I Found A Use For My Simplex

[phrunt]

I've struggled to like my Simplex since getting it, I guess it's totally my fault as I expected more from it than it should and could provide for a detector in it's price range I guess.  It's loaded with great features and build quality is fantastic but the performance of it was rather lacking for what I use detectors for and that's finding deep silver coins in mild soil, a situation where the Simplex really doesn't do well in it's standard setup., I admit I've not tried a bigger coil than the stock coil on it although other detectors with that same size coil do better by comparison and even older cheaper detectors do better than it with their stock setups at that task.

I've heard a lot of people say where the Simplex does well is sorting out good stuff from trash, some saying it's better or equal to high end detectors at this task so I thought I'd try it out in a rather unusual situation of digging the trash (nails) and leaving everything else.

I have another block of land behind my house that used to have an old house on it that was burnt down some time ago in a accidental fire before I bought the land, when I first started detecting I found a number of reasonably shallow old coins in this area, I suspect it was someones coin collection that lived in the house as they were unusual coins from all over the world and in good condition like they'd not been in the ground all that long, they cleaned up well.  These were mostly found with my T2 which I find amazingly similar to the Simplex in performance.

I've recently killed all the grass off an area on that land and leveled it as it was a bit lumpy as it's only had sheep on it the past few years before I started clearing it and planting a bunch of fruit trees.  The idea was to use this part of the land that I've cleared off grass for a parking spot for a caravan which I believe Americans call a trailer? once I get gravel compressed down on it.

I first marched out there and tried to use my CTX 3030 and the thing drove me nuts, I don't understand it enough to deal with the mess of targets in the area from the old house being demolished I guess.  I tried the Nox with Coiltek 10x5" coil and it was easier for me to understand as I've used it to death, although there is so much trash here I just wanted to get rid of any old nails that could give the caravan a puncture, so just shallow nails and the Nox was rather annoying with the various target ID's all over the place for many targets and nothing was a reliable dig me I'm a nail guaranteed.

Then it hit me people talking about the Simplex in high trash.  So I fired it up, and to my surprise with the sensitivity on really low in the Park 1 I was able to cruise over the area and dig up nail after nail easily, no confusion as to what was a nail at all, the ID'd as 4 every single time.  Nice solid 4's.  It made it so easy to clear the area of nails.

So the Simplex nailed it 😛  I left anything deeper in the ground only wanting to recover the shallow targets that were at risk of going into a tire.

Unfortunately during the process I didn't hit any ID's that were exciting enough to think they were a good coin but I really found the Simplex really quick and easy to target the shallow depth nails with accuracy in among all the other junk in this area.  If I get bored I'll experiment more and dig other ID's of shallow targets and see what I've missed.

I know it's a bit of a pointless post, but I just found it cool how easy and effective the Simplex was for the task and every single nail in that photo came up an ID 4 even though they're different size nails and some bent and some straight.  The big metal things I dug as I just wanted to see what they were 😛

I must say the Simplex tones are horrible, on these nails it sounded like I was murdering a chicken.

[F350Platinum]

That's what I bought my Ace 400 for! 🤣 It was right after a roof replacement. It found them all and I've never had a flat.

It's a good detector but not a great one. No ground balance, and discrimination is good but knowing about and having an Equinox sends the Ace to gathering dust.

I tried the Simplex and had exactly the same reaction to it. It's good for what it does and is well made. I'm looking forward to its successor in the SMF category. Funny post! 😀

[RobNC]

I think this is similar to finding a task for slack/lazy/incompetent workers. Give them something so easy that they really would have to try and fail at it.

What a shame. I feel really bad for that Simplex, to be determined lame enough that only the detection of nails is its primary purpose. I did catch the humor in the post, but also seemed like there was a bit of contempt towards it too. It was like "Ok Simplex, it's your turn to shine. On nails, because you suck at everything else!"

[phrunt]

Not necessarily, because it's so good at identifying nails means other targets would be easier to pick out from them.

Unfortunately the Simplex just doesn't do well for the purpose I use detectors for when coin hunting and that's getting deep coins with reliable target ID's in minimal trash and digging as few holes as possible, in fact it's pretty bad at it in my soil even with detectors like the Ace 300 destroying it for depth and ID.  It either gives no ID or very low jumpy ID way off the mark. 

I think it means the people that like the Simplex have found it's purpose, they're using it for what it's good at and then they like the detector, I tried using it for what it's not good at, so I didn't like it.    I can see how it'd be good at certain tasks, this was just an example of a task I found it easier than using the CTX and even the Nox, the Simplex just made it so easy to do and it worked well.

All I think it sucks at is target ID's on deep coins, hopefully their MF detector is better at that and I may give it a go after seeing what others think of it.   I might try a bigger coil on the Simplex and see what happens in the future, it's a shame you can't try before you buy 🙂

I like everything about the Simplex except the depth/ID thing.  For the price it's great in all other areas and the competitors could learn a lot about building decent quality machines by following it's lead.

[Jeff McClendon]

 

I must say the Simplex tones are horrible, on these nails it sounded like I was murdering a chicken.

You definitely should try the original Deus at least once. Its tones sound like the chickens are farting while you are murdering them.

 

Seriously, a person on a tight budget could definitely cover 95% of coin, jewelry and relic targets by owning a Simplex and a Vanquish 440 or 540. Their strengths and weaknesses compliment each other very well.

[phrunt]

That's probably about right Jeff, having both a Simplex and a Vanquish for someone on a budget they'd really be able to do a good range of detecting, the two detectors each have their strong points where the other one is weak.

[strick]

Simon I have one of these...works a charm don’t have to listen to dying chickens all you hear is a click every time a nail jumps up...

Strick