F350Platinum

Wow. Guess you need a sack rather than a pouch to haul away all that stuff. I've had a few of those find/minute hunts, mostly in campgrounds. 👍 You're beat when you're done but it still feels great. Congrats! BTW I think I only got one silver coin. 🤣

Excellent, they also make a mid-size cable that is better than the one that ships with the Deus 2. It's black so you won't see it rotting out until it breaks 🙄 but it's shorter. I ordered the collapsible shaft above for my WS6, I want a third Deus 2 now 😀

Thanks El Niño, Yes, and the same goes for using bottle cap settings in other programs, or F2 on the Equinox. We can get away with it here because the soil is so mild. Default ground balance is 87 on the Deus 2, I have found many times that if I don't balance the machine I miss a lot of small targets. The ground balanced at 75. That is significant. Honestly I'd rather come away with as much good stuff as I can, to me it's almost a waste to spend a lot of time on the details, on the beach and in the fields I'm pressed for time. I've literally never had a completely bad sounding target be a good one. Maybe a few that were somewhat bad can evade me, but I'll bring home 100 good finds for an occasional iffy one by not wasting time on them. 300 year old Tombac buttons are a great example. They show up as low tones from ~30-60, and almost always have an iron tone because of the iron shank, but it's either one-way or short. I always dig foil, pull tabs, and anything in the high 80s to 99. Bottom line is you have to know your environment, and it's great that the D2 tells you what is going on. 🙂

Thanks Colonel, I've been posting too much probably 🤣 This makes two, the third was found in a field not too far away. You'd find it if it was there, but don't skip those pennies. 😬 All 3 were 79-81. If you can drive on the beach this season, tell the beach patrol your 4 wheeler broke so you decided to use your backhoe instead 🤔

Thanks and no problem! Got one nearby. 👍

What was the kiosk? I've got a dead iPhone 13.

Well I set out to answer that question for you today, it was cold and cloudy but not windy. Took the Equinox with the Coiltek 10x5", and my Deus 2 with the 9" to the spot where I found all the stuff in this thread randomly searching. It's a fairly large carpet of junk and nails, probably 100'x75'. I believe there was a building there long ago. I grid searched the spot with the Equinox first, then the Deus. I figured I'd give the Equinox every chance to find what there was, and then try the Deus again. The Equinox was in Park 1, 50 tones, 24 sensitivity, recovery speed 3, and F2=3. It ground balanced at 33. Even at that level of sensitivity it didn't wrap much. The Deus 2 was in Relic mode, sensitivity 95, notch 00-00, reactivity 2. It ground balanced at 75, 12 points below default of 87. Here are the results, I found some stuff including a 1908 IHP. I went over the same spot with the D2, and "cleaned up". The very nice fully cast Tombac with a cast shank was a 5 on the Equinox, and a 43 on the Deus. Both detectors would have found it. The stuff I found with the Deus should have been found by both, so maybe I wasn't covering the ground as well as I could have. 🤷‍♂️ My conclusion is this: Both detectors do quite well in this environment, I think each one separates very well in fairly dense iron trash. Depth is identical, most stuff isn't that deep here anyway, and the soil is not mineralized at all. Both false on some iron. I've always loved my Equinox, and am fully confident I can get most unmasked objects in any given area with it. I have tested both of these detectors on a board with nails over a silver coin, and really there is no difference, both do not hit the coin, even with the iron discriminated. "Unmasking"? Nope. Heh, the only one that passed that test perfectly was my Tesoro Vaquero. 🤣 So why would I get a Deus 2? First thing is ergonomics, it didn't take long for my hand to fatigue and hurt in a much-remembered way with the Equinox, after 2 hours I was ready to switch. 😵 I have large hands, but not extra large. Next is weight, it's the lightest detector in the world. I don't know of many detectors that are certified to 60+ feet underwater, so there's that. I can count on it. Add the new RCDIGS mount, and there are no worries at all. The audio options on the Deus are incredible, I think there are competitors now like the Legend and the Manticore, but I do not own either of them. The options for conditions are also incredible on the Deus, again there may be competition now, but see all of the above for advantages. I do like the simplicity of the Equinox. Really that is it, the Equinox 600/800 (I presume the 800 because I never had one) and the Deus 2 are both fine detectors, and both find metal well. 😀 It's up to the reader to decide.

Thanks MH, Whoo, 300 years? 🤔 Every time we visit this field it talks to us, the activity imagined from relics found. I have two sites like this one, and you kind of get to live the colonial experience. 🙂

Nice report, Colonel! I like that the mount makes me remove the RC, I used to fiddle around with inserting the charging plug in situ, it ended up being a problem. I'm also excited about the marine grade stainless, I'm probably going to dunk my D2 quite a bit this year. Great job Steve! 👍

Heh, I was hoping you would, I don't have engineering or scientific experience, I just made compudahs work all my career. 🤣 With detectors I just go by "muh feelz". This was probably not a great attempt to illustrate my epiphany regarding using the Deus the way it was intended, not by bashing it into another mold. I appreciate the additional info. 👍

Thanks Mark, I often wonder whether a PI would make any difference here, but we've tried the Axiom, and while it is awesome it's still pretty much a dig it all proposition. Like the D2 it's not perfect on iron. Digging a ton of junk kinda makes you run to get your Deus. 😀 Your original question got me curious, and today I'm going to take the Equinox 600 out to the field where I found the cut Reale. I'm going to search the same spot with the 10x5, if I find anything else it will show for the most part that it's a toss up other than the things I mentioned about the Deus being more waterproof and a lot more configurable. The D2 with the 13x11" coil weighs less than the Equinox with the 10x5", so that's a plus too for a geezer like me. 🙂 I'll post something here tonight.

Thanks George, I'll probably never find as much Spanish silver as you have, but 3 in less than a month is really fun. 🙂

Thanks VL, The Nox may get out today, a reader posed a question that made me curious. 🤔 I'm going to go back to where I dug the cut Reale with the Equinox and the 10x5, and bring the Deus and 9" with me as well. I want to see if the Deus has found everything there was to find. I also want to try out some APTX-LL Bone conduction headphones I got. 🙂

That's for sure. I really like the audio depth indication, while nothing is particularly deep except for really large iron objects, it's great to know by ear what tools you need to use to dig the target. There is merit to my custom programs, but to deal with less noise makes for a longer hunt. 👍

Do read the manual... 🙂 Make sure the headphones are turned off. On the D2, Options/Pairing/+- to get to headphones, select the headphones with the concentric circles on the right. Select, unpair, confirm, then select again, the screen will tell you what to do. The headphones should vibrate after a short time holding the - button, let the button go. Check audio out, make sure the headphones with concentric circles to the right are turned up, everything else turned down.

Beautiful day today, went from 30 to the low 50s. When it's sunny, the black nitrile Milwaukee gloves I use keep my hands warm enough. I invited Chase to pick a spot and he picked a place that we have found some really old relics, and today was yet another banner day. I've been thinking a lot lately about how I'm using the Deus 2, it's been nearly 2 years now. On a Culpeper outing Chase suggested I use Relic relatively unmodified, the main thing is to set one notch at 00-00, which essentially will make iron blank out. You cannot set discrimination in Relic, but you can crank Disc IAR to 5 which forces most iron to blank. I used it successfully and I've seen him use it with great success and moreso now with V2, XP really got things tight with that release. Granted my soil is ridiculously mild, so anything goes here. Instead of an iron brain beating, you get "blips". When you get a good target it sounds like a cat attacking a mouse, that's about the best way I can describe it. It's using the D2 to do what it does best. All along I've been modifying various Deus 2 programs in an effort to have it act like a more accurate Equinox, and that was sort of my mistake. While I am still using my modified General program to verify some iron targets, the last 2 hunts have been exclusively using Relic, and with great results. Chase uses PWM audio, I still prefer High Square but am grateful to have a choice. The tonal nuances are still very similar. Using Relic gives me an idea of depth even with Audio Response cranked to 7. Iron still is a small problem, when it's huge or forged it seems to fool the detector sometimes, but switching to another mode helps. Relic has no full tones option. I guess tone breaks can be set, but why bother, it's either iron or it isn't, and where we are digging there isn't much trash. It's all really old stuff. No pull tabs, little can slaw (unless it is an ancient copper container), and very few modern tractor parts in this field. Today I only had the 13" with me, but it still did well in iron trashy spots as long as I cranked Reactivity up from .5 to 2. I covered almost 6 miles today in 6 hours, so the 13" was my friend there. Got quite a few interesting things, a turtle shaped boss of some kind, a bunch of buttons, a thimble, a small and large ancient buckle, and an odd "washer" of some sort that has decoration on it. Got an almost round flat piece of lead that interested me too. This stuff is mostly late 1600s to mid 1700s. I thought I may have found one of these turtle shell looking objects before and I did, about a year ago in another field: Of course, no one expects the Spanish to show up (old joke 😀), but indeed they did: A 1724 "pillars and waves" cob minted in Potosi, you can just make out the entire 2, and "pillars and waves" ended in 1737, I think. I do not know the denomination, but suspect it to be a 1 or 2 Reale, as it weighs almost a gram. The "P" is the mintmark from Bolivia. The reverse isn't very detailed. It was poorly clipped or snapped, maybe I'll find more. Here's what it might have looked like originally: I found this at the end of the hunt, in one of those "I think I'll go up there" scenarios. 😎 This is the third Spanish coin I've found this year, and now my fourth oldest coin. Getting to really know the detector I have, and being lucky enough to have a place to find this old stuff is why I do so well. 🙂 It's good to spend a lot of time learning your machine, should I have used another I am less familiar with, I don't think my results lately would be as good. I'll be sticking with the Deus 2. Forgot the trash again, merely a handful.

Man, tons O'clad, silvers that some never find, and even a baby dinosaur! 🥳 Not to mention the relics, love those "scweezers"! 🤣 What a great hunt. I doff my Chapeau to you yet again! 🏆

Well let's say it certainly is more configurable, a lot lighter, and way more waterproof. 🙂 In Virginia it's the top dog for relic hunting in mild soil places like mine. The sites I have permission to are as old as ~1640.

I have an Equinox 600 with the 10x5, and my answer would be "not necessarily". I believe I have been over this spot with the Equinox, but it was a long time ago. I will comment that with V2 on the Deus 2, it far exceeds the accuracy (once you get used to it) than I ever achieved with the Equinox. I'm beginning to see that in making my Deus sound and act more like my Equinox is not as good as exploiting the nature of the Deus itself, the Relic program particularly. Using that program I only change the audio type to make it more pleasing to my ears, and vary its response speed. I do wish XP would give us a thinner elliptical, that 10x5 on the Equinox was incredible. I may bring it to this spot to compare the coil yet again. The only issue is that I don't have the control over the audio with it like I do the Deus.

Well, sometimes the oldest is the best! 🤣 For those that are interested, here is a list of commonly used anti-seize compounds in the Marine industry: https://www.marineinsight.com/guidelines/top-5-anti-seizure-compounds-used-onboard-ships I apologize in advance for anyone that has to translate 🙄 Vaseline is on the list.

Thanks, I wonder if I can find that on the US eBay, that's a nice rig. So glad you got the RCDIGS mount, I'd recommend putting some kind of anti-seize compound on the hardware just to be safe. I have no doubt that you will put the mount through some rigorous underwater work. 🙂 Hope to see your impressions.

Thanks NC, been hitting the really old stuff lately, I think I picked the right tool for the job. A gold ring and now this coin from the same time period in a month! The D2 has been really good to me. 🙂 I'm fortunate to have these possibilities under my coil, I hope y'all understand that it's mostly where I am looking that this happens. 🤔

Good plan, I recommend the 13" over the 11" after spending a long time with each. For some reason the 13" feels superior regrading separation, it may be a bit heavier but you get used to it. I started out with the 9" myself, it's a great coil but some of the places I go are really large fields, and I can cover a lot of area faster with the big coil. It also hits coins very deep at the beach.

I find I need to manually balance the D2 here, at 87 (the default) it tends to "hear" ground contours, and small objects are missed. There are a lot of really small tack items and buttons. I've had instances where I've found stuff that wasn't there before GB. Most would not believe the ground we get to dig in here, when conditions are right. It impressed me that it stayed that way yesterday.

Thanks Rick, For me the 13" does a great job picking out targets in spots that have a mild amount of junk, and allows me to cover a lot of ground fast, but it's great to use the 9" when it's extreme. I suspect that in at least two areas of this farm there were structures that pre-date maps. Ground Balance was set at 75 and stayed there, for once I was surprised at how small an object I'd find with the machine properly balanced. Some times you'll see G. ID at a different number than set, but this time it didn't change. I enjoy extremely mild soil.