Deus II - An Outsiders Perspective And First Hunt

[CPT_GhostLight]

Okay let me preface by saying that I have no experience at all with an XP detector. I have been using the Equinox 800 for the last 2 years since I got back into detecting and really everything I know about detecting comes from that machine. I am really comfortable with it and have no intention of getting rid of it. But I've always been curious about the Deus (1) and almost pulled the trigger a few times but it just seemed overwhelmingly complicated so I didn't buy it. Then the Deus II came out and piqued my interest again, specially since it is a simultaneous multi-frequency machine. I got the D2 machine yesterday and had to take it out just to see what it was about.

Now I have done a bunch of research on the D2, watched tons of videos, and read all the forums including this one to prep myself to enter a different world with a different language and I think it helped a lot. So thank you all for your expertise and shared information.

I got a call to go detecting with friends yesterday at a local running path built on top of an old railroad track that had recently had an pipeline replaced next to it so the old deep dirt was now on top of the pipes. Since the D2 came fully charged, I loaded it up and also took the Nox as a back up in case I got too frustrated with the D2.

Let me say right off to bat that I don't like the WS6 headphones. They sit wonky on my fat head and interfere with putting my glasses on and off. Luckily I had also purchased the WS adapter and was able to plug in some cheap JBL wired earrbuds which worked perfectly and sounded really good too. That's really the only thing I don't care for so far.

I got the D2 with the 9" coil and have the software version V 0.6 13-1-2022 (Jan 13th). When I got to the hunt site, I loaded up the P1 General stock program and off I went. I must say I kind of like the PWM tones. It's different to what I'm used to but has an interesting feel to it, if that makes sense. My first target was a zinc penny and in no time at all I was pulling deep square tabs, ring pulls, and bottle caps like crazy. Now I've learned the sound and numbers of tabs, pulls, and caps on the Nox and can avoid those for the most part, but the D2 spreads those out quite a bit from the 50s to the 90s TID and they all sound good to me, so I've got a lot of learning to do.

I also pulled some deep old iron but it was on purpose because I could actually tell it was iron and wanted to dig everything to see what's what. I played around switching to the other programs over many of the targets to get a feel for program differences. Some of the programs (all in stock modes) really responded differently and I could get a feel for the strengths and weaknesses of each over certain targets in my hot iron mineralized soil. I think the Park mode was the worst about falsing on Iron, but as I learn the D2 better, I think I will be able to deal better with that. The D2 did run surprisingly quiet for the most parts and even in a high EMI area I was able to tame it down well enough to keep hunting.

The old railroad trail wasn't producing much so we moved over to the nearby park and that's when the light turned on for me. I started hitting the familiar coins and trash and felt like I was getting more comfortable with the D2. I even lowered the sensitivity and worked right next to a chain link fence to see how close I could find a good target. I don't think the D2 with the 9" round coil can match the Nox with the 10x5" coil in that regard but it was close and I did manage to pull 2 pennies and a dime within a few inches of the fence. If XP puts out a 9.5x5" coil for land hunting with the D2, then all bets are off! 😎

I will say, I feel like the Deus II is easier to learn than I thought it would be and I look forward to this journey. I really like it so far. I don't really even mind the screen switching speed so much as it really IDs multiple tragets fast. I do hope they can tame the issues with the 0.7 update as I'm not updating until that's fixed and if they could put a volume control on the pinpoint function that would be cool since it is so much louder than the program tones.

Here's everything from my first hunt. It's nothing great but it's a good enough sample to make me feel that the Deus II and I are going to get along just fine.

 

 

[palzynski]

10 hours ago, CPT_GhostLight said:

...

I will say, I feel like the Deus II is easier to learn than I thought it would be and I look forward to this journey. I really like it so far. ...

Yes the Deus1-2 are easy to use , even for new users . This because these detectors do the job for you , they perfectly filter the irons and they are very reactive and accurate on targets . No need to continuously "translate" what the machines are telling you because their language is very easy to understand ... 

On the other hand I would not say that the Deus1/2 internal signal processing is simple btw , their softwares are probably quite complex with thousands of source code lines ... Their secret sauce .🙂..

[Calmark]

Your first impressions match up with mine nearly perfectly.  I too researched the Deus 2 through watching videos and reading forums posts, so I knew what to expect and felt adept at using it after just a short time.  I also came from using the Equinox 800 and that machine helped prepare me a lot for the Deus 2.  

Performance-wise, I don't yet see a lot of difference in my severely mineralized soil between the Nox and Deus 2, since all machines I've used here don't ID coins well past 4-5 inches.  But, I really do enjoy the Deus audio and feel like I can very easily locate targets and get them out of the ground more quickly due to that.  Also, I never put the elbow velco strap on the Deus and find I have zero need for it.  To me, this makes up for the slight unpleasantness of the WS6 headphones since I don't have an arm cuff to contend with my long sleeve shirts when constantly setting down the machine to dig. 

Even after 3-4 weeks with my Deus 2 +9in. coil, I'm still having a lot of fun which motivates me to get out there and keep at it for extended time periods.  The larger VDI range over that of the Nox also makes things more interesting, as its possible to see patterns in what #'s pertain to certain trash items.  I dig more trash, but since its faster retrieval and I can focus on ranges within the aluminum band of numbers, I can also be very selective on the fly, depending on how my trash tolerance is at the time.  This has resulted in some great recent finds.  Digging trash eventually gets the treasure.

Good luck on finding something epic in the near future!  

[strick]

Glad you like it....it's gonna have purpose in your arsenal...I see you were cursed by a mood ring...now your screwed I hate those &**# things... about as bad as a Chucky Cheese token 🙂 

strick

[F350Platinum]

Add me to the club please! 😀 My experiences with the D2 are almost identical. At first I dug a lot of junk until I got used to those scratchy tones... The light weight and ergo make it a joy to use. On the beach that bottle cap reject (it may be different in v0.7) is a lifesaver.

It kills on coins and silver, but it's weird with aluminum bottle caps. I can get past most of the pull tabs now but getting a 91 for anything other than a coin is just... Wrong. 😁 Oh well, the Equinox does similar stuff. I think with some creative notching that I can't do on the Equinox I can get rid of most tabs and still get nickels.

It's been fun spending a long time every day at the beach, valuable experience. With the Equinox my junk tally is a lot lower, but will improve over time with the Deus.

Excellent post!

[ColonelDan]

Great report!   Wishing you all the best with the Deus II.

[Jeff McClendon]

Great report CPT-GhostLight. I will keep checking on your progress and hope you continue to enjoy Deus 2.

 

[Ogliuga]

Very nice! 👌

[GB_Amateur]

Nice report.  I like the cup-and-saucer charm.  Is it silver plated copper?  Also, do you know what that badly deteriorated item at upper right is?  Appears like it might be hand forged, given what looks like many layers of iron.  Even the hex nut (?) below it seems to be coming apart in a similar manner.  I take it those were from the old railroad bed.

[CPT_GhostLight]

Thanks GB! I think the tea cup charm is plated, no stamp. The large iron thing is a transformer of some kind. It is very heavy. All of the heavily rusted things, as well as the older looking tin and lead pieces, came from the railroad bed.