Garrett Vortex Users I Need Your Help

[IBMe]

 

video deleted

[IBMe]

It does have a slow charge and I did have to do a long press reset one time.

Let’s get one thing out of the way, this supposed problem about the ID not being displayed at a certain point is ignorance of use. It’s more pronounced on the Vortex than some detectors.

 

Do we have a problem?

Everybody has different requirements, maybe some expect perfect IDs.

Do we need an emergency meeting if the IDs have slight variations in different frequencies and depths?

Do we remember that the Vortex has a higher ID resolution? That increases scale resolution. It also looks like it has pretty good separation. That increases scale resolution.

[IBMe]

There is something wrong between the quarter and dime ID.

I don’t dig by ID, I dig by size. But I check the ID before I dig.

I did have a few “wait a minute"  moments but if figured I just remembered it wrong.

Just now, sometimes same, sometimes dime higher than quarter and sometimes right way.

[Chase Goldman]

On 12/3/2024 at 4:39 PM, IBMe said:

There is something wrong between the quarter and dime ID.

I don’t dig by ID, I dig by size. But I check the ID before I dig.

I did have a few “wait a minute"  moments but if figured I just remembered it wrong.

Just now, sometimes same, sometimes dime higher than quarter and sometimes right way.

Yep,  And it is also weird that the Multi frequency shift channels should cause any change in TIDs.  A frequency shift in multi typically keeps the relative ratio of the individual frequency components of the muti-spectrum the same during the shift, which should not affect TID processing.  It is something that needs to be addressed.

[IBMe]

10 minutes ago, Chase Goldman said:

Yep,  And it is also weird that the Multi frequency shift channels should cause any change in TIDs.  A frequency shift in multi typically keeps the relative ratio of the individual frequency components of the muti-spectrum the same during the shift, which should not affect TID processing.  It is something that needs to be addressed.

When I saw the quarter and dime switching IDs every few swings, I quit looking. That’s pretty much the end of the story.

[Daniel Tn]

Test garden videos do diddly squat for anybody watching that has different soil.  

A great example is the Nasa Tom certified/verified CZ machines.  I had two of them...one of which was a 11.9 inch verified on a US dime.  Well that 11.9 inches was in his sandy inert soil.  In my red clay, that same machine would not hit a US dime with a correct ID past 4 inches.  Same exact detector. Same target type. Two totally different soils and results.  It's amazing the number of people who don't seem to grasp that. I'm a firm believer in that you won't really know what a detector will do until you get it in your hands and see firsthand.  

[Steve Herschbach]

5 minutes ago, Daniel Tn said:

Test garden videos do diddly squat for anybody watching that has different soil.  

A great example is the Nasa Tom certified/verified CZ machines.  I had two of them...one of which was a 11.9 inch verified on a US dime.  Well that 11.9 inches was in his sandy inert soil.  In my red clay, that same machine would not hit a US dime with a correct ID past 4 inches.  Same exact detector. Same target type. Two totally different soils and results.  It's amazing the number of people who don't seem to grasp that. I'm a firm believer in that you won't really know what a detector will do until you get it in your hands and see firsthand.  

👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
Could not have said it better myself, I absolutely agree!

[Chase Goldman]

At this point I am not watching the videos for comparisons or detailed perfomance assessments on depth or separation.  Those are pretty much useless to me. 

I give Garrett (and most of the top detector manufacturers) the benefit of the doubt that they can deliver a detector with decent depth and separation, so I would only care if something is grossly off in that department.  That means a quick swing through any basic test garden to check for gross performance decrement in depth or separation.  Edge of detection determination is meaningless to me unless it's at like 4 or 5 inches in neutral soil, in which case, Houston, we have a problem.

Frankly, I couldn't care less about 11.5 inches vs 11.1 inches max detection depth or whether the machine can pick a gold earring back up amongst 3 square nails in a 3D matrix.  That's just down in the weeds BS that can never translate into my real world situations.

The next thing I look for is the audio, how the various filters, including disc, work.  How the detector deals with EMI and ground handling.  How the tone bins and VDI's line up and how they vary with settings.  On VDI, I don't get too picky on what they are, just that they make sense and fall into sensible tone bins (especially if the tone breakpoints are locked and not user adjustable) , are generally stable, have a decent spread across the range and that they don't significantly move around or, if they do shift, do so in a sensible and consistent manner with settings adjustments especially with search mode, discrimination, frequency, frequency shift, and multi vs. single mode adjustments.  

I then look for any UI or settings quirks.

If the machine shows promise (i.e., I don't feel I have to force myself to use it in the field after a few sessions), then I spend 100's of hours getting to know the machine and ALL it's ins and outs in different detecting situations including fields, parks, beaches, in machine gun ferrous, in aluminum trash, and in hot soil.  After all that, then whether the machine regularly makes the trip to my sites AND whether it regularly gets pulled out of my vehicle render the final verdict.  Right now only 3 detectors have made it to that final round: XP Deus 2 and Minelab Manticore.  Garrett Axiom for hot dirt sites.  GPX, Deus 1, Nox's, Legends, Tarsacci, Vanquish, F75, T2, G2, Gamma, MX Sport, MXT, and a few others I can't recall are all past finalists or semi-finalists,  but have now fallen by the wayside.  Jury is still out on Vortex and the Triple Score.  But I view those latter two more as good value-based backups rather then serious finalists contenders.

The test videos in question are helpful when they uncover quirks or gross performance impacts.  But the over the top "this versus that" comparisons on endless test garden targets and nutty nail vs non-ferrous 3d custom nail blocks set up on someone's driveway just make me laugh out loud.  How much time spent building, burying, and filming all that stuff (much less watching it all), when someone can be out detecting instead, makes me shake my head.

Anyway, wrt to Vortex, basic depth performance seems OK and separation seems OK.  The VDI quirks concern me as they are all over the map non-sensical and inconsistent, which, for now, basically makes Vortex a beep/dig machine where you can get SOME clue from the audio and VDI, but that's about it.  So in the field, I am going to try to dig it all and see what comes out of the ground.  If it becomes too frustrating, I'll just wait until Garrett addresses the issue.  But it IS real and it IS a hindrance to enjoyable detecting unless you are keen on constantly digging for mystery targets.  We'll see if Vortex behaves better in real world digging starting this weekend.

[mn90403]

I once made a 'test' video with my Fisher AQ.  I didn't post it because the AQ failed the test on the beach.  I sent it back to Fisher and waited months for the repair and when I got it back I sold it without using it again.

It simply could not see all of my targets I found with other detectors in similar conditions.