EQ Bottle Caps

In the water i dig very very few shallow bottle caps. The CTX just does a good job at disc them out..... as does the CTX. I have some beaches...... like Ft Meyer that are bottle cap city when a little sand moves. Local beaches ive notice in the last year or two more of them as well that i just pass up. But ..... either there is a learning curve from watching VAMAX and the guys on i trust on VA beach or ..... my beaches are going to get a lot cleaner out there. Caps seem to be all over the place in the gold range..... so a LOT more of them are going to be dug..... and disposed of i hope. At this point i wouldnt get rid of the Xcal or CTX. We still havent seen a lot of smaller gold either. We have seen .... by air tests it MAY find smaller gold, but not a lot of small finds showing up. The 40 digit reading seems to be making them dig a bit more trash........ good thing this machine is light because the beaches could get a bit more quiet lol. They have tried iron bias..... has no affect on the caps. I dont get to look very often at the screen when water hunting out deep so learning the tones of the dreaded caps and letting the disc between my ears do its job maybe the only way. IF..... the new Fisher PI can disc out iron ....... it may end up being a better choice.

I still dont have mine yet....... but i they dont have the cable or phones yet which is unbelievable. Im getting the hint they are doing a slow release not due to marketing...... but maybe due to repairs. I dont think they want an issue that would bog down the repair shop again which gave um quite a black eye..... as did the O ring on the CTX. They seem to be overly cautious on this one.

Dew

I need more testing, but shifting to the 10 khz range should make bottle caps read higher than multi on the Nox.

Indeed, Beyonder; that works well on the rusty steel ones. There may also be some "clues" in the audio; I haven't sussed that out enough yet, but the "switch to a single frequency and re-scan" trick DOES work, not surprisingly. A rusty cap reading 11 or 12 will jump into the 20s at 5 kHz or 10 kHz...whereas a non-ferrous will either not jump at all, or else very little, from my limited testing...

Steve

Switching frequencies and rescanning and analyzing targets is not a real option in the surf. Just saying. If Minelab wants it to be a beach machine which is where the appeal lies for many then it has to be able to tone bottle caps. Just my opinion. Until then I'll swing a BBS. Beach hunting is all about time vs efficiency. Fatigue is a factor.

Would something similar to this work with Al screw caps? Asking for a friend.......

Here's a video for beach hunters,
[m.youtube.com]

Dont work in my case...... salt water. ... AND in beach mode u can only use multi freq. So... looks like the gulf beaches... like ft meyers. .. Clearwater. ... siesta.... st pete are going to get a lot cleaner.

I seen that video after my post..... interesting.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/07/2018 06:39PM by dewcon4414.

My 2 trips with the EQ600 I did dig way more bottle caps and micro stuff than I ever did with my CTX. I think my EQ800 may do better on them but wont know till this weekend.

That looks like the first good tip I have seen.
Will be trying it out myself thanks.

todd, you might try the "trick" Beyonder and I outlined above.

Further, with the 800, it should be SUPER easy. It would seem you could set up a custom profile under your user button (haven't done this yet myself) that would run at 5 kHz. Then, you could toggle into and out of that mode any time you like, while running your regular hunting mode in Multi-IQ. That one button push would then act as your "bottle cap discriminator." VERY easy to do, I'd think -- and the "trick" of checking a "teens" ID in 5 kHz mode and looking for a jump into the 20s (rusty screw cap) or staying in the teens (non-ferrous) really works well. As was noted by dewcon, it would be more difficult in beach hunting, since you can't run single freqs. very effectively over wet salt or in surf. But outside of wet salt/saltwater, this method works very well, and is very simple.

Steve



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/07/2018 08:01PM by steveg.

Don't be afraid to use some disc. on bottle caps. I tested just about every gold ring we have and a platinum thin ring and picked them all up and had the cap breaking up. If you turn the machine on edge their gone. Still I will continue to use my Elite at the beach. Caps have their own sound.

Hummmm anyone tried a coil flip.... turning the coil on edge?

The deep caps sound so good with solid I'd ......you just gotta dig them

No machine loves bottle caps like the deus. I’ve drove my self nuts at first. Now I can tell freq shift etc.

The equinox 800 I’ve only dug a few screw and crown. No deep rusted ones. Any machine will hit them hard... some just do a better job at telling you to dig or not.
As stated.. you gotta dig them. One time with the deus I got s nice high tone they didn’t drop going to 4 kHz just to prove myself wrong or right... I dug.... then it was a merc, small nail and flat rusted cap were all in the plug.

I for one don’t mind digging them because the more I clean out the more I unmask I feel.

XP Deus
Minelab Etrac
Minelab Equinox 800
Garrett Carrot
22 silvers, 2 silver rings, 1 Gold Ring -YTD 2018


Some of my random digs: [www.youtube.com]

Bottle caps are frustrating......... but there isnt a machine that JUST IDs gold, or that ignores all trash, or even sees everything in the ground. If it wasnt bottle caps it would be foil or can slaw...... especially with a machine we hope gets smaller gold. This is going to be a machine that fills a nitch something each of us will have to determine for our hunting. Some will benefit more than others. Hows that go....... “You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time”.

Right now to me....... its more frustrating NOT have the machine OR the NEEDED accessories than worrying about bottle caps lol.

Agree on the NEEDED accessories. My detector dealer stated 60 to 90 days on waterproof adapter and 30 to 60 on headphones. Lets hope he is mistaken as that puts the stuff out just after the water warms up for the treasures to be found. At least I have my CTX till then.

Isnt that plain ridiculous?

dewcon4414 Wrote:
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> Hummmm anyone tried a coil flip.... turning the co
> il on edge?


Don't really need to flip. Hunt in all metal and bottle caps will go to the iron tone as you approach the edge.

Bottle caps are a problem that's set to continue on beaches cos folk like popping tops from a case of 24 on a sunny holiday weekend AND they often deliberately bury both the bottle and the tops because I have dug them up for years.
You can come across areas, a few sq ft that produces loads of them!
If left there storms will take them out where they can sit offshore for years or until Mr.Detectorist comes along!!!

They're made up of tin plate coated steel that unfortunately rusts into iron oxide.
They're also made up of aluminium and that's becoming more popular with 'twist offs' that is more common in the USA than in other places i.e. Euro countries.
The 'twist off' is popular too in Australia.
The more modern tops i.e. Aluminium made don't rust as readily as the tin-plate ones but present more of an ID problem to the EQX because it appears 'to favour' 'mid conductors?'

I'm thinking the 'good news' will be that as more of us get to use the EQX we'll find the detector will readily ID the older rusty caps with jumping positive TID's and then bouncing into the minus numbers and checking in All Metal should confirm this.
The 'bad news' is the modern aluminium caps will still have to be recovered just to make sure a good ring isn't being left behind!

I'm thinking there are a few things that could also be done to help recognise the older caps more quickly.

Coil interrogation: when testing the AT Max on the beach I got positive hits off caps but by moving the middle top and bottom areas around targets the tone went negative.
I'm reading the EQX is the same?

Another thing [that might help] is by lowering Recovery Speed from the Beach 1 and Beach 2 Defaults of 6 to 3 or 4, or 1 or 2.....to help get a longer signal interrogation that might cause mulling around the target as the coil interrogation method described above is done?

When I get mine I'll be doing all the above and everything I can to find [ways] to do it?

Or just use a BBS unit and have fun not worrying about it.

Des..... we have left a lot of bottle caps with the xcals and CTX. Its the one piece of trash that hunters tend to just drop too instead of putting them in the pouch. Karma. .... lol.

woodchiphustler Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> dewcon4414 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Hummmm anyone tried a coil flip.... turning the
> co
> > il on edge?
>
>
> Don't really need to flip. Hunt in all metal and b
> ottle caps will go to the iron tone as you approa
> ch the edge.

This.

I guess not having to dig bottle caps with any of the BBS/FBS machines...... and now we do gets a little confusing. What happened..... or better yet whats the benefits? Was there no way to have them fall into the iron range or at least give that usual broken tone like an Xcal? Seems an awfully lot of growing pains on this one too. Lot of finds popping up and videos which you expect from new machines..... but im still waiting on some smaller gold than our current machines find. Not sure i like having to manipulate a machine a lot to get it to do what i need it to...... especially NEW tech. Seems to be a bigger learning curve to what appears to be a simpler machine than the ones they have been making. The good points for my hunting so far is ..... price, weight, and ability to use both single and multi freq. The other side of that coin is... ive not seen smaller gold being found, ive not seen it being used extensively yet in the salt water..... NO headphones, bottle cap, big silver on edge issue, a very narrow digit range means more trash being dug...... so was ML right its not quite as good as BBS/FBS.. but is for the price?

"I don't know how many times I've re-dug TRASH targets that were either (a) too big for my pouch (b) too heavy for my pouch (c) plain not interested in them and left them behind only to come along the following year to find them all over again!!! Gotta take that TRASH to the bin...I've got better about it these past few years"

dewcon4414 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I guess not having to dig bottle caps with any of
> the BBS/FBS machines...... and now we do gets a li
> ttle confusing. What happened..... or better yet
> whats the benefits? Not sure i
> like having to manipulate a machine a lot to get i
> t to do what i need it to...... especially NEW tec
> h. Seems to be a bigger learning curve to what ap
> pears to be a simpler machine than the ones they h
> ave been making.

"Right on the money Dew!!!
The way it is at the moment and the various 'tricks' folks are describing appears to involve many button presses and Mode switching!!!
The most LOGICAL solution thus far seems to be yet again from Gordon Heritage who has 10kHz allocated on the USER Button
I've had to push buttons before on other ML machines "to suss out iffy targets" but, at most 2 or 3 pushes: what others have suggested is to test the target in all the frequency choices and all the search modes = 9 button pushes?"

Des....i agree, we've always used tricks to bring out iffy target. In this case....... these dont appear to be iffy.... they appear to be good, and there can be a LOT of bottle caps on a beach. With the other machines they were easily identified by breaking up and/or TID/screen position. Also, there just wasnt many gold or ANYTHING good that feel in those TID positions. Guys on VA beach were digging a lot of big iron too. Maybe all of its a learning curve to the new tech?

I can't be digging caps or playing with different modes trying to identify them on the beach. Every target requires time and energy which are both critical to beach detecting. If I am going to commit to digging every signal I will just use a PI. To tell the truth I really don't like finding micro targets either. Anything that falls through the scoop twice is given back to surf Gods. Especially during night hunts. I was really excited when this detector was announced, but I can see I was wrong in assuming it would be BBS/FBS like. The weight is ultra appealing to me, but I think it stops there. Throw in the lack of accessories right now it really tips the scales for me. Come on Nokta bring that true multi frequency machine. I'll wait. Even if I return to dirt hunting this detector is not what I am looking for. It seems more like a nice relic machine which I have no interest in. Just coins. Congrats to those that like the Equinox. Hope you find bundles with it. I'll start reading Equinox threads again when I see the words update available. After all...how many times did it happen for the CTX? Twice? Yeah I stopped trying to make the detector something it isn't. That got expensive.

Seems like many are looking for a detector to take the place of simple theory. When you understand this basic theory. "tells" for most problem targets are not hard to find. Caps for example are alloyed, and have some steel--maybe rusted. That makes for a diverse signal thats "grounded to some extent. While I've still testing this machine there's no question that it has the fidelity to lose caps with out a whole lot of fuss. Just knocking out a couple of the "hinge" numbers is a good start. I have the sense that the EQ has the speed to not begrudge you a few rejects. Hate to see guys on the other forums thrashing about in what are basically "effects" not causes. cjc clivesgoldpage.com



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/11/2018 12:10AM by cjc.

cjc - interesting recommendation, but I confess that I don’t know what “hinge numbers” you are referring to.

“Just knocking out a couple of the "hinge" numbers is a good start.’

Looking forward to your book on the new machine!

Rick Kempf
Gold Canyon AZ- where there is no gold

Well, lytle there are some of the central cap numbers--14, 16, 17 but there's quite a lot of them. Some are decent glld numbers. I can say this: where you have a target that's as diversey alloyed as a cap, hitting it with the coil from a few angles will always produce one "wild" number.--in ground anyhhow--XLT 101. My point though is that when you understand the theory, there are always way to eliminate problem targets. For example they are going on about why Iron Bias wont eliminate caps. Well when you take the iron or more generally the inconsistent part of a part iron-- part non-ferrous target out--you clean it up! Just as when you pass an Excalibur coil over a cap a few times---the bias makes it sound better. With high-gain machines like the Deus, Impact and EQ--there's no substitute for simple basics--not even digging. Besides, no-one figured out what a Sovereign would and would not do within a couple of weeks....
cjc



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/11/2018 12:09AM by cjc.