Hunterjunk

While I managed to get 40 plus hours on the Manticore beach hunting last weekend was my first chance to try it relic detecting . Had planned to use it both days of a group hunt but the battery eating nature of High Conductor mode meant that Saturday was it with the Nox in use on Sunday . Not many relics around in this area now so late in the day gave Prospecting mode a short run over some ground that is being actively mined on site . Hit two small nuggies that I could not find due to not having a scoop with me . These were recovered later by a better equipped operator .  Walked a few more yards and hit a really nice 16 signal which I persevered with until I finally found it .  .26 gram at approx 2" .

Sunday used the Nox finding a couple of buttons then had a look for gold finding a .08 gram bit .  Tested the Nox and Manticore on both pieces in the same ground and found the Manticore ran quieter , more smoothly and deeper than the Nox . This was using the 11" on the Manti compared to the Nox using the 8x5" Coiltec .  Pretty impressive for a big coil in my opinion and the Manti should be even better with a smaller coil , although I really don't want to find gold much smaller than .08 gram .

Lot's of scrap brass about from Chinese opium tins . Pearl shell push button type cuff link was a nice save .

interesting !  I spent Tuesday battling some very tough ground in ATHC mode using various sens levels . Late in the day I  gave ATTR a go with a much improved result .  Machine was much quieter to the point I was worried that I was missing targets . Two late pennies reassured me that if a decent target was there I was going to hear it .  Going back to the same site Monday and will try your ATLC suggestion , thanks .

Hunted some gold with the Manti last weekend and was impressed . This machine will be great with a small coil I think .

On 2/16/2023 at 8:37 AM, steveg said:

Thanks for the replies.

I do NOT have vibrate, or flashlight, on.  I MAY have screen backlighting set to max (never checked, so should be at default), and may have button backlighting on (again, never checked, should be at default).  BUT, I charged it all night on a quality Anker powerport smart charger, until the light went steady green, and started hunting about 11 AM.  Battery was dead at 5:30 PM, and had drained to "one bar" at least an hour or two before that...

The GOOD news, I guess, is that a battery change is not difficult; I saw a video on it, and it's not hard.  Anyone know offhand the replacement battery type?  I'm not home, or would check the manual.  Might be smart for me to buy a good, high-quality one in ANY case, and expect that it's at least possible that I have a dud.

Thanks for the info, on the charger, Yatahaze.  My only question is, while those are proper "specs," WILL such a charger be able to charge faster than the MC battery wants to drain, so that it essentially keeps the MC battery at "full charge" until it runs out of juice?

Hunterjunk -- YES, if you could keep an eye on your run time, before the battery dies, that would be great, as I'd then have a better idea as to what I may be dealing with here.  But, it sounds like you are definitely doing better than I am...

Steve

Gday Steve , you were right , HC mode chews power and there is nothing wrong with your battery . On Saturday I managed 7:45 run time , and some of that was in the red zone on the battery indicator . I turned the detector off before it shut it's self down . That run time consisted of HC mode and nearly 2 hours of Prospecting mode , all without headphones . At the end of the day I dumped my 4000 Ma power bank into the Manti which topped up the battery to just over one third capacity .  Used the Nox on Sunday !

Monday I hunted 7:15 hours in HC mode and stopped when the battery indicator hit red . Used headphones .

Today using headphones I ran 6:00 hours in HC mode , and 1:00 hour in Trash Reject . Indicator was still green , but only just !

Tomorrow I am off to buy a 10,000 Ma power pack .

19 minutes ago, Shelton said:

, long noise cancel for 20 minutes. 

Seriously ?

Ouch Steve !  , hope you don't have a dud battery .  Battery life seems pretty good with mine . Have done 6 hours with a ton of battery life left ? Will be doing an all weekend hunt this weekend so will time my battery life . Taking a powerpack and a Nox for backup .

Good no BS vid showing good skills with a new machine .

A small coil for the Manticore might really put the cat amongst the pigeons !   Will be trying the 11" on a goldfield in two weeks time , not very confident as the gold there is pretty small , but not as small as Phrunt's bits so hoping .  

Excellent review Rattlehead   .  Yep that non indexed 3 piece shaft with 2 camlocks becomes a PIA when both are undone .  I have had the coil bolt issue too , posted my cable tie solution in the Manticore section coupla weeks ago .  Enjoyed your vids and will set up a silver slayer program similar to yours for our pre decimal coins here . Thanks .

Good first up report . Definitely noticing greater depth here on my heavily hunted beaches compared to the Nox .

11 hours ago, rled2005 said:

My way of looking at it was 17/24 = 68% and .68 x 35 = 23.8(24)

Aint maths grand !  I divided 35 by 25 = 1.4  ,  1.4 x 17[Nox] = 23.8[Manti 24]  From what I am seeing on my beaches though I think the Manti is another beast altogether when sens hits from 28 to 35 . There is more power there but most times it cannot be used .  I have one beach only where I can run over 30 . I have tried 35 on this beach and it's do'able but 32 is more comfortable . 35 found large deep iron where I had never seen any before . A few of my beaches can be hunted with the Nox at 25 , the Manti is ok on these at 26-27 .

3 hours ago, TampaBayBrad said:

Lookin' good....gold will come for you I hope. It's tuff passing up those sinkers, huh? Try prospecting audio theme if you haven't already along with your Beach Deep. I like it, but run Beach Low Conductors.

I have experimented with Deep, but NASA Tom says for wet sand he uses Low Conductors so I keep thinking he must have his reasons for not using Deep instead. Who knows. I may switch it up some more, still getting familiar with the options.

Thanks . Have not tried Beach low conductors yet , only high and deep .  I hunt wet sand mostly and even ventured out into knee deep surf using Beach deep and still finding it usable , a bit noisy but real targets stand out .  Will try your audio suggestion . Plenty of learning left in this machine yet !

1 hour ago, rled2005 said:

Manticore should be at 24 sensitivity and equinox at 17 to be equal. Manticore goes to 35 and equinox goes to 25 max’s.

Quite aware of the sens ranges of both machines . That was not the point . The aim was to see how the Manticore performed on small gold . As I said , I could have run the Manti at a higher sens as it was handling the town EMI better than the Nox . The Nox was unusable at higher than 17 with the Manti starting to get noisy at 19-20 . I also doubt that Nox 17 and Manti 24 are truly relative . A simple division of 35 divided by 25 does not allow for any extra power to the coil and says they have just spread out the sensitivity scale . From my small test I think the Manti would have out performed the Nox if I cranked it up . Any way real world detecting in the bush will be the real test and that won't be happening until a smaller coil becomes available .

Approaching 40 hours beach hunting with the Manticore . Starting to like the machine and have some faith in it .  Still using stock programs as I consider myself to be a babe in the woods still with this machine .  Reread the manual last night and it all makes more sense now so will start playing with a few settings .  I am really liking Beach Deep , with the All Metal horseshoe on . All  Metal is giving me plenty of info about bottle tops , to the point now that I really don't have to dig any more of them . Depth on the beach is great , and battery life is good with 5 hour hunts barely moving the battery level indicator . Would feel even more confident about the machine if I could just blood it with some gold  but it's pretty scarce around here .

Photos of various hunt results .

Tried the Manticore on a couple of nuggies on the front lawn today .   I fired up the Nox 800 first using gold 1 and the Coiltec 10x5 .  Town EMI would not let me run the Nox at any higher gain than 17 , and that was noisy .  Used goldfield general on the Manticore sens 17 , and of course the M 11 coil . I could have run the Manticore a couple notches higher but wanted to keep things as equal as possible . The bigger nugget was detectable by both machines at near 4 inches .  The Nox had a clear advantage of about one inch on the tiny nuggie while the Manticore could barely see it at one inch .  Tried all the other modes and interestingly found that Beach deep was almost as good as the goldfield mode . A smaller coil on the Manti' and we might just be able to use some of that claimed extra power in the field as it was much better at handling the EMI .

Targets used .

When I ordered my Manticore 2nd Sept.  I also ordered the extra coils and lower shafts . At this time Miners Den in Bendigo still cannot give me a time frame for delivery , nor price . No doubt they will be expensive !

Longest hunt with mine so far is a 3 hour night hunt , using headphones , low screen light .  Very pleased to see the battery level had lowered very little .  Great to be able to drop the the screen light so low . Only a red backlight would have been better .

A few target tests . These were done on my lawn , so not air tests but certainly surface tests . Tried low and high conductor on all targets . There appeared to be a one digit difference in target number . The thinnest ring would not register at all when on high conductor but came up Ok on low , albeit with a very low number , junk target tone , but good target trace . Of note is the very low V.D.I's when the ring is broken . Also plain bands give a perfect circle on TT but when they have a larger area on one side like a signet ring then TT is a circle with a smudge to one side . With the silly season in full swing I am struggling to find time to get in the field for some real hunting .

Max sens is 25 on the beach here in the couple of spots I have tried . At that level it's noisy , any more it gets really cranky and e.m.i. becomes an issue too .

Another short hunt in a flogged area last night . Tried out just using the TT system and found it can be tricked by certain targets . Coins really sound great though . In the pic below there is a half silver ring . I was impressed by the depth of this target and while target trace was poor at best the signal was tight with a great tone . While the target id was only 22 it was a signal you have to dig .  The pull tabs ID'd from 30 right through to 42 depending on size depth and orientation which is a bit more than I hoped for . On the plus side they signal with a very bright tone and doing 180 degree opposed swings most showed some irregularity on target trace so with experience most will be eliminated . Loving the adjustable screen lighting that goes to a much lower light level than the Nox . Noticed that Gerry in his great post did not mention any coil bolt loosening . Mine will come loose through coil movement so have used a small cable tie as per photo below . Very much enjoying the grip shape as opposed to the Nox .

Always interested in other peoples ID numbers , I think they vary a little due to mode used and ground value . I have found one Sovereign and a half with the Nox . The Sov. in ground was a 17 , 17 , 18 signal while my half was a solid 15 in ground and out . Mt two Sov's are a solid 18 out of ground . A gold Guinea I found was a solid 18 in ground . I will test these with the Manticore and post the results in this topic area .

On 12/21/2022 at 2:18 PM, phrunt said:

The only ID's I care about are the Gold Sovereigns, half and full.  If anyone knows them for the Nox 900 or Manticore that'd be great. 

On the Nox they come in 15 for the half and 18 for the full.

A great report with great results ! All of your skills on display .

Wow !  This sort of got out of control . I was not expecting much comment so really surprised . Lot's of opinions about .  Eisenhower's quote about opinions on the eve of the D day landings comes to mind !

My post was in no way meant to knock the machine  , Minelab , or their engineers but does reflect my experiences over the last 12 years of detecting . I have owned and used various Whites , Makro , Nokta and Minelab machines and have had very few problems until receiving one of the first Nox 800's in Aust . While the Nox is a wonderful machine for making finds my breakage list reads like the "Who's who" of detector failures . Hence my observations about the Manticore , they are not predictions and I hope the machine is trouble free .

I guess I qualify as one of the "weed wackers" as 75% of my hunting is in thick scrub on 1800's mine sites . Arm breaking hunts of 6 to 9 hours are the norm for me and as a self funded retiree I get out more than most . I have had coil lead failures on Detech and Minelab coils only so am wary of thin flexible cables in heavy going .

My trade was fitter machinist / tool maker with maintenance of injection molds being part of my work . My opinion only but I would not design  the ears the way they are . I see one opinion is that this gives some flexibility . To me flexibility means more bending of the plastic which can only end in failure . I have some industrial nylon that will machine up into a strong ear replacement .

Managed to get out for a quick 1.5 hour beach hunt last night . The state of the tide left me few options so hunted a very trashy and noisy area . Could only hunt at a maximum gain of 25 and there was plenty of moaning at this level but I always run my machines hot and use my ears as a filter . Metallic items came through the background clearly and the target trace seems quite good . For those that don't like to tighten their coil bolt much you will probably have to put a small cable tie etc. through the coil bolt to ears as my bolt worked loose twice .

As with any new machine there is a learning curve . The results below are from the most basic settings and understanding of the machine . Dug some junk just to check out the target trace system . For purely coin shooting I think the target trace will be great . Apart from the ferrous indication though it's not something for relic hunting . Very pleased to get a junk ring and some coins from this spot with a pre decimal 1955 sixpence very welcome . Some good times to come with this machine and I hope you all get yours soon . Merry Xmas .

With many of you in the US getting closer to having a Manticore in your hands , have a look at my pic below of the shaft ears . I received my machine a week ago and still have not found time to take it for a hunt yet . I keep looking at the shaft ears and wondering why they are so long and thin ? Surely the excessive length just adds to leverage forces that will place added stress on those 90 degree bends ? It will be interesting to see peoples opinions as the machines roll out .

Also the coil cable is very thin at 2mm thinner than the superbly armored Nokta Simplex coil lead . The sexy rough textured carbon shafts look like they will hold grime very well too . Otherwise the machine strikes me as a fine piece of kit and I hope to get a hunt in tomorrow night .