The Truth About XP Deus, page 11

11. Comparative Field-Testing V4.0 and V3.2 with Legacy 9-inch LF Coils

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I certainly did not want to spend an entire season to climb a new slope (versions 4.0 and V4.1) of the Deus learning curve through the traditional, time-consuming way of testing the firmware under different detecting conditions like I did with the V2.0-V3.2. This time, I took a better approach - a comparative field-testing.

Having two Deuses (mine and my partner's) at hand, I could test the V4.X updates next to the V3.2 in real time at the familiar hunt site. My partner and I had previously hit this site numerous times with our Deuses V3.2.

The hunt site is approximately half an acre in size and located in a farm field that has been plowed and harrowed, sometimes twice a year, for a long duration of time. The site mainly contains two types of targets.

The first type comprises the small, thin-sectioned coins (0.8 - 1. 5 cm in diameter) that have been unevenly scattered over the search area and dispersed at various depths in soil; the deepest, undetectable coins being up to 19 inches deep. This depth measurement was obtained through my simple but effective method for determining an approximate number of coins available in the ground at the so-called "coin-spill" (this method will be described in one of my upcoming articles).

The second type of targets is represented by iron bits of irregular shapes - fragments of the exploded WWII propelled grenades, ranging from 1 cm to 7 cm in relative length. The search area is littered with such fragments; a few spots being heavily laden with them.

The non-ferrous modern rubbish at this site is scarce and represented only by items that have been discarded by farmers. The soil mineralization varies as indicated by the Ground Mineralization Index value changing back and forth from 75 to 85.

Although this site is not ordinary, it nevertheless offers classic detecting conditions such as presence of both good and bad targets and varying levels of mineral and iron junk contents. These conditions are sufficient for testing any metal detector. Plus, the annual plowing provides a constant turnover of coins.

This is why I consider this site an excellent test ground that may last for a while. Also, this location has been regularly searched by a few other detectorists. This factor certainly makes testing of the latest detectors and firmware updates at this spot more challenging and, therefore, more objective.

This time, prior to my testing the Deus V4.0, most superficial coins at the site had already been found by previous coin shooters who had detected here after the last plowing. The remaining coins were the following: completely and partially masked coins, coins at angles and on edge at medium depths, coins on the fringe of the detection-depth range (threshold coins) and coins at great depths.

Of course, some of the mid-depth coins and all coins below the detection-depth range were undetectable (until next plowing), but the site had always yielded a few coins before. So, if the Deus V4.X could catch some hard-to-detect coins, the version 4.0 (and V4.1 later) would prove its effectiveness and ability to match the V3.2.

Both Deuses were operated with headphones, on the 18 kHz frequency and, in the beginning of our comparative testing, on relatively identical program settings except a base program which I used to create my new search program for field-testing the V4.0.

XP Metal Detectors has claimed that the factory preset programs #6 (DEEP) and #9 (HOT) in versions V4.0-V5.X have filters of the V2.0 and V3.2 respectively. In other words, theoretically a user can retain the V2.0 or V3.2 performances with the customized programs based on the "DEEP" and "HOT" programs.

So it would not be necessary for the user to downgrade the firmware back to the V2.0 or V3.2 if the user would like to do so. The user should be able to have the best of both worlds in V4.0-V5.X. Well, it was right time for me to see if that statement would hold true. To make a comparison with the V3.2, I developed my custom program based on the "HOT" preset accordingly.

During our first test run, while I was scanning the ground with a 9-inch LF coil operating on the V4.0, my partner would tag along to examine and compare audio responses to non-ferrous signals, if there were any. She operated her Deus V3.2 with the legacy 9-inch search coil as well. This was the only true way to see if the V4.0 update would be either more effective than the V3.2 or the same at the so-called "hunted out" site.

Well, as I received no signals, I changed my test strategy by letting my partner with the Deus V3.2 go first and find any target that would trigger a more less interesting audio response. If the Deus V3.2 detected such a target, I would examine the target spot with the Deus V4.0 to see if I could get either the same response or a better one before digging the target up.

And almost every time my partner got a weak questionable signal consisting of predominantly the high-pitched tone, my Deus V4.0 failed to produce a signal of the same quality. No matter what I did, whether it was making a 90-degree turn over the target spot or using a different search coil technique, or even tweaking the settings, nothing worked. With the Deus V4.0, none of those questionable signals sounded the same as with the Deus V3.2. In fact, they sounded much worse, like the iron grunt, or there was no sound at all!

By the way, the Deus V3.2 actually detected four coins indicated by four of those questionable signals. But the Deus V4.0 did not detect any. All I found were just a few hanks of aluminum wire, wads of foil and the medium-sized snips of thin copper sheet. Such a poor performance of the V4.0 likely was due to its ineffectiveness with the LF coil, i.e. the unstable Ground function not allowing me to fine-tune my Deus. But I could not make it perform on par with the Deus V3.2.

With the legacy LF coil, the V4.0 was erratic. I could not tame the Ground Balance (GB), either in Manual or Tracking mode. The GB acted up resulting in the Ground Mineralization Index (GMI) jumping from 85 to 60 and back. Only reducing Sensitivity much further below a reasonable level could help a little, but this would negatively affect the detector's efficiency. Being not perfectly ground balanced, my Deus could not get a decent detection depth even at spots with scarce iron junk.

It took me a while to figure out a proper combination of program settings which could help me reduce annoying chatter a little, and not without compromising the Deus performance. To my disappointment, no matter what settings I tried, I could not get the same detection range and stability as those of the version 3.2. So, retaining the V3.2 performance with my custom programs based on the “HOT” program was impossible.

With the LF black coil, the V4.0 also caused some Target Drop-outs, i.e. non-ferrous, low conductive targets such as the small, thin copper snips would be pushed into the iron range of the Discrimination/Conductivity scale. This was critical especially when using the Full Tones mode which is prone to massive target missing.

The LF coil definitely was not in harmony with the version 4.0. In fact, the Deus V4.0 performance was unacceptable. No wonder, XP finally excluded the V4.0 from the drop-down menu showing available updates in the firmware-upgrade application.

Using the legacy coil in conjunction with the V4.0 really felt like detecting coins and artifacts with a Gold Nugget metal detector which, of course, would not be appropriate for this type of metal detecting activity! Too bad that the gold nuggets are not present either at my test hunt sites or anywhere 2,000 miles around! Otherwise I would be very happy to discover gold with my 9" HF coil.

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