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How can you tell a coin from a screw cap?

Mick in Dubbo

New member
G'day all.
I've been out playing with my XS but seem to have a great deal of trouble with telling these 2 items apart. I have plotted where our Aussie coins are on the smart find screen (with an overlaid bit of clear plastic on the screen) but can not figure this one out. Is there something about how the signal sounds or another trick that will help figure this one out? I seem to do a lot better with my Ace and X-terra 30 at figuring these signals out.
Any help would be appreciated.
Mick Evans.
 
Hi Mick, I generally use the digital screen on the SE and I have found that most of the bottle caps here in West Texas will register at 00 06. That is how I usually tell if It is a bottle cap. But it is not 100%. I hope this is helpful.

John Tomlinson,CET:minelab:
 
This is tough to answer being from the usa....our coins are diff....so I can tell you how I do it here and you can just work it out there.....
What made me work on this was hunting a fair ground with tons of screw caps......and Indian head pennys....older coins here......
I started by digging everything there and gathered up all sorts of junk....then I learned all the junk and rejected them...then I took all the coins I found there and tested them over the coil....what I found was a few screw caps would cut out a few Indian head pennys....so I edited the rejected place where the indians came in till they sounded off...but I also found I still had to dig a few screw caps but not as many....I also checked digital #'s and the screw caps where usualy 18-22....but also a few higher....and pennys where usualy 24-26....so thats it in a nut shell.....also at this site I expected the pennys to be a bit deeper then the screw caps....lucky me....so if target was iffy...could be cap or penny I dug if it was at least half way down meter for depth....the screw caps were usualy shallower.....I also use the expl. XS.....

Hope this helps you a little at least....have fun.....:thumbup:
 
Does a screw off cap have a shape or size?
I've found smashed ones, bent ones, all drinks have different manufactures, same as pull tabs, and jewelery
they are endless!

A penny, screw cap, fishing weight, and a gold band all have the same reading 07 - 25

If you don't dig it you don't get the gold!
 
I re-experimented with a$1 and $2 coin and fond that unless the screw cap is badly mangled, then the Explorer doesn't seem to up to the task. I love the audio on this machine, so I'm keen to find a solution.
On the X-Terra, I can tell by the VCO and the pinpoint fade. Is there any comparable method that I can use on the Explorer to figure them out? A $1 and $2 coin can read from 25 to 27, depending as to whether they are flat or on edge. On the smart find, I have the plotted as you can see in the picture below.
Any ideas?
Mick Evans.
[attachment 77496 Gemandtreasure005.jpg]
 
G'day Mick, I had a fiddle with the Explorer emulator, and things are not the same as out in the field BUT...
Their example of a screwcap was exactly where our $1 coin reads.
And as the boys are saying screw caps can be flat,
semi flat, on any angle at all and can be in various stages of corrosion!
So we are going to get all sorts of numbers; and the cross hairs in smart find could be any where for the #@%$&#* things...
I guess we have to just dig and see.

"The best discriminator ever invented is the shovel mate."

I've included a picture of the emulator screen for the U.S guys to see where our coins show up.
At the center of the cross hairs is where both the $1 and the screw cap show.
Just above the 5 cent and 10 cent, and between the 20 cent are two points which are two pull tabs.

ForMick.jpg
 
Thanks for that Snowy.
I guess the the XS just isn't up to the task., as the X-Terra 30 does a lot better. Sounds like it's time to let it go.
Once again I appreciate the input.
Mick Evans.
 
Snowy, have you ever considered that coins lay at different angles and depths??
I know if you place a coin on edge it will read different at the same depth...
Food for thought ...Remember we don't live in a perfect world
Please don't take this the wrong way..just my opinion.
 
You're so right Skully, the emulator emulates a "perfect world" ...
The emulator is only a computer program, it gets no external interferences.
The readings on the screen I posted are not the readings we would get from the ground, out in the field that's for sure.
Various ferr. and cond. could be put into it, but there are so many things that can change a targets numbers on
the Explorer that you'd need a month of sundays to get them into the emulator.
It just gave an example of where screw caps are in relation to the good stuff we seek,
Mick could see that our dollar coin is right smack dab in the screw cap zone.

We have so many other "keeper" targets that sit in the same zone as other trash items eh !
 
In my area of West Virginia, wine bottle caps or that same type read as 00-28 on my EX II, the same as a silver dime, and it does not matter how deep they are either. That drives me crazy. Any Ideas? Thanks and HH...Jesse.
 
G'Day Mick, the only one you can ignore is 28, I haven't found a $1 or $2 dollar coin come in at that number yet, some times you can pick the screw caps by there slightly higher pitch, but mostly they sound the same as the coins. I just keep away from the park benches, that seems to be where most of the caps are. It took me about 6months to come to grips with my SE, and then it clicked, an now I wouldn't be without it, I would love it to be about 1/3 of the weight though. Stick with it . hh.
 
Another thing , don't take too much notice of the Ferrous numbers, just dig 24,25,26and27 conductive for $1 and $2. I have found that the coins come in all over the screen, and if you worry about the ferrous numbers you will miss about 50% of the coins. hh.
 
G'day Hungry.
Yeah; it didn't take long to figure out the visual information is rendered useless for $1 and $2 coins. I was kind of hoping that there may have been something about the audio that may have been able to tell them apart. I love the sound of the Explorer, but I have significant reservations about it discrimination ability. So far, the best detector on the market that I've seen for sorting these targets out, is the X-Terra. Even my little 30 is running rings around the Explorer. If I can find a solution, then the Explorer stays, if not then it goes, as it would have nothing to offer that I don't already have in a lighter detector. As the XS is a little old and had the shaft glued into the control box, it might be a bit tricky to get rid of though, I couldn't even use it as a trade in today on another brand.
Mick Evans.
 
He has the XS not the SE..so ferrous #'s he doesn't see......just conductive #'s.....and also ignoring 28 is a mistake I think.....I had gold rings chime in on 28.....big thick gold.......this post has me very curious........but I truely think what I have done at fair ground did wonders for me......I just had to dig a few caps and not them all.......what really gets me thinking is what I have experienced thru 6-7 years with the XS......is the diff. readings I get due to ground minerals......I am not gonna get into it but my best reply is dig all but solid iron nail signals......as long as it does not show really deep on scale........if it does then dig.....if you want to get it all!!!!......read my post below if you want to see my fairground therory and setup.....granted I miss a few or more cause I don't dig it all but I cut the bad digs in half......what the heck why do we do this anyways.....cause we like to get dirty and find treasure! :devil:........
 
When you're trying to determine if you've detected a AU $1 or $2 dollar coin or an Aluminum screw cap that's not been crushed and that's not disfigured and that's of a particular gauge, I'd say you can do this using the a Digital Number display or a Smartfind curser location. I'd do this mostly with SOUNDS in CONDUCT as your guide, but for only about 80% of the time using the Explorer. You may also want to group the different Aussie coins together in pairs plus and see what the Explorer tells you then.
The targets audio response is usually good but not in the standard pattern. Try it and you'll see what I mean. There is no trick. I've found this to be the case with the Explorer XS , EX 2 and the SE. There is a consistency in how the Explorer reacts to the AU $1 and $2 . You should eventually realize this and most times will know what you are about to dig I find that this also depends on the right amount of Sensitivity used. Don't go TOO high as that consistency gets lost, if the coin goes outside of the most positive detecting depth.(To deep the target becomes "IFFY") It's not 100% capable of separating those two denominations of the Aussie coins form theses aluminum bottle caps BUT most if not all others, including the old copper and silver, sit in there in their own "domain" on the screen and in the audio output of the Explorer.

If you can get the desired result from those other detectors , then the Explorer is obviously not the one you should be using.

I remember showing pinpointa(Ray H) what the Explorer did over some examples of aluminum bottle caps he had brought along to try.(I even impressed myself how Explorer handled and identified these targets). Again, wasn't %100 and this was when he used to use his M/L Quatro.........regardless of this, he sold that Quatro and got himself the X-trerra 70.......not the Explorer. Ray does very well with his X-Terra......very well.

This could mean that the X-terra, has an edge over the Explorer genre of detectors in their ability to the AU $1and $2 coins over these aluminum bottle caps and maybe it does so in any shape or form that they might be laying in the ground in than what .

You may need to consider a very wild card........the Whites MXT. What a AU $1 and $2 coin finder IT is...........but that's mainly in the hands of the well trained. It will find many AU $1and $2 over anybody else detecting ..........BUT I feel that's mainly because the user of this detector walked over the target before I did, with my properly set up and properly functioning Explorer...........I can tell you it's rare for me to miss anything........bottle cap or not.

It's a tough one because I remember when I first started to use the Explorer and wanted so much to exclude ALL aluminum bottle caps which I could have BUT to the exclusion of the AU $1,$2 coins. I was looking in park lawns that need a minimal amount of damage and finding less aluminum bottle caps would have help. No it's ,not possible to id 100%.

When I find a target that may be a bottle cap , the easiest way to tell what it is, if your convinced it isn't, when it's under a lawn , is to first accurately pin point it and then stab at it with a firm push with a pencil thin or less bronze shaft or pointy sharpened screwdriver probe. The probe , if it finds it target basically square on, will penetrate an aluminium bottle cap most if not all of the time and this is where you might learn, like I did, to determine the targets "viably".:thumbup:

take care

David Di
 
I have tweaked the conductive tones somewhat. I don't recall what the factory presets are, but I usually have the variability set at 8 with the limits at 10.I'll play around with them some more. I haven't touched the sensitivity yet, so that will be worth a shot and for the last couple of hunts I've had the gain set at 1 and 2. This could change things a bit as well.
Some screw caps give off quite a distinct different sound to a coin, others can sound a bit stronger eta and some sound similar to coins.
I did look at the MXT a while back, but noticed that the TID numbers were a bit wide the the desired range. What was it about them that you find useful for this sort of target discrimination. I would prefer the M6 mostly due to the tones.
Sometimes I think that it would be best just to jump in the car and take the long drive down to the Victorian gold fields, just so that I could get to a decent detecting shop and physically check out the detectors that I'm interested in, as doing it by mail order, is an expensive hit and miss affair.
Mick Evans.
 
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