Steve Herschbach

I was recalling that also... the part where it says it is update-able. Then after I posted that, people kept mentioning the Apex can’t be updated. Seems like that must have been coming from someplace else, which is why I asked. Whether there are plans to do that yet.... well, no, of course not, unless a need arises. People seem to expect this capability is there to give them more features later at no extra charge. The reality is it’s there as a just in case bug fix capability, and that is all. No bugs, no updates, so no reason to advertise it as a “feature” per se. Though I think having such a feature does provide a level of comfort, and not informing the customer of this safety net up front is a mistake in my opinion. Any detector that includes a USB port for charging is likely to include an update feature, advertised or not.

People keep saying the Apex cannot be updated over the internet. Can anyone provide a quote from Steve Moore or Brent Weaver saying that it is not updateable?

If the plastic posts are cracked or broken it is going to be more than just snugging screws. In that case hopefully parts from the dead unit can be used to replace any broken parts. But I’ll mention again.... Whites may cover this as a warranty repair.

I’m assuming none of you detector power junkies have sprung for one of these yet? For $86 it’s not a bad option as a kids starter detector, without getting too cute about it. I imagine this detector blows away the Coinmaster 4 that I started with almost 50 years ago. I paid $200 for that detector back when money was worth something, and it had no ground balance, no discrimination... no anything really, except it went beep on metal a few inches deep.

Anyone who thinks you need expensive, or at least cutting edge detectors to do well, should download this and look at the finds, and what is making them.

Ground balance is not a needed item on most entry level detectors. People do not walk into stores saying "I want to learn how to ground balance." A zillion Ace users are quite happy without ground balance, and for most turf detecting, the real market here, it simply is not needed from a technical perspective either. Simplex is actually too complicated for many people. You guys would benefit working in detector retail for some time, because what you want, and what the market wants, don't match up quite as well as you might think. People in general want to find stuff, and the less controls the better.

An Apex ended up on my doorstep a while back. Unlike people expecting Garrett to blow away twenty years of Minelab technology advances overnight, I have a different perspective on all this. But I'm taking my time putting my thoughts together, so it may be a bit before I comment. Let's just say for now that I applaud Garrett's effort.

OK, since this turned into another comparison thread I've moved it to the proper forum.

Large ferrous gives off signals across the board, sort of a shotgun effect, including high tone coin type signals. If you notch out or block ferrous signals, all you hear are the high tones, so now you think you have a coin. The fewer tones you use, the more likely some ferrous will give off coin like high tones. I avoid this by eliminating nothing and going purely by tones. There will be targets that are throwing multiple tones, and if these include 39 high tone spikes, it is almost always a ferrous target. Full tones reveals this best, but that may be too busy for some people. The key is to be able to hear ferrous tones instead of blocking them. Too much sensitivity enhances ferrous high tone spiking. Lower your sensitivity. The new F2 Iron Bias is particularly effective on these types of targets. Investigate it's use.

About CTX but applies.... https://www.minelab.com/community/treasure-talk/ctx-3030-threshold-blanking

Plenty of MXT owners bought a V series detector, only to sell it and go back to the MXT. In general, if you really enjoy exploring settings and experimenting with settings, the V3i can be a playground. If you simply want to go metal detecting and find stuff, the MXT tends to be a better fit. The MXT is a machine I can grab and use for about any type of detecting. The V3i for me personally is a fun park machine, where it’s discrimination can be used to good effect in dense modern trash. I enjoy going to a park for a few hours, and honestly I’m having about as much fun screwing with the settings as anything else. But for most detecting I want a machine that I can get down to business with minimal fuss, and the MXT exemplifies that type of detector. It’s really not so much about which machine works better. They can both produce. I think it’s more a personality difference thing, where some people thrive on complexity, and enjoy exploring the inner working of the machine. Detector nerds. Other people, by far the more common, just want to get the job done with minimal fuss. The V3i and MXT are radically different designs that tend to appeal to these two types of detector customers.

That triangular piece is interesting, should clean up nice. 👍🏼

And just to note - it's not just browsers, but add ons. Ad blockers in particular can be problematic, and many of them are scams in themselves! There were issues yesterday I am still trying to sort out. There was a server reboot, which corrupted some database files. The site was down for about an hour. I got it looking good now on the front end, but still having some issues with portions only I can see.

Loose gold chains and very small gold items can be hard to detect under the best conditions. It can be impossible to detect them in saltwater due to the way metal detectors are conductivity based devices. If you tune out saltwater you eliminate the small gold signal along with it. Any detector can be pushed to the edge of just barely detecting the saltwater, and no more. Otherwise the detector would sound constantly. A machine that is experiencing just the slightest bit of salt water falsing is right on the edge, and can go no father. We have had machines that can pick up thin gold chains since the 1990s at least. Any decent VLF nugget hunter would do the trick. Gold Bug 2 for instance. Except they do not work on wet salt sand. They are TOO SENSITIVE! The whole pick up tiny earrings and thin chains in saltwater is one of the most overbaked yet least understood areas of detecting. We hit the wall on what the tech can do there ages ago. There are a lot of tiny low conductors that will be eliminated along with the salt signal because to the metal detector it is the same signal, the same thing. All the detector sees is a very low conductive signal - period. We can set the machine to find those, but now it won't work in saltwater. Or you can tune out the low conductive salt signal, but now you miss all those tiny gold and platinum targets also. Get the Equinox, and using my nugget settings you will be able to find exceptionally small gold. But those settings will not work in saltwater. Or you can use the Beach Modes to deal with the salt, but now you can't hit the tiny gold. The capability is there, but it is one or the other, this or that. You can't do both at once, it is the nature of the technology. The minute Equinox came out and people started speculating on gold chains, etc. I knew it was the same old same old. People do not understand the physics, and so they think a new detector will somehow change things, but it can't happen. Not as long as conductivity/eddy current retention is the tool we use to make our determinations. Long story short, if micro gold is the desire, I would use any detector that can tune across the salt transition zone - in other words that can balance to salt and beyond. The machine needs to be able to pick up saltwater. Then slowly detune it until there is just the barest indications of salt false signals beginning to occur. You are now on the edge, and you can go no farther. If a machine cannot be made to pick up saltwater, then it is tuned to be well below that threshold. Salt content varies around the world, and many saltwater machines are set up to ignore the worst. But if you get into lower salinity water, now you have poor sensitivity to tiny gold, or at least poorer than is possible. This is why numerous detectors, especially many single frequency machines, have a "SALT" setting. The MXT for example. If not around saltwater, leave Salt Mode off. If you hit the beach, use the Salt Mode. Engaging it eliminates the salt signal, and the thin chains and tiny earrings, etc. For ages I needed two detectors. A beach detector, and a hot tiny nugget detector. Nobody made a machine that could do both. Equinox is special because I can hunt Hawaii one week, and hunt tiny gold nuggets another week. It can do both very well - but not both at the same time. The chart below shows where salt signal occurs relative to other targets. Just barely into the positive range. This is also where small low conductors read - foil, thin chains, post earrings, tiny gold nuggets. Keep in mind platinum reads even lower than gold, and so the problem for platinum is even worse.

page 19 Pulse Delay Control: "The Pulse Delay control can adjust this time delay from 7 µs to 11.5 µs." This post by Alexandre: "Actually, the last pulse delay (11.5) is actually 15us. It was a last second change to better accommodate full submersion." Every diagram showing the control, plus all faceplates made so far, are incorrect.

False premise really. The ORX is doing just fine on the market. However, I am one that anticipated the market already being overloaded with similar performing VLF nugget detectors. The Orx was just the latest in a string of a new hot VLF nugget detectors, and the demand from prospectors is actually for more powerful PI type detectors. It’s no surprise to me that prospectors did not flock to the Orx when most already have a machine that does as well. Yet many coin and relic hunters are finding it a fine alternative to the Deus... and there are some prospectors who are using the machine of course. Anyway, I personally can do about as well on gold nuggets with an Orx or a Equinox 800..... or a Goldmaster 24K or a Gold Monster, etc. I would pay more attention to the “1/3 everything else” part you mention. Obviously many VLF nugget detectors are not very versatile. The Orx and Equinox offer the extra versatility for that other one third. But what is that one third specifically, and which model would suit you better for that part of the equation? It does not have to be complicated. I’d be happy with the Orx or 800, but the Equinox is waterproof and Orx not, so Equinox for me since I do use the machine in water. Some will rightly point out the Orx can be waterproofed. Yes, true, but Equinox already is. And I really like the 15” coil and small 6” coils, which are not an option with XP. If not for things like that, an Orx would suit me just fine. Those are the little things that can make the decision... one particular feature you want that the other machine lacks. Continued development of the Equinox is an advantage, not a negative. You want abandoned product, get a 24K. I feel your pain. There are too many options, and you honestly don’t know if you will like a machine until you get it and use it a while. All we can do is offer suggestions, since nobody but you can figure out what your preferences and needs are in a detector. Trust that they all work, and get the one that has the features you think you need. Obsessing over a desire to end up with the one machine that is “the best” ignores the fact that getting any of them involves some sort of compromise. That’s why so many of us end up with multiple detectors. Good luck whatever choice you make!

It’s a known problem, you are not alone. Under normal circumstances this is something Whites would fix, even if out of warranty. MX Sport Reported Issues

Yeah, my box is the same way. I see stuff like that a lot in this industry. Half the White’s MX Sport ads on the internet show the display for a prototype that is different than the actual model, but nobody ever seems to care or notice.

Fisher Impulse AQ Ltd Owners Manual - Download Here

Well, I'm glad to hear that! I still have four of his picks; in fact I am putting a new handle on one today. #3,4,9, and 10 below are all Hodan picks.

Exactly my thoughts on the original coil... I could not get rid of it quick enough.

Just your third year, people like me complaining the patches are getting thin...... and look at you! Fabulous finds, congratulations!!