Metal Detecting

Hi please could somebody advise me on my Deus, when using it on a wet beach.
Yesterday we had a day at a beach near to Bridlington on the East Coast.
The sand was mostly wet, not really a lot of dry sand.
I couldn't get the Deus to work on the wet sand no matter what settings I used inc the the wet sand settings, I was using the 9inch coil.
I know the Deus isn't brilliant on the beach, and I didn't really buy it to use on beaches, but why have a wet beach mode which is practically useless.
I was wondering if any have you experienced Deus user have any settings for the Beach.
I ended up using my friends minelab Etrac for the Day, so A big thank you to him.
I didn't find much as the beach was covered with metres of sand.
Any advice would be great on the settings.
Regards
Colin

Hard to say.. Living on a island I have lots of beach.. Find it difficult to Pump mode it, so often i have to go to sand with ½ cm water on to make pump work.. Or if not.. I simply set manual to around 27 in gmp and then wet beach. Always more difficult to do wet sand than dry..
HH - John

Not my machine but have been on the beach with someone using a Deus. The beach was pebbly with two or three inches of damp sand on top. They could not get their Deus to work nicely at all. Even above the high tide mark. The varying dampness around the rocks and pebbles sent it bonkers. They did find stuff by ignoring the chattering and digging solid numbers but did not have a nice time.


I can make my Whites IDX work there by adjusting the ground balance and reducing the threshold. Not idea and obviously a loss in depth but at least I am still finding things



Each beach is different but most detectors that are adjustable can be made to work even if its at a reduced depth. Sometimes if gullies, underground pools or hot rocks are in one place on the beach it would require a move to few 100 years to one side.

I've been on many different types of beaches with my deus and never had a problem with chattering or falsing. It's a very good beach machine for dry and semi wet areas. In comparison to a decent wet beach areas type PI detector it's obviously not going to hold up in comparison for great depth. I use v2 so I can only speak from this experience. It gets great depth in the dry, good depth in the damp sand, but when moving to areas where the sand/pebbles area just dug floods with water, then about 5inches depth on an old penny sized target is going to be about it. Obviously you will get more or less depth depending on the size of your target. I've dug out a grill from a barbeque before which was much, much deeper. Took forever. Anyway...

My 'dry' (loose sand, doesn't stick to you when held in hand) beach settings are:

11.8khz
Disc 32 (pitch sound mode works great for items that aren't deep, but 3 tones+ is better for depth)
Sensitivity set at anything in the 70-85 range depending on conditions (tx power 2)
iron volume 0 (you can still work out iron stuff under the coil without it being set here)
reactivity 2 (silencer 3)
audio response 5 (audio overload 1)
ground balance on tracking
GB beach = no

'Wet' (water filling the hole) beach settings:

17.8khz
disc 27 (i use 3 tone mode with custom levels for this) target ID is not reliable so rely on your ears
sensitivity anything from about 50-85 depending on conditions (tx power 1)
iron 0
reactivity 3-5 depending on conditions (silencer -1)
audio response (1-5 depending on conditions, the higher the value the more unstable) (audio overload 1)
ground balance on manual (changing this to suit your beach)
GB beach = yes


I change settings depending on how far away from the water's edge I am, so a combination of these settings may be used.

If your machine is chattering away you have it set up incorrectly and it's not the machine's fault unless you have a crack in the coil, which is very unlikely unless you smash it against rocks regularly.

Add in a lot of practice and it's all good.

If you want better depth, you need a dedicated machine for the wet (or if you can afford it, something like a 3030 which seems to be a good all rounder). I'd suggest looking at getting a GT or any Sovereign as they're cheaper.

& don't touch the sand, keep it just above at all times......

hihosilver wrote:I've been on many different types of beaches with my deus and never had a problem with chattering or falsing. It's a very good beach machine for dry and semi wet areas. In comparison to a decent wet beach areas type PI detector it's obviously not going to hold up in comparison for great depth. I use v2 so I can only speak from this experience. It gets great depth in the dry, good depth in the damp sand, but when moving to areas where the sand/pebbles area just dug floods with water, then about 5inches depth on an old penny sized target is going to be about it. Obviously you will get more or less depth depending on the size of your target. I've dug out a grill from a barbeque before which was much, much deeper. Took forever. Anyway...

My 'dry' (loose sand, doesn't stick to you when held in hand) beach settings are:

11.8khz
Disc 32 (pitch sound mode works great for items that aren't deep, but 3 tones+ is better for depth)
Sensitivity set at anything in the 70-85 range depending on conditions (tx power 2)
iron volume 0 (you can still work out iron stuff under the coil without it being set here)
reactivity 2 (silencer 3)
audio response 5 (audio overload 1)
ground balance on tracking
GB beach = no

'Wet' (water filling the hole) beach settings:

17.8khz
disc 27 (i use 3 tone mode with custom levels for this) target ID is not reliable so rely on your ears
sensitivity anything from about 50-85 depending on conditions (tx power 1)
iron 0
reactivity 3-5 depending on conditions (silencer -1)
audio response (1-5 depending on conditions, the higher the value the more unstable) (audio overload 1)
ground balance on manual (changing this to suit your beach)
GB beach = yes


I change settings depending on how far away from the water's edge I am, so a combination of these settings may be used.

If your machine is chattering away you have it set up incorrectly and it's not the machine's fault unless you have a crack in the coil, which is very unlikely unless you smash it against rocks regularly.

Add in a lot of practice and it's all good.

If you want better depth, you need a dedicated machine for the wet (or if you can afford it, something like a 3030 which seems to be a good all rounder). I'd suggest looking at getting a GT or any Sovereign as they're cheaper.

Cheers for your reply will certainly give your settings a go next time I'm on the beach, I haven't given up yet, also on wet sand I think ground balancing properly is the key.
I was trying to run the GB at 25 maybe by lowering it to between 0 and 10 might be worth trying.
I didn't try that and I have seen a video on GB on wet sand, using the pumping method if I can to get a true reading, and I'm sure his settings were about 8 on his beach.

Thanks Again
Colin

Nigel at regtons wrote:& don't touch the sand, keep it just above at all times......

Will do Nigel Cheers

I don't think it's possible to use the pumping method to ground balance on a sandy beach due to the extreme mineralisation. In the time it takes for it not to put 'FAIL' on the screen you could have detected most the beach. It might work on stony ones though.

hihosilver wrote:I don't think it's possible to use the pumping method to ground balance on a sandy beach due to the extreme mineralisation. In the time it takes for it not to put 'FAIL' on the screen you could have detected most the beach. It might work on stony ones though.

Cheers for that, but on a wet beach how would you set your GB up to get a correct reading for that particular beach, Would you put it say in Auto Tracking for a while just to see what the GB readings are showing.
Regards
Colin

For me I'd say tracking mode is the wrong way to go on the wet. It will probably make it very unstable. It's a case of practise and feel with the deus, and any other detector for that matter.

The only shortcuts come when you have been on a specific beach before and have the settings all ready to go from the last time you were there.

I listed my settings above, but you will have to play around with those settings to find the right ones for the beach/beaches you go on, you can just use them as a rough guide, bearing in mind that you are probably on v3.2 and that some options have a slightly expanded range (e.g. Audio Response goes up to 7, whereas in V2 it goes up to 5).

When in doubt, read the manual to see what each setting does, as far as manuals go it's pretty good and concise, and definitely worth several read throughs.

Hey Colin, you could always borrow an Etrac ?

stargazer wrote:Hey Colin, you could always borrow an Etrac ?

Nice one Pete

hihosilver wrote:For me I'd say tracking mode is the wrong way to go on the wet. It will probably make it very unstable. It's a case of practise and feel with the deus, and any other detector for that matter.

The only shortcuts come when you have been on a specific beach before and have the settings all ready to go from the last time you were there.

I listed my settings above, but you will have to play around with those settings to find the right ones for the beach/beaches you go on, you can just use them as a rough guide, bearing in mind that you are probably on v3.2 and that some options have a slightly expanded range (e.g. Audio Response goes up to 7, whereas in V2 it goes up to 5).

When in doubt, read the manual to see what each setting does, as far as manuals go it's pretty good and concise, and definitely worth several read throughs.

Cheers for that I didn't mean I would run the Deus in tracking on a Wet Beach, as I agree it would be the wrong way to go, it was just to give me idea of the GB reading for that specific beach, I would then put it into manual, and just keep my eye on the readings, if that makes sense.
Regards
Colin

Sorry I thought I'd written it above but seems I haven't. Somewhere low, try around 27 for manual GB on the wet. I think that might be what it defaults to anyway, or thereabouts .