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Ferrous Limits Manticore

Why is discrimination the enemy of the Seeker? I will try to explain it using the top model of the Minelab Manticore detector. Why choose the most expensive equipment possible that most of us cannot afford? There are a few reasons. First of all, this detector has great imaging and you can easily understand everything by looking at the screen. Moreover, masked targets are very easy to spot if something is lying close to the iron.

Apart from discrimination, we can set the so-called iron limits and Ferrous limits. What does it do? The iron scale is wide in this detector, which cannot be said about other devices. What does it do? It is easy to distinguish and separate large and fine iron from each other.

What’s the point of all this? For a simple reason, big irons are often very interesting. A horseshoe, a sword, a cannonball, a bayonet can be the find of the day, and a well-identified bottle cap can save you time.

Ok, let’s start with the basics.

The upper gray bar is the set range of iron – the fine one. In this case, we have an iron nail. The bottom bar is for larger items. The axis in the middle is the conductivity axis from left to right from ID values 1 to 99.

For example, a thin silver coin will be in the middle on the left, but it may also fall… depending on the conditions there…

To be sure, we rotate each target 90 degrees and check how the drawing of the object has changed… this is a really big hint!

Here is the same nail after turning 90 degrees. Why is this happening? Often, iron, especially when rusty and having various complex shapes, distorts its color. In the case of forged nails, it may be their heads or the bend itself. The round and hollow shapes of the target are a story for another article.

The image above shows EMI interference. Just detune the detector or lower the sensitivity.

Here the nail or steel screw can be seen to be on the verge of the upper limit range. What do we do to check? We focus on the goal. Then the object will disappear or completely fall into the upper zone of the range.

A silver-struck coin with a range at the bottom of the ID scale. Low conductor, petty and miserable medieval silver. Please note this type of target may fall into the low end of the iron limit under certain conditions.

Przykład monety maskowanej przez mocno zmineralizowany grunt.

Here’s a coin next to a nail. You can see the signal of an iron object trying to cover the coin’s signature.

Finally, how not to set limits. A textbook example of how not to do it is below. This is an error that closes the device’s potential and does not allow separately masked objects. The detector becomes blind if the coin is next to the iron and there is no chance of separating and identifying it. This setting improves work comfort and silences the device… but only apparently. Moving too close to the axis seems like an ideal solution, but it is not! We have the Silencer option, which also needs to be used carefully.

So how do you set both limits? Under the conditions prevailing in a given place and the lowest – in the sense of the smallest value away from the conductivity axis. If the manufacturer sets the upper limit to 9, try starting with a value of 7 or lower. In my case, the limit is 4 even in difficult conditions. This arrangement places a greater workload on the operator, but also drastically improves the device’s performance.

There is no silver bullet here. You have to exercise until it hurts. Finally, there is the All Metal mode and the complete opening of iron and discrimination limits to check the given object.

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Minelab Manticore how to use the stabilizer

The power into the ground is the same with or without All Metal enabled. The difference would be in how the received signal is processed after being received. In this regard, there is a detection difference when using All Metal or Discrimination.

There is always a trade-off with metal detectors when deploying additional features such as discrimination.
Having no discrimination, no ferrous limits and no stabilizer set combined with the lowest recovery speed will yield the greatest detection depth in perfect ground conditions. In most real ground conditions these minimal settings are not ideal and they will often need to be deployed to some extent to the optimize experience.

If your detecting environment is suitable to detect in All Metal, that would be the best option.

An alternative and widely accepted method would be to detect with the optimal settings of discrimination/FE Limits then switch to All Metal using the horseshoe to interrogate any signal response further. Likewise, engaging Pin-Point for any still ‘iffy’ targets can also yield good results when questioning the response because Pinpoint removes all post-processing and the detector works with the raw response from the coil. This can be good in identifying iron more clearly before digging.

Yes, the stabilizer does have an impact on overall detection depth and it should be used only when iron falsing is problematic. In cases where the Stabiliser function is required the trade-off of a slightly reduced detection depth is worth it as such a location would otherwise be producing so many false signals that you’d have to significantly reduce Sensitivity to detect comfortably. That reduction of Sensitivity would reduce detection depth more than enabling the Stabiliser function to run a higher Sensitivity.

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Nexus vs rest of the world

The race is on for the best, free flashlights, vibrations, water resistance, 50% more power, 2D, 3D, and 6D graphs … thousands of slogans and advertisements attack us from every side. What do we get in return?! Often the same thing just in a slightly different package. Do you know this feeling? In a good restaurant, the old proven pork chop served with mun mushrooms and mars fern moss looks like an exotic and unknown dish. After the first bite, reality returns…

In all this, Nexus Detectors seems like a relic of the past. Old, but well-made knob detectors remind us of the years that are behind us. Nothing could be more wrong, because inside there is electronics that is light years ahead of everything we know!!

Advertisement?! You’ll find out soon, some people will pick up their jaw from the floor or buy hemorrhoid ointment, such burning can’t be endured without anesthesia!!!

Ok, relax, the working time on ten batteries is not overwhelming, but you can always change them in the field, the weight, depending on the probe, is survivable, because the balance is great. Yes, it is not equipment for beginners, although they will master it with a little patience.

Why am I so excited like a pedophile in a toy store?! The reason is simple – a performance that other manufacturers can only dream of. Depth and stability of work are unattainable by any other device! I write this with full responsibility! There is a video at the end of this article that shows it all in detail, but it’s nothing compared to full EMI immunity and virtually no iron masking! No other device has such capabilities and it is not a minimal difference, it is a gap that the leading manufacturers have not been able to overcome for years and do not even come close to a meter.

What will we see in the movie? A very interesting test of a small coin close to the nail, so interesting that it cannot be repeated on any other device. The minted silver coin, however, is a low conductor and lies close to the iron on the conductivity axis, but is not masked by it!

Another test is a mass of aluminum tear-offs from cans and a coin also without a problem. Tests did not in the air but on the ground full of iron in the so-called. 3D configuration. Total shock, it looks like a completely impossible thing to do on another, even the latest metal detector!!! Yes, it’s a single operating frequency in addition.

Be sure to follow this blog regularly! We have such a detector and we are not afraid to use it! Price and availability? Only on request, and with these performances, the price is justified, which cannot be said about other manufacturers!

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Wasp nest

Someone put a stick in a wasp’s nest, and this time it could turn out great for us Detectives. Meryll accused Minelab of fraud in the form of an unfulfilled promise in the form of 50% more power generated on the probe winding, admitted that he would verify this data in confrontation with the manufacturer, this is not only his opinion but also a few other users. As I wrote in the previous article, it does not matter to me, because the depth is just one element of the entire detector and it is not the only one, besides it does not have to work in the form of standards limiting devices and it is possible that the manufacturer circumvented it in a different way… well, unless it does not meet these standards … it’s even better for us!

Fortunately, Minelab reacted and decided to clarify all the disputed information in the next video on the channel of our colleague from the USA. Well done to chief engineer Mark Lawrie. It promises to be an interesting discussion, maybe for the first time we will get some interesting information about the technology of this leading Australian manufacturer.

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Garrett ACE APEX metal detector – is it worth buying a new canary?

I remember starting my adventure with the Garrett AT PRO metal detector today. It was a total infatuation. For those times, it was a really good detector, despite a number of flaws.

Heavy and ill-balanced, it tired my wrist in an instant. A couple of hours and you really wanted to go home. Experts on the subject say that a defect that occurs on land disappears in the water. There is no buoy effect, displacing the device. Possibly, I wasn’t allowed to wade deep with him. The Baltic Sea is for winter, so I only walked on a wet beach. In addition, the manufacturer for many years completely forgot about the ability to adjust the volume level …. Desperate customers did not agree to this, and in the MAX model, you could already enjoy it!

Many years have passed since then. I’ve never been a fan of Garrett’s ACE series. Popular canaries never interested me. Heavy, without the possibility of ground calibration, audio in the form of a chime for the front door scared me away for many years. Don’t get me wrong, it’s first-contact equipment for many, and I started the shelf higher. I was lucky enough to just be able to afford it.

Adventure with the Garrett ACE APEX metal detector

Garrett’s boisterous announcement of a new multi-frequency metal detector was long overdue. The competition has been using this type of device for many years. I had a lot of doubts about whether the new product from the ACE series called APEX would be really good equipment.

The surprise was big. I just had to revoke everything I’d posted before. Very light, well-made, and very simple. These were the first advantages. It is not waterproof, but the time will come after the premiere of the new AT PRO model. When? Nobody knows that.

Full reference to the layout of the buttons from the previous series is a nod to the most conservative users. Simplicity and more simplicity. It only takes a few minutes to switch over, or a few hours to get to know the device from scratch. It’s not everything. When this detector is turned on, there is complete silence. It is incredibly stable. What remains is the boost feature – the sound of the iron, which is quite controversial for one reason. In a heavily littered area, it significantly extends the reaction time, and in a clean one, it allows you to avoid digging garbage. APEX shines on the beach. We will not dig up any caps … which is not so obvious with other devices, even from the top shelf.

The 11-inch probe, working name Viper, is the best solution. It is strongly narrowed, which shortens the reaction time and allows maneuvering in difficult conditions. I do not see the need to change it to something else, because it will take the whole balance to the head, and the performance will change symbolically.

The ability to walk on a salty beach in the additional MS mode, which mutes and stabilizes the device, is a big advantage. We have one more. This is not even Minelab in the cheaper Vanquish models. Frequency selection. Yes, we can choose. 5, 10, 15, or 20 kHz. This is a great option when the conditions are really volatile and we want to look for specific things.

In addition to the advantages, there are also disadvantages of the APEX detector

The APEX metal detector also has disadvantages. This is a typical general cargo vessel, I would choose something completely different when looking for military, and large ones. It is also only rainproof. You can submerge the probe. Electronics no more. Although she survived a snowstorm at my place, so I can’t really complain. The housing has an internal gasket.

Garrett ACE APEX metal detector – summary

To sum up, the APEX metal detector is a really good and simple device, maybe not the cheapest, but the manufacturer has packed nice, modern electronics inside that can cope quite well in harsh conditions. I buy this product, and you?