A comment about sweep speed.

[Carolina Phil]

The X-Terra 70 seems to not have a required sweep speed for best performance. Whether I sweep slow, moderate or fast, I have not noticed any lack of depth. I haven't seen many comments made about this but, it's something I can appreciate. I felt I was going to swing my arm off with an XLT.

 

[Mick in Dubbo]

I looked into the sweep speed of the X-Terra's when I first bought mine Phil. You are right in that they are very forgiving as to the sweep speed that you use. The2 reasons are 1)The X-Terra's run a 2 filter system. I'm not quite sure as to what these filters are, how ever what I can tell you though, is that detectors come in 2, 4 and 6 filter configurations. With a 2 filter system, they are more forgiving with sweep speed and can be swung faster, where as if you had a 6 filter system , you need to swing your detector at a more precise speed or you will not pick up targets. The 6 filter system will give you more accurate information than a 2 filter system.
2) The X-Terra's have a fairly quick recovery speed. This means that the distance between targets can be a lot shorter, which will allow it to ping targets at a faster speed.
A couple of things that you may want take on board though when using a faster sweep speed. If you swing too fast, then only the area directly beneath the receive coil (inner coil) will pick up targets. Also, if there is trash in the ground, then if you swing too fast, then a bit of trash (or good target) can more easily mask another target which may be close by, due to the fact that the detector hasn't had time to reset itself (I think that this is where the filter system kicks in). Play around with your detector at home with a combinations of different targets on the ground at different distances apart. You might want to play around with how many targets you want to notch out as well, as this also effects the recovery speed of the detector. You will learn a lot about how your detector behaves in a very short space of time.
Have fun.
Mick Evans.

 

[Monte]

I will say that the X-Terra 70 does allow a LITTLE room for variance without impacting performance,HOWEVER, I can attest to the fact that they do require a more controlled sweep speed in higher mineralized environments.

I also noticed that if I increased my sweep speed in any of the motion discriminate modes I lost responsiveness fro the outer edge of the coil to the point that only those targets of sufficient mass and directly in line wit the axis of the coil's center produced responses.

I happen to be a fan of the XLT and I can sweep it relatively slow most of the time. Not creepy slow like a Classic or MXT or X-Terra, but slow enough due to the use of a smaller coil (I use a 6

 

[Elton]

Well stated Monte !!
Elton

 

[Carolina Phil]

n/t

 

[B.T]

I dont know if this will help as I hunt gold mostly , nuggets etc.
Swing too fast and say goodbye to 99% of what is right under your nose, just an inch or two deep. This is for prospecting mode.
A 1 gram nugget can be just an inch or two deep and if you swing at say for example 3 seconds from start of the sweep till the end you can on most occasions kiss it goodbye.
In prospecting mode it is as unfogiving as a PI.
Two days ago I was detecting an area where I have been getting gold, relics and coins. I chose a spot there where I had been over before but thought that there was too little on the first 2 goes targets wise.
After spending 3 hours covering what most would cover in 20 minutes I found an old traders token from 1859, a specie with 3 grams in it just 2 inches deep, another with 2 gs in it at about 3 inches deep and a surface one with 1 1/2 grams in it.
This I must say has no bearing upon how mineralised the ground is.
Its all about "TOTAL TARGET SATURATION".
I have seen it happen in the mildest to the worst ground and proven it to myself over and over.
Say you should be swinging at say 10 seconds at least per sweep for this total saturation, example only in seconds, now go 5 seconds per sweep and your only banging it with 50% of the grunt. Go now to a 2 second sweep and kiss just about everything goodbye.
Remeber though Im refering to Prospecting for gold here.
Hope this helps.