I Did What I Said I'd Never Do

[phrunt]

I've never been a fan of the way XP made their detector wireless.  It seemed to be a pointless exercise when for me at least I'd run it off a shaft with the control box sitting in the traditional location so I wouldn't care about the cable being there.  Well, now that I've done what I said I'd never do and acquire myself a Deus the no cable thing is starting to make sense, it is nice being able to change coils in a matter of seconds.  I also like the Deus is essentially a buy one get one free detector, by using the WS4 headphones which I'd never use normally I was able to make up a second detector just by using an old Garrett Ace shaft I had laying around that I bought from a guy that drowned his Ace 400 so he sold it off as parts.  I got a good deal paying $20 NZD for the entire Ace package shaft, two coils, control box which was dead and a brand new pair of Ace headphones.   The shaft was sitting around doing nothing so when the WS4 package came into the picture it just happened to be a perfect fit for the XP coils.  It's not worth me spending the dough for a second XP shaft as I'm unlikely to use it much, I don't need two detectors although it's nice I can do that.

So here is my rig

I call it my XP D-Ace and my XP Deus.

Too early for initial impressions however it's nice and hot on tiny gold with the white elliptical HF coil and reasonable on coins at depth with the 11" X35 coil, no target ID's on deep coins but good tones, where as the Nox and CTX will ID the deep coins no problems, on shallower targets its giving me good ID's.  I hope I can improve that learning the detector more but perhaps not.

This is the Dace shaft fit, absolutely perfect, I first tried an old Nox and GM1000 shaft, neither were a good fit but the Ace was just right.  It's super light too.  It may make a good prospecting rig, just the headphones, elliptical HF coil on the Ace shaft, super light and tough and good for bashing around without damaging anything, such a simple rig not much can go wrong and when prospecting you don't need the Target Id's or anything, just audio, as it's a real dig it all situation.

I wanted the Deus 1 over the Deus 2 as the Deus 2 has poor nugget performance and that's a key area I desire with detectors, and found the 80kHz an attractive attribute of the Deus 1, so far that high frequency is proving to be a good asset and I'm happy with the sensitivity and depth on small gold in my early testing.

I've since realized I can only run the black coils off the Ace shaft as the HF coils have the battery in their lower shaft, meaning I'll have to get a space Deus shaft to run them if I want them on the secondary detector, oh well, at least the secondary Dace can be a coin hunting rig.

[palzynski]

Wow , impressive you ve got almost all the D1 coils ...  A good thing , then you will find the ones that you prefer .. 

The white elliptic HF 9X6 is a killer for coin/relic huntic especially in fields , you cant go wrong with it . Happy to see that you like it for gold prospecting ...

The white HF round 9 is an excellent coil too , it goes deeper than the elliptic for coin relic/huning .  

For me these 2 white HF coils are the best coils of the XP D1 coil set 

The 11 black coil is a very good coil too , but rather for deep coins hunting in clean soils 

Happy hunting with your Dace and Deus ... 🙂

 

[kac]

Poor Ace 😞

[F350Platinum]

Hmm, a use for my Ace 400? 🤔

I'll probably just get a SteveG shaft instead of taking the old girl apart, might bronze it and make a wall hanger. 😀

[CPT_GhostLight]

Great Deus set-ups, phrunt! It looks like you got everything well covered. 😎

[scoopjohnb]

Welcome to the dark side 🙂

D1’s are great dig it all units. Tune your frequency to the desired target size and your away. The sounds take some getting used, they provide much more audible intelligence.

You’ve got quite a hoard of different machines at the ready. Eventually those numbers will dwindle to a few tried, tested and approved units with their own quirks. Then you can get on with the business at hand,... Targets 😉

Have fun with the new setup!

[phrunt]

On 11/2/2022 at 3:10 PM, kac said:

Poor Ace 😞

I love my Ace detectors ,fantastic units in mild soils.  It was a spare shaft.  In fact my Ace does better on identifying deep coins with a target ID in my mild ground than the Deus so far with switch on and go settings.  I prefer the Ace shaft on it, it doesn't topple over, the Deus shaft has some serious design flaws, although it's awesome it folds up nice and small it's legs are shorter than your average smurf.

In saying that, the Deus appears to be far better as a gold prospecting detector than I expected, in fact I'm a little pleasantly surprised.  For me at least it's looking to have some real potential. 

I'm sure people in the right conditions love it, for shallower stuff in trashy areas it might be fantastic but deep coins in mild junk free soils it's a bit lacking so far from what I've seen unless you're a dig it all kinda guy.

We all have different conditions, what's right for some might be wrong for others, the Deus is a proven performer for trashy soils I don't dispute that at all.  It's not the ideal detector for deep targets in mild junk free soils, that's OK though, it appears to be pretty good for gold nuggets which is why I wanted it.

[palzynski]

4 hours ago, phrunt said:

....

In saying that, the Deus appears to be far better as a gold prospecting detector than I expected, in fact I'm a little pleasantly surprised.  For me at least it's looking to have some real potential. 

....

There is no better way to assess a detector than testing it a few hours , as the testing results can be very different from the initial expectations , at least for me ... 🙂 

This is why I dont rely any more on my expectations , I largely prefer field testing , whatever the detectors brand .. Sometimes it is disappointing and sometimes it is pleasantly surprising , but at least at the end I know ...  

It looks like you have found that the D1 is a good prospecting detector , a little less for deep coins hunting in clean soils . I am not surprised by this , this is why I use a D2 instead of my D1 for coin/relic hunting now ... It doesnt go deeper than a ML or Nokta , but it is far lighter , it is an excellent detector too ..

 

 

[phrunt]

I finally worked out what the meaning of Deus is, It took me long enough to pronounce it, that required some google detective work, but I always wondered what it actually meant.  It can be translated to God, or translated to Russian it means bog 🙂 but maybe it's not a translatable word, maybe it's an initialism, Deus may mean (D)ig (E)verything (U)nless (S)hallow.

That's been my experience so far my Deus, it's certainly a dig it all detector when looking for deep coins. 

Don't get me wrong, I quite like it, and I can see if I was in it's preferred conditions with trashy ground and good shallow targets in the mix I'd be impressed, but as a coin detector in mild junk free soils identifying targets it's really not doing the job so far,  It finds them no problem but can not ID them other than letting me know they're non-ferrous with either no ID or an unable one unless they're rather shallow, it reminds me a lot of the Simplex in that regard, around 15-20cm (6 to 8") max with good ID on coins using the 11" X35.  I've had some pretty good suggestions from those my fluent with the Deus which I appreciate and I'm still trying to tweak it for better performance on deep targets. 

My reason for wanting it was prospecting anyway so it's no big deal, I certainly hope they've improved that side of it with the Deus 2 for us lucky enough to have mild soils and deep old coins.  As the stronger prospecting detector out of the two the Deus 1 is certainly more suited to my needs and I do appreciate its light weight wireless design much more than I thought I would.    The 81kHz should really shine over time with more use, it's a shame it doesn't have even smaller coils available, but the 9.5 x 5" elliptical is still a pretty good size. I prefer the elliptical HF over the 9" HF for gold so far, it's proving itself to be the more sensitive of the two finding myself a small piece of a gold ear ring today, seems to be a pretty competitive gold nugget detector.

Here is today's efforts, likely recovered as I had to take a more dig it all approach rather than my usual cherry picking 🙂

I have yet to bang in the SD card to see what's on it.  The ear ring piece is gold not sure what that 3rd thing is and the bullet looks like it's never been used? I know nothing about guns/bullets.

[palzynski]

1 hour ago, phrunt said:

... around 15-20cm (6 to 8") max with good ID on coins using the 11" X35. ...

... The ear ring piece is gold not sure what that 3rd thing is and the bullet looks like it's never been used? I know nothing about guns/bullets ...

You should get 28-30cm on a big coin with your D1 11" using a low freq like 4khz .  However a D2 11" would be a better choice than the D1 for deep coins hunting because you dont need to manually change the freq with it , the SMF does it automatically ..

Congrats for the gold ear ring btw, gold for me is only every 4 or 5 years ...