Success with a change of approach.

[Mick in Dubbo]

I've finally started to put a bit of time in on the XS over the last couple of week ends. I've had it out a few times before but haven't been particularly impressed with the visual information that the XS gives. Mostly the unreliable depth metre and both slow and inconsistent read outs of target id's.
On Saturday, I was having a bit of a think about how to get the most out of the smart find screen. I tried a grid type of layout drawn onto a clear bit of plastic and overlaid onto the display of the smart find screen, that was on page 69 of Andy Sabisch's book "Mastering the Mine lab Explorer XS&S". That didn't work too good, so I then just taped down a clear bit of plastic over the display of the XS. After that, grabbed one of each coin that I wanted to detect and waived it over the coil. As each target gave a consistent signal, I marked on the plastic, using a permanent marker, where each of these targets showed up on the smart find screen.
Mick Evans.
[attachment 64185 RIMG0736.JPG]
[attachment 64186 RIMG0740-1.JPG]
On Sunday, I took the XS out to see how it would work. In short, just about perfectly. Doing this really helps finding the targets that I'm after without the penalties of using fancy and debilitating patterns. The end result. After a 90 minute hunt, I'd come up with 11 coins including my first silver one with the XS ( a 1945 sixpence) and only pull up 4 junk items! Outstanding.
Included are 2 photo's. One is of how I set up the plastic on the smart find screen and the second is of all recovered items for the hunt. Total=$9.91

 

[Doctorcoinz]

That can be a good method of yours for cutting down digging the trash , another method is to use the learn feature with a selection of coins that you wish to locate. Some pull tabs give exactly the same ferrous and conductive readings as nickel coins though. The learn feature with a small cursor for learning coins speeds up finding coins on coin shooting sites, i have cherry picked hundreds of coins this way.

 

[Mick in Dubbo]

Thanks Doctorcoinz. I haven't read that part of the instructions as yet. Sounds like Minelab were thinking on the same wavelength with that idea. It pays to know your machine. No substitute for it.

Mick Evans.

 

[Hard Nosed Dave]

love the way the Explorer XS can basically single out the Aussie 1 and 2 dollar coins once you've taught the detector to see only those targets when you hunt lawns or many inland sites. It's an awesome inland and beach detector for many.

You'll do away with a very large portion of trash targets or you'll at least realize what the target is most likely going to be ...before you dig it with both audio and /or visual. The visual side of it already looks like is on your radar so it'll soon become easier for you to correlate the two and other factors together to get the best out of the Explorer.

It's a lot of fun and you should become proficient before to long.

Have you seen how the Explorer behaves when you bundle the Au 1$, $2 and a or more Au 50c, Au 10c or Au 5 cent coins together, yet?

The detector will show a different reaction to when the coins are stand alone,next to, under or on top of. The will produce a differing cursor placement. I feel that one of the major things about teaching the Explorer to recognize individual targets is to reduce it's SENSITIVITY to 1 and set it to MANUAL and also set the RECOVERY to NEITHER FAST OR DEEP and the RESPONSE to NORMAL for the time you are teaching it. Teaching it ONE target at a time seems to work best.

Don't discriminate TOO much on the beach and you'll pick up lots or the good stuff which unfortunately is mixed with a lot of junk(which it sometimes)isn't. There are just too many possibilities on a sandy beach so keep and fairly wide open SMARTFIND screen or a with open IRONMASK screen.

David Di (Perth, West Aust)

 

[Mick in Dubbo]

G'day Dave.
I've just read through the section of the manual about the advanced learn option. I set up the detector to recognise $2, $1 and 50 cents, then carried out some experiments. Using the above coins plus a 20 cent piece as the mask trigger, I came up with the following result. With the $1 and 50c coins being bigger. they seemed to be able to be closer to the 20c piece and still be recognised. However, on the $2 coin, swinging at my normal sweep speed, it took a distance of 12+ inches before I could here it after passing over the 20c first. I turned on fast responce and managed to get it to respond 9 inches away.
I tried putting all coins together and found that they came up just below $1 on the smart find screen.
Just wondering. Have you ever come across pinpointa (aka Ray) in your travels? He is also from Perth and swings an X-Terra 70. He had previously swung a Quattro and is a regular of those forums.
Mick Evans.

 

[Hard Nosed Dave]

Mick,
Yes, those results look right. You should be able to determine most aluminium bottle caps, but some are just so similar $1 or $2 coins at times. Most times easy to tell the difference.

Ray(poinpointa) is well know by many of us over here. He's swung many a detector. Experienced and pretty clever bloke with his detecting.
We've detected together.

Helped him out to set up his Quattro. He new how to use it pretty well, but there were a couple of things that we went over and helped clear up. This is only because I'd been using the Explorer for a while and there are some similarities in the way they can be used. He's also come up with some pretty good devices for helping out with detecting.

Seems to be happy and doing well with his Xterra 70.

David Di

 

[Mick in Dubbo]

Ray comes across a quite a character on the forums. Sounds like you are a Lucky fellow to know him personally.
Good luck and thanks for the input. It looks like my adventures with the Explorer have only just begun.
Cheers.
Mick Evans.

 

[thirdbornau]

Nice to see Perth diggers i here.Maureen Perth W.A.