HF2 Coil Beta 3.04 Impressions (New Hunt Post Added)

[Jeff McClendon]

Just got it, loaded beta 3.04 on my WS6 Master and did some testing.

Where is 17 kHz using the HF2 coil????

Every FMF program has only three choices using the WS6 and HF2 coil=29, 53 and 88 kHz. Those numbers don't change when I do a frequency shift within those three base frequencies either.

29 kHz set on frequency shift 0 with silencer on 0 has fairly decent US coin target IDs. Those are the settings I would use for coin/jewelry/relic hunting at the moment using the HF2 coil with WS6.

Every pre-release interview with an XP rep included made it clear that there would be no target ID normalization using the HF2 coil so using higher max frequencies is going to skew target IDs so that is not a surprise at least for me  

The limited FMF Goldfield testing I did on sub 0.3 gram and smaller gold nuggets was way better than the 9" FMF coil running beta 3.04 so that is a really good result. I was having some HF2 ground balancing issues however on the toughest dirt samples I have until I paired my 9 and 11" coils. After switching to different coils, the HF2 started to behave more like I expected.

I could do some gold prospecting with the HF2 running FMF Goldfield at 53 or 88 kHz. I would have my Manticore or Legend nearby however to double check the area since I don't trust Beta 3.04 with the HF2 coil yet for much of anything.

Beta is definitely Beta I guess.

[Chase Goldman]

So Beta 3.04 addressed spreading the TIDs at 29 khz (there are still quirks like copper pennies reading higher than higher denomination clad) but A LOT of other things are now broken including:

TID lag when swinging over two separate targets.  TID will briefly show for the previous target when swinging over a new adjacent target (for negative Silencer settings, I think).   Audio does not lag, however.

TID varies with coil height and position (i.e., not centered over target) even in air tests (present with 3.03b too).

In Mono, if you toggle the no Ferrous ID option on then all target TIDs are suppressed.

There appears to be stability issues when initially switching between FMF Max settings and between programs with different FMFs.  You have to give the unit time to "settle in" after the switch.

Honestly, Jeff, I would consider rolling back to 3.03b to see if the small gold performance is retained and stick with that until 3.05b or whatever is released to address all the bugs introduced by 3.04b that were not there with 3.03b (there may be ones that aren't addressed above).  One step forward (TID spread addressed, sort of), two steps back.

And, yes, the 9khz (not 17khz, though that would have made more sense) FMF setting option has been provided as promised per XP's marketing below.

[Jeff McClendon]

So, I can assume that this recent post is total BS?????

 

Zord wrote:

Posted April 30

This coil is not 9-90 kHz.

It has 3 separate sets of multiple frequencies: 9-27 kHz, 17-53 kHz and 17-90 kHz.

 

[Jeff McClendon]

4 hours ago, Chase Goldman said:

So Beta 3.04 addressed spreading the TIDs at 29 khz (there are still quirks like copper pennies reading higher than higher denomination clad) but A LOT of other things are now broken including:

TID lag when swinging over two separate targets.  TID will briefly show for the previous target when swinging over a new adjacent target (for negative Silencer settings, I think).   Audio does not lag, however.

TID varies with coil height and position (i.e., not centered over target) even in air tests (present with 3.03b too).

In Mono, if you toggle the no Ferrous ID option on then all target TIDs are suppressed.

There appears to be stability issues when initially switching between FMF Max settings and between programs with different FMFs.  You have to give the unit time to "settle in" after the switch.

Honestly, Jeff, I would consider rolling back to 3.03b to see if the small gold performance is retained and stick with that until 3.05b or whatever is released to address all the bugs introduced by 3.04b that were not there with 3.03b (there may be ones that aren't addressed above).  One step forward (TID spread addressed, sort of), two steps back.

And, yes, the 9khz (not 17khz, though that would have made more sense) FMF setting option has been provided as promised per XP's marketing below.

I am keeping up with all of the Beta 3 happenings online. Very Garrett Vortex like issues but very different conclusions drawn by some. I haven't heard any influencers calling for XP to fire their Deus 2 software staff yet.

If I only had one detector (XP Deus 2 with big remote) and I had bought the HF2 coil and done the Beta 3 software update, I would not be happy.

Luckily, I have other options including the WS6 so I will stick with the latest V3.04 beta version until something better is released.

Also, I only bought the HF2 coil for gold prospecting and for western USA ghost town ferrous/non ferrous target hunting in Pitch tones with very little need for exact target IDs. I am very unlikely to use the HF2 coil for typical coin and jewelry selective digging detecting.

[IBMe]

41 minutes ago, Jeff McClendon said:

I am keeping up with all of the Beta 3 happenings online. Very Garrett Vortex like issues but very different conclusions drawn by some. I haven't heard any influencers calling for XP to fire their Deus 2 software staff yet.

If I only had one detector (XP Deus 2 with big remote) and I had bought the HF2 coil and done the Beta 3 software update, I would not be happy.

Luckily, I have other options including the WS6 so I will stick with the latest V3.04 beta version until something better is released.

Also, I only bought the HF2 coil for gold prospecting and for western USA ghost town ferrous/non ferrous target hunting in Pitch tones with very little need for exact target IDs. I am very unlikely to use the HF2 coil for typical coin and jewelry selective digging detecting.

LOL

[Chase Goldman]

4 hours ago, Jeff McClendon said:

So, I can assume that this recent post is total BS?????

 

Zord wrote:

Posted April 30

This coil is not 9-90 kHz.

It has 3 separate sets of multiple frequencies: 9-27 kHz, 17-53 kHz and 17-90 kHz.

 

No idea on the source of that information.  The chart I posted above came off XP's Ver 3.0 Update software information page.

https://www.xpmetaldetectors.com/en/ba/the-blog/deus-ii-v3-0-update.php

[Jeff McClendon]

Any information for the frequency shift frequencies for 29, 53 and 88 kHz using the FMF modes? WS6 does not show that information on the screen. Haven’t used Beta 3 on the remote yet.

[Chase Goldman]

25 minutes ago, Jeff McClendon said:

Any information for the frequency shift frequencies for 29, 53 and 88 kHz using the FMF modes? WS6 does not show that information on the screen. Haven’t used Beta 3 on the remote yet.

Regarding Zord's post, I guess he is specifying the low to high frequency ranges for each of the three FMF Max setting, not the frequency shift settings. Not sure where he got that info, it's not officially posted by XP and that info was also not provided for the three FMF Max settings for the black coils.  Regardless, the XP diagram implies a 9 khz FMF Max settings.

Regarding frequency shifting on the remote, it doesn't change the displayed FMF Max frequency but it does toggle between the frequeny sub-channels 1 thru 5.  This behavior is the same for both the FMF and the HF2 coils, except the FMF Max frequencies are obviously different.

[Jeff McClendon]

So, I did what I said I wasn't excited to do which was take the HF2 coil for a normal, no big deal, coin/jewelry shallow to medium depth target hunt in a heavily modern trashed park near me.

This was definitely a selective digging hunt where I was concentrating on coin responses mostly while also checking out the common trash and possible jewelry responses. Digging was with a screwdriver only and I used the onboard WS6 pinpoint function and my handheld pinpointer to really zero in on the target location to avoid unnecessary digging in this public park.

I was going to test 29 kHz and 53 kHz for target ID accuracy, especially the bunch up of high conductor target IDs. I didn't get to do the 53 kHz test. I was having way too much fun with the 29 kHz test.

Being a long time Deus, ORX and Deus 2 user and knowing the common US coin and trash IDs intimately, I really had zero issues during this hunt.

I was running the General program with disc on 10, bottle caps on 1, no notch, silencer 0, sensitivity on 95, max frequency 29 with frequency shift on 0 of 6, iron volume 7, reactivity 2, audio response 4, ground balanced at 86.3.

I was using a custom 5 tone bin setup that gives iron, small foil, US nickels, most pull tabs/zinc pennies and the high conductor US coins their own tone bins with High Square audio. In a park this trashy this audio setup is just an easier way for me to know the conductivity for certain on most targets.

The ground was moist and the General program worked very well.

Every quarter I recovered had a target ID of 95 or 96.

Every clad dime and copper penny I recovered had a target ID between 89 and 92 except for one surface copper penny that had a target ID of 93.

Those target IDs are basically one digit higher than I normally see for those coins.

The three wheat back pennies from 1941, 49 and 53 were 5" to 7" deep and had a mixed upper mid tone/high tone response with target IDs from the mid 80s to mid 90s that I am used to hearing and seeing on this coin at those depths. I had better hunt this park some more with bigger coils. Three wheat pennies usually means silver coins are present.

The large aluminum bottle caps had normal 88 target IDs.

Zinc pennies had normal 86-87 target IDs.

Nickels all had 62 target IDs and the three pull tabs also had normal, expected target IDs. 

The steel bottle cap in the photo and the numerous other steel bottle caps had broken up audio responses and target IDs that included 01, some mid 60s and some low 90s.

The rusted nails had 01 target IDs with iron responses along with some mid 80s and high 90s target IDs and false non ferrous responses even using silencer on 0. They were easy to hear but I dug them anyway just to make sure.

All of the coins had solid audio responses even though there were some surrounding iron responses from the iron mineralized ground. Their audio responses were consistent from all directions with no dropouts. 

All of the targets listed above were easy for me to call before digging them.

The steel nut, vape, Captain America shield and old copper light bulb base were slight surprises but their conductivity type was correctly IDed by the detector including their steel and mixed metal responses.

There are 6 zinc pennies, 2 copper pennies and a US nickel in the center of the photo. They constituted a near surface coin spill with all 9 coins between 1 and 2 inches apart from each other. That spill was the only time I saw the target ID lock up issue that has been well documented. It was stuck on 88 and I had no idea there was a nickel in that spill until I recovered it. I actually thought it was an aluminum bottle cap "spill"......

Also, I noticed that many near surface and surface coin targets did not triple beep like I would expect with a DD coil. I depend on that triple beep response to let me know more about the depth of coin sized targets. That is weird. The grass was not too high at all so a surface coin was 2" or less from the bottom of the coil. I really believe that XP should increase the overall sensitivity baseline for the HF2 coil/software setup.

All targets were from surface to 7" deep.

Really fun hunt with the only issue being trying not to disturb the homeless people passed out in the park.

 

 

I was expecting the worst after seeing some of the testing going on.

Instead, I had a really good time.

Unlike another detector that still has some odd target ID and ID lockup behavior that I also tested earlier this year, I wouldn't hesitate to use this Deus 2 setup again for this type of detecting even with the Beta version software currently available. I am actually looking forward to it. 

Thanks for reading.