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Thoughts On The Simplex


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I can't blame anyone for expecting the Simplex to perform like a top tier machine. You had NM marketing it saying the only thing entry level about it is the price. To be fair, I think they've been careful to manage expectations through Dilek that although it punches above its weight class, it's not intended to be top tier, but nonetheless there are many visible users people look to out there claiming that it is performing at that level.

NASA Tom was so impressed with it that he claims it's top notch material, even outclassing the Impact at least on depth. If I'm remembering correctly, he also seemed to suggest it was holding its own against the Equinox in some scenarios. My detecting tastes don't agree with his and a couple machines he discounts are ones I favor and tend to do very well with. For a fellow who has the grey matter to understand complexity, he nonetheless seems to favor simplicity, so I'm not surprised he took a shine to the Simplex. When you get a user at his level talking like he has about the Simplex it's going to have a substantial effect on expectations, especially if that's what people want to hear. They tend to ignore the apparently very mild soil conditions he generally operates in and generalize it.

I will say that that my primary hunting buddy picked up a Simplex around the same time I just picked up a CTX-3030. I've been very curious about the Simplex so I paid close attention. In Upstate NY, Catskill Mountain soil, although I was much better able to tell trash from treasure, that Simplex depthwise, so far has hit anything the CTX has hit. It could also take a faster swing where there were adjacent targets, as you'd expect. But I do wonder about the disparity in reports and what to attribute it to. There are also plenty of people on the other end of the spectrum saying it is not all it's cracked up to be and they aren't getting impressive results. From what I've seen so far, it's on my radar as something I might like to have around. 

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5 hours ago, ☠ Cipher said:

But I do wonder about the disparity in reports and what to attribute it to. There are also plenty of people on the other end of the spectrum saying it is not all it's cracked up to be and they aren't getting impressive results.

It’s that way with all detectors. The big difference is the one you mentioned. Tom Dankowski and the mildest ground in the country. He does tests and reports results that may as well be air tests for all that they apply to me and my ground. In general whatever he reports I can cut in half. That’s not to say he does not report accurate results and many insightful comments. It is just his ground is very low mineral content. Similar differences in ground minerals no doubt generate most of the discrepancies we see in expectations and varying reports.

All detectors are not exactly the same, mainly due to coil variations. Some detectors are hot, some not so hot.

Operator knowledge varies wildly, and stupid tuning mistakes are common.

And yes, there are people with an agenda.

Add it all up and reports vary a great deal. All you can do is try and find somebody you can trust, whose reports tend to match you own observations. Kind of like movie reviews. A reviewer has to mirror your own tastes.

I am sure the Simplex is a good detector, or will be when they get done tweaking it. Anybody who can’t make a single frequency detector that runs about as well as every other single frequency detector made does not deserve to be in the business. It’s commodity level, dime a dozen technology at this point. More about the weight, feel in hand, sounds, and other features than outright performance. There are so many that work well, you just have to find the one you like and go use it. 

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I agree, and I think it's important to find reliable reporting from people with similar soil conditions or the results likely won't be of much benefit. One of the people I pay attention to is likely one that few people will have heard of. Scannerguy68 on YouTube seems to have similar soil to me with an aged test bed and so whatever does well in his test bed does well for me. V3i is a good example of a mixed report machine that tore through his test bed and has also been amazing here. He has liked Nokta Makro machines from the start, so I was glad to see he got his hands on a Simplex earlier on than he has other machines. It did very well for him, and so far I've seen it produce for my hunting buddy, including a deep Connecticut copper a couple days ago. 

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At work thinking about your post Steve and the coil and/or machine variation is something I've observed as well. The Land Ranger Pro was a great performing, low cost release. It was getting rave reviews, but I was struggling to get any depth out of it. Air tests were great, but as soon as it hit soil it was gone and it would false, walk over shallow targets at times. Then I happened to buy a push in to screw on adapter from Serious Detecting and tried another coil. It sprang to life and finally I understood why so many people loved the machine. Similar case with the V3i. I had a feeling the stock coil was holding it back. It would overload when it shouldn't. It wasn't doing as well as another V3 I had with a stock coil. I knew it wasn't the machine because the V3 coil worked just as well on my V3i as it had on the V3, vice versa. I tried a Super 12 and I saw some modest  depth gains, but it lacked any respectable separation and made the machine front heavy and cumbersome. Then I picked up a Detech Ultimate 13 and it brought that machine to life in a way none of the prior coils had. The gains were actually out of proportion to any expectations I had for it, and I haven't taken it off since. Right now I'm convinced I have a hot CTX. With both on a full charge, identical settings, coil, ground, and target mine will hit things a club member's won't. We noticed this as I was learning the machine by trying out her settings. So I've seen this variation within identical coil types, and from one type to another type. Probably no better example than the Chinese First Texas clones. They had a reputation as Junk imitations until someone thought to swap the coils out with aftermarket and that made all the difference in the world. I personally will not touch them for moral reasons, but all of this goes to illustrate that the quality control parameters or margin for error for a given coil are tight. A bad apple can handicap an otherwise good machine. Anytime a new machine with proprietary coils hits the market it's a concern, particularly as more and more components are being added to them. 

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Coil variation is the dirty little secret of the metal detector industry. Not just variation when shipped, but degradation over time. The V3i due to its high gain, multifrequency design, was particularly prone to problems. The failure rate on the early D2 coils was astronomical. And if White's had a hard time making properly tuned coils, just imagine what people are getting buying aftermarket. There is a huge difference between simply working, and delivering the best performance the detector can deliver. The only way people can know is to do lots of comparisons between machines with identical coils on the same target. But different people, different settings, different ground, all act to mask the fact that coils are often the culprit.

This extends to people offering opinions on which coils are best. If coil A is 100% and coil B is 90%, it could flip results that might be the other way around were both coils 100%.

I wonder a lot about how many people are running substandard coils and don't know it. I suspect the numbers would be shocking.

Analog machines have quite a bit of acceptable component variation, and if you got lucky and everything ran the right way you could get a really hot machine. Most were just spec. And then quite a few were weak performers. Add in that most had to be hand tuned. New person? Hangover? Tom Dankowski has made a side business out of double-checking and tuning Fisher CZ detectors. I'm doubtful this is much of a requirement on current FT product, but near the end of the old Los Banos Fisher the CZ units being shipped were complete crap. As were some initial El Paso units until things were tightened up.

New surface mount tech and components produce a much tighter product and so machine variations are rarer now, but coils are still a weak area.

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As for Simplex, the differences in its work in dry and wet terrain should also be taken into account - where the results may be different .... some tests confirm this ...

smaller coils to Simplex would be a good thing ..👍.

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On 6/4/2020 at 9:36 AM, Coinboy said:

I’m sure a detech ultimate would be great on the simplex but I’d need a counterweight 

You might be surprised. I believe the 13" Detech Ultimate is noticeably lighter than the stock 10" DD coil it replaced. The down side to that is that the plastic housing is also noticeably thinner and more vulnerable. It may be that I'm being paranoid, but I'm much more careful with it because of that. 

Things like this (coil variation) are really good to know though. I've often wondered how 2 competent people could come up with such disparate air tests on a given machine, all else being equal. It's been head scratching, even frustrating to watch this occur again and again, until now. Knowledge is power. If you know what ails a machine you know what you need to do to bring it up to par. This is not to imply that Simplex has such issues. I can't say it does or doesn't at this point. But its one possible explanation for the variation in reporting. I'll certainly be paying more attention to such things now. 

 

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G2-13 "Ultimate coil weighs 480 grams without cover and 530 grams with coil cover ... it is a light spool for its size ... ,,

for Spectra V3, this coil is a bit heavier because it has a heavier coil winding ...

or will it improve the depth performance of the detector? I think so ... because I have these coils for Spectra V3 and Tek. G2 ..

on the other hand, such a large coil can already disrupt the separation of the detector ... it all depends on the detector how the power reserves have in the area of separation ..

Recently you can see the trend of reducing the size of the coil to optimize the separation and increase the sensitivity to various objects..but while maintaining a sufficient depth ...

as far as I know at Simpex there are two 11 "coils - old and new type ... so the ranges may differ for different users also because ...
 

☠-cipher.....
  Ps .. coils for Spectra V3 ...and MXT..... the last days we have been devoting enough time with colleagues from Top Digin to solve the maximization of separation, sensitivity and reach on various targets ... by selecting suitable settings as well as the best coil that can fulfill this task .. .
  
Wait for update ...

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