MDT testing

Well everyone seems to have came up with an easy way to test on the beach so i thought id try it. My equipment consisted of a 20" piece of 2" pvc with a rubber cap i glued in place on one end. I found that a 1 1/4" pvc cap fit perfectly inside the 2" tube. I picked up a tap measure at wal-mart which is retractable and made of some sort of plastic for cloth measuring. I glued it inside the cap.... outside it wouldnt allow the cap to slide its just that close. I ended up drilling a hole even in the bottom of the cap so air could escape and allow it to fall quickly. You dont now how deep 20" is until you start digging a hole lol. I did a quick test of some of the gold targets i was curious about which can be a little challenging at my house with all the EMI. Those numbers reflect......GRAMS...K.....SIZE....and DEPTH. The cap is just under 2" so it did not pick up the chain..... but i could get an inch or so on it just dropped on the wet sand. I was using my IN THE WATER setting.... blk sand off, AM, -1 threshold, 9 sensitivity, SB 30, and GB 560 and the 12" coil. This set up was easy to use just dropping the targets in. Looks like it could be used for a test garden for dirt as well. Just put yourself a cap on top and take it off when needed. I didnt try it but it looks like it might be able to test up to a silver dollar. Of course as i left the beach.... then talked to a couple fellow hunter i ended up with a list of things to test lol. I did notice one thing about GBing. Rarely do i change my GB from 560 since it seems to work well in the salt water. I wanted to see what auto GB might change ... this can be a trick for my area it can throw you a lot of high or low digits since there isnt a lot of minerlization ... but there can be concentration in the wet sand. What i ended up with was a GB of 460ish.... which seemed to add about 1/2" depth. I did try switching to 12 and 18khz.... but didnt do a lot of tweaking.... still running hot it seemed 12khz was a little cleaner sound and could get an added 1" or more over 9khz. BUT... if compared at the same depth ... i still liked the response 9khz made. Im more of a hunter than a tester.... and i dont do videos.... but clearly i can use this to help tweak my machine easier.

Good report. Thanks Dew!

Were the rings on 'edge'? How did you keep them flat?

I like 18Khz for wet slope....... and 9Khz for IN the water.

Tom.... no. That cap i used allowed the rings to lay flat in the bottom. I believe the cap is large enough at 1 1/4" to be used for say a silver dollar. IF i was still dirt digging id bury a tube like this. I could then test several coins pretty easily.... then just put a 2" cap on the tube when done. Im not tester so those numbers were from IN the water setting. I have no doubt 18 and 12khz could squeeze out more depth. It was more of a test to see how it reacted to .... Plt, high K and some smaller gold. MOST people wanting to hunt with the MDT would get much better depth than this in other freqs in the wet and dry sand. I was about mid slope some water in the hole but not much. I checked the sand as i removed it to ensure there were no targets then buried the tube to the top of the tube with the area around it being flat. With my settings im sure this makes it a crude test..... but you have to start somewhere so you have some idea what to expect out there. 20" is one heck of a hole so i dont know if i can get that tube down there IN the water.... id like to try this in the water. This years has really been windy.... now we have a little red tide... AGAIN.

I will be coming up with a report soon. Not sure if an open hole to a target is a fair test. I am VERY impressed with the 12" coil. There have been a few deep targets recovered.

Several targets, I have removed some sand to get a better ID and then once iron is found move on.

The MDT does an incredible air test with targets exposed sitting on wet sand. My experience so far tells me with ocean salt, black sand and targets set by mother nature one will find different results.

Got it! I think I understand you now.....Dew. The cap stays perfectly flat (parallel to Earth's gravity).....due to the 'height' of the cap (how tall the cap is). This is to say.....the side-wall of the cap is up against the interior of your 2" diameter PVC.....which keeps the cap from tilting or tumbling. Sort of like a piston in a cylinder.

midalake........ you bring up a critical point. If you were to test the EQX in the wet salt on a hollow 2" PVC pipe that is completely empty (no metal)............,,,,,,,,,,,,the EQX would detect it as a target.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,., due to the disturbance in/of the sand. (Sort of a 'divot' in the sand). When the EQX coil is swept over: wet-salt-----------------no wet-salt-----------------wet-salt. . . . . . . that "no salt" delta....... is enough of a disturbance to look like a good target. This would badly skew your testing resultant .......should you: head-to-head compare these two detectors.

Filling the PVC with saltwater would eliminate any air voids and also more accurately create the salt/sand conditions that you want for testing.