Minelab Multi I Q Hype?? Watch This

[Jeff McClendon]

I have been wanting to do a little video like this for quite awhile but videos are definitely not my thing. Anyway, I have a contact in the storage unit auction business that lets me know when they win auctions with prospecting equipment. They recently won a unit that they are still going through that had two brand new Minelab Vanquish 540s, a basically new Tesoro Cibola and a brand new Garrett AT Pro. I bought three of them to do some testing and sell later or keep if I liked them. I sold the 540 already since I know what it can do.

This short 4 minute attempt at a video is for target ID accuracy and up averaging of IDs in mineralized dirt. This test video is of four 14kHz or higher mid level detectors on a surface US nickel, 4" nickel and 6" nickel under the gray cap, which has been buried for several years. Also there is a surface US quarter and a 6" quarter under the red cap. The detectors in order are the XP Deus, Tesoro Cibola, Garrett AT Pro and the Minelab Equinox 800.

The XP Deus is ground balanced at 87 and uses stock Coin Fast at 17.5 kHz with the 9" X35 coil, 90 sensitivity. Please pay close attention to the small vertical mineralization bar on the far right side of the display which stays half to over 2/3s full. The Cibola with the 9X8 elliptical concentric, sensitivity on 8, is set up to just notch out US nickels and hit everything higher. The headphone volume is not very loud, sorry. Notice how the Cibola deeper nickel targets are no longer notched out.......if you can hear the audio and how the Cibola can barely hit the 6" quarter which has been buried for several years. The Garrett AT Pro, 8.5"X11" DD coil is in Pro Zero with discrimination set at 35, no other notching, sensitivity on the next highest setting and ground balanced at 93. The Minelab Equinox 800 is in Park 2. It ground balanced at 2 and the EMI is so bad that sensitivity is set at 14 of 25. I left it in my custom 5 tone very harmonious setting and also did a noise cancel. Otherwise no other adjustments were made. To further handicap the Nox 800 besides using 5 tones (50 tones are more accurate) and sensitivity on 14, I also put the 6" DD coil on the 800. Watch all the way to the end if you can when I do a slightly different test with the NOX!

Again, 3 US nickel targets and 2 US quarters with the deepest targets at 6".

Thanks for watching and my apologies for this poor attempt at a test video. Turn you volume up and because I am dumb, rewind to the very beginning since it starts about 20 seconds in if you don't. My bad.

Jeff

 

[Joe D.]

  I've seen worse Jeff,

  I think your video is fine, you just need a third hand, or a hat mounted go pro!😁 I could not hear the Tesoro at all though! You can at least post your videos! Mine won't seem to post! I'm not very forum savvy when it comes to video or link posting! Part of the problem is i do everything off of my "smart" phone! I don't use a computer but very rarely!!👍👍

[Jeff McClendon]

6 hours ago, Joe D. said:

  I've seen worse Jeff,

  I think your video is fine, you just need a third hand, or a hat mounted go pro!😁 I could not hear the Tesoro at all though! You can at least post your videos! Mine won't seem to post! I'm not very forum savvy when it comes to video or link posting! Part of the problem is i do everything off of my "smart" phone! I don't use a computer but very rarely!!👍👍

Thanks Joe.

I really wanted folks other than Steve and Abenson who already know what mineralization can do to a detector to see what some of us are up against out here in the West. The Equinox is a no brainer when it comes to target ID accuracy for our soil situation. Some other single frequency VLF detectors might go a bit deeper here but with basically zero target information other than there is something deep in the ground. Might as well just use a good PI detector in that case.

It took me forever to figure out how to upload videos to YouTube, edit them some and post them here. Otherwise, my iPhone videos would not be accepted without changing the file type which is way beyond my meager capabilities.

[EL NINO77]

Jeff McClendon....

So I really like this video ... Because it shows several important phenomena in response to mineralization and detection by 1F VLf and Multifrequency detectors ...

The first phenomenon is ... a classically VLF detector strongly lifts ID and low conductor very often up to the maximum limit of the non-ferrous ID-area of a very high conductor ...

The 2nd phenomenon is .... even if you set a higher level of discrimination for the 1F VLF detector..you can still detect low conductors in a greater depth of mineralized terrain .... because the nickel ID is strongly shifted upwards ... it can be used nicely in detection of deep objects and current elimination of surface waste .. with low ID

The 3rd phenomenon is a comparison of multi-IQ in Equinox and individual frequencies in terms of signal detection and quality-accuracy of ID ... on Nickel ... where it is shown that multi-IQ retains a stable ID even in the depth of detection ..... and at 1F frequency signal strength stability and accuracy of ID strongly depends on the frequency used ... in this case I think the highest accuracy of ID retained frequencies of 20 khz and 40 khz ... while the lowest frequencies of 4khz and 5khz ... already had significantly weaker sensitivity to Nickel.

 Thank you for sharing this video ... I think a lot of people will open their eyes ... as far as detection in more mineralized terrain is concerned, which strongly bends the physical rules that are not so visible when detected in less mineralized terrain ..👍
 

[abenson]

Jeff I saw your post last night but didn't have time to comment. As you do more video it will get easier to film and edit, so keep at it. I'm not that great either and even though I have 2 GoPros I still tend to use my Samsung smart phone for most of my videos.

I hate to keep harping on the Apex but this exact situation is why I'm not a big fan of it. The MF on the Apex has very little if any difference in operation as any of the single frequency settings. Even Calabash noted this in his mild ground.

The Equinox and to a great extent the Vanquish are 2 of the only metal detector platforms that I know of that can hold a relatively accurate ID at over 6 inches. (Got to through the FBS and BBS platform in there as well) Good example: I've got unmarked dimes buried in my lawn at 2, 4 and 6 inches, add tall grass and add 2 inches. The above mentioned machines are the only ones I can take out and find all 3 at any given time. All other detectors I own struggle to find them let alone ID them correctly without knowing exactly where they are. Now take that info into the field and look at what you have. A lot of unnecessary digging and good targets left in the ground. It's exactly why I have a PI I use for cleanup duty.

[kac]

Good video.

The higher frequency does give more accurate id's but at a cost of depth and sensitivity to high conductors.

For kicks you ever take the Deus and run it through the range and see where the numbers are more reliable? You could plot those numbers in an excell sheet and see what they look like.

I would do 6" deep targets across the board and plot the high and low on each. Be pretty interesting and then compare that with the Nox.

[Jeff McClendon]

43 minutes ago, kac said:

Good video.

The higher frequency does give more accurate id's but at a cost of depth and sensitivity to high conductors.

Interesting statement........You are still thinking like a single frequency detector user that doesn't know what Minelab's Multi-iq is capable of. That is part of what this video was for which was to show that higher frequency weighting (which is also using a lower frequency simultaneously) like that used in Park 2 Multi-iq on the Equinox, actually does very well on high conductors AND deeper targets. The Equinox might have done even better using Park 1 but unfortunately the EMI in my test area is sometimes atrocious and the lower frequency weighting of Park 1 is more susceptible to EMI.  I would have had to put the Equinox sensitivity on 10 of 25 in Park 1 just to quiet it down.

Which detector gave the best response both tonally and with the most repeatable accurate ID on the 6" quarter in this test video?

In some of the soil I detect in, lower single frequency detectors (below 14kHz or so) are useless for depth. They will not detect deeper or even as deep as much higher single frequency detectors. Even the amazing F75/F70 and T2 will not go appreciably deeper than an F19/TekG2+ using their all metal modes or discrimination modes and the F19/G2+ target ID accuracy is much better out here on deeper targets than the F75/T2/F70. My Gold Kruzer (61 kHz) hits that buried 6" quarter in the video in Micro mode better for target ID stability than any other detector I own besides the Equinox.

[Steve Herschbach]

10 hours ago, Jeff McClendon said:

I really wanted folks other than Steve and Abenson who already know what mineralization can do to a detector to see what some of us are up against out here in the West

Mineralization differences mess with a lot of people. Person reads a detector easily hits a dime at 10”. Gets detector, can only hit dime at 6” where he is. Detector defective! Tester was lying!! But it was the mineralization. Not only does mineralization reduce performance, but it does so at different rates with different machines, depending on frequency and ground balance efficiency. Test results for all machines tend to compress at extreme mineral levels, so machines that have a two inch difference in mild soil, may only have a half inch difference in bad ground. Or results can flip entirely, with machines that do exceptionally well in mild soil, performing the worst in bad ground.

I was doing a lot of tests like this three years and more ago with Equinox. Good stuff Jeff!

[Rob in (ca)]

My $230 vanquished 440 with the 10 inch coil is hitting 7-8  Inch Targets on my sports fields .....with dead on Target ID ..... also what’s amazing is the screaming Target audio at this type of depth ..... who needs headphones with multi IQ 

Many of my pass detectors costing over $1000 back in the Day, could not do what the $230 vanquished 440 is doing.
 

Thanks for sharing the video 

[Jeff McClendon]

2 minutes ago, Rob in (ca) said:

My $230 vanquished 440 with the 10 inch coil is hitting 7-8  Inch Targets on my sports fields .....with dead on Target ID ..... also what’s amazing is the screaming Target audio at this type of depth ..... who needs headphones with multi IQ 

Many of my pass detectors costing over $1000 back in the Day, could not do what the $230 vanquished 440 is doing.
 

Thanks for sharing the video 

I've tested all three Vanquish models with this exact same test and all three models had similar results as the Equinox. So if you don't need to manually ground balance due to higher mineralization or submerge your control box, the Vanquish models are an incredible value.