Explorer SE VDI ?

[synthnut]

Hi guys ...

I've read thru a lot of the Explorer threads to find an answer to my issues with my Explorer SE .....I bought the machine years back and tore it apart to make a water machine out of it ....Never touched it in YEARS !!..... Never knew what the VDI was on it or anything ...I own other detectors and just never bothered with this one ....I am now back in the saddle with detecting .....I have a number of great machines , but this SE is one that I want to complete just to have a cool water machine with VDI numbers that I don't have a lot of money into ..... I hotwired it to get it running to do some air tests , and my numbers do not match the charts that I'm seeing .....I realize that it was mentioned that the noise cancellation channels can change the numbers on the machine .....My lower Fer numbers are the ones that are off .....Instead of reading say an 04 instead it will read like Silver with an 00 ...... My clad dimes and clad quarters are reading like silver ....????........ I can't really move things around too much as the control box is seperate now and I have a Lipo wired in for power , and a seperate jack wired in for headphones .....all dangling around ....LOL !!...... Would these noise cancellation channels make THAT MUCH of a difference in VDI numbers ? ......I still get nice tones to go by even if the numbers don't fall into place ..... The numbers are consistant , just not what is in the charts that I'm seeing online ......Any idea what's going on ? .....THanks guys .....Jim

 

[Tony N (Michigan)]

Silver dimes should have a 00 Ferrous as well as other higher silvers. 28 conduct sound right.The Freq settings should not change the Fer/Con numbers at all.

 

[synthnut]

Hi Tony ,
Thanks for the reply ....Yes , I concur that silver dimes should read 00 Fer, but that is what I am reading when scanning CLAD dimes ......I"m also reading 00 Fer on clad Quarters when the chart shows a FER 04 for clad quarters ......In other words my CLAD dimes and quarters are showing a Fer 00, which is a reading for Silver, and not for clad for whatever reason ..... ???? ......What readings do you get on your clad dimes and quarters on an air test ? .....Thanks again for your time ....Jim

 

[synthnut]

Anyone else ? .....Thanks ...Jim

 

[synthnut]

OK ....After more reading , I'm not crazy !!....Being a Minelab machine , I guess I just assumed that there would be a different ID number for Silver and another different ID number for clad .....Not so !!....They ARE the same .....Truth be told I have to listen for a "tinkling" sound that is very slight on Silver coins .... and the most important thing said by Bryce in one of the thread was to judge which coin it is by the depth ....Good answer !!..... I guess I'm spoiled by my Etrac .... Good thing my Explorer is gonna be more of a beach machine .....If it's clad ,it will still put gas in my car !!.....Thanks guys ....Jim

 

[IDXMonster]

00-27/28/29 on the Explorer2 are quarters or larger coins...but silver dimes on mine always come in at 02/03-27/28/29. I've never dug a silver dime at 00-anything. Difference in models?

 

[synthnut]

IDXM,

I am reading 03 / 28 on ALL Silver dimes and also clad dimes .....I also read 00/28 on clad and Silver quarters .......

Not sure who wrote the Explorer VDI chart , but it's got some wrong numbers that make a guy like me starting out with the Explorer thinking that there is something wrong with the machine or the coil(s) that he has .....

google "Silver and Clad the same VDI on Minelab Explorer " and see what reads you find .....Also , I did not get many replies from my thread which leads me to believe that there are not many guys finding Silver to know that they will all fall into the same VDI as clad !!..... As I said earlier , when listening very close , Silver will have a "tinkling" sound or a "sparkly " sound to it ... For what it's worth , you're gonna dig it no matter what may be under the soil simply because of the sweet sound that any dime will make ..... BTW ...I have plenty of clad and plenty of Silver to check on my Explorer SE ....I even changed coils to see if that would matter ....NOPE !!.....They all read pretty much the same .... I'd like to see someone get an 01/29 reading from a clad dime as the chart shows .....????.......Better yet , show me where a clad quarter reads 04/28 !!.....??????......Where did these numbers come from ? ....... Sure screwed me up when testing my machine .... LIve and learn .....I would have posted some threads that talk about the same readings but they came from other forums , and did not want to post something from another forum on this forum ....Diplomacy ya know !!......Thanks to all for your help ....Jim

 

[BigTony]

There was a period of time that my Exp 2 wold give off a 00 30 and I knew it was a silver or two or more coins together but this hasn't happened in awhile.
I probably need to go to a different park and hopefully it will happen again. Along with those numbers I was getting the high pitch pinging sound that folks call a warble sound.

 

[synthnut]

BigTony ,
"warble sound " .....That was another definition that was given to the tone of Silver as opposed to clad on the Explorer in the threads I read ...... All of the Silver that I have dug was easily down between 6-12 inches and that was in old NYC parks running my Etrac ....They were few and far between when I got there ..... I detectied with a guy who's older brother detected these same parks many years before I did ..... He and his partner literally took BUCKETS of Silver out of those old parks ..... Funny how people back in the day were slobs just like now .....They threw garbage on the ground without even thinking about it ..... The parks were frequented more back then than they are today .....It was a big social thing to go to the park and mingle back in the day ...... One guy that detected with a few of us ran an Explorer when the rest of us had Etracs ..... The Etrac had just come out , and we were all learning them at the time ....This guy with the Explorer knew that machine like the back of his hand .....He pulled Silver probably 5 to 1 in his favor when detecting with us ...LOL !!.... I can still remember him breaking our chops about the price we paid for the Etracs when he was running an Explorer .....We're going back a few years .... Jim

I will try to hear the "warble sound" but I think that the depth is what will tell the story where I hunt .....

 

[BigTony]

Jim, yeah Central Park was fun. I too hit it after everyone did real well there - nowadays they have a permit system but not for that park.

I thought the warble sound was specific to Exp 2's I don't believe the sounds were carried forward to any other machines, except maybe the SE.
I still send in for NYC permit but with the bridge/tunnel tolls I rally go over there.

Tony

 

[IDXMonster]

The "warble" goes all the way through the eTrac and seems more prevalent in Conductive sounds. Why? Not sure...the warble is the INABILITY for the machine to correctly ID a target..the tone is fluttering very quickly between readings. You won't get a warble on a shallow to mid depth coin...but you will on something deeper,like 7"+. Silver coins are normally deeper,thus the ability to "call silver" when in reality it's just calling a deep highly Conductive coin.
That's how I see it anyway.

 

[BigTony]

IDXmonster, I didn't know that the eTrac gets a warble sound because an old friend (who passed) was not able to reproduce the sound of his Exp 2 and he tried for months before he sold it and bought another Exp 2. That was one reason why I didn't buy one myself, I bought a back up Exp 2 instead.
I do agree that there are times when the machine cannot id a coin but the sound (warble or not) alerts you to dig.
When I was getting the warble sound it almost always was a silver coin.

 

[IDXMonster]

IDXmonster, I didn't know that the eTrac gets a warble sound because an old friend (who passed) was not able to reproduce the sound of his Exp 2 and he tried for months before he sold it and bought another Exp 2. That was one reason why I didn't buy one myself, I bought a back up Exp 2 instead.
I do agree that there are times when the machine cannot id a coin but the sound (warble or not) alerts you to dig.
When I was getting the warble sound it almost always was a silver coin.

It makes a difference if it's in Ferrous or Conductive on my EX2 anyway...I too have hit Mercs in the 7-9" range that had a VERY specific tinkle sound to them...I knew exactly what they were before they came out. Having Variability cranked apparently helps to make this sound. It's fairly subtle but unmistakeable.

 

[Charles (Upstate NY)]

VDI numbers are supposed to represent the cursor position on the Smartfind screen, 31 to 0 for Ferrous content left to right, and 0 to 31 for Conductivity bottom to top. What I have seen across multiple models of Explorer has been fairly consistent EXCEPT for the Pacific NW soil, I'll get to that in a moment.

On a solid hit (I'm not talking iffy to god awful signals) silver dimes are the only coin I see get up to 31 on Conductivity, cursor half off the top of the screen, bounce between that top pixel 31 and 30 maybe. Very consistent Conductivity location for silver dimes. I use that cursor half off the top half of the screen to differentiate between clad dimes which don't get that high except on an occasional bounce, and silver dimes which do, occasionally bouncing a couple pixels lower but silver dimes love to hang out half off the top of the screen. As for Ferrous again pretty consistent on silver dimes, they don't drift left and right much.

Oddly silver quarters hit lower on Conductivity vs silver dimes, silver half dollars lower than silver quarters, and silver dollars lower than halves. The Ferrous for all three are pegged at 00 hence Ferrous tones produce the exact same tones for these larger silver coins. Something I find odd though is copper large cents rise above all three of these larger silver coins on conductivity. Even large cents don't get to conductivity 31, the only thing I have ever seen ID up in the top/right corner 00/31 is a hot rock. Clad dimes, wheat cents, zinc cents, Indians, silver dimes all have their locations on the screen they like to hang out. Not that they will hit on that exact x,y pixel location every swing by they like to mostly hang out within 1-3 pixels of their textbook location. VDI numbers should show the same thing, most swings should produce a textbook ID for that coin, with some swings varying a bit.

Someone theorized the fluty sounds of silver dimes aka warble as being the result of the machine not being able to accurately ID the coin. That may be partially correct, but there's more going on there than meets the eye. The shape of the target will also effect the tone. There is even some variation among silver dimes, a barber dime and silver Roosevelt dime sound the same, oddly the Mercury dimes have their own unique tone that's different. I believe due to the deep relief strike of the Mercury dime. Years ago I think it was Mike O who did a audio recording of (I think) a wheat cent, then he tapped the wheat cent with a hammer and wow it changed the tone quite a bit. Sweep a gold ring where the solder joint on the band has separated due to the freezing ground forcing it open those things sound weird as hell. To me silver sounds pure, almost harshly pure, smooth but harpy like someone who's voice you can't stand. Gold no mistaking it the smoothest buttery of all tones. Platinum rings dang, a tone all their own, go listen to a Plat ring on an Excaliber WONG love it. Nickel vs pull tab is where shape info into tones, I say yes. The moral of the story is look for shape in the tones.

The above Pacific NW exception...man so can soil throw ID off it would seem so. Out here in this soil I have noticed over the past few weeks the coins getting bunched together ID wise. Clad dimes up there with silver dimes, even over towards clad/silver quarters on some swings. Zinc cents higher on Conductivity than they should be, ditto wheats up there with silver dimes. Much more bunched together than I'm used to. Food for thought.

Final - at extreme depths, near the machines ability to even detect the target, ID is out the window completely. When a huge silver coin like a Spanich 8 reale ID's about 3/8 inch above and to the right of nickel in no mans land, yeah ID can be that far off. I have dug worn smooth half reales that ID'd about 1/2 inch right of rusty nails way over near the top/left of the screen. Smaller silver coins like half dimes, 3 cent silvers, much lower on the Conductivity axis. Ditto for small silver jewelry.

 

[IDXMonster]

Charles...you are saying that silver dimes or SOME silver dimes will read CO 31 on the Digital screen? Or that the cursor just tends to float in that area but the digital reading doesn't get that high? I've always been taught that no matter if you're using Ferrous or Conductive sounds,CO 31 is never a good target! Am I wrong?

 

[BigTony]

Yeah, I agree, it is definitely a cool feature. I believe Minelab didn't know what they had developed but folks that tried different settings did know and kept it a secret for a long time.

 

[BigTony]

I have never seen a silver at half off the top on my machines (I have two Exp 2's), but I look for that constantly. Now I have never dug a 00 31 and found a silver either. I have dug 00 31 and they were cents....probably newer ones, not before the 80's.

You have peaked my interest and will be on the lookout. I will dig a few test cases on 00 31 when I get out there for sure. Right now it's dry here in NJ and I am not traveling to the mountains to detect this week. Under trees you can still detect.

The Warble could be from the content of the material of the coin. I was told by older folks that they could tell the difference in new dimes and older dimes or even worn ones.
Now after all these years of hearing signals and digging them I believe they were correct.

what folks don't talk about are the sounds or VDI's of gold items in dirt.......awe those are another subject.

 

[synthnut]

Silver will read really high on an Etrac .....The number is really secondary to the tone however ......The tone on Silver is almost unmistakable ...It's a very sweet , flutey tone .....Very pure sounding ...No scratchy tone, and it jumps out at you .... Clad coins have more of a plain tone to them ... When air testing Silver and clad on my Explorer SE , they sound pretty much the same ....and the ID numbers hit the same too ....within one number depending on the coin ...... Silver sounds somewhat HiFi sounding on the Etrac ...Hard to explain .....The ID system is much wider on the Etrac ...It allows for more variability ..... I'll have to spend more time with the Explorer to get tuned into it's tones and warbles ...... As for now , clad dimes and quarters sound like Silver dimes and quarters at least with an air test ..... CO numbers on some Silver will hit in the upper mid 40's on the Etrac .....Remember though that the Etrac goes up to 50 on the Co. numbers .... When you add depth to the equation , you can basically through your numbers out the window ...You are relying on tone alone at that point ..... As others have said , you're not sure what it is that you're hitting , but you can give a good guess that there's no clad down that deep , and Silver is pretty much repeatable at depth even though the numbers might be off , the tone is still there ......Jim

 

[Charles (Upstate NY)]

Why this reported ID variance I wanted to know so I performed some tests. Prepare yourselves...yes ID does vary depending on the noise channel. I can also confirm coins hitting 30 and 31, at times due to the selected noise channel and at times when depth is such that the target begins to break up. At break up several of my test targets were hitting 30 and 31.

Conductivity at signal break up depth:

Barber Dime 1 - at break up hitting 30 and 31.
Barber Dime 2 - at break up hit 30.
Bust Dime - at break up hit 30 and 31.
Silver Coin Ring 1 - No variance consistent at 03/30
Silver Coin Ring 2 - 29 to 31 at break up.
1853 Large Cent - 29 and 30 at break up.
3 Cent Silver - Varied between 17 and 22 with 20 being the most consistent.
Seated Half Dime - 29 to 30 at break up.
Bust Half - 30 to 31 at break up.
1786 NJ Colonial - 30 at break up.
1921 Silver Dollar - 28 to 30 at break up.
1776 8 Reale - 27 to 30 at break up.
1751 8 Reale World Coin - 29 to 31 at break up.

The above was on noise channel 6 which the machine selected via a noise cancel cycle. Then I manually switched to channel 1 and things got real interesting. Lets have a look at channel 6 vs channel 1, these were the most consistent readings for each target on both channels.

Channel 6 / Channel 1

Barber Dime 1 changed from 03/29 to 02/30
Barber Dime 2 changed from 04/28 to 03/30
Bust Dime changed from 04/28 to 00/30
Coin Ring 1 changed from 03/30 to 01/30
Coin Ring 2 changed from 00/28 to 00/29
1853 Large Cent changed from 00/28 to 00/30
3 Cent Silver changed from 08/20 to 07/24
Seated Half Dime changed from 06/27 to 05/28
Bust Half changed from 00/29 to 00/30
1786 NJ Colonial changed from 00/29 to 00/30
1921 Silver Dollar changed from 00/27 to 00/28
1776 8 Reale changed from 00/28 to 00/29
1751 8 Reale was unchanged both channels were 00/28

Next I tested Barber Dime 2 on all 11 noise channels, twice to confirm, here are the results...interesting

Channel 1 - 03/30
Channel 2 - 03/29
Channel 3 - 03/29
Channel 4 - 04/28
Channel 5 - 04/28
Channel 6 - 04/28 to 29
Channel 7 - 04/28 to 29
Channel 8 - 04/28 to 05/28
Channel 9 - 05/28
Channel 10 - 05/28
Channel 11 - 05/28

 

[BigTony]

Charles, that makes sense to me because I manually change that depending on the site and explains why I lost the 00 30 reading on silvers.

And now I know why I haven't dug halves or doallars - the numbers are not what we expect.

Thank you for taking the time and performing these tests. This post should be a sticky for sure.