Deus Bootcamp Recap

vferrari

Silver Member
Jul 19, 2015
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XP Deus with HF/x35 Coils and Mi6 Pinpointer/ML Equinox 600/800/ML Tarsacci MDT 8000 GPX 4800/Garrett ATX/Fisher F75 DST/Tek G2+/Delta/Whites MXT/Nokta Simplex/Garrett Carrot
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Some things I learned at a Deus "Bootcamp" hosted by Andy Sabisch at Gettysburg this past weekend.

Version 4 Stuff:

  • Final public release version is set for this Tuesday (3/14)
  • They unfortunately did not fix the Reactivity/Silencer "default" setting bug/feature, even when incorporating Reactivity 2.5. So whenever you manually change reactivity, you still have to go in and make sure silencer is reset bat to -1 (off) or 0 (max setting that does not affect depth). I personally prefer 0, but that is not a default setting for ANY of the reactivity settings.
  • They improved GB tracking to not lock onto trash ground targets [Good!] but did not include GB bias offset in tracking (e.g., set up GB to auto track to a fixed +/- x clicks from the measured ground conductivity reading, which would be a huge feature IMO to squeeze some depth out of the machine or lower ground noise)
  • I asked Gary of UK Deus video fame directly on Skype how and why regarding ceramics (per the XP literature discussion on negative discrimination) and he said that UK detectorists would use the negative Disc setting to enable them to see increased concentrations of mineralized bricks and roof tiles in the ground which would be indicative of an old dwelling. Andy chimed in that you would def pick up bricks with negative disc

Andy went into great detail on Disc versus Notch. I posted that info in another thread but to sum up -

His opinion (not necessarily mine) is that setting Disc at 0 (or any setting less than 5) does not maximize depth and only tends to cause the horseshoe display to be unstable and unreliable. Not sure this can actually be proven. But he did demonstrate that depth detection capability on a deep coin does not suffer until you set discrimination well above 15 or so. That means if you have some reason to suppress signals from 0 up to a relatively high TID setting (e.g., 15 or greater) then it is best to use notch because notch just suppresses the signal in the given notch range and does not have any effect on signals outside of the notch range(s).

He is not a Full tones guy so his other reasons for keeping Disc in the 5 to 10 range don't really apply to full tones, but for multi-tones (2, 3, 4, or 5 tones) audio, if you set Disc to 0 (or you use notch instead of disc) you lose Iron Audio capability. You also lose your first tone break in multitones. Basically no difference between Disc and Notch if you use full tones as long as you don't set Disc too high (i.e., above 15) or too low (i.e., less than 5) for full horseshoe functionality, reliability (according to Andy - hard to really prove one way or the other).

He confirmed that the Pinpointer will not be as sophisticated as a Sunray probe (i.e., no discrimination, tone ID, or TID will displayed when it in conjunction with the Deus). Disappointing but there may be hope for the future.

He confirmed that TX Power is locked at "2" for the high frequency coils (vs. locked at 3 as is done for the existing coils when operating at 4 khz - this is another annoyance since 4 khz maximized depth but Tx power at 3 is not good in highly mineralized soil).

He hinted at some future untapped functionality for the HF coils in a future SW update and then all joked about a release date for Ver 5 with Alain from XP (didn't seem amused, or could understand what we were on about) and Gary (who laughed).

Field session in Gettysburg (private property of course) was fun. Found some modern US and foreign coins and found a .635" period dropped lead round ball projectile.

Probably some other useful info I did not remember to cover will supplement this when I get a chance to go over my notes again.

Cheers.
 

Awesome summary Vferrari! I'm super jealous. Glad you had a great time. Very informative info on the disc and gb tracking. Did Andy give any indication on whether tracking in trashy sites would be more beneficial vs manual now that it has been improved?
 

Excellent report, Vferrari!

That directly answers so many questions. I appreciate your time and effort.

Have a drink on me. :occasion14:
 

Thank you V!

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
 

Awesome summary Vferrari! I'm super jealous. Glad you had a great time. Very informative info on the disc and gb tracking. Did Andy give any indication on whether tracking in trashy sites would be more beneficial vs manual now that it has been improved?

Yes he said that Tracking should be the preferred method of GB even in trashy areas with Version 4 - He did not recommend that with the way it was implemented in Version 3.2. YMMV as usual.

Another thing I forgot to mention is that to reduce ground feedback noise, you should set Ground notch active for the entire range of ground conductivities 70 to 99. In other words, go into Ground Notch (expert setting in the Ground Balance menu screen) and hit the + button until the whole bar is blacked out. Again, I would personally experiment with this to see if it made a difference but Andy basically said that there is no downside to doing this. Go figure. Don't fully understand it, but I tried it during the field session and had no adverse affects. Representing team TNET, I maintained some cred but logging the most natural keeper finds (9) in the short field session - lol. Got some XP bling for my efforts. ha.
 

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Great info as always. I will definitely do some experimenting. Thanks for passing this along!
 

Thanks for sharing that V.

For my own sanity, I have to set up a test to prove or disprove the statement about the affects of Notch not bleeding over to the adjacent values. So much conflicting info on this. In my mind, I can only see that statement as being accurate on a very strong signal. Bury that exact same target 12 inches down, it is now a very weak signal with potentially a very different TDI.

I take that back. It would be accurate to say that Notch just suppresses the signal in the given notch range and does not have any effect on signals outside of the notch range....BUT.....what needs to be considered is the variability in the TDI of a target depending on its signal strength. When the signal is weak, that target's TDI may not be in the range you think it should be in. It could "accidentally" fall into your Notch window.

Andy went into great detail on Disc versus Notch. I posted that info in another thread but to sum up -

That means if you have some reason to suppress signals from 0 up to a relatively high TID setting (e.g., 15 or greater) then it is best to use notch because notch just suppresses the signal in the given notch range and does not have any effect on signals outside of the notch range(s).

.
 

Jeff H.,

Very good point about TID variations on a given target. Will have to do some experimenting. I guess it would be wise to add variation buffers at notch and/or disc breakpoints.
 

Also forgot to mention that ID Norm is set to "On" as default in Vers. 4, make sure you turn it to "Off" and set up your custom programs in this manner if you want to take advantage of the change in TID with frequency trick (i.e., if the TID does not go up or down with a step increase or decrease in operating frequency, as applicable, then the target is likely rusted junk) to ferret out bottlecaps and other rusted junk targets that ring up like keepers.
 

so vferrari,
Are you saying that in V4 all of our coils will be locked into ID Norm? until we select ID Norm Off.
Or is this the case only with the new coils.
 

so vferrari,
Are you saying that in V4 all of our coils will be locked into ID Norm? until we select ID Norm Off.
Or is this the case only with the new coils.

HD,

It is program dependent not coil dependent. All the built-in programs on V 4 will have ID Norm turned on by default (its part of the configuration menu under OPTIONS vs. the Programs settings which are under MENU). You will have to turn it off every time you want to use one of the built-ins. If you save a copy of a built-in as a custom program but tweak it to have ID norm off in the configuration menu or make your own custom program with ID norm off in the configuration menu then you will not have to worry about it because you can just use the custom program and ID norm will be off. It's just that you have to make sure you save the custom program with ID Norm off in configuration whereas on 3.2 you did not have to think about it because the default was off. HTH.
 

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Thanks V
It's to bad that they didn't use a lower frequency spread with it when they did it.
 

Man V you gave us some great info! Thank you so much, really.

How was the bootcamp overall?

I know you said Andy is not a full tones guy but did try to correlate his info into that arena? (Maybe we need to suggest he get on board with full tones for bootcamp purposes).

Jim
 

Thanks V
It's to bad that they didn't use a lower frequency spread with it when they did it.

You got that right. Andy Sabisch complained about it toat Bottcamp. It was based of 18 khz which is the primary frequency used in UK for the low conductive hammered coins and gold relics they love to find.
 

Man V you gave us some great info! Thank you so much, really.

How was the bootcamp overall?

I know you said Andy is not a full tones guy but did try to correlate his info into that arena? (Maybe we need to suggest he get on board with full tones for bootcamp purposes).

Jim

Ha. You will never get Andy to switch to full tones. Says it drives him crazy. I told him that if he really wanted to go nuts he should hunt exclusively with Gold Field. lol.

Overall, bootcamp was great. I took it almost two years ago when I first got the Deus. i think it was great then but also good now because I know what questions to ask. I don't think I would have taken it a second time just for that though. The fact that V 4.0 was right around the corner (and I knew he would have sample new hardware there to demo) plus the chance to get some swing time (and make permission contacts) in Gettysburg were what pushed me over the edge to do it again. Glad I did. If you don't have to travel too far to catch one, I highly recommend it. Plus, if you attend the bootcamp session you get his phone number and email and can get personalized instruction or troubleshooting tips if you are having issues in the field. Someone actually called him during the bootcamp session complaining about not being able to find minie balls while his partner with an AT Pro had found five already. Andy finally figured out that the guy had "set sensitivity to 80 on the advice of his hunting partner" lol. Problem solved and his hunting partner has some "splaining to do" though I can guess why he recommended it (slowed the Deus guy down for awhile so he could grab some relics). The guy called back later and said he was ahead of the AT Pro guy on the bullet count now. lol. The field session is great to test out what you learned, he has a test garden, puts out some planted targets (tokens) for door prizes plus usually lines it up somewhere where you can snag some decent "natural" targets, also.
 

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Ha. You will never get Andy to switch to full tones. Says it drives him crazy. I told him that if he really wanted to go nuts he should hunt exclusively with Gold Field. lol.

Overall, bootcamp was great. Andy finally figured out that the guy had "set sensitivity to 80 on the advice of his hunting partner" lol. Problem solved and his hunting partner has some "splaining to do" though I can guess why he recommended it (slowed the Deus guy down for awhile so he could grab some relics). The guy called back later and said he was ahead of the AT Pro guy on the bullet count now. lol. The field session is great to test out what you learned, he has a test garden, puts out some planted targets (tokens) for door prizes plus usually lines it up somewhere where you can snag some decent "natural" targets, also.


LOL that hunting partner is pretty smart....LOL

I want to go, heck I will fly in, but my luck I will then Andy will come west...LOL

Based on your report V, I will attend one. Thanks!

Jim
 

HD,

It is program dependent not coil dependent. All the built-in programs on V 4 will have ID Norm turned on by default (its part of the configuration menu under OPTIONS vs. the Programs settings which are under MENU). You will have to turn it off every time you want to use one of the built-ins. If you save a copy of a built-in as a custom program but tweak it to have ID norm off in the configuration menu or make your own custom program with ID norm off in the configuration menu then you will not have to worry about it because you can just use the custom program and ID norm will be off. It's just that you have to make sure you save the custom program with ID Norm off in configuration whereas on 3.2 you did not have to think about it because the default was off. HTH.

Aha!! So they added ID Norm as a program setting rather than the system setting that it was in previous version? I LIKE that! I do use ID Norm in general because it keeps me from having to remember the ranges for different metals, but often want it off for checking for bottlecaps, but doing so in the past was a chore. If I understand you right, I can now have it on, in general, but off in a certain program?

I was sorry to hear that they didn't give us the ability to specify which frequency we wanted to normalize to, though. I thought that would have been a nice addition.
 

This may have been answered earlier in the thread where something was mentioned about 18khz, but is that the frequency they based the ID Norm on? I hunt almost exclusively in 12 kHz, and really don't want to have to learn new target IDs.

I realize I can change my custom programs and if there are any of the factory presets I really like, I can make a copy of them with the ID Norm off.
 

Aha!! So they added ID Norm as a program setting rather than the system setting that it was in previous version? I LIKE that! I do use ID Norm in general because it keeps me from having to remember the ranges for different metals, but often want it off for checking for bottlecaps, but doing so in the past was a chore. If I understand you right, I can now have it on, in general, but off in a certain program?

I was sorry to hear that they didn't give us the ability to specify which frequency we wanted to normalize to, though. I thought that would have been a nice addition.

Not exactly. It's still part of the configuration menu (where system settings reside) vs. the options menu (where the program parameters reside) but when you save a custom program, your configuration settings are saved too.
 

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This may have been answered earlier in the thread where something was mentioned about 18khz, but is that the frequency they based the ID Norm on? I hunt almost exclusively in 12 kHz, and really don't want to have to learn new target IDs.

I realize I can change my custom programs and if there are any of the factory presets I really like, I can make a copy of them with the ID Norm off.

Yes you can do that. Just set ID Norm to off in the configuration menu then save the program as a custom program.
 

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