CZconnoisseur
Active member
Well, Christmas has come for me! I finally received everything I need except the control box, and swung the Deus for the first time last night for about 2 hours around my yard and the neighbor's yard as well. Earlier this week I marked several "iffy" or broken high-tone targets with my CZ-6 with golf tees, and checked them with the Deus. I think I marked about 20 targets in all, and about 16 of them the Deus identified as iron, the other 4 turned out to be deeper copper pennies and one (almost silver!) 1965 dime. A couple of these "diggable" targets contained iron nails which seemed to throw the CZ-6 off a little bit, but not enough to totally mask the higher-conducting target.
THE GOOD:
First thing I did was air test several US coins, I know air tests have limited value but I wanted to see how this coil would stack up against the 8" CZ-6 coil. I used Program 9, which is the "Basic #2" program according to the manual and found that the Deus coil outperforms the old CZ coil only marginally depthwise. I used 8 kHz and upped the Sens to 93 - 8 kHz seems to be the smoothest operating freq around here and it also provided about 1" more depth in air over 12 and 18 kHz.
I then went out to the test garden using this same program, and I could identify only 5 out of 16 targets (the shallower ones) vs only 2 out of 16 identified with the CZ-6. The Deus saw the 8" dime faintly, but it was a clean target with no interfering trash. The trashy 8-10" nickels, dimes, and quarters were NOT seen by the Deus, but were also not seen with the CZ either - so all in all it is slightly better in depth; and with targets with a small amount of trash the Deus was able to identify them well. The Deus doesn't false on some deeper iron targets as bad as the CZ does, which is a big WIN in my book!
I was pleasantly surprised to see that the headphones give a VDI when a target is located! Must have forgotten about this, and it took a couple minutes to figure out what those numbers were for during the air test
THE BAD:
EMI around here is horrendous!!! I quickly discovered that in all freqs EMI came through the headphones rather loudly, and was interfering with deeper, smaller targets. At fringe detection depths while air testing, I could hear the EMI break up the faint signals, which I know is costing me some depth. Not sure if it's the coil design or what but I will try another area today away from wires to see if that helps.
I was not thoroughly impressed by the depth capabilities while using DEUS FAST. I knew that higher reactivity and 18 kHz costs depth but the tradeoff is better separation, air testing on Deus Fast was not too promising maybe 5-6" max on a dime...I may not have much recourse here until I get the control box and go into the "expert" menus. Bottlecaps rang up around 88-91 at 8 kHz, which is about right, and after digging a few of them I could start to tell the difference between the signals - bottlecaps have a "crackly" quality to them vs copper or silver coins. I tried Deus Fast in my irony front yard and was able to find a few bits of masked non-ferrous trash that were invisible to the CZ - I still think there are a few coins below 6" that cant be seen yet but after some tweaking Im sure some will come to light
CONCLUSION:
Will do some more fieldwork today maybe at the elem school across the street (c.1949) and try to get more of a handle on managing the EMI. I got exactly what I wanted - an upgrade from the CZ-6; and Im very happy with my purchase considering some of the obstacles already encountered. Once I get the control box, I'm sure I can coax a couple more inches of depth plus better separation of targets, and later when I get the 11" round coil, well; that's even more gravy! Will post results of today's short hunt later tonight...
I ALSO WANT TO THANK DON-IN-MASS AND JEREMY VANCE FOR THEIR INSIGHT INTO THIS VENTURE!!! MANY THANKS TO YOU GUYS FOR MAKING THIS HAPPEN!!! THE WAIT IS FINALLY OVER (until i get the 11" round coil)
THE GOOD:
First thing I did was air test several US coins, I know air tests have limited value but I wanted to see how this coil would stack up against the 8" CZ-6 coil. I used Program 9, which is the "Basic #2" program according to the manual and found that the Deus coil outperforms the old CZ coil only marginally depthwise. I used 8 kHz and upped the Sens to 93 - 8 kHz seems to be the smoothest operating freq around here and it also provided about 1" more depth in air over 12 and 18 kHz.
I then went out to the test garden using this same program, and I could identify only 5 out of 16 targets (the shallower ones) vs only 2 out of 16 identified with the CZ-6. The Deus saw the 8" dime faintly, but it was a clean target with no interfering trash. The trashy 8-10" nickels, dimes, and quarters were NOT seen by the Deus, but were also not seen with the CZ either - so all in all it is slightly better in depth; and with targets with a small amount of trash the Deus was able to identify them well. The Deus doesn't false on some deeper iron targets as bad as the CZ does, which is a big WIN in my book!
I was pleasantly surprised to see that the headphones give a VDI when a target is located! Must have forgotten about this, and it took a couple minutes to figure out what those numbers were for during the air test
THE BAD:
EMI around here is horrendous!!! I quickly discovered that in all freqs EMI came through the headphones rather loudly, and was interfering with deeper, smaller targets. At fringe detection depths while air testing, I could hear the EMI break up the faint signals, which I know is costing me some depth. Not sure if it's the coil design or what but I will try another area today away from wires to see if that helps.
I was not thoroughly impressed by the depth capabilities while using DEUS FAST. I knew that higher reactivity and 18 kHz costs depth but the tradeoff is better separation, air testing on Deus Fast was not too promising maybe 5-6" max on a dime...I may not have much recourse here until I get the control box and go into the "expert" menus. Bottlecaps rang up around 88-91 at 8 kHz, which is about right, and after digging a few of them I could start to tell the difference between the signals - bottlecaps have a "crackly" quality to them vs copper or silver coins. I tried Deus Fast in my irony front yard and was able to find a few bits of masked non-ferrous trash that were invisible to the CZ - I still think there are a few coins below 6" that cant be seen yet but after some tweaking Im sure some will come to light
CONCLUSION:
Will do some more fieldwork today maybe at the elem school across the street (c.1949) and try to get more of a handle on managing the EMI. I got exactly what I wanted - an upgrade from the CZ-6; and Im very happy with my purchase considering some of the obstacles already encountered. Once I get the control box, I'm sure I can coax a couple more inches of depth plus better separation of targets, and later when I get the 11" round coil, well; that's even more gravy! Will post results of today's short hunt later tonight...
I ALSO WANT TO THANK DON-IN-MASS AND JEREMY VANCE FOR THEIR INSIGHT INTO THIS VENTURE!!! MANY THANKS TO YOU GUYS FOR MAKING THIS HAPPEN!!! THE WAIT IS FINALLY OVER (until i get the 11" round coil)