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Testing The Garrett Apex + Ripper 5x8 Coil In A Thick Iron Trashed Area


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Third outing with the Apex/Ripper. A less difficult area , a forest near a town. Modern coins from the 16th to the 20th century can be found here. Sandy moderated mineralized soil with medium iron trash . 

A bit lucky because I found a coin on the first signal  🙂...
I know the Apex audio very well now , it is very reactive with short signals on targets I like this . As I already said the iron filtering is excellent and the Apex likes iron infested areas , however it is sometimes a little chirpy with erratic "bips" but I am getting used to this now ... I hope that Garrett will filter/eliminate those erratic signals in a future software update ..

Total I found 3 coins , a 1770 louis XV copper coin , a 17th corroded copper coin and a 1966 demi franc nickel. 

The Apex is fun and easy to use , it is a light machine with the ripper coil. The audio is more basic than the MLs but it works very well  .

My settings during this outing :  RELICS mode , sens max 8 , freq MF

The corresponding pics below , plus a pic of the Apex electronics board rear side done at home ..

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3 more outings with the Apex/Ripper . Wood and forest , moderate to high iron trash . 

THE GOOD NEWS :

- I confirm my previous feelings ; the Apex is a fast machine and fun to use , I have used it for coin and 1st ww relic hunting and it works very well. I like the short "bips" on targets. The Ripper coil is excellent , very accurate , very light , sensible to tiny targets , great separation and easy pinpointing with a good depth .
Excellent MS3 wireless headphones etc ... 🙂

THE BAD NEWS :

- I had false signals again during my last outing ,  this as soon as I started the Apex... 🤔   As I was using the MF mode , I decided to try the single freqs. The 20 and 15kh were still noisy , only the 10 and 5khz were quieter and I decided to carry on with the 10k freq.

A few minutes later , I decided to do a test : I stopped the MS3 and the Apex , unplugged the coil connector, replugged the coil connector and restarted the machine . And miracle , the false signals had totally disappeared after this , even in the MF mode... And I could detect up to the end of the outing without any pb ... Weird ...  The good thing ; now I have a bypass in case of false signals 🙂 .. 

However I have never seen such a behaviour on a detector , I will call my seller tomorrow about this , so that he can inform the Garrett support .. 

CONCLUSION :

Up to now I have a total of 6 outings with the Apex / Ripper , total time 13 hours. Apart from this false signal "mystery" , the Apex is a very good machine especially for European areas which require fast detectors because of their often high iron trash density...

To summarize :

- fast and reactive
- very light  ( especially with an home made front carbon shaft , a new foam handle and arm rest / 2,1 lbs with the Ripper ) 🙂

 

Now I will focus on the Viper coil , I will open a new thread for the Apex/Viper testing..

 

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The Apex sounds like a good detector. I'll probably get one when it's waterproof.

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My cousin proposed me an outing today on a 1st ww area near my village.  Finally I decided to use the Apex /Ripper again as I am very confident with this detector/coil now . 

My cousin proposed me to dig , so I had just to sweep the Apex and listen to the signals,  cool ... 🙂

My cousin was expecting 1st ww war relics , and me coins as we were quite close from a little town. We did find at the beginning 1st ww ammunitions but no coins . Hopefully at the end of the outing we found a very nice Napoleon 1st "garde imperiale" button in a very good state, dating probably from 1814 , a year of battles between Napoleon 1st and the coalition ( Prussia , Russia , Great Britain )...  French 1st Empire relics are quite rare and we were very happy to find this nice little button ..

Now I have 15 hours with the Apex/Ripper , again I am very happy with this machine because of its very reactive audio , performances in iron trashed areas and its lightness... 🙂

About the cons I noticed that the Ripper connector is difficult to insert/remove in/from the control box. Garrett should pay more attention to this kind of details , I dont know if that occurs on other Garrett detectors , I will try to find a solution ... 

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Nice finds. The Apex is sounding more impressive.

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Did you install the latest update for the Apex? Wondering if that fixes anything your running into.

Will be getting one soon and the stock smaller coil. Need something light to poke around the woods with, your forest look a lot like the ones we have here in New England.

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On 6/12/2021 at 5:38 AM, kac said:

Did you install the latest update for the Apex? Wondering if that fixes anything your running into.

Will be getting one soon and the stock smaller coil. Need something light to poke around the woods with, your forest look a lot like the ones we have here in New England.

Yes I installed the 1.28 one month ago . It did not solve the "false signals" because it occured again ( only once during 7 outings with the Ripper ) . If it happens just stop the machine , unplug and replug the coil connector , restart it , and everything should be ok ... The only difference I noticed when using the 1.28 is the backlight activation when pressing the MENU button , I did not see other differences vs the prev version . From what I have read on the Garrett internet site they have improved the detector stabiility on the wet salt beach , but I only use the Apex inland ..

I appreciate the Apex lightness and iron filtering , you should not be disappointed by this machine I think . I am looking forward for your results in the field ...  🙂

For info my Apex settings during this last outing : 
RELICS , SENS 8 , MF , GND 83 

HH

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Does this issue happen with the viper coil at all too? Curious if there is an issue with the coil or the control box. Could be the coil where something is over heating and failing which might explain why unplugging the coil and putting it back fixes it.

I am getting the viper coil here, 6x11 is a bit more versitile for what I want to use the machine for.

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6 hours ago, kac said:

Does this issue happen with the viper coil at all too? Curious if there is an issue with the coil or the control box. Could be the coil where something is over heating and failing which might explain why unplugging the coil and putting it back fixes it.

I am getting the viper coil here, 6x11 is a bit more versitile for what I want to use the machine for.

Actually when I received my Apex last autumn I only had the viper coil and I did 6 outings with it and I had false signals during 2 outings . At this moment when I had the pb I just try stop and restart the Apex which did not change anything and I had not yet the idea to unplug and plug the coil connector in the field . Perhaps unplugging and plugging the connector would have solved the pb I dont know ...

So I sent the Apex / Viper back to my seller who sent it to the Garrett support . Eventually I received a brand new Viper from them without any explanation about the pb . I just did 2 short outings with the new Viper coil and had no pb with it. As my seller sent me a Ripper coil to test,  I decided to focus on the Ripper . As I said above I only had one false signals pb with the Ripper during 6 or 7 outings , that I solved by simply unplugging plugging the coil connector in the field.  This story is still not clear for me and Garrett does not not help providing no info about the pb ...

Yes the 6X11 is a good coil for open areas like fields , the 5X8 is more dedicated to small iron trashed areas like yards , gardens , paths , woods with vegetation etc , so both are interesting . The Raider is certainly the deepest coil in clean soil but probably a bit heavy compared to the Viper and Ripper...

 

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  • 2 months later...

As the fields are plowed now , I have been able to do a few more outings with my Apex. The last one was in a field near a small village in an area where I had already found small copper medieval coins . Curious to see if the Apex could find other coins ... 
Now I almost only use the Apex with the Ripper coil because  this coil is very light and accurate . No time lost to locate the targets  with a pinpointer , the Ripper does the job itself 🙂... Btw I wonder why Garrett has not proposed the Ripper as stock coil , for me the Ripper is the best coil of the Garrett coil set ..

After 10 minutes of detecting , I was lucky enough to find a medieval coin , it was near the surface and the Apex did not miss it with a low tone ( VDI 43 ) .. Could not id the coin up to now , it is a feodal coin weighing 0.8g and dating from between the 10 to 12th centuries .  I initially thought it was a silver but it looks like there is just a thin layer of silver on it,  may be a fake one ... Anyway very happy with this find , the Apex has done the (right 🙂) job again ..

Now after around 23 hours I better know the Apex. It is a little less stable than a Deus/Orx in high iron trash areas with a few false signals  , but still excellent and accurate with short signals on targets . It is very easy to id high conductivity targets with their high tones. 

Definitely a very nice machine which however needs some time to get used to its audio as it is the case for all detectors ...

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and the trash , mainly 1st WW trash , casings bullets shrappnels etc ...

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