Transition from etrac to deus

[mntnflyr4fun]

Not sure if I am gonna be able to make this transition. My etrac sings for the silver, the deus seems to love aluminum. I am not sure where to go from here, the TID numbers seem pretty meaningless, the tones don't seem to have any information in them.
I found the X-Y display screen which is similar to the display on the Whites V3i....it didn't seem to give reliable information either....I am pretty much using factory setups with a little shuffling between frequencies to try and sort out trash, but if I don't have a breakthrough soon I am afraid my love affair with the Deus will be short lived...

Anybody that has any information that might point me in the right direction, I am listening.....

 

[mrwilburino]

The Deus sings for silver too, but it may be a different sound than what you're used to. There really IS a lot of information in the tones, but it takes time to learn them. With this machine the VDI takes a back seat to the audio (IMO). Here's a coin hunting program that I've been using at sites with both ferrous and nonferrous trash:

Frequency- 8kHz
Sensitivity- 90
TX power- 2
Reactivity- Site specific: 0 for depth, 1-2 for general hunting, 3 for trashy areas, 4-5 for extreme trash
Silencer- 2
Audio- 4
Iron volume- 3
Disc- 10
5-Tones:
Tone 1: frequency- 200, break point- 10
Tone 2: frequency- 300, break point- 43
Tone 3: frequency- 800, break point- 48
Tone 4: frequency- 300, break point- 78
Tone 5: frequency- 800

The tones are set up to give a low tone on iron, a mid-low tone on non-ferrous trash, and a high tone on nickels and everything in the copper/clad/silver range. I keep the nickel window narrow because of all the square tabs where I hunt.

I use 8kHz because it goes deep and hits hard on silver. It also gives you a wider range at the upper end of the conductivity scale, which makes for better target ID between aluminum and the good stuff. It's also a little easier to identify bottle caps in the lower frequencies.

 

[mntnflyr4fun]

Thanks, I will give these settings a try......

 

[Andy Sabisch]

Not sure if I am gonna be able to make this transition. My etrac sings for the silver, the deus seems to love aluminum. I am not sure where to go from here, the TID numbers seem pretty meaningless, the tones don't seem to have any information in them.
I found the X-Y display screen which is similar to the display on the Whites V3i....it didn't seem to give reliable information either....I am pretty much using factory setups with a little shuffling between frequencies to try and sort out trash, but if I don't have a breakthrough soon I am afraid my love affair with the Deus will be short lived...

Anybody that has any information that might point me in the right direction, I am listening.....

Having just a little experience with the Minelab E-Trac , I can provide a perspective on your frustration. The Minelab detectors are a challenge for some to master especially coming from other brands as the way they respond is far different than the way most detectors do. I often found that customers that had never used a detector before often clicked with the Explorer / E-Trac / Safari faster than those with years of experience under their belt sicne lessons had to be un-leanred. Once the light came on, finds followed . . . some gave up before that point while those that pushed through the frustration benefited from the performance FBS offered - especially on silver targets.

The Deus is no different. It is a totally different animal and the learnng curve starts again - but understanding the basics of what each control does and how one adjustment affects another is the key to mastering the detector rather than simply loading settings others might have dialed in for their area and for their type of hunting.

You mention the affinity the Deus has for aluminum . . . . . it sounds like you are running in either 18kHz or 12kHz - both of which love alumimum. I know that in some areas when I tried 18kHz that I had trouble finding small pieces of aluminum even with a ProPointer - it will find some real small pieces at depth! If you are finding aluminum, opt for 8kHz which is a great all purpose frequency and loves silver - it gives up some sensitivity to tiny targets and those of medium conductivity (aluminum) which eliminates much of the frustration you are seeing.

TONES: You said there is no information in the tones . . . . compared to the E-Trac? V3.1 offers FULL TONES which emulates the response from what you might be used to on the E-Trac if you used MULTI TONES. You have the flexibility of setting breakpoints to encompass targets much the same as the CTX 3030 now provides which is a flexibility that the E-Trac lacked. Do some testing to see where you wantto set the breakpoints and pick out specific frequencies you prefer to aid in identofying targets by sound. I opt for high tones to indicate keepers while others I have talked to opt for the opposite - low tones = keepers.

TDI VALUES: Deep targets will not produce target ID's but manufacturers have a choice - either display a TID value even if the certainty of what the target is might be low or not display a reading if the certainity is low which is what XP opted to do. Personally, I would rather not have the detector guess if it was not sure so that I could use my brain and decide to dig or not. Remember, if you get a good tone and no ID on the screen with only a hint of black showing on the horseshoe, start digging . . . . I have pulled some deep coins which reacted in just that manner.

Hope this helps . . . . feel free to ask if you want additional information

Andy

 

[mntnflyr4fun]

Andy, thanks for the insight. I made much progress today trying mrwilburino's settings...which as you suggested use the 8khz frequency.....the light started coming on and now I feel more confident that I can make the detector work so now I feel more comfortable exploring the various adjustments to see how to get the best results in my soil...I hesitated switching on the multi-tones, but think now is the time to try it out although today while hunting a park using both machines, (deus in 5 tone) I was pretty astonished to find that when I switched from the Deus back to my Etrac the Etrac seemed extraordinarily noisy and in using both machines an equal amount of time, the Etrac found about 2/3 less good targets than I pulled with my Deus even tho it was only my 3rd outing with the Deus and I have hundreds of hours on my Etrac.....yesterday I would have never believed it......

I don't see myself selling my Etrac anytime soon, but I do see that the Deus may quickly become my go to machine.....in fact today after about 4 hours of hunting switching between machines, at my last stop I pulled out the Deus even tho the testing was over as I knew if there were any goodies around the deus was going to find em quick......lighter, faster and banging on the coins......

I look forward to your book so I can gain a better overall understanding of the machine and its architecture.......kick the printer in the bu** we are all waiting...

 

[relicnut]

glad its working for you! enjoy!

 

[mntnflyr4fun]

A question that keeps nagging me is what to do with the Iron disc. settings.....there must be a reason that the engineers thought it important to divide the lower 10 digits into 10ths.....but I haven't figured it out yet, and there is almost no discussions that I can find dealing with the low end of the disc. setup...I spent some time today trying to see if I could get it to help me disc. out old bottle caps and thought I had made some progress, but not sure if that is the place to make adj. to help kill the bottle caps which I found more than a few of....I also tried increasing the silencer which pretty much made everything disappear at 4, but no change in bottle cap response was discernable to me at levels below 4.....what the heck is it supposed to do??? I have read that increasing the silencer will slam the depth capabilities....I know there must be a balance but not sure how to get there....

Andy's comment about understanding each parameter is right on the mark, what I am having trouble with is finding information that accurately describes what each param. is doing and what it is intended for.....still waiting for the book.....in the meantime, any Deus guru's, wannabe guru's, or anyone who just thinks they understand this machine is welcome to throw some ideas on the table..

 

[Andy Sabisch]

A question that keeps nagging me is what to do with the Iron disc. settings.....there must be a reason that the engineers thought it important to divide the lower 10 digits into 10ths.....but I haven't figured it out yet, and there is almost no discussions that I can find dealing with the low end of the disc. setup...I spent some time today trying to see if I could get it to help me disc. out old bottle caps and thought I had made some progress, but not sure if that is the place to make adj. to help kill the bottle caps which I found more than a few of....I also tried increasing the silencer which pretty much made everything disappear at 4, but no change in bottle cap response was discernable to me at levels below 4.....what the heck is it supposed to do??? I have read that increasing the silencer will slam the depth capabilities....I know there must be a balance but not sure how to get there....

Andy's comment about understanding each parameter is right on the mark, what I am having trouble with is finding information that accurately describes what each param. is doing and what it is intended for.....still waiting for the book.....in the meantime, any Deus guru's, wannabe guru's, or anyone who just thinks they understand this machine is welcome to throw some ideas on the table..

I know the book comment is getting old but if I was closer to the printer I would be at their offices with a baseball bat . . . .

I assume you are talking about the 0.1 increments in the lower range which switches to 1.0 increments . . . . . . it works much the same way as the Garrett AT Pro Iron Disc works - it allows you to precisely reject specific amounts of ferrous "stuff". For example, if you are in an area where there may be Civil War artillery shell fragments (larger ferrous items) but the area is littered with nails and tacks (small ferrous targets), you can increase the discrimination to the point where you can either reject the nails / tacks or hear them break up while still getting a good response from the larger ferrous targets.

By combining the DISC setting with the IRON VOL setting, you can use the audio discrimination / identification capabilities of the Deus to select what you want to dig and what you want to ignore. If the sounds become overshelming, simply drop the IRON VOL back to "0" and the smammer targets will not produce a signal

Does this help or did I simply make it "clear as mud"? Let me know if this answers your question or if I missed the mark

Andy

 

[mntnflyr4fun]

Andy,
OK, nuf said on the book......
Yes you helped....clarified a confusion I didn't realized I had.....
I was mixing the audio breakpoints with discrimination......now I understand that the audio pitch/thresholds are just that and unless I am using the multi-notch disc. I am really discriminating nothing...just changing the way the audio sounds relative to the target conductivity....makes sense with what I was hearing today....not sure why it was not coming to me earlier, but now I see how the machine is configured...

Thanks Again