CPT_GhostLight

I love the 10x5. It may just be percetion, but I feel like it locks onto good targets with laser like focus and it helps me recognize pull tabs and bottle caps better by sound and shape. I called the three bottle caps I dug yesterday and the two pull tab were on the surface, but they sound exactly the same in the ground. Of course I still get fooled from time to time, but that's part of the fun of the hunt. The 10x5 also can pick out a good target right next to a large metal object like a chainlink fence or metal light pole. It stays mounted 98% of the time and only comes off when I need a bigger coil to cover a huge field. 😎

It certainly worked well for me. If you get bored someday, and wanted to build something like that, I'd cetainly buy it from you. 😉

After beta testing Steve's new S-Shaft, I had to send it to the next tester when I was done. I'm perfectly happy with my regular Steve's Rod for my Nox, but I was missing the S-Shaft. There's just something about it that I can't quite put my finger on. So I ordered one from Steve and it arrived yesterday, so I had to take it out today for a test drive of the final production model. Man it's even better than the prototype. With the 10x5" coil, the control is locked in and it just feels like an extension of my arm. I took it over to a small local 1980s park just to play around. It's very trashy and I was only going to dig really good sounding signals because I was just there for the swing time. There were darn few good signals so I started digging a few that I knew were bottle caps just to verify and a few iffys that were junk. About 30 minutes in, I got a bouncey 18-21 and figured it was a deteriorating zincoln but I just dug it anyway. I opened a small hole only a few inches down and saw a clasp sticking up. I cleared some space around it and began to gently pull on the clasp as a chain slithered to the surface like a small snake uncoiling. It was caked in soft dirt from the melting snow so I figured it was junk and threw it in the pouch. When I got home, I started inspecting the finds and noticed some numbers on the clasp tag... S 925! Well that was certainly a happy accident. The glasses parts, pull tabs, and kid's play tag were surface items, everything else was dug. Custom Park 1, 50 tones, horseshoe on, FE2=2, RS=5, Sensitivity=18.

Way to get up close and personal with that fence! That 10x5 can pull out some great signals next to metal barriers that the bigger coils miss. Well done!

The plastic didn't come with mine. I think that was just a protective cover. I think they were in the $200 ball park when new decades ago, not sure, but I got mine on a close out for $75 each. The refurbs I seen lately are in the $150 range. Unfortunately they have a short life span so I probably won't buy a refurb. If I can figure out the circuit board I may just try to build my own version, it's probably well past any patents, but I'll have to check. It's a brilliant idea, but not heavy duty enough for extended field use. It probably is too niche to be practical to revive for the general detector market, but it was perfect for what I needed. I generally don't use the pop method, I use more of a surgical extraction. I've had to learn how to retrieve deeper targets and can usually get to an 8 inch target without opening a hole bigger than an inch or two. Past 8 inches gets too involved and draws too much attention.

I do like that too, but at least I can see the new updated numbers. XP responded quickly and they didn't even yell at us for requesting something added that we wanted. 😏

Excellent review, Col! I will say in my 3rd year with the EQ, I never needed any of these add-ons that many people think they need, except the Steve's CF shaft, that just looks cool and does make it lighter (2.8 lbs with the 11" coil). However, I'm also not a beach hunter so I haven't been in the heavy surf with my detector. I will agree that the D2 looks like the beach and water detector champ and and am looking forward to more reviews on inland use in my rusty soils so I can make a final buy/no buy decision. I appreciate all your in depth information.

Hunting in cities where I live that do not allow digging plugs in parks, a descriminating pinpointer is a lifesaver. I have the ProFind 35 and XPointer Max but they perform better in an open hole due to their relatively short descriminating range, and both tend to overload in their high and max sensitivity settings, probably due to the high iron content of my soil. I did, however, find an "old school" descriminating pinpointer that handles the job perfectly. It's called the Cache Pro Elite. Unfortunately I've gone through two of them in about a year and my third one is on it's last leg, and you can only find a few refurbished ones now at a pretty high price. I usually use my F-Pulse to pinpoint targets to about 6-7 inches deep from the surface before probing. Then I probe for the target. After locating the target I could insert the 8" probe of the Cahe Pro, which has tip only sensitivity, and instantly tell if the target was ferrous or not without opening up the ground. I wish someone could start making these again as it is the perfect descriminating probe/pinpointer for use in parks and highly manicured lawns and aid in making "no trace" recoveries.

It does stay on screen longer, check out this video: Deus II Update 0.7

That's absolutely brilliant! It looks like XP has heard us and responded quickly.

It's certainly about infuencers, isn't it. Definition of influence (Source: Merriam-Webster) (Entry 1 of 2) 1: the power or capacity of causing an effect in indirect or intangible ways : SWAY 2a: the act or power of producing an effect without apparent exertion of force or direct exercise of command b: corrupt interference with authority for personal gain

It's hard for me to put too much confidence in video reviews made buy people selectively given free products to review by a company unless those reviewers can report the bad as well as the good. I don't think I've ever seen a bad review from a Youtuber that recieved a free product. I'm sure many feel an obligation to the company to give only good reviews of free products, much like many Amazon reviewers. The best way to see objective reviews is to watch customer videos who paid for their product. They are usually more inclined to tell you their real impressions of a product, unless they are hoping to one day be a reviewer who receives free products to review. So I take everything with a grain of salt. While those free product review videos may still contain useful information about the products reviewed, I still perceive those reviews as biased. Just my opinion.

Well, it's certainly nice to be appreciated! 🤣

That's some nice pieces of history you found. It looks like you also found a WWII era military uniform button as well. Well done!

Many of us old timers were taught early on to develop critical thinking, however I feel like many of the younger generations grow up believing everything they see and hear on social media and that can be problematic in and of itself. Maybe Youtube and the other platforms should come with disclaimers, but nobody would read them anyway. When I got back into detecting in 2019, I did watch a lot of detecting videos (and still do) as I researched different metal detectors to try to determine the best "bang for the buck" that I could afford. There were (and are) many outlandish videos to wade through but there were (and are) some very good ones as well. Even some of the craziest, most over the top videos had some nuggets of useful information hidden in them that could be recovered with some discrimination to eliminate the garbage. In the end I was able to find the detector that would work best for me and it has served me well for the last 3 years. I also feel that the proliferation of detecting videos and TV shows over recent years has helped to move the detecting community from the realm of that crazy old guy hobby to an almost respectable action adventure category in many peoples eyes. We are a unique breed with unique traits and, just like in any other persuits, if a newcomer to the detecting world is willing to use common sense, do their research, put in the work, and learn their machine, they will be alright.

The prototype S-Shaft weighs 8.5 ounces ( 240g) without control pod, cuff, and coil, and with the pod, cuff, and 11 inch coil mounted weighs 2.8 pounds (1277g) total. The ML shaft weighs 10 ounces (283.5g) without accessories, and with pod, cuff, and 11 inch coil mounted weighs 2.9 pounds (1320g). So the S-Shaft saves about 1.5 ounces (42.5g) in weight.

Super finds! It looks like you're getting a handle on that new D2, congrats!

The legend's shaft configuration is almost identical to the Equinox and it's heavier, so I don't see the any ergonomic advantage there. This seems like a more ergonomic solution to me. It's a Steve's Detector Rods S-Shaft. It's lighter than the legend or Nox shaft and it's a treat to swing with my 67 year old arm.

It's an interesting phenomenon. I actually found a stack of 6 quarters laying flat on top of each other in a hole 4 inches down last week. It TIDed just slightly higher than a single quarter. Why someone would bury a stack of coins like that is a mystery to me, but it's not the first time I've found stacked coins buried in a park. Many people don't know or care about the specifics of how eddy currents work with respect to metal detecting (I didn't until I got more into it) and they make wrong assumtions about how mutiple contacting metallic items should respond under a detector coil. I think it was the inspiration for the prevalance of 4kHz being added to SMF detectors, to assist cache and hord hunters.

I'm sure other folks here can give a more detailed and more accurate explanation, but the effect is caused by the roll of quarters being laid on its side. You are essentially creating coins on edge orientation, and while you'd think 40 coins contacting each other on edge would give a big signal, that's not the case. Each coin creates its own eddy current from being energized by the coil (in the same way links in a chain do) and the detector is basically reading the one or two edge oriented coins at a time per swing even though they are touching. So the entire roll of coins doesn't create one big eddy current, just 40 tiny ones, and most of them are missed in the sweep. Sweeping length of the roll, you are sweeping across the thinnest part of the coin so the response is small to missed. When you changed your swing 90 degrees, you swept across the length of the coin in the roll and it gave a larger response in some programs. If you had stood the roll on end, it would have read similar to one flat oriented quarter for the same reason, because the detector is reading only one or two coins at a time. I hope that makes some sense.

That was the intent of my question. I'd say it's taken me probably 2 years to get completely comfortable with the Equinox. Of course you never stop learning, and I got into that detector after not having detected since I was a kid (I'm retired now, sort of). At first glance, the D2 looks like an even steeper learning curve for someone like me who has never used an XP and have no ideas what many of the settings even mean. The Deus 2 is literally like learning a new language for me and I can only assume it would take at least a few years to get comfortable with it too. Although many have said the stock programs are useable to get going so that's encouraging, and I really don't mind learning a new language, I just hope I can pick it up a little more quickly. 😉

With all the advanced settings possibilities, the D2 looks pretty daunting for someone who is not familiar with the XP platform. Without getting into other metal detector comparisons, how easy is this detector to get out and use with no experience on a Deus? I know it has a lot of customization possibilties and some settings need to be altered to enhance performance in different soils and scenarios. So what kind of learning curve is someone new to XP looking at?

What a great payoff for your research, well done!

These are the colors currently available and he also shows Purple and Camo on the website. Steve's Detector Rods

Three rings and a token is a great day in my book, well done! Taming the D2 in hot ground looks like a challenge, but you're still making finds so I have no doubt you'll get there. Thanks for your straight forward reports.