Brad Plohman

I tried out my new GGA IIs (for Deus 2) the other day and love them. They use the bone phone output instead of the wired headphone output and have tons of volume. I started with the volume at 6 but found that uncomfortably loud, so dropped it to 5 which is still plenty loud. I also like the sound quality, which I would describe as somewhat like the bone phones sound, but better and without that brain rattling big iron response. Comfort wise; the cup pads of these GGA IIs seem to be softer than any of my original GGAs. Nice molded, 90 degree m8 connector and glad to see they got rid of that cup mounted volume pot. Great job Detector Pro!

(BTW that’s not a splice in the cable in the picture; I just have the cable taped to a large zip tie to keep it away from the handle)

22 hours ago, Mikenowellsmith said:

I've updated the software version to 0.71 on my deus, since doing this the clock loses or gains time, I know this sounds trivial but I'm a carer and my time is important, if I set the click after I turn it on it still loses time, also its a bit more prone to EMI interference than it was on previous software versions, if I could go back to the original software when I bought it in January I would it was a lot deeper on that version and kept the right time, is anyone else having the same issue?

I'm having the same issue with the remote not keeping time.

I reinstalled v0.71 in hope that would resolve it, but the issue persists. 

1 hour ago, steveg said:

I'm at work on a prototype Deus 2 complete shaft, that will utilize round tubes. 

That looks slick Steve!
I like how the remote mount is recessed from the handle.

Does that upper shaft slide into the handle like the stock piece?

Nice Job. I can see already from the picture that that clevis won't ride on the top of the coil and has a proper size bolt hole. I think I'll have to get in touch with Steve about a lower shaft.  

42 minutes ago, basstrackerman said:

Here is a couple pics of my stock Deus 2 lower shaft and inner coil ear.   That's beach hunting but only a couple times. This is why I purchased the Anderson shaft.  

My take on it is that that little bushing is supposed to place tension directly on the clevis and thus rubber washer on the other side. It should hold the non-washer side away from the coil ear. It makes me wonder if possibly the coil bolt wasn't tight enough?

51 minutes ago, basstrackerman said:

Okay I checked my Anderson lower where it meets the coil. There is daylight using a flashlight between that divot and the coil between the ears and the lower rod.

I'd keep eye on it. Due to it having a 10mm hole for only a 6mm coil bolt there is going to be 4mm of travel. I think if you pull the shaft back away from the coil you can probably create a scenario with 1mm of clearance, but if you push it forward, like say if you were scrubbing the bottom a little, then it's going to move toward the coil and rub. To me there should be no possible way for the shaft to rub on the top of the coil. I think Anderson makes excellent products, and this lower rod is very high quality and robust, just not a good fit for these Deus coils. I did email them so hopefully they're looking at it, and if I'm out to lunch tell me, but I don't think I am. 

After about 50hrs use with the Anderson XP Deus Carbon Fiber Shaft I removed the coil and notice some wear from the clevis on the dished out portion of the top of the coil.  A little concerning because these XPD2 coils aren’t cheap and I doubt warranty would cover damage from an aftermarket shaft.

After taking some measurements the issue was pretty clear;

The radius on the Anderson clevis is around 14 mm but the radius from the center line of the XPD2 coil bolt to the dished out portion of the top of the coil is only 13mm.

The only reason the Anderson clevis fits is because the bolt hole is 10mm for only the 6mm Deus coil bolt. The stock D2 shaft only has a 6.1mm hole.

While the 10mm hole it allows it to fit, it doesn’t hold the clevis off the top of coil.

Is it possible I got sent the wrong lower shaft for the Deus II? I emailed Anderson at the start of the week but I’ve yet to receive a response.

I didn’t particularly want modify my new shaft, however leaving it to wear on the top of the coil didn’t seem like a good option either, so here are the changes I made to correct the issue.

1.      The washer retaining lip on the Anderson clevis was approximately 3.2mm thick so I carefully sanded off about 2mm of material along the area that was contacting the top of the coil.

The stock XPD2 tensioning bushing is required to center the coil bolt but was interfering with the rubber washer. (The Anderson shaft uses rubber washers on both sides). I cut down the tensioning bushing so it was flush with the coil ear. That way it still centered the bolt but no longer interfered with the rubber washer.

Even with some of the material removed from the Anderson clevis, the oversized 10mm hole would still allow the shaft to contact the top of the coil, so I used some ¼ ID / 3/8 OD tygon tubing to make a bushing for the 10mm hole. The coil bolt fits perfectly now, with no play. I may need to go to a harder material for this bushing but it seems pretty good, I’ll see how it wears.

I put it all together and now have good clearance between the clevis and the top of the coil. The tension & movement feel much better now.

Another nice band, congrats! 

If this is of use to anyone, I made an editable Excel spreadsheet to record and keep track of my saved program settings. If you do an update, any user saved programs get erased so I wanted to have them recorded. I had to zip it because you can’t attach an .xlsx file. It prints in landscape if you just want a hard copy.

DEUS II USER PROGRAMS.zip

Great report, thanks.
That bonephone big iron response sure gets your attention, alright! 🤪

It’s unfortunate that the coil LED is completely covered by the waveguide clip. I got tired of taking the waveguide off every time I charged the coil so I could see the coil LED to confirm it was charging. I drilled/filed a view hole in the waveguide housing, taking care not to damage the conductor.

Geez, I didn’t think I did that much of a butcher job until I took the close up pictures, lol.

I was worried about it filling up with sand but I’ve been out once and it’s clear so far. 

I agree pitch mode is a great beach option.

I've been using square pitch in fresh water and I'm really liking it so far. Gold rings are what I'm after at the beach and their target ID's run the gamut so it doesn't bother me if the remote is submerged and I have no indication of conductivity. I dig all clean sounding targets which seem to be obvious in pitch mode. There's lots audio information there, I don't know what it all means yet. Some of my observations; Many junk targets have iron edges to them or maybe an overlaid iron tone, like our plated steel Canadian clad and bottle caps which I've been digging to see, but have now started leaving. The pitch & magnitude of the tone gives a great idea of the depth (and or size?) of target you're on. I think pitch mode combined with a higher audio response does a great job of bringing up and IDing deep targets with the lower pitched response. I find I have to take a couple scoops out on those deeps before I can tell if it's a clean target or iron edges or broken signal start to appear. 

I have been using a notch from the point of discrimination 08 to 25 which I'm not sure is a good idea or not? I'd certainly appreciate any opinions on that.

16 hours ago, Joe Beechnut OBN said:

I talked to Carter, owner of Detector Pro.. he said they should have the D2 GGA's in Mid-June. 

Thank you for that timely info, Joe.

I spoke to my friend and he doesn't think my order has shipped yet so I'll wait for these.

25 minutes ago, Skate said:

Hey Brad,

How do you like the Anderson shaft setup? Can you break it down or do you just keep it together like a standard unit?

Thanks

Dave

I'm really liking the shaft, it's a good fit for me. With the waveguide inside the shaft I don't break it down. It fits in my minivan the way it is but I guess I could shorten it some if I had to.

6 minutes ago, F350Platinum said:

Nice job with the headphones, I'd rather hear what is going on around me so bone conduction works for me. They're loud when done right, but I guess you have to have a certain head size 😀 When you hit the bones just right you have to turn it down.

I like that Anderson shaft too.👍 when I see one with a small lower like the "stork", I'll probably switch but most of my hunting is land anyway. Does the coil cable route through the shaft?

Those bonephones are loud! I went over some larger iron and that lower frequency scrambled my brain!

The wave guide is just run under the hand grip, I couldn't run it inside the handle because there's an insert in there for fastening the remote mount.

Most of my hunting is deeper freshwater wading in the waist to neck range that requires a wired, waterproof headphone option. I tried the bone conduction headphones but wasn’t a fan, so I borrowed a set of Gray Ghost Amphibians (for Garrett) from one of my Excals and made up an adapter cable.

I’ve been out twice with then now, hunting mainly in Pitch/Square and I liked how they sound. I tested them with a sound meter app on my phone and they peaked at 85db at volume level 9 using a 6g 10K band. Probably not highly accurate, but ballpark. I also tried them in Pitch/PWM but the Square audio was more appealing to my ear.

I’m liking them so I ordered the Deus its own set of Amphibian II’s (for Garrett), and I’ll clean up the wiring.

It’s taken me a bit find my groove with this machine but now I’m really starting to enjoy it. Most of the time the remote is submerged but that doesn’t bother me, there seems to be plenty of audio to work with. I really like Pitch especially at the beaches that classify well. Using Pitch with an Audio Response of 4 or 5 seems to really identify the deeps well.

11 hours ago, martygene said:

how does the straight shaft feel compared to the "S" shaft? any type of comparison would be interesting to hear about. thanks

I can't speak to a comparison because I never tried using the stock shaft much. I will say the the straight shaft has a great feel to it and zero wobble or flex. One thing I like is that is that I can rotate the remote mount 10 degrees or so, so it faces me more directly. I find that little bit of rotation makes the screen easier to see and a little easier for my thumb to press the buttons. It wasn't rotated in the original pictures so here's one to show it.

19 hours ago, eklarsen said:

Nice work Brad, I have the same shaft and was thinking about drilling for the cable, will do like you did. One question "Steve G’s impressive Equinox cam locks"  where can I find those? I dislike the nylon set screw, would like to swap out like you have there. 

One more thing... How did you get the old ends of the Anderson off? Are they fastened with glue or what?

 

9 hours ago, NCtoad said:

I’m interested in how Steve’s lower camlock was installed also.  A little off topic, but I have an Anderson rod for my Equinox and really like it other than that setscrew.  I wonder if I could modify it with one of Steve’s camlocks also?

Thanks, I couldn't figure out how to remove the Anderson shaft lock either, I suspect they are glued. I used a Dremel with a cutting wheel to cut it off the shaft using the back of the shaft lock for a guide. There was plenty of shaft length to spare. Steve's cam lock was a good fit on the Anderson upper shaft and the lower shaft is probably right at the minimum diameter for the cam lock. 

41 minutes ago, cdv said:

It appears you ran the antenna through the shaft. Did you drill the  holes or were they already drilled in the shaft?

 

Cliff

 

 

 

 

No, I drilled those holes. I ran it straight inside the lower shaft, then for the upper shaft I wound it tightly around a 1/2" rod so it took a set like a coiled headphone cable then fished that into the upper shaft.  I didn't run it through the handle just under the foam grip.

7 minutes ago, midalake said:

I can't tell from your pics, are there holes in the Anderson upper for those spring clips that hold a lower rod?  Thanks

Holes spaced at about 1 1/2" and a plastic spring pin

Here are a few pics and a bit of a review of my Deus 2 on an Anderson carbon shaft for anyone interested. I hunt almost exclusively wading in the water so my opinion is from that perspective.

Many of my complaints about the stock Deus II shaft are due to the fact that I’m a bigger guy and as slick as the Deus shaft system is, it just seems too small for me. My hand is right up against the remote and my thumb sat too high to push the buttons without releasing my grip. The cuff was way too tight and the 1” hook & loop strap was short and not robust enough for the water.  As for the shaft, again for me, it was too short. I’ve read some complaints about slop in the cam locks however mine were pretty good. There’s definitely some flex in that lower shaft though.

The Anderson shaft has tons of length, and even with it fairly extended there’s still over a foot of lower shaft engaged into the upper shaft. The Anderson lower shaft mounts to the coil with rubber spacer washers on both sides and I had to install that Deus tensioning bushing to center the coil bolt on that side. I assembled it with a little 111 grease and it works well. The Anderson shaft lock used a plastic set screw which I opted to change out for one of Steve G’s impressive Equinox cam locks. Mounting the remote requires the use of the plastic mounting bracket from the Deus shaft. It slides snuggly into the provided aluminum receiver and is secured with a plastic set screw. I drilled and secured mine with a couple SS screws as an extra measure. As for the ergonomics of the remote placement with respect to the handle, I think Anderson did a brilliant job. There’s lots of room on the handle, it’s very comfortable, and my thumb lines up perfectly for the buttons. For me at least, this shaft is a huge improvement, especially for a water application.

Were you using the bone phones? I believe only the square tones are available when using the bone phones.

That's a pretty picture, Joe! Even late out of the gate that's a fantastic year! Congrats!

Glad to read so comments saying you're going to be ok, best wishes for a speedy recovery Joe. 

That Samsung 4s2p looks awesome Joe!

I love the carbon fiber and mounting system. It looks just like a factory piece.