So Can We Be Critical Of Deus II Here?

[Chase Goldman]

This is a callback to a similar thread that was initiated by Steve shortly after release of the ML Equinox.  The Equinox was such a success and was garnering such positive commentary that folks felt intimidated when posting criticism.  A recent thread by some folks who were new to XP detectors but who recently purchased Deus 2 detectors had some fresh perspective and pointed criticisms of the Deus 2 and documented their concerns in a separate thread.  There is an overriding concern that these criticisms are being dismissed and drowned out by Deus fans.  This is an attempt to extract these concerns from threads where the debate has been heated and has devolved into less than productive commentary.  

1.  The pop-up visual target ID indicator implementation appears flawed.  It does not persist for very long before the underlying Program Mode icon re-appears.

2.  The remote control speaker is weak and does not work well submerged.

3.  The Coil heartbeat indicator is distracting, there is concern that it will cause premature drain of the coil battery and may make it difficult to successfully bring the coil through airport security screening when travelling with the detector.

4.  There appear to be some quality control issues resulting in micro-debris imbedded in the D2 display face (one user reported this, anyone else see this issue),

5.  The remote uses a proprietary multi-pin connector (as well as the wired "bone phones") limiting cross-platform compatibility.

6.  There is concern regarding the robustness and design of the antenna assembly that is used for submerged coil operation.

7.  There is concern about the ruggedness of the the coil shaft and stem - it is light weight and appears flimsy.

8.  There are limited tone ID volume adjustments (i.e., the volumes of individual audio tone ID bins cannot be adjusted). 

Updates:

9.  The toggling Battery Level/Ground mineralization tiles are distracting and the toggle timing seems too fast.  Providing the option to adjust the toggle timing or to simply switch to individual static battery level or ground mineralization tiles is preferred.  Options to reduce the screen real estate consumed by the stepped mineralization graph with a single vertical or horizontal "filled" bargraph should be considered.  Furthermore, hot keys to enable the battery level to be called up on demand should be considered.

10.  Pinpoint mode - the button to enter pinpoint mode is not the same as the button to exit pinpoint mode.  There is a noticeable delay associated with engagement of pinpoint mode - appears to be associated with the Auto Tune function.  Apparently AT can be disabled as a user option.

11.  The Deus 1 manual GB adjustment and ground notch features do not exist for the Fast Multifrequency Modes on the D2.  This precludes manually biasing/tweaking the ground response to boost target sensitivity at the expense of increased noise and also, without ground notch, makes it hard to cancel out hot rocks.  This is exacerbated by a lack of audio notch capability in the Gold Field and Relic modes to compensate for hot rock pings. (Reported as a critical item)

12.  Regarding the bone phones: dealing with all the antenna wires and cheap quality bone phones and and it's subpar cables seems a chore.

13.  No adapter cable exists to enable the bone phones to be used with the Deus 2 pucks or other detector audio devices that utilize a common 1/8” or 1/4” phone jack.

14.  A Deus 2 FMF variant of or compatibility with the XP HF 5x10 elliptical cable is desirable.  Users willing to trade off maintaining Deus 2 dive integrity with this coil to enable land only or shallow submerged use.  

Welcome any comment and perspective on these issues (are these legit (reported by multiple users), big deals, showstoppers that should be addressed by XP or just personal preference) as well as follow-up posts on additional concerns or constructive critiques.

Have at it, folks...

 

[Jeff McClendon]

Chase, is there a 1/8" audio jack anywhere on the Deus 2 remote control or on the WS6. If not, I am assuming that the only way to plug external wired headphones into Deus 2 is via the horseshoe adapter that attaches to the WS6 controller or WSAll audio puck and is an accessory. Is that correct? There doesn't appear to be any other way to use 1/8" or 1/4" plug headphones unless XP is making an adapter cable that connects to the waterproof port on the back of the remote control.

Just noticed in the manual that XP lists an audio jack cable that screws into the back of the remote control using the waterproof connector. It appears to be an accessory.

[Chase Goldman]

On 1/31/2022 at 9:58 PM, Jeff McClendon said:

Chase, is there a 1/8" audio jack anywhere on the Deus 2 remote control or on the WS6. If not, I am assuming that the only way to plug external wired headphones into Deus 2 is via the horseshoe adapter that attaches to the WS6 controller or WSAll audio puck and is an accessory. Is that correct? There doesn't appear to be any other way to use 1/8" or 1/4" plug headphones unless XP is making an adapter cable that connects to the waterproof port on the back of the remote control.

The short answer is yes, they make an adapter cable to enable connecting a wired headset to the remote control multi-pin, multi-function connector and offer it as an accessory.  Check the Deus II user manual list of Deus II accessories on page 44.  I run through the issue in excruciating detail in this post:

 

[Jeff McClendon]

As someone that has used Deus 1 and the ORX, my thoughts are, I always had trouble seeing the Deus 1 target ID whether using the XY display, the horseshoe display or the other display which I can't remember too much about. I don't like the Deus 1's target ID's popup with the dark background and light numbers. No amount of adjusting the brightness or contrast helped.

Deus 2 seems to have followed in Deus 1's footsteps. I wish Deus 2's design had instead copied something similar to the outstanding ORX popup target ID display with its light background and dark numbers along with its large size.

[AV-Digger]

I was hoping that the "Silencer" could be locked in its value with the D2.  Never got an explanation on why it reverts back to its original value when changing "Reactivity" I believe with the D1.

[relicmeister]

Chase, thanks for doing this thread. It will no doubt be added to quite a bit as the D2 makes its way into more hands. Hopefully software controlled complaints like the way the T.ID  number reverts back to program mode too quickly will be easily fixed in a software update. The sooner these concerns are related to XP- the sooner that will occur. 

[PimentoUK]

"The Coil heartbeat indicator: there is concern that it will cause premature drain of the coil battery"

Speaking as an electronics engineer, the extra power drain caused by the LED, and associated electronics, is completely trivial. As there is no proper On/Off switch for the coil, there is inevitably going to be some drain, you just have to trust the designers to keep this to realistic levels. And there's no need for them to go to extreme measures, either, as the Li cell will self-discharge anyway.

----

I've not followed the D2 threads closely, but wasn't the pinpoint function considered inconvenient to use?

Anyone who has used trigger-operated pinpoint, such as the Teknetics T2, will know how intuitive and ergonomic it can be. So an over-complex system is undesirable.

[Chase Goldman]

5 hours ago, Jeff McClendon said:

Deus 2 seems to have followed in Deus 1's footsteps. I wish Deus 2's design had instead copied something similar to the outstanding ORX popup target ID display with its light background and dark numbers along with its large size.

Frankly, that's also what I was hoping for too.  It's hard for me to judge from static videos  without having the unit in hand and using it in the field. I tend to keep my eye on the coil, and listen to audio cues to quickly glance at the remote screen for a number rather than fixate on the TID displayed.  I believe that I will focus on the upper linear display more and I like the D2 redesign of the horseshoe display compared to D1 and it may change the way I use horseshoe.. The responsiveness of the TID indicator gives subtle feedback as to the strength of the target signal and I would hate for it to persist too long after the target signal is lost, but I think there is an optimal balance point that can be achieved or XP can make it a user preference adjustable setting.

[Chase Goldman]

1 hour ago, AV-Digger said:

I was hoping that the "Silencer" could be locked in its value with the D2.  Never got an explanation on why it reverts back to its original value when changing "Reactivity" I believe with the D1.

My understanding is that this is on the list for a future update.  I think Iffy Signals mentioned this in one of his review/test/comparison videos for Deus II/Legend.  Deus users have been scratching their heads on this one for years, and have previously provided this feedback.  We'll see if it gets addressed this time.