midalake

10 minutes ago, 619_805_okie said:

Is carbon fiber better? Any recommendations on where to get one?

Carbon fiber is just about indestructible and zero flex. Steve now has a replacement. 
http://www.stevesdetectorrods.com/list.php?Brand=1

BEFORE Steve had the replacement made, he helped me put together a shaft with my own custom mount that I built! 

Did you ever put the 12X15 Equinox coil in the water???  Yup, quite a treat. 

The stock rod for the Deus2 is inadequate for any water hunting in my opinion. 

3 hours ago, 619_805_okie said:

Will the 9 inch coil solve this problem or do i need to invest in a different shaft?

I replaced my stock rod with a custom CF rod.  I was not wild of water hunting with a 9" coil. My past opinion was a coil that size was too small on a salt beach. 

After the last three months of working the Deus 9"  , I have no plans of changing to a larger coil to hunt in the water. 

If I had a choice, it would be for a 10" coil for in the water. 
 

On 4/29/2023 at 12:19 PM, Chase Goldman said:

The other thing I’ve noticed about visual TID on D2 is that it is pretty rock solid and you rarely are in a situation where you are hearing just a tone without a target ID

Just to reinsert the causes and effects we are talking about DEEP fringe targets.  
At the beach I hunt fringe targets of all metals will not give numbers on a routinely daily basis. My method is to investigate in another mode [like others do] I usually raise the sensitivity to look at that one target and also take a scoop off if needed. It is amazing how many of these are iron. Even in the two-tone program I hunt in, Iron wrap-around is a fact with the D2. 

On 4/29/2023 at 12:19 PM, Chase Goldman said:

In my experience, D2 is a great tone machine if you have the audio set up for other than pitch tone (though I consider full tones to be weak on the D2 vs. the D1).

The D2 is a good tonal machine until you have fringe targets that do not lock. I have had iron grunts with deep nonferrous and no iron grunts with deep ferrous. What really is disappointing deep nonferrous gives zero hints it might be nonferrous. ALWAYS choppy, ratty,bitey broken signals [just like deep ferrous] My only hope is that I can get the D2 to throw a number. 
I chase WAY more ferrous targets at the beach than with the GT Sovereign, Equinox, and although not enough time on the machine I suspect the Manticore would be added as well. [it is not even close]

And of course,>>>someone hunting land my not see what I am experiencing on a black sand salt beach. 
Of course [2] No machine is perfect. But the D2 does make the Equinox look like an Ace 400 in the moving wave wash zone. 

Awesome fiinds!!!!!  Congrats. 

1 hour ago, ColonelDan said:

As we know, the D2 is primarily a tone machine...which is how I use it. 

1 hour ago, ColonelDan said:

A takeaway here is that by switching programs over a wavering tone, you may get a better idea of what your coil is trying to tell you.

Not trying to be argumentative here. However, this Vid you posted in fact shows the Deus 2 NOT being a good tonal machine. 

I refer back to the 8-minute mark of this Vid where the user is unsure of what is in the ground and is trying to get the machine to throw him a number. No person could dig that target with any confidence because of the ratty, bitey, broken tone it was giving!  

The user is unable to confirm the target on tone alone. I KNOW, as 1000's of deep targets I have looked at sound identical FERROUS and non-ferrous.

Also, I want to point out that the user has very nice sand and little black sand. Black Sand will only amplify the tonal issues and breakdown will occur at a much less detection depth.  

However, what the Deus 2 is better at than most is throwing a number that will give hints to what might be there. Only after an exhausting 360 degree look and hopefully a group of numbers can one make a determination of the target. 

As a reminder, I am a beach hunter only and my goal is to dig all nonferrous. 

In my opinion: The Deus 2 is a lousy tone machine but a good numbers machine! [on deep targets] 

11 hours ago, Jeff McClendon said:

In my opinion that video showed more about what overall weight of a target (not non-ferrous conductivity) has to do with audio responses using differently weighted SMF programs than it did about target ID.

This Vid just shows what I have been talking about. First the D2 throwing numbers all over.
Second, how the machine is bitey on deep nonferrous targets and VERY difficult to tell the difference between ferrous wrap-around and nonferrous.

Go to the 8min mark of the Vid where the user states he is getting no TID numbers, and the tone is bitey and breaking down. 

I routinely check deep targets in identical programs of Beach and Beach Sensitive. Not too worried about missing BIG gold. Worried about missing chains which the Dive program is not the best at. 

Have You Dug Good Targets With Negative Numbers?

Let's be CLEAR> EVERY machine that has had a ferrous and nonferrous TID idenification system has identified very deep nonferrous targets as IRON! 

8 minutes ago, Hunterjunk said:

There is a depth advantage over the Nox , it's not huge but it's there . It's great at co located targets . Sound in enhanced is great . Ergonomics are better

Yes!

8 minutes ago, Hunterjunk said:

The only real downside is the off center coil mount  that sees the coil tipping up in thick going

Yes.  One reason I am not buying one right now. Also, the added coil structure on the 11" coil catches more sand and water and can be a PIA when trying to swing on the sand.  
Personally, I would wait for a {10X something coil} and dedicate it to water only. 
I just do not understand this engineering concept of offset coils which make detectors harder to use in many conditions. 

24 minutes ago, Jeff McClendon said:

Has the Manticore been a perfect fit for anyone out there so far.....

I thought it worked really well on a salt beach with moderate black sand. There are going to be lots of gold chains found with the manticore. Transitions good from wet sand to wave wash.

11 hours ago, Lost Scout said:

So good for pin pointing but in prospector when pumping the coil ignore the number.

I just have to say>There is more accurate information to be gained from swinging the coil than pumping the coil.  Save pumping the coil for doing GB. 

2 hours ago, StarVatrex said:

It's the beach, not a jewelry store.

LOL>>>True words! 😂

On 4/6/2023 at 12:58 PM, CPT_GhostLight said:

Dang, I'm sorry I can't be of more help. I don't know if any other of the D2 beach hunters have experienced this or not, perhaps one of them will chime in

I have a little more time now so comments can be made on some changes made.
With regards to the breakdown of detection and targets sounding bitey, I found no real changes running PWM or Full Tones. 
A couple of things cleaned up the Black Sand chatter. Taking reactivity from .05 to 1 in Beach Sensitive helped. However, when I tried going to a Reactivity of 1 in Beach mode I did not like the results. 
Also compared beach and beach sensitive mode in full tones.  I hunted full tones in the 00-disc. setting. Interestingly enough the extra noise from ocean water and black sand was reduced. The bad part I also found. Deep targets are muted and do not stand out as well as compared to Square and PWM with Disc set at 22. When I found pockets of even more concentrated black sand the D2 had to be backed off in sensitivity and detection field breakdown and bitey sounding targets were even worse.

Final thoughts: The D2 no question struggles in Black Sand. The ability to identify wrap-around iron FROM non-ferrous targets that will not TID is not possible as these targets sound identical. 
The only chance is that the D2 throws a number. 

4 hours ago, Chase Goldman said:

Yes, I would.  Deus 2 seems to deal with it better than any other SMF machine

Yes. In my limited EMI world, the Manticore works as the D2 does.  

As a side note. I hear very few people using Manticore and EMI in the same sentence. 

19 hours ago, Skullgolddiver said:

In my case the 11" cannot be exploited because of the high salinity and a smaller footprint might solve that,

This would normally be a reasonable deduction.
But after comparing a 9 and 11" coil for weeks on end I would tell you not to get your hopes up on a 9" coil handling salt or black sand any better than a 11" coil. 

The 9"coil can definitely hold its own on depth performance compared to the 11" coil in a salt environment. 

18 hours ago, blackjack said:

Steve answered this, DD coils aren't as accurate for pinpointing.

DD coils are not accurate on Iron!  Spot on with nonferrous. 

19 hours ago, Lost Scout said:

Switching to all metal and pumping will now give a consistent negative. This always proves out to be iron.

Thoughts?

Congratulations on learning the power of the Horseshoe mode. At least for myself when hunting in beach 2. EVERY piece of iron with double sound on 360 inspections. [swing speed is important] and it will take practice. You cannot go too slow. 

Anything nonferrous will NEVER> Repeat NEVER make a double sound [unless very shallow] in which case your Equinox will lock out on a nonferrous number. 

I highly suggest hunting more with the Horseshoe mode on to understand this concept.  

Ditch recovery in pinpoint and recover your targets with the horseshoe mode on. 

12 hours ago, strick said:

do you dig every target on the beach...most of the time? I've never detected Mexico beaches just curious. 

I dig everything that is nonferrous! Except for one beach where I try to skip some tabs. I take the Equinox to this beach. 

On 4/15/2023 at 8:26 AM, strick said:

therefore having the expanded ID range can allow one to make a better "guess" before the dig...note I say "guess"

It is my Experience that an Expanded ID range to 100 scale is a hindrance to idenification of aluminum to gold ratios. 

Example: My equinox is AWESOME at locking in tabs where I hunt at 13-14 for 95 %. 

My Deus 2 is HORRIBLE at locking in a range of tabs. I run numbers from 49 to 64 for 95%.  This is absolutely unacceptable and makes skipping tabs impossible. 

Don't run air tests, they are worthless. Run ID tests on the wet sand. The dynamics of wet sand and black sand will change ID numbers, especially at depth.   

3 hours ago, dogodog said:

My favorite is how the 900 separates gold targets from a lot of aluminum targets. I would say the the target ID's are much better suited to gold jewelry detecting.

Can you give an example of why this would be true? 

2 hours ago, F350Platinum said:

Just so others know, setting discrimination at 0 (00) makes iron false less because the detector is more likely to select a lower tone in full tones. 🙂

Are Full Tones only available in 1 operating mode? 

2 hours ago, F350Platinum said:

Another thing I do (personal preference) is lower discrimination to 00 and use full tones. This mostly eliminates iron from the higher tone bins.

Can you explain this a little more? 

Edit: No need to explain

1 hour ago, Digalicious said:

With the importance of the recovery speed when it comes to depth and separation, is it possible to have an automatic recovery speed mode?

No, Why? 

17 hours ago, Tom B said:

I am looking at the higher end detectors that are on the market and noticed that a lot of Nox 900's are popping up for sale

If you are not going to submerge the control pod, then a used Equinox 800 cannot be beat! You will have enough money to buy every coil size you want from the savings! 
 

I take it the coil is brand new?  If so, return it for a different one. 

I noticed EVERY Minelab coil Equinox and Manticore coil I have seen is underfilled.

Nice piece and usable!