stevejhgla

On 3/24/2015 at 7:39 AM, Gold Hound said:

CTX 3030 on gold nuggets

Hi guys

I have had the CTX since it was released.

However I did not purchase it for the same reasons as most others bought it for, I bought it primarily to look for larger gold in areas that have a high trash density where non discriminating detectors like the GPX will drive you nuts digging junk.

It has the best discrimination and target separation of any detector I have used this far, particularly if the trash is iron.

That is why I use it for this job if the trash density is low I just swap back to a gold detector and would never waist my time using it in low trash areas for gold nuggets.

To give you an idea of what I am talking about with trash density’s and to establish an understanding I  will break them into 4 groups.

1-      Very low trash= up to 10 targets in a 5mx5m area.

         This area I would use a gold detector like the GPX in.

2-      Low trash 10 to 25 targets in a 5mx5m area.

         This area I would still use the gold detector in if it is worthwhile.

         But if the gold density is low I will start to use the discriminating detector.

3-      Med trash= 25 to 50 targets in a 5mx5m area.

          I am definitely reaching for the discriminating detector now unless there is           a high gold density.

4-      High trash 50+ targets in a 5mx5m area.

         Discriminating detector only! any other is a waist of time.

Ok now that I have established a base line of trash density’s we can get to the nitty gritty, I will go through the settings that have an effect on gold field performance one by one and explain how I use them, or play them against each other to squeeze the best performance out of the CTX that I can for my given situation.

Target trace; I turned it on and would never turn it off as it is very useful in helping to identify a target or multiple targets under the coil and I am yet to find a reason to turn it back off.                                  

Why this key feature was not on by default is anyone’s guess.

Target trace pinpoint; I turned this on and never turned it off ether, as it greatly assists in pinpointing particularly if there are multiple targets under the coil, by using this feature you can pinpoint only the desired target most times.

Threshold Pitch; I run it at 13 but everybody is different all you are after is a threshold pitch that is comfortable for you to listen to all day.

Threshold level; set up threshold so that it is soft but clearly audible, the manual covers this in detail.

Volume Gain; now this is a important one, I mostly just have it at max=30 but if you are getting spurious noises like those faint blipping noises that you can sometimes get in mineralized ground you can wind this back to cancel them out with less loss of depth than turning back the sensitivity, however it has its limitations in this regard. It is basically an audio amplifier that amplifies the target signal.

Sensitivity; Obviously you want to keep this as high as possible, but in the gold fields the ground usually contains various minerals and because the CTX is a multiple frequency detector ‘Auto’ sensitivity is more effective in these conditions, because the processor individually adjusts each of them to their optimum setting.

Where as in manual you can only adjust them all to the same setting which means that if one is effected by mineralization or emi and becomes noisy, you have to turn them all down to the level where the noise stops in that frequency and you are effectively choking the rest to quieten the detector.

So this is why Auto is the best option on the CTX in gold field areas. I can usually run Auto +3 but I turn it down if I am getting a lot of spurious ground noise and I can’t use any of my other tricks to get rid of the noise.

Response; My favored response is ‘Long’ but I also like ‘Normal’ as well. It depends on my anticipated target size and trash density as to which one I’ll use.

In a medium to high trash area I prefer Long particularly if the gold size is 3g+ like in tailings oversize piles.

I like normal for smaller gold and lower trash density.

Recovery Fast; I nearly always have this on as it aids in target separation.

And superior target separation is one of my main reasons for using the CTX

Recovery Deep; I have this on if the trash density is low or medium particularly when using the smaller coils.

Recovery deep improves the ID on deep targets and can improve the signal on deep targets marginally but it can cause spurious noise in some mineralized ground.

So if it’s on and you are getting spurious noise recovery deep could be the cause so try turning it off before dropping the volume gain or sensitivity.

Target Separation; The 2 best target separation modes for gold nuggets are ‘High Trash’ and ‘Ground Coin’, I use High Trash the most as most areas I target most with the CTX are med to high trash areas and High Trash is good at handling mineralization and still gives you very good target separation.

In a area with low trash density that is mineralized I use Ground Coin but it dose not perform well in high a trash density as you will get some blending of targets.

In a low to very low mineralization area ‘Ferrous Coin’ performs very good no matter the trash density, but is no good in mineralized areas as you will get blending of the ground and target, which makes the target ID go crazy and blending is a problem.

Gold Hunting Discrimination and Audio Patterns.

Below I have posted a few example modes that have a good base discrimination pattern and audio pattern to suit the situation that I use them in.

100’s of hours of work went into building each of them.

When building your own pattern I recommend that you do what I did which is scan as many nuggets as you can get your hands on of various sizes.

When I did this I scanned just over 1000 nuggets ranging from .2g to 32oz and I put the ones that show on the edge of my pattern aside and took them to a few locations and buried them in different mineralization to test and modify my mode’s, then I got my bucket of junk and scanned 1000’s of pieces of junk commonly found in the gold fields.

Then I modified my modes again to cancel out most of the junk whilst still keeping most of the nugget area open.

They are not perfect by any means but they have been pretty useful for me as a base but if I keep getting one type of junk in a specific area I will modify the discrimination to deal with it and save it as a new mode in my file.   

You might also notice that in all of my gold specific discrimination patterns that I have the top two lines rejected, this is because in mineralized ground the ground will give you a blipping signal always in these top two lines and rather than sacrificing performance by turning the sensitivity or audio settings down I dealt with this by blanking it out, buy doing it how I did I lost no depth due to having to back off the settings and no good target ever ID’s  only in these lines.

The audio patterns that are part of the mode also have a few tweaks that I have done for gold nugget specific reasons.

If you look at the Audio profile in the exchange software you will notice that I have set the low Ferrous tone line very low down at the 32 ferrous line, I did this because I found that when using the discrimination pattern if the tone was set higher up at say 17 for example I would get some audio blanking or mixing on some good targets in very trashy areas.

This is the main reason that most of my Gold nugget modes have ether a ‘2 Ferrous Tone’ or ‘Combined’ ‘Tone ID Profile’.

But when set low at 32 ferrous line the separation was very good in a cluttered area. It is not that noticeable on larger 3g+ nuggets but on the smaller ones even on the smaller coils (6in and coiltek elliptical) if I had the ferrous audio line higher it would not separate the nugget from the trash as efficiently.

That is why I mostly prefer the discrimination pattern over the open screen also. 

http://www.detectorprospector.com/forum/files/file/4-gold-hound-ctx-gold-modes/

Coils

My preferred coil for the CTX is the standard 11in coil because I mostly chase the bigger gold in the tailings oversize piles and old diggers camps. But in areas with predominantly smaller gold I put on the coiltek 11x5.

I also did away with the skid plate on the ML 11in coil as it wears out in a matter of hours in gold field situations and I silicon-ed a piece of 3mm lexan plastic in its place.

And after 2 years of heavy use it is still in good condition!   

Thanks for the paragraph about volume Gain.  I've never thought to use it that way.

How many frequencies it is receiving though

Great job! 

I started an Instagram to showcase my finds.  It allows people to find my services and it also catalogs all the things I recover for people...check it out.

https://instagram.com/caymanringfinders?igshid=ZDdkNTZiNTM=

12 hours ago, midalake said:

This is where I find BIG ISSUES!  

Once a target will not TID, the D2 is lousy at giving hints at what might still be in the ground. Iron wrap-around sounds identical to deep non-ferrous that will not TID. I can clearly confirm these types of targets on the Equinox but cannot do so with the D2.
Different modes, different settings, nothing seems to help with deep non-ferrous.  The only hint I have found if you happen to get the machine to throw a number. Even if it is only one in 5-8 swings. Other than that, if you are at a wet salt beach or working in water>FORGET IT!   

Remember to investigate back and forth with pinpoint (vco) to get the shape. Use your imagination to see the shape that you hear🤫

9" in the water. 13" dry sand. 

I don't take out my headphones and that seems to work for me 

Just found this live stream from a release event.

On 3/15/2022 at 1:01 PM, martygene said:

I just watched a video made by metal detecting NYC and the other guy that he was detecting with used that break in the threshold as an indicator of a good target. And it turn out to be was deep too. What actually does that break do? What is it blanking out on?  Without getting into specific detectors, do any of you use that as part of your analysis of a target. I do know what threshold his but never did much with it as I have very bad hearing and any other sound (or lack there of) makes it even more difficult for me to hear good signals. 

Metal Detecting NYC really praises Phillipthenox as one of the best with the equinox and while he does pull some good stuff i dont think he fully understands the equinoxs menu.  I'm assuming he wants to use fe2 since 0 in fe2 has less bias than 0 on fe.  He has fe and fe2 in 0 and then exits the menu with fe selected. 

From the manual:  

The iron bias fe and iron bias fe2 settings profiles are independent.  When iron bias fe is selected, the iron bias fe2 settings has no effect, and vice versa. 

Basically whichever setting is on the screen when you exit the menu, is the one it uses.  

I don't think many people know this and I'm just trying to spread the knowledge. 

Hunting with discrimination and threshold is one way to filter through all the noise in a trashy area. Instead of hearing all those low to mid tones that he discriminated out, he only hears a break In the threshold.  Notifying him that there is something there but not giving him an ID on it.  This allows you to move over the trash quicker.

Hunting with no discrimination or threshold, the "break" in the threshold would have probably been displayed as a -4 to -6 .  You'd still be able to tell that there was a deep silver coin there based on the one way iron, one way silver ID.

I prefer to hunt in all metal and filter the tones out with my brain instead of discrimination and threshold.  

I saw that he left the equinox in fe not fe2.  I may be wrong but I think whichever fe setting you leave it on is the one that is used.

1 minute ago, mh9162013 said:

 

Or are you saying that the Equinox will lower a VDI or tone for a target it can detect, but is at the limits of its range? 

This. 

The threshold on the equinox in park mode is called a reference threshold. It only breaks if the coil swings over something that you've discriminated out.  The equinox IDs targets just out of range as iron.  That's why the deep coin that was silver was breaking the threshold.  If he swung the coil over that target after taking it out of the ground the threshold wouldn't have broken.

Hope this helps 

Other detectorist look at me like I'm crazy when I tell them that with the equinox aluminum sounds weak and sometimes scratchy.  Hope this helps. 

Returning finds is one of my favorite parts of detecting. I recently found an iPhone that was in a wallet case and was able to return it.  The lady said she lost it while taking pictures off the edge of a pier over two years ago.  I found it over a mile away 😳

Thanks I'll get back you to once I get it done. 

Can't seem to find DeoxIT D5 at any nearby stores with a quick search but what I'm looking for is an electrical parts cleaner right? 

3 minutes ago, Joe Beechnut OBN said:

Sorry I just seen this return post. It looks good except the coil to endcap,  I have a extra double endcap I can send for free to replace the one.. If you need. The coil to endcap cable looks dangerous, but it could be a bad picture....

Also.......for sure fill the tub, set the detector in the water.. submerged , turned on the machine, put the head phones on and listen for at least a hour. I'm guessing you will get EMI which will make it hard but listen for the machine to act crazy, like falsing or stopping. Its going to be hard in the house, so If you do take it out in the real world......... I would go slow once under. Any abnormal falsing, or it acting stupid ..get it out of the water ..pull the head phone endcap and check for water. I might recommend having some DeoxIT D5 around just incase you need to clean the board fast. 

My opinion, change that coil fitting out this winter or sooner. Other then that I think you did a great job.. You will find the more you work on it the easier it comes as you learn.

Found out quickly that my tub is cast iron 😄 so I took it out for a real world test, it leaked from that end cap 😑. Maybe half a tea spoon of water.  I immediately got out of the water and came home to clean it out.  

When I got home I took the board out and inspected it.  There didn't seem to be any damage to the board so I resoldered it inside and this is how it came out.  

I ran out of the curly wire protector but I was able to get the wire through the endcap and seal it with resin from the inside.  

However it is very unstable now, almost like the electricity isn't passing through the wires smoothly.  Constantly changing the tones, maybe holding one tone for 5 seconds and then changing to another.

I'm not mad at it, I like the learning curve but you're right it definitely is getting easier the more I tinker with it. 

This was covered on treasure talk 3 months ago.

https://youtu.be/QKAe_TGBeeI

Thank you "Joe obn kenobi" you were my only hope 😄

New coil and headphone cables!

I didn't feel comfortable with my skill level to open up and solder inside the housing so I soldered the wires outside and shrink tubed them.

Super happy with how the headphones turned out.

Not so happy with how the coil attaches to the machine ( I forgot to put the hard plastic wire saver springy thing on 😒).  I may have to cut the wire again, drill out the end cap and solder it inside. Perhaps I'll look into a new coil, maybe a little smaller like an 8".

I was surprised that it turned on!!! It seems to run stable but there is too much emi inside the house to tell...

This was a fun project and I'm sure it will lead to more tinkering.

What do you think? Should I submerge it in the bathtub before going in the ocean?  

Thanks again!

5 minutes ago, Chase Goldman said:

Great!  Thanks, now that I know the context  I’ll look into it.  Wonder why that’s only problem with Detect Ed.  Maybe Steve G, who makes another 3rd party shaft can weigh in.

She says it's because the shaft is a couple mm too small around...

The last time mine flooded I noticed bubbles coming up from the control pod.  Is the bottom supposed to fill with water?

39 minutes ago, Chase Goldman said:

Don’t take this the wrong way but I’m personally not really in to clicking on unsolicited video and podcast links without any context as it usually results in time I’ll never get back or worse .  Care to enlighten me as to why I should check it out and why whatever is going to be presented can’t be summarized in words as a forum post.  Thanks.

It's the Treasure talk podcast with Debbie simkoski from minelab.  She mentions that they have had problems with people using the detect ed shafts. Primarily overtightening of the screws.  

5 hours ago, Chase Goldman said:

Probably a coincidence.  Nothing about that shaft should matter because you are still using the same original mounting base bracket, I believe.

Thanks for responding Chase.

Please check out this podcast @ 7:40

https://youtu.be/QKAe_TGBeeI

How many of you use a detected ed shaft? 

2 of my control pods have drowned since using this shaft. 

Not pretty but it should work. 

Now I gotta connect it to the board.

What length should I make the cable?

Hey obn,

Does this twist out? 

The cable came today 😁

Edit: never mind, leaving it in. 

Great job on treasure talk the other night!