Deus XP out in the WA Goldfields

Hello all,

I've just signed up on the forum.

Having been a prospector with pan and eye for years I have finally crossed over into the modern age and bought a detector.

I've used a couple of detectors in the past over reasonable ground but never found any gold. A lack of time and inexperience would be the main factors there. I find the whole process most enjoyable regardless of the outcome as I am from a farming background so anything outdoors does it for me.

I have bought a XP Deus from Prospectors Patch in WA. Now I know there has been a lot of heated debate about this machine having read the forums however there is very little in the way of testing to validate how well the unit works out in the field.

From the outset I'd like to stress that while I'd rather have a GPX5000, I couldn't justify the cost and when a family friend offered to go in half and half with me, I couldn't say no. While I would love to hear about direct comparisons between different makes and models to the Deus out in the field on real targets, I don't want this discussion to be derailed and end up being a debate over option and preference. Science, if you you'd like to call it that.  

So, on to business.

Preliminary testing with the detector proved that it was remarkably sensitive, finding a piece of gold < 0.1 g (edit from 0.01) in a pile of calcrete and ferriginous gravel. The material was spread out over a tarp on clean ground, so as close to sterile conditions as one could hope for, however I had no idea if there was any gold in the 4 kg sample before starting.

I've also spent a few hours out in the goldfields, working solely with the "Goldfields" program to try and get a feel for the machine. It is remarkably easy to use, comfortable and due to its light weight very easy to handle when digging and getting in under trees and what have you. No surprises there.

As yet, no gold.  But in a total of four hours over some heavily worked ground I can't say that is unexpected. Some indication of penetration and sensitivity from junk and rock are as follows:

• Well rusted boot tacks and flakes of rusted steel - clear signal down to 100 mm in soul and ferriginous gravel.
  
• Cigarette paper foil - small pieces down to 150 mm in soil and gravel.
  
• Brass eyelets and copper wire - found a few small pieces, but all on the surface.
  
• Coke can - 30 cm in a creek bed in gravel.
  
• Maghemite rocks - only at surface. Once the coil is more than ~20 mm away they are silent.
  
• Enriched Banded Iron Formation (BIF) - 75 mm deep on small pieces, up to 15 cm on larger bits, in laterite. Sounds like steel at surface, and like a decent target if at depth.
  

For comparison on BIF:
The very kind colleague who has let me join him on his outings got a promising clean signal over laterite with thin soil cover. Using a Minelabs 2200 it gave a long, solid peaked signal. Having picked up nuggets to five grams in the area this response had him excited. The Deus gave a very similar signal, with the only difference being a slightly higher pitched peak. The source of the signal turned out to be a 15 x 10 x 4 cm slab of BIF between 10 and 15 cm deep.

The Deus found a 50 x 50 x 01 mm piece of BIF throwing a loud and clear signal at 50 mm in laterite, while the 2200 had no signal whatsoever on the same piece at surface. Both detectors using DD coils, in case you're wondering.


I do not know if the 2200 is better at discriminating out these rocks, but on steel and copper/brass they appear to work on an equal footing. The finer materials, such as cigarette paper foil, the 2200 also barely registers. I have not tried to tweak the setup on the controller at all with the exception of ground balance which is done as needed as I see the conductivity of the ground change.

If any of these observations relate to the experiences of others here I would be glad to hear of them. Likewise, anyone else out and about with a Deus looking for gold and having either success or failure please do post a reply. A negative result is just as useful as a positive one!

I will update as I spend more time using the Deus, and provide as much info as I can comparing it to other machines in the field.

Good to be able to share the story with like-minded folk.

Cheers,

RockDoc.

RockDoc wrote:
Preliminary testing with the detector proved that it was remarkably sensitive, finding a piece of gold < 0.01 g in a pile of calcrete and ferriginous gravel. The material was spread out over a tarp on clean ground, so as close to sterile conditions as one could hope for, however I had no idea if there was any gold in the 4 kg sample before starting. Cheers, RockDoc.

G'day RockDoc & welcome to the forum

< 0.01 of a gram, man that's thats microscopic, you would nee 100 bits that size to make 1 gram   Thats good for any VLF machine to find, dunno how small the GB2 will find, but what your talking about is damn small.

cheers dave

Hi Dave,

Will check the detection limit on the scales; the piece of gold would be about half a match heads worth. The sort of thing you'd like to see in a pan.

EDIT: Yes, scales to one decimal place in grams and two for ounces. Below detection limit in grams, so less than 0.1. Cheers Dave!

No worries mate, that size sounds more likely to be about 0.1 gram than the 0.01 gram.   

cheers dave

After a third evening on the ground results are similar. Found lots of small pieces of steel, aluminium foil that's been through a campfire, and lots more BIF. No gold from either detector.

Started tweaking some of the settings to try and knock out the rocks but with little luck. The result is all objects start to become harder to find: rocks and junk. I imagine this would greatly reduce the signal from gold as well.

The next move will be to test on some targets of known size in clean laterite to get a feel for what signal indicates a reasonable target.

RockDoc.

The result is all objects start to become harder to find: rocks and junk. I imagine this would greatly reduce the signal from gold as well.

Same thing happens with the Whites GMT....however  iv  found that 99% of the hot rocks over here no matter the size...all show up at around 50 on the graph of the GMT. Lower the gain and lower the  signal response, and id have a guess and say most all other VLFs would be the same, yet
i was kinda hoping the Deus had something up its sleeve the others didn't. 
Keep us up to date on the rest of your findings with the  XP Deus, much appreciated.