Moving to the Dark Side

[daddyflea]

I have been a Whites V3i user for the last couple years. I wanted another Detector for my Son and a Backup for me. I am also a little tired of all the adjustments. I just bought an E Trac from Big Boys. After the V3i reading the Manual on the E Trac makes it seem like this is a relatively easy detector to use. I am a Coin Hunter and after reading the Manual, which was great compared to the V3i Manual, I will most likely need to turn on Fast Recovery, change Trash from Low to High, and change the Soil type from Difficult to normal. I am in Texas where I hunt primarily old Houses and Fair Grounds. Any other suggestions or warnings I need to look out for?

 

[roadapple]

A bigger safe to store all the silver your going to now find with your new E-trac !!!!!

 

[squirrel1]

Well daddy flea,
You are in for a real treat.

You will be asking yourself after about 2 outings---- why did I wait so long.

Once you learn to recognize iron falses-- all down hill from there.

Also for the deep stuff manual sens of 25 or higher recommended. You'll notice the machine gets more sparky, but with experience you'll be pulling the goods-- deep too.

 

[oneguy]

Know nothing of the whites but remember to go slow with the Minelab, it takes some time to process all the info..........

good luck.........

 

[sprchng]

The V3i is a formidable machine which gives the user a great deal of technical information while the etrac relies more on an intuitive user. Many of the functions you can adjust on the V are done for you by the processor on the etrac which you may or may not come to like. I think you will miss the polar plot and the frequency shifting as well as the detailed ground analysis the V will give you if you have used them to any degree to this point. The tones are dramatically different as well as the VDI but they will come quickly with some simple air tests , just don't pick the trashiest site in your town for your maiden venture.

The etrac is a much simpler machine to run which allows your intuition to run it. May the force be with you...................

 

[hubbler]

Congratulations on the new machine. Think you will like it. Recommend you look at Goes4ever's Two Tone Ferrous (TTF) program, then look at DWild's "Cursor Bounce" video and explanation for identifying deep targets. Both are sure to speed up the learning process.

Good luck and be sure to post your progress.

HH


Ron

 

[E-Trac-Ohio]

If one isn't coming with your machine - be sure to get a copy of Andy's Explorer & E-Trac book - his book is much more detailed than the factory manual !

Good Luck !

 

[IDXMonster]

Flea- The settings depend on where you're hunting. If you're hunting where there are a lot of targets,maybe turn on fast,but it shortens the length of the audio signal,you have to swing slow. I'm an Explorer2 user and have found that fast doesn't need to be turned on,just slow the swing....a lot. Same with trash I'd imagine. If your dirt is mild then I guess you could run in normal,difficult would be for just that...difficult soil that would have a high ground balance number. None of this is really any different than any other machine and how you would run them,it just different terminology in some cases,the ideas the same. I came to the "dark side" from a modified Whites IDX Pro. I know that machine REALLY WELL,I've only had the EX2 since this summer. I've put many hours on the EX2 already and it takes time. Learning iron falsing from a good signal comes pretty naturally now. One piece of advice I feel I'm qualified to give is this....don't mess with all your settings. Sensitivity and Gain need to be adjusted to compliment each other. Gain amplifies the signal that the machine has already found. You can't turn up Gain and turn down Sens,that doesn't MAKE any sense. You need a good core group of settings that works in most of your sites and then just hunt those sites to get used to the sounds and reactions of the machine. If you're always tweaking this and that it'll be WAY harder to decipher what's good and bad. Don't forget to SIZE your target wiggling across it from two axis. Does it sound good? Reading OK or close? Is it the SIZE of a coin? All these are questions on any machine,don't forget to apply them in the same way. ID is GREAT on the EX2 at depth,I'd expect yours to be the same or similar. The smaller the coil the more you can rely on the ID. The deeper the target obviously it gets less reliable. I swing at around 3 seconds per four feet of ground,so that's actually pretty slow. The FBS machines aren't necessarily lightning fast. As someone said about the SE Pro being faster than the previous Explorers..."even a fast turtle is slow...". Personally,I hunt in multi tone Ferrous....everywhere. I started in Conductive and switched to Ferrous rather quickly. its just way easier to listen to,for me. You can try whatever you like,but as soon as you put together a core group of settings just leave it. Your biggest challenge to start with is going to be where you want to run your Sensitivity. Some say 25 and higher manual and just ignore the background noise. Others say auto Sens maxed out,let the machine make itself stable. I have honestly NOT found anything running manual Sens that I didn't find with Auto 28. But then again,I run manual very infrequently,I don't like to think the processor is just doing too much by having to deal with every minute fleck of everything in the ground. We're looking for coin sized targets,and to the machine ANY coin is a relatively large target. I don't want to listen to every grain of whatever,no need.....for me. Finding coins at 8-9" is no problem in my sites running Auto 28 with the x-12. I've found a couple deeper,but not many. I don't know if that many are there.
Good luck with it,don't get too anxious about finding all the coins right away. They will come with time,the EX2 is actually a very easy machine to run. You have to trust that the money you just spent was WELL spent,let the machine do what it's designed to do. I've been guilty of trying to out think the engineers and adjust things that make everything worse. Don't go there,it's a long trip back....

Kevin

 

[Dale(Ia)]

Flea- The settings depend on where you're hunting. If you're hunting where there are a lot of targets,maybe turn on fast,but it shortens the length of the audio signal,you have to swing slow. I'm an Explorer2 user and have found that fast doesn't need to be turned on,just slow the swing....a lot. Same with trash I'd imagine. If your dirt is mild then I guess you could run in normal,difficult would be for just that...difficult soil that would have a high ground balance number. None of this is really any different than any other machine and how you would run them,it just different terminology in some cases,the ideas the same. I came to the "dark side" from a modified Whites IDX Pro. I know that machine REALLY WELL,I've only had the EX2 since this summer. I've put many hours on the EX2 already and it takes time. Learning iron falsing from a good signal comes pretty naturally now. One piece of advice I feel I'm qualified to give is this....don't mess with all your settings. Sensitivity and Gain need to be adjusted to compliment each other. Gain amplifies the signal that the machine has already found. You can't turn up Gain and turn down Sens,that doesn't MAKE any sense. You need a good core group of settings that works in most of your sites and then just hunt those sites to get used to the sounds and reactions of the machine. If you're always tweaking this and that it'll be WAY harder to decipher what's good and bad. Don't forget to SIZE your target wiggling across it from two axis. Does it sound good? Reading OK or close? Is it the SIZE of a coin? All these are questions on any machine,don't forget to apply them in the same way. ID is GREAT on the EX2 at depth,I'd expect yours to be the same or similar. The smaller the coil the more you can rely on the ID. The deeper the target obviously it gets less reliable. I swing at around 3 seconds per four feet of ground,so that's actually pretty slow. The FBS machines aren't necessarily lightning fast. As someone said about the SE Pro being faster than the previous Explorers..."even a fast turtle is slow...". Personally,I hunt in multi tone Ferrous....everywhere. I started in Conductive and switched to Ferrous rather quickly. its just way easier to listen to,for me. You can try whatever you like,but as soon as you put together a core group of settings just leave it. Your biggest challenge to start with is going to be where you want to run your Sensitivity. Some say 25 and higher manual and just ignore the background noise. Others say auto Sens maxed out,let the machine make itself stable. I have honestly NOT found anything running manual Sens that I didn't find with Auto 28. But then again,I run manual very infrequently,I don't like to think the processor is just doing too much by having to deal with every minute fleck of everything in the ground. We're looking for coin sized targets,and to the machine ANY coin is a relatively large target. I don't want to listen to every grain of whatever,no need.....for me. Finding coins at 8-9" is no problem in my sites running Auto 28 with the x-12. I've found a couple deeper,but not many. I don't know if that many are there.
Good luck with it,don't get too anxious about finding all the coins right away. They will come with time,the EX2 is actually a very easy machine to run. You have to trust that the money you just spent was WELL spent,let the machine do what it's designed to do. I've been guilty of trying to out think the engineers and adjust things that make everything worse. Don't go there,it's a long trip back....
You make some good points, Kevin!

Iowa Dale

Kevin

 

[Thompson44]

Andy's book is a must read, now find you a SunRay X1 for it. it's a great complement to the machine. HH