My Initial Thoughts On The Deus 2 Nugget Hunting In Mineralized Ground

[abenson]

Steve if this needs to be moved to the comparisons section, please do. Thanks

This will be the only forum I post anything about the Deus 2 on. I've seen the cat fights on the other forums and I'm just not into it. I know there are a few on here that want to know if the Deus 2 will handle mineralized ground. Keep in mind these are my initial thoughts and they may change as I spend more time with the Deus 2. I will have videos I'll post after I get home to show the Deus 2 in action.

I got the Deus 2 yesterday and have spent about 10 hours with it testing stuff, going through the manual, going through the menus and using it in the field. Currently I'm in Arizona on a nugget hunt. I was hoping I would have the Deus 2 for this trip and it made it just in time. Mine came with the 11" coil and I have a 9" on order. The 11" obviously isn't the best coil for nugget hunting so keep that in mind with what I have to say.

Before I get into the actual field use results I wanted to say a few things about what others have mentioned with their initial thoughts. Calabash has said a few times that if you have a Deus 1 the Deus 2 is very much the same and I will totally agree with that. The transition will be pretty easy for those who are experienced Deus users. The dive and beach features are obviously new to all of us but if you used the Deus 1 for anything else it will be an easy transition. Loren had mentioned that he doesn't like the screen changing between the target ID and the program name. That doesn't really bug me but I'll tell you what does. When using the goldfield program the lower left screen changes between ground level and the battery level too often. Now for the regular programs that's probably not going to be an issue. But for me the ground level bar is real good for IDing hot rocks (I'll elaborate on that later or show it in a video).

On this trip I brought the Deus 1 with 5x10 coil, Deus 2 with 11" coil, Equinox 800 with the 11, 8 and 5x10 coils and the Minelab GPX 5000 with a few mono coils. I used all the VLF's on day one, not really looking for gold but just to run over the ground and compare a few buried gold nuggets and see how they handle the mineralization and hot rocks. My first impression is the Deus 2 is slightly better in mineralized dirt that the Equinox coil size to coil size on coin sized targets (I will have a video to show this later). just for reference a dime buried at approximately 6" is pretty much consumed by the ground minerals. The Deus 2 11" coil easily beats out the Deus 1 5x10 30 KHz coil on small gold nuggets, I haven't tried 75 Khz yet but I would assume it will light up the ground. I would assume that would also be the case with 11" coils on both units as the 11" coil should be more blind to the small gold nuggets. The one I tested was less than a 10th of a gram. On bigger gold nuggets the Deus 2 also beats out the Deus 1 but that could change if the Deus 1 had an 11" coil on it. But I doubt it. The nugget used was about .3 grams.

Now on to the Equinox. I ran it with both the 11" and 5x10 against the Deus 2 11" coil. It's tough but my initial thought is the Equinox is better at all sizes of gold. But the Deus 2 is much tamer and easier to use. Let me tell you why. When you run the Equinox horseshoe on (which I recommend when hunting small gold) you have to constantly watch the target ID or you could block out -9 thru -7 to get rid of the ground noise you can't GB out. This could just be me but I have a much harder time telling hot rock and ground nose on the Equinox that I ever did on the Deus, even the Deus 1. In this particular area I'm constantly fighting noise on the Equinox with just about any setting I use. The Deus 2 on the other hand is much quieter and hot rocks are really easy for me to ID. They sound different and any that are questionable you simply have to look and the ground level bar and if it's high you know it's a hot rock. More to come on this but either one you use you have trade offs as far as I can tell. So at this point don't get rid of your Equinox, it runs smaller coils and might have the edge nugget hunting hard to say without me having a 9" coil for the Deus 2.

[GB_Amateur]

Nice report, and I'm looking forward to more to come.

Doesn't the Deus I have some kind of magnetite indicator/measurement?  Deus II also?  If 'yes' to either, did you get a reading for that in your ground?

[abenson]

Yes there is a ground level bar at the bottom left of the screen. On the Deus 1 I can fill that bar by slowly pumping the coil over the ground. The Deus 2 appears to handle the minerals better than the Deus 1 because when I pump it over the ground I can't get it above about 5 bars. Maybe that's not really an indication of better handling. But I will tell you the Deus 2 it much quieter than the Deus 1 and that an 11" coil on the Deus 2. The Deus 1 I'm running a 5x10.

[Guest Tnsharpshooter]

Abenson,

I am curious did you do any testing with Deus 2 in sensitive programs on the gold?

[Jeff McClendon]

3 hours ago, Tnsharpshooter said:

Abenson,

I am curious did you do any testing with Deus 2 in sensitive programs on the gold?

On Deus 1, the Gold Field mode was by far the most sensitive on smaller gold than any other program.

I am going to assume that it will also be the same on Deus 2. However, when gold prospecting it is great to have a secondary discrimination program to investigate iffy targets with. The first 4 modes included on Deus 2 look like very good candidates for that task where you can use the notch feature if needed, have multiple tone audio choices, the ability to customize those tones and have actual iron discrimination if needed. Listening to a threshold tone and 1 tone VCO audio for hours and hours going off on hot rocks and iron can definitely cause audio fatigue.

So I would also be interested in how General, Sensitive, Sensitive FT or Fast do compared to Gold Field on Deus 2 for ground handling and sensitivity to smaller gold nuggets in the .05 gram to 1 gram range.

Thanks Andy for doing your testing and for being willing to share your thoughts and impressions with us.

[EL NINO77]

Andrew .... how would you rate the accuracy of VDI target identification Equinox vs Deus2 vs Deus 1? in such a mineralized soil? ..

I assume you have used Gold programs and Equinox in both Deus ....

  And yes, 74 khz at the HF Elliptical Coil ... on the full bar of mineralization at Deus 1 can already give a response to the terrain itself ... ,, the only possibility is that you would find with a sensitivity lower than 80 ...

 

[abenson]

11 hours ago, Tnsharpshooter said:

Abenson,

I am curious did you do any testing with Deus 2 in sensitive programs on the gold?

I tried that today. Goldfield is much better on small gold.

[abenson]

10 hours ago, Jeff McClendon said:

So I would also be interested in how General, Sensitive, Sensitive FT or Fast do compared to Gold Field on Deus 2 for ground handling and sensitivity to smaller gold nuggets in the .05 gram to 1 gram range.

Jeff I tried these modes today on a nugget less than .10 gram buried at about 1 inch. I may have to do it again tomorrow to confirm because I neglected to remove the notch on these programs. However might not make any difference as the nugget I used was IDing at 38. I also would like to test again tomorrow and play with the ground stabilizer in those modes as well.

So initial thought are Goldfield clearly has the 4 modes you mentioned beat. Fast seemed to be the best though. I will report more tomorrow evening.

Correct that last statement, not Fast but Sensitive was the best.

 

[abenson]

7 hours ago, EL NINO77 said:

Andrew .... how would you rate the accuracy of VDI target identification Equinox vs Deus2 vs Deus 1? in such a mineralized soil? ..

Andrew .... how would you rate the accuracy of VDI target identification Equinox vs Deus2 vs Deus 1? in such a mineralized soil? ..

I assume you have used Gold programs and Equinox in both Deus ....

  And yes, 74 khz at the HF Elliptical Coil ... on the full bar of mineralization at Deus 1 can already give a response to the terrain itself ... ,, the only possibility is that you would find with a sensitivity lower than 80 ...

 

The VDI on the Deus 2 is excellent in this mineralization I'm hunting in. Clearly better than the Deus 1, haven't determined if it's better than the Equinox yet.

Yes I have 100's of hours on both machines using the gold programs. Some for gold some for relics.

I plan on using the Deus 1 again tomorrow and make some more comparisons. I'll follow up with a response then.

[abenson]

My experience day 2 with the Deus 2 about 6 hours of use. Really liking how it handles the ground and hot rocks. Very quiet machine compared to some. Very easy to ID hot rocks. No gold found by any of the 4 of us hunting today. But im confident I could find small bits if I got over them based on the bird shot and bullet fragments I was finding. Very impressed even with the 11" coil but it's cumbersome around all the rocks and brush. I really hope they make a 5x10 because even a 9 won't cut it.