CTX 3030 - Design Notes

[Silverstore]

I am actually using the E-Trac but was yesterday together with a friend who has the CTX, so i took a closer look.
I want to share some personal thinkings on the general Design of the CTX, hoping to get the opinion of those using the CTX for longer time as a reply to my "first look" ideas.

Currently the CTX is the crown of the user-market detectors.
Compared to the E-Trac he has

- a lightnig fast Recovery time
- the Target Trace feature, even for two targets at the same time
- GPS for those who want it

and that seems to be the major improvements.

If i see things right, the CTX is ARM based and has a much faster CPU then the E-Trac, and that plays a major role, why the Recovery Speed is better.

Making the machine water proof to put it into the water seems not so easy. At least that is my impression when reading the many discussion in german forums about this topic.
You have to go through a list of several steps and even buy another headset to get it waterproof. In short, my impression on this "water proof topic" is, that this machine will survive a rain and that is fine.
But if you really like to go diving use an dedicated excalibur for that and do not risk this rather expensive CTX getting wet. Especially if after some time there is a little bit Sand here and there this is what may happen.

About the User Manual.
Reading the user manual from the CTX (german version) the first thing i noticed, was that it must have been done by people without any deeper knowledge of what they were writing about.
This one contains more or less funny sentences, it often uses wrong words, there is even a dead link to "page 1".
I can directly compare this to the User Manual from the E-Trac which was in perfect german and was really complete. It was made from somebody with excellent knowledge on the E-Trac.
If they had just copied a lot from there many mistakes and a lot of more or less funny wrong explanations could have been avoided.

Seeing some comparissons on YouTube and reading the manual, i came to the conclusion that the "metall locating engine" seems to be the same between the E-Trac and the CTX (and even the Explorer SE) in short between all FBS(2) machines.
Thats why i like reading stories like these which rather proof my idea on this topic:

http://www.findmall.com/read.php?18,1767391,1767391#msg-1767391

In fact technologically there are very few changes (FBS 2). And they seem not to play a big role in depth. Thats why i personally see all reports on "I find more ... less with the CTX then with E-Trac" as subjective.
Sometimes if you take a close look, there is a settings problem. for example: "deep on" is a good idea before making comparisons. Having said this, i believe that the switches on the CTX do not all do exactly the same like on the E-Trac.
Especially "deep on/off" and "fast on/off". Because of inner values that have changed.

This leads me to the "Fast" Setting. The CTX has lightning fast Recovery times. Why does he need an explicit "fast setting"?
However as it is there now, the whole chapter on this stuff could have been copied 1:1 from the E-Trac Manual. Instead of writing funny thing people may not understand if they do not already know what its about (in the german version).

That leads me to the CTX User-Interface.
One thing thing that was really good on the E-Trac was the buttons and the Menu (=the User Interface UI).
You do not need a long time and you can use it!

Now if you just count the buttons on the CTX there are less buttons there. And more functions (GPS). Less buttons and more function?
That is only possible, if you now press more buttons to get the same thing.

And there is even a "User Button" which can be set up for multiple needed functions. Which counts as "one button less", becasue in fact it doesn't have that needed function that you may need now.
And then there is one more button on the backside of the machine. Why so complicated ?

I could not realize why somebody can "redesign" a working concept (E-Trac UI) into this new User Interface with less buttons.
I can only imagine that some marketing people said "remove some buttons so it doesn't look so complicated".

In my opinion, there are at least four or five buttons missing on the CTX to have all often needed things in immediate access.
At least one Button for each of the possible functions that is on the "User Button".

This leads me to the upgrade question. The E-Trac was on the market and it was successful. Normally a company should be interested in their users to upgrade to a new machine.

Doing so, they should try to keep the usage a bit consistent. Means, "If i was using the old machine, i can immediately use the new machine becasue the UI is same".
They could have just been using the menu design from the E_Trac and add some options. Then add some buttons for the GPS. This would have been the way to go as i see it.
Now as an E-Trac user, i could not easily start with the CTX, as things are not organized in an "upgrade way". Just to save some buttons things look quite different now.

And then, I may haven an search pattern on my E-Trac. Why is there no official way to have it ported to my new CTX? You don't want me to upgrade?

A search patternis basicaly a 35x50 points bitmap. And its the same on both machines.
It can not take longer then 2 days for a programmer who has all needed data to make a conversion tool.
And to make it perfect, it should also be able to share search patterns with the E-Tracs backwards.

One question on the GPS.
I did not understand where my geodate is stored if i use Exchange 2. Is it stored on MineLab Servers or locally?
In times where we use an apple iPhone we are used to share all our data, names, adresses friend .... with the world. We are used to have all our data on "public servers".
Of course you can not access them. But people with enough money ... can. And all US agencies can.And hackers mayalso be able (SONY not too long ago ...).

If one of those seven rich US families buys Minelab because they are funny to do so, will they also get immediate access on all Geo-Data where we were going and what we were doing with the CTX?
Because they have access to the Exchange2 database? Is there a way to use the Exchange and store all data only on the local PC?
I do not think this is a issue for 99% of people. But generally i prefer to have a little bit of control over my data left.

Having said this, i still believe that the CTX is actually the best machine on the market, and now i would like to hear your comments on my ideas.
As said they are currently based on a short look over things (i plan to get my CTX soon). Is there anybody who believes that I'll change my opinion when i have it?

 

[Guvner]

I sure don't know his test conditions nor are they the same as others. I've seen tremendous signal strength from very deep targets plus there's not many machines that can play with the CTX in a trashy site. I've had all three FBS detectors and like a lot of other people feel this is a very good upgrade with just tons of new things you can try. At this point most of us are hunting for targets that are masked or otherwise made undetectable for most previous machines. This one does some very new things that have never been broached.

Just my take on it...

G..

 

[Silverstore]

I have no doubt about that. I believe its a consequence of the FBS2, which may dramatically reduce noise with deep targets in not so trashy area.

If you have used all FBS-Machines.
Make also a comment on the UI (User Interface). I have seen four level deep Menus with the CTX.

Would you agree to my impression, that the UI with the E-Trac was simpler, faster to learn and more practical?
How about my general comment that some more buttons would have been a good idea with the CTX?
Or do you think "its all perfect as it is" ?

 

[Ray-Mo.]

The CTX is more advanced than most other machines and requires a bit more practice to learn it properly .That does not mean it is overly complicated, just newer and different from previous models. Lots of machines are less complicated with some only requiring one or two knobs to operate but that certainly does not make them perform better than the CTX.

The Wright brothers plane was a lot more simple to operate than today's small planes but I doubt many pilots would prefer the Wright Flyer I over a Cessna .

 

[Beyonder]

Having experienced both the etrac and the ctx, I can tell you this.

The etrac is a great machine and has a profound ability to differentiate between different targets by sound alone. I.E. A clad dime and a silver dime, there is an audio worrble produced when you encounter the silver, and not on the clad. Design wise the etrac feels clunkier and rather heavy but solid. I would be very happy using the etrac again.....if the ctx didnt exist.

The ctx has a processor speed advantage that goes hand in hand with fbs 2. The speed is noticeable and since we are talking fractions of a second, the ctx must be 4 times as fast as the etrac. This is important because targets group together and if there are multiple targets, a single sweep may produce two targets on the etrac and that same sweep will produce more with the ctx. It's one of the reasons I believe people are finding more stuff. The cursor is also more "locked" in on a target than the etrac(which bounces alot). Target trace is a great tool as you can clearly get an idea on what might be under your coil. However at 6-7 inches it starts to lose effectiveness which can be fixed with a software upgrade I believe anyway. Yeah there's gps, water proofing...but its the performance that really shines here. I'm glad I switched.

Bey

 

[Silverstore]

I agree to that.
About the water proof, people told me that the CTX can in no way replace the real excalibur for treasure divers.

The signals seem not to have the same high quality under water, and of course the handling is not optimized for underwater. As it is with the excalibur.
Thats why I say "its good that the CTX is waterproof" but if you go diving prefer the real thing, that is the excalibur.

If the Target trace looses effectiveness at 6-7 inch, how comes that you think it can be handled with an SW Update?
By changing the statistics frequency values depending on depth?

I thought of this:
Actually you can only choose "YES" or "NO" in your smartfind pattern. Its basically a 1 bit pattern.

If they could redesign the Smartfind-Discrimination a bit, in a way that it has more "bits per pixel". For example 2 bit (=4 colors).
That you can derfine "Signal Strenghts" in that pattern.

So you can define that things will only make a sound, if they get at least an a definable number of hits in a defined time.

Actually that IS visually displayed in the Smartfind in different colors (Target Trace).
But it does not yet influence the Sounds/Discrimination.

This way you could possibly increase sensitivity without getting too much noise from ground interference.
And then because of higher sensitivity possibly have stronger signals. And less problems.

Taking a peek in optical QS, this system is called "subpixel resolution" and is already in use since years.
Then they could add "Auto +5" or even more to the available options in Sensitivity. Without having the machine getting too noisy.