" category like a lot of other detedtors out there.
I have noticed that it no longer appears on their website, probably becuase it was a failure, as China said you would need to spend a lot of money to get the reults your after. 
I for one would not be prepared to spend $600 on a detector that may or may not do the job, Bosch make a lot of nice tools but I think detectors are not their forte. 
Below is some comments from another forum regardoing this exact subject, seems like these are notourious for unreliablity !   * Re: Reliable Stud/cable detector*  							Don't think the words reliable and detector can ever be used in the same sentance. Have tried many and all are useless           						    * Re: Reliable Stud/cable detector*  							Thats exactly what I suspected amp David. 
Just hoped that someone out there has discovered a wonder product that does what it says on the tin. 
Cheers           						     * Re: Reliable Stud/cable detector*  							Last one I had was the Bosch one, not the cheapo version but the blue pro version and still cant get it to work  * Re: Reliable Stud/cable detector* I agree with amp, have tried loads of the dam things, and they are all useless.

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## Handyjack

mmm....stud finders. Used to find studs in hollow walls.
My experience, I am not Clark Kent of the Daily Planet   :Biggrin:  so use a stud finder to try and find studs. They are a guide and a guide only.
 I have two in my kit, to check against each other. One cost $10 and the other $20 and are not to bad, but on some walls are useless.
As for finding pipes and cabling, now that is another thing.

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