Official Steve H Conductive Rod Test

[Steve Herschbach]

There was a big blow up over the discovery that the conductive lower rods now shipping with the Equinox 700, 900, and Manticore can be problematic for gold prospectors and maybe others. The lower rods are surprisingly conductive, and can fire off when the detectors are set in gold mode or high single frequency modes. It is not really a problem for people using modes less sensitive to tiny targets. Most coin, relic, and beach hunters are just fine. However, to make it easy I have a simple test for you. If your detector passes this test, I’m not swearing a conductive rod is not an issue. The test is very conservative in that only the hottest detectors will fail. In the case of the detectors mentioned it is dependent on your settings. What I am swearing therefore is if your detector can’t pass this test, is that you really should not be using a conductive lower rod. steveg is now working on and will have a non-conductive rod option available soon for the three detector models mentioned. I will link directly to it here when he has it for sale.

I want to note that this is not really a rod problem. It’s a hot detector problem. The conductive carbon fiber rods are excellent in most applications, and it’s only when you pass a certain sensitivity threshold that they might present issues.

This test applies to all detectors, PI or VLF.

Official Steve H Conductive Rod Test

Set your detector up with your desired settings. Be sure you are not wearing a ring or a watch, cufflinks etc on your test hand. Move your open palm directly around on the bottom of the coil. If the coil signals at all to your bare palm, then I strongly recommend you do not use a conductive lower rod with the settings you are running.

 

 

 

[MSC]

Thanks Steve, my GB2 will or did before I sold it, would pick up my hand when I placed it under the coil, very sensitive. 

[Steve Herschbach]

28 minutes ago, MSC said:

Thanks Steve, my GB2 will or did before I sold it, would pick up my hand when I placed it under the coil, very sensitive. 

Gold Bug 2 will scream if this test is done. It has a non-conductive lower rod for that very reason. Any White’s Goldmaster from the GM2 on and too many others to list will all do this. All good VLF nugget detectors will pick up your hand and that is why until now they all came with no-conductive lower rods. By definition if it can’t pick up your hand it can’t detect very small gold or even surprisingly large specimen gold. It’s as much a test of small gold capability as anything else.

It’s why users of these models must use a plastic scoop to recover targets. Grabbing a handful of dirt and waving it over the coil will always get a signal, nugget or not.

With PI models it’s usually less an issue with directly being super sensitive, though some of the newer PI nugget models like the GPX 6000 are reaching very close to VLF type sensitivity to small gold. With PI is also becomes a concern due to the sheer power involved, especially when running large coils. Having any conductive items anywhere near the coil can be a problem with large coils. My GPX 5000 with 18” coil easily picked up anything within a couple feet of the coil, and my pinpointer was so bad I had to keep in in the top pocket of my rucksack just behind and below my neck. It should be obvious that conductive lower rods are not a great idea with high power PI detectors. Prospectors tend to favor non-conductive boots, no metal in them, for a reason,

[phrunt]

The weird thing is the Deus 1 even with the 10x5" HF coil doesn't pick up my hand even in its most sensitive settings, yet it does pretty good on tiny gold, not quite GB2/Gm1000/24k/Nox800/Manticore performance, but not that far behind, it does however pick up a carbon shaft with ease.  I've always thought that odd about the Deus 1, not needing a scoop to recover targets.

 

[Steve Herschbach]

On 6/13/2024 at 1:34 PM, phrunt said:

The weird thing is the Deus 1 even with the 10x5" HF coil doesn't pick up my hand even in its most sensitive settings, yet it does pretty good on tiny gold, not quite GB2/Gm1000/24k/Nox800/Manticore performance, but not that far behind, it does however pick up a carbon shaft with ease.  I've always thought that odd about the Deus 1, not needing a scoop to recover targets.

Like I said this hand test is very conservative. So yeah, the hand may not signal but a pinpointer or the detector itself might. In that case you are in the fuzzy wuzzy maybe yes maybe no zone. The hand test is purposefully conservative to the point of my being able to say if it picks up your hand, you better ditch the conductive lower rod. If not don’t be surprised if you get false signals from various actions.

[phrunt]

I'm more wondering why XP can get that sort of sensitivity with no hand reaction! 🙂

 

[GoodAmount]

Maybe they’ve got salt discrimination built in across all modes?

[phrunt]

3 minutes ago, GoodAmount said:

Maybe they’ve got salt discrimination built in across all modes?

I think then you would lose small low conductor target sessitivity.

[Steve Herschbach]

2 hours ago, phrunt said:

I'm more wondering why XP can get that sort of sensitivity with no hand reaction! 🙂

I’d be redoing those tests again double checking all the settings because as you say something does not add up. If your hand is not being detected a certain range of gold has to be lost also.