Bottle Cap techniques

[zac]

Hello All,
I picked up a Deus this week. It came with Andy's book and I loaded his "High Trash" program for hunting the dirt/grass strips between the sidewalk and the road. I tried to make a test Garden to practice on but my yard has too much old bits of metal to get it clean. I ended up playing with a dozen targets in bags. Burying them and also just plopping them on the ground. I'm based in Echo Park Los Angeles and have been watching videos, reading Andy's book, reading this forum, and trying to play with the Deus as much as possible.
I know I should find some cleaner areas to hunt and I will. I'm wondering what techniques people are using to not dig bottle caps. I've been trying the wiggle away one that Gary recommended but haven't had too much luck with it. Do I need to take it out of "Normalize ID"? Or maybe it doesn't work with Basic 1 or this High Trash program? I don't know?

Thanks

 

[LTimedigger]

Ok this is what I do. First you can tell bottle caps whether or not you normalize but the way coins and caps read will differ so compare them with it on and off then decide which you like and stay with it. I'm going to assume for the moment that its on. Raise your coil about four inches. If you still get a tone its probably a cap. You can also lower your sensitivity way down which will reinforce this but I usually don't take the time. Another technique I use is old fashion sizing. Put a cap on the ground and run your coil east west. You will notice that the tone runs the full diameter of a 9" coil(a good reason to use the 9 in trash). Now put a quarter down and run back and forth again. You will notice the tone only runs about half the diameter of the coil. Another technique is to switch frequencies say from 12 to 4. This will send the TID on steel and rusty caps way up. One day Iwas in an old park which was seeded with Bud caps. I switched to the 4 freq with the xy and walked along slowly watching for "good" tones that were not bumping into the iron range. I immediately pulled 6 wheats and a quarter sitting between 3 of these pests. About the only caps I dig now are the crushed ones that are deeper. A couple of things to keep in mind. All machines think a cap is a coin so will mask the smaller coins. (I hope someone knows the answer to this). Also there are a few areas where the good stuff is really shallow so you still may want to dig so you don't miss the larger coins. I found a 27 Walker half in this same park. Hope this helps. HH

 

[sprchng]

Depends on the type of caps a bit. Steel type/crown pry off caps are easy by changing down to 4khz and checking to see if the VDI drops or not. If it does , chances are it's a good target , if it goes up , most like a cap. You will over time be able to tell with relative certainty by dragging off the target at the heel or toe of the coil while swinging and hearing the tone break up and the VDI is not as stable ,,,not as good as the frequency shift but acceptable percentages.

The aluminum screw caps are a different story and the weakest link in the Deus ID armory. In a modern park with lots of those caps you either give up on the high zinc to copper numbers or dig them all. In my dirt at 12 khz for instance they give a constant , wonderful sounding 83 to 87 depending on how much they are bent up,,, a real PITA

 

[zac]

Thanks you guys, I'll try that raising the coil 4" trick. I already try the matching program but at 4 kHz technique but am too new to it to notice the details. Kind of like when I was commercial fishing for salmon in Kodiak Alaska, when I fiirst starting working I couldn't tell the difference between the fish. But then at some point it all becomes clear.

 

[Blank Planet]

raising the coil seems to be the fastest, time hearing them also fresh ones are easy its the rusted out round ones that are the hardest but they don't get as deep as coins for the most part but pain is a good teacher also dig enough and associate the pain with the sound and your 3/4 of the way there but gunna dig a few just how it is, but less with time..

screw caps yeah bit harder but they do sound angrier like crown caps like all detectors nothing beats time behind the wheel.

 

[mrmetaldetector]

I am trying to figure out how my CTX doesn't mix the quarters and caps but my Deus does. I know the units are different but, the science to identify should normally be the same. The parks around my area are just strewn with this type of garbage. Hunting in the lower frequencies like stated above opens up the TID range so you may see the difference but if that is the case we should be able to notch them out some kind of way. Aluminum I always thought was in the Gold range of conductivity along with tin foil. Lead is more like the silver conductivity. I would think Deus could tweak the units to account for this, maybe a future upgrade? We should not have to do a wiggle test to see the difference between a cap and quarter. I like the machine but sooner or later digging all those caps when it reads quarters (and trust me ta lot more caps than quarters) is really going to cause people to swing away from this unit. The main thing that makes this unit awesome is its speed which is used to find items between trash (IE NAILs) but if I am digging bottle caps between the nails, it not so much fun.

Granted I am a newbie and still in my diaper stage with this unit but, from what I am reading a lot of folks are feeling this way. I do notice though that the users on this unit with a few years under their belts can hear the difference between a cap and quarter. Well, in my thoughts, if you can hear the difference the unit knows the difference, XP just has to make a modification to adjust for this.

Learning this unit will eventually pay off. I know it will. It is fantastic.

Never be blinded from the truth for the only person you shall fool is yourself.

 

[XP-Man]

I put mine on full tones and when exiting target the tones change.. this noise is very noticeable

 

[James/Washington]

The 'High Trash' program has an 'Iron Volume' of 0. Try making a duplicate 'High Trash' program and setting it next to your regular 'High Trash' program but make one change. Set the 'iron volume' to 3. You could even go into 'Options' and set the 'xy' screen for this program. Then when you have a hit that sounds like a quarter, switch to the other program and do the coil wiggle and watch the 'xy' screen. I bet this will bring out the iron grunt just as the coil clears the target. If you do not get the iron grunt, dig it!

 

[smkunder]

I will have to try that one, like many others the bottle caps keep me going back to the CTX in modern US parks. I do better at schools where folks don't litter so many bottle caps. Thats my main complaint, but swinging the Deus is an absolute pleasure, compared to my CTX.

 

[Digger 45]

I use the Sifter program at 12 khz and doing the wiggle and backing up, the cap will buzz as you are coming off of it. Real easy and fast to do, as coins will go silent when you come of the coin. This morning i was hunting around picnic tables, using the Sifter but turned the reactivity up to 5 and was picking dimes and quarters that i know others have missed, i run full tones and in the last four months i can tell when i hit a nickel which is in the gold range from the tone. I do like to look also but as i'm sweeping i know quickly if i'm on a target.

I have noticed that the 18khz programs don't buzz as much and are harder to hear.

 

[Blank Planet]

just from a one crown cap test on the ground the 9" HF coil does better than the LF coil at ignoring them in the 2 higher freq which is a huge plus if it does this in the field, more testing needed in the field to see how it plays out.