First outing with the Deus

[Dan(NM)]

I took my new toy for a test run at a 1850's fort site today for about 8 hours. I did exactly what everyone said not to do and nothing that I was advised to do lol. I set my machine up with some settings I saw on You-tube, (Calabash's Pitch program) only I set it up for 3 tones and ran my disc at +5 and my tone break just under percussion caps. I found what we normally do with the Equinox and did some testing with my partner who was using an 800. I was able to hit and ID all the targets we cross checked that he had gotten hits on with his machine. The first hour or two, I was wondering if I had made a big mistake buying this thing I left the Nox at home on purpose to eliminate that urge to go and grab it if I started feeling to frustrated, which I would have done today! I didn't set the world on fire, but, felt pretty comfortable with it by the afternoon.

I was running the 11" X-35 coil, but, have the 9" HF coil coming this week which I'll take back and run it thru the site on the 4th. 27khz seemed to be the most stable here and really hit hard on the finds. I didn't hit hit anything deep, if I did, I didn't know what I needed to listen for. If I have the time, I'll start Andy's book this week and get serious about learning the nuts and bolts of the Deus.

I really like having the ability set my tone break and tone pitch to suit the site and my hearing without running too much disc.

 

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[smokeythecat]

You did better than most on a first outing. You'll love the sturdiness and ease of use of this unit.

 

[Dan(NM)]

You did better than most on a first outing. You'll love the sturdiness and ease of use of this unit.

Lol...thank you! I love how easy it was on my bum shoulder today, I actually could have gone for a couple more hours, but I had business to take care of. You were right about going slow, it's so easy to miss those co-located targets. I just set up a program using the fast program and only changed the tones, tone breaks and set the GB to tracking which I will use next time out. Thanks for the tips!

 

[smokeythecat]

Dig everything over 44, (HF coil) and some of that big iron can be great items!

 

[devldog]

Dan, you did great on your first outing with the Deus. Congrat's to you on some nice saved History.

 

[Dan(NM)]

Dan, you did great on your first outing with the Deus. Congrat's to you on some nice saved History.

Thank you, that's the wonderful thing about the forums and YouTube, tons of great information to help a guy get a running start.

 

[Dan(NM)]

Dig everything over 44, (HF coil) and some of that big iron can be great items!

I have my dig me tone break set it 40. I never did look at the meter I kept the control in my pocket, I only took it out to make an adjustment here and there.

 

[HuntinDog]

Why to go learning the tones.
Your first outing was a good one. looks a lot like one of mine after 7+ years of running the Deus.
All the tones can be a little overwelming but after some time you learn to just hear the good stuff.
Keep it up

 

[dirtlooter]

yes, a very shoulder and back friendly machine plus an awesome one to boot. pretty nice finds.

 

[vferrari]

Well Dan looks like you are still killing it at that honey hole site - picking right up where you left off with the Equinox now with the Deus. Good job.

I must say though that based on the "tweaks" you made to Calabash's pitch program (pitch tone to 3 tones, disc at 5 (basis?), and your tone break option (not available on pitch) - it is actually just now a variant of Deus Fast (save with a slower recovery speed of two, I reckon) and hardly looks like the Pitch program Calabash and I like to use in thick iron. Still Deus fast 3 tones is great program as Smokie simply kills it with that program and I have it as a custom program myself in addition to pitch.

Fresh off some nice relic hunting and Deus teaching this weekend with some new Deus users, let me propose some suggestions you can choose to do with what you will.

First - Discrimination setting - XP recommends keeping discrimination around 6 or higher as that assures reliable operation of the horseshoe display which is used to display target depth and provides a visual differentiation between a ferrous and non-ferrous target, which works even if the display is not giving you a target ID number (double dash) due to depth or inability to lock on to the target (though the tone ID may still sound off consistent with the likely target composition). The other advantage of using a discrimination setting between 6 and 10 is that the disc will help to prevent ferrous down and up averaging of nearby non-ferrous targets. Don't be afraid to use more disc, it has been demonstrated to not affect depth even at relatively high settings (40 to 50, though I would refrain from using it much above 10). And XP saw fit to provide iron volume which allows you to hear discriminated iron in the background if desired while still benefiting from the above upsides provided by discrimination filtering.

Second - tone breaks. I have found the Deus to have a lot of variability on target ID due to several factors so I tend no to use tone breaks that are based on precise air test numbers for specific targets. Especially small, irregular mid-conductors like percussion caps. Just a word of caution. Be aware also, that if you are using the default setting for ID Norm = ON you will be in for a rude awakening when you get the HF coil. ID NORM normalizes all target ID's on the X35 coil to 18 khz target ID's regardless of coil operating frequency. While this sounds great in theory, the HF coil does not use ID norm so target ID roams with coil operating frequency and the higher frequencies tend compress the high conductive target ID's into the 90's. I have ID Norm off by default and just get used to the target ID shift with frequency. Obviously this is a pain in the backside when trying to set up tone breaks for programs using different coil frequencies, but it allows me to more seamlessly go from the HF coil to the X35 coil where the operating frequencies are similar (12 to 14 khz and 25 to 29 khz). Also, with ID Norm off you can use a low frequency program to "check" for iron or rusted bottle caps because the target ID on iron does not vary with frequency as dramatically as non-ferrous targets.

Anyway, keep killing it out there and hope you enjoy your new Deus. Makes a great compliment to the Equinox in my opinion. I like them both for different reasons and they each have strengths vs. the other in different situations.

 

[Dan(NM)]

Well Dan looks like you are still killing it at that honey hole site - picking right up where you left off with the Equinox now with the Deus. Good job.

I must say though that based on the "tweaks" you made to Calabash's pitch program (pitch tone to 3 tones, disc at 5 (basis?), and your tone break option (not available on pitch) - it is actually just now a variant of Deus Fast (save with a slower recovery speed of two, I reckon) and hardly looks like the Pitch program Calabash and I like to use in thick iron. Still Deus fast 3 tones is great program as Smokie simply kills it with that program and I have it as a custom program myself in addition to pitch.

Fresh off some nice relic hunting and Deus teaching this weekend with some new Deus users, let me propose some suggestions you can choose to do with what you will.

First - Discrimination setting - XP recommends keeping discrimination around 6 or higher as that assures reliable operation of the horseshoe display which is used to display target depth and provides a visual differentiation between a ferrous and non-ferrous target, which works even if the display is not giving you a target ID number (double dash) due to depth or inability to lock on to the target (though the tone ID may still sound off consistent with the likely target composition). The other advantage of using a discrimination setting between 6 and 10 is that the disc will help to prevent ferrous down and up averaging of nearby non-ferrous targets. Don't be afraid to use more disc, it has been demonstrated to not affect depth even at relatively high settings (40 to 50, though I would refrain from using it much above 10). And XP saw fit to provide iron volume which allows you to hear discriminated iron in the background if desired while still benefiting from the above upsides provided by discrimination filtering.

Second - tone breaks. I have found the Deus to have a lot of variability on target ID due to several factors so I tend no to use tone breaks that are based on precise air test numbers for specific targets. Especially small, irregular mid-conductors like percussion caps. Just a word of caution. Be aware also, that if you are using the default setting for ID Norm = ON you will be in for a rude awakening when you get the HF coil. ID NORM normalizes all target ID's on the X35 coil to 18 khz target ID's regardless of coil operating frequency. While this sounds great in theory, the HF coil does not use ID norm so target ID roams with coil operating frequency and the higher frequencies tend compress the high conductive target ID's into the 90's. I have ID Norm off by default and just get used to the target ID shift with frequency. Obviously this is a pain in the backside when trying to set up tone breaks for programs using different coil frequencies, but it allows me to more seamlessly go from the HF coil to the X35 coil where the operating frequencies are similar (12 to 14 khz and 25 to 29 khz). Also, with ID Norm off you can use a low frequency program to "check" for iron or rusted bottle caps because the target ID on iron does not vary with frequency as dramatically as non-ferrous targets.

Anyway, keep killing it out there and hope you enjoy your new Deus. Makes a great compliment to the Equinox in my opinion. I like them both for different reasons and they each have strengths vs. the other in different situations.

Thank for the info on the disc and the tone breaks. One thing I'm not going to do is use VDI's to determine to dig or not to dig, I'm going to strictly hunt this site by tone alone. I'm using wired earbuds and plan on keeping the control in my pocket. I do use the VDI's on the Equinox, simply because the meter is in plain site

I had the tone breaks set at 40 using 27 khz and that allowed percussion caps to hit cleanly, I may have to adjust downward if I run at 54Khz on the 9" HF coil. The only problem I see running too low at this site, small pieces of aluminum foil and slaw hits hard at 27Khz, I can only imagine what even smaller stuff will do at 54. This place is polluted (pecan orchard) with modern trash, it's been an orchard for almost 45 years. The worker's obviously do not know what trash bags are and when they mow, that compounds the issue.

With my tone break at 40, pieces of percussion caps were sounding off with no problem, I don't think I want to chase anything smaller than the leg of a cap lol I will adjust accordingly once I get back and use the HF coil, I just don't want to waste my time chasing stuff so small I can't see it

I will set my disc a bit higher next time as well, I started off with -6 and the ground noise and all the debris was just too much to handle, at 5, it made things much more bearable.

If my logic has some flaws, please feel free to comment and advise, I don't want to waste my time running the Deus with settings that won't produce solid results. Thank you guys for all the input!!!

 

[vferrari]

No flaws that I can see. I agree with the tone breaks, you definitely don't want to be going after small junk, just wanted to make sure you were not cutting it too close, the flexibility to customize the tone programs is really a great feature. And pitch definitely is not what you want to use in a high non-ferrous trash situation, so multitone is the way to go. Just wanted to encourage you to not be afraid to apply a little more disc. Enjoy that site.

 

[Dan(NM)]

Just wanted to encourage you to not be afraid to apply a little more disc. Enjoy that site.[/QUOTE]

I'm glad you did mention the disc info, I was under the impression that more disc meant depth loss, thank you for clearing that up.

 

[Cyberdeus]

My first run with Deus last sunday in a park, found couple of old Dutch coins, some buttons, and lot of trash. I am amazed how the Deus is detecting very small deep targets. I was pretty slow that day as I wanted to accustom myself with the device. I ran with G-Maxxx and modified few settings, such as Disc to 0, Full tones and switched between 12Khz/18Khz from time to time, to see the difference. It was very fun and I enjoy Deus very much.

 

[vferrari]

My first run with Deus last sunday in a park, found couple of old Dutch coins, some buttons, and lot of trash. I am amazed how the Deus is detecting very small deep targets. I was pretty slow that day as I wanted to accustom myself with the device. I ran with G-Maxxx and modified few settings, such as Disc to 0, Full tones and switched between 12Khz/18Khz from time to time, to see the difference. It was very fun and I enjoy Deus very much.

View attachment 1784766

Good job. But if you would allow me to make a couple of suggestions. First of all, keep it simple. All my custom programs use Deus Fast as the base program. Don't be fooled by all these fancy program names like G-Maxx etc. Understand the underlying differences in the settings between the programs. If your detector came with Andy Sabisch's Deus Handbook, look at the tables and program descriptions there to get an idea of the differences in the settings between the programs. I think the Basic program is a fine starting point chose a tone setup 3, 4, or 5 that you feel comfortable with. Not sure why you chose to go 0 Disc and Full Tones, but that really would tend to overload most new users with a cacophony of unnecessary sounds. Also, by going with no discrimination you rob yourself of one of the advantages of discrimination which is that it tends to keep iron from down averaging non-ferrous targets, giving you a cleaner tone on the non-ferrous targets overall (in the presence of iron). I would stick with the default settings for now, save for adjusting number of tones to your liking, and get used to how frequency changes affect your ability to detect certain targets. Low frequencies tend to favor high conductive targets such as silver and also penetrate a little deeper into the ground, but they also tend to suffer more from EMI. Higher frequencies tend to excite smaller, mid-conductive targets like gold, hammered silver coins, brass, and lead better. Also, play with reactivity (recovery speed) and see how that affects target response. If you want to be able to hear iron even with discrimination enabled, you can turn up iron volume slightly (note that this is a nother huge disadvantage to using full tones - if you use any discrimination with full tones, iron volume does not work). Iron, especially nails, can alert you to the presence of old dwelling sites (even if the dwelling itself is long gone) which can often be a trove of good finds. Anyway, keep plugging away and let us know how it goes. I used to be a full tones zealot. I still use it only very rarely, but it has a lot of drawbacks in the way it is implemented on Deus that really makes multi-tone or pitch a better option. If you are feeling especially adventurous, give the gold field program a run. It is like switching to a completely different detector and is the program I use if I want to hear everything that is in the ground beneath me (it is like an ALL METAL mode). Good luck.

 

[Cyberdeus]

Good job. But if you would allow me to make a couple of suggestions. First of all, keep it simple. All my custom programs use Deus Fast as the base program. Don't be fooled by all these fancy program names like G-Maxx etc. Understand the underlying differences in the settings between the programs. If your detector came with Andy Sabisch's Deus Handbook, look at the tables and program descriptions there to get an idea of the differences in the settings between the programs. I think the Basic program is a fine starting point chose a tone setup 3, 4, or 5 that you feel comfortable with. Not sure why you chose to go 0 Disc and Full Tones, but that really would tend to overload most new users with a cacophony of unnecessary sounds. Also, by going with no discrimination you rob yourself of one of the advantages of discrimination which is that it tends to keep iron from down averaging non-ferrous targets, giving you a cleaner tone on the non-ferrous targets overall (in the presence of iron). I would stick with the default settings for now, save for adjusting number of tones to your liking, and get used to how frequency changes affect your ability to detect certain targets. Low frequencies tend to favor high conductive targets such as silver and also penetrate a little deeper into the ground, but they also tend to suffer more from EMI. Higher frequencies tend to excite smaller, mid-conductive targets like gold, hammered silver coins, brass, and lead better. Also, play with reactivity (recovery speed) and see how that affects target response. If you want to be able to hear iron even with discrimination enabled, you can turn up iron volume slightly (note that this is a nother huge disadvantage to using full tones - if you use any discrimination with full tones, iron volume does not work). Iron, especially nails, can alert you to the presence of old dwelling sites (even if the dwelling itself is long gone) which can often be a trove of good finds. Anyway, keep plugging away and let us know how it goes. I used to be a full tones zealot. I still use it only very rarely, but it has a lot of drawbacks in the way it is implemented on Deus that really makes multi-tone or pitch a better option. If you are feeling especially adventurous, give the gold field program a run. It is like switching to a completely different detector and is the program I use if I want to hear everything that is in the ground beneath me (it is like an ALL METAL mode). Good luck.

Thank you for the good advice vF. I am trying to reduce the frequency of the tones and it seems that I cannot reduce below 120Hz. I cannot chose 100Hz. Did they limit the tones to start from 120? I was curious about this video and wanted to try the program but I can't set it up.

 

[vferrari]

120hz is the lowest tone setting. What video are you referring to?

 

[Cyberdeus]

120hz is the lowest tone setting. What video are you referring to.

Sorry, I forgot to paste the link. This video

 

[vferrari]

I don't know how he is able to select 100hz. Strange. Not a big fan of these gimmick tone setups.

 

[Cyberdeus]

I don't know how he is able to select 100hz. Strange. Not a big fan of these gimmick tone setups.

Can I setup a 5 Tones in a way like this?:

T1: 120Hz - 00
T2: 202Hz - 6.8
T3: 518Hz - 75
T4: 644Hz - 90
T5: 120Hz - 96