Apex and Bottle Caps

[Scavenger67]

I'm interested in the Apex, but it only has DD coils and I live where is almost no soil mineralization. How does the Apex handle bottlecaps? Does iron audio sniff them out or do they punch through as good targets?

 

[Tahts-a-dats-ago]

Bottle caps can sound/read like a good target, but with iron audio on it is easy to tell on most bottle caps. Just wiggle the coil (tight movements) back and as the coil comes off the edge (of the target) you will hear the iron grunt.

The downfall to using that method is the potential to lose out on a good target that is very near trash - the good target gives the high tone and the grunt (bad target) could make it seem as though the good target is a bottle cap. For that reason, I tend to dig any signal that gives a high tone - even if I get an iron grunt at times. Most of my permissions are very trashy (iron bits and pieces) so I frequently dig good targets that have a number of iron bits/pieces in the same hole.

Don't use iron audio with zero mode. Zero mode already accepts all targets; using iron audio (Zero mode) makes good targets sound like iron trash.

I like the Apex quite a lot. It is far better in trash than I had expected it to be. It is very well made. The wireless headphones are fantastic. It isn't perfect (nothing made by man is) but it is a very fun machine to use - and having fun is what the whole hobby is about (to me anyway).

Best of luck with whichever machine you decide to get.

 

[Monte]

I'm interested in the Apex, but it only has DD coils and I live where is almost no soil mineralization. How does the Apex handle bottlecaps? Does iron audio sniff them out or do they punch through as good targets?

I agree with most of what '[FONT=tahoma]Tahts-a-dats-ago[/FONT]' stated. An exception is that if you are in Zero mode and use the Iron Audio function key, it will produce a mid-tone on ferrous targets instead of the desired Low-Tone for Iron. only use the Iron Audio function when you are also using some amount of Discrimination (rejection), and I strongly suggest you never use it 'On' full-time. It's best used as a momentary function to help classify some potential Iron targets.

Now a few comments from over fifty-six years of very avid detecting with just about any of the better brands that have been out there:

1.. I hunt some very terrible, highly mineralized sites and do well with both a Concentric and Double-D coil. It's not so much the search coil design, as is often hyped, but how the detector circuitry is designed to handle the encounter.

2.. ALL of the more modern detectors have problems to some degree with pesky Bottle Caps, or at least some of them. I bought this house from a fellow who has his own brewery business and the yard is littered from discarded Bottle Caps, and he also collected a lot of different samples off of many bottles. He left them behind in a big plastic container and I have sampled a lot of them with a variety of detectors. Some are rejected by some detectors, like Tesoro's at minimum Disc. Some are accepted and produce a high VDI read-out like a 1¢ / 10¢ or 25¢ coin, while others produce a lower VDI read-out similar to a 5¢ coin to a Pull-Tab. Some detectors handle the Bottle Caps better with a Concentric coil than they do a Double-D. Nothing's prefect.

The Apex, and I use 3 of them with different coils, are one of my favorite detectors and I do not have a lot of problems in dense Bottle Cap trash areas. That's because I use the 'Ripper' coil most often and smaller-size coils work better in dense trash. I have my Custom program set to accept from a TID or '20' on up, and I have up-to 5 Tone audio report, which includes the low-tone audio for accepted targets. My Target Volume is set at '8' but my Iron Audio Volume is at '2'. When I do get a suspected target that are a 'clippy' sort of audio and a rather jumpy VDI response, I make a short, slow-motion sweep and activate the Iron Audio function. If it is a Bottle Cap or other magnetic-type object, I get a very proper enhanced Iron Audio response. But I then turn it 'Off'.

Monte

 

[Tahts-a-dats-ago]

I agree with most of what '[FONT=tahoma]Tahts-a-dats-ago[/FONT]' stated. An exception is that if you are in Zero mode and use the Iron Audio function key, it will produce a mid-tone on ferrous targets instead of the desired Low-Tone for Iron. only use the Iron Audio function when you are also using some amount of Discrimination (rejection), and I strongly suggest you never use it 'On' full-time. It's best used as a momentary function to help classify some potential Iron targets.



Monte

Monte is spot-on.

I stated (use of iron audio while in zero mode) bass-ackwards - it doesn't make good targets sound bad, it makes bad targets sound good. At any rate - don't use Iron audio at all when in zero mode, and use iron audio very sparingly when in other modes.