earthmansurfer
Active member
I got my Rutus Jupiter a couple of days ago. (They actually call it an Optima in Germany.) I ran a variety of tests today, to try to give us both an idea of what it might be capable of, as it is known as a very very fast machine here in Europe (Deus light).
The Jupiter runs at 16kHz and has a CLEAR liking for low conductors, which you will notice in SOME of the tests. I got mine (luckily) with the DD coil - they also make a concentric.
The masking setting I talk about is quite interesting. At first it sort of seems a bit like a recovery setting but it is just a series of 6 filters numbered from 0-5. The lower range allows clipped or shorter signals to come through, which can be handy if you are after smaller targets, especially those in iron. The upper range would be more useful on coin hunting (I use 4), in mineralized ground to quieten things, etc. I think bottle caps produce a shorter signal and it might be helpful there, as well as with hot rocks - if I understand the instructions correctly - need to test.
I recommend you watch these in order, a bit more info on the machine early on in the videos. (Around 3 minutes each). The tests are going in the standardized direction but not thre yet. I would say it did quite well in the tests (I'm really unfamiliar with these sorts of tests - first I've done).
Test 1 - Monty's Nail board test
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQiGQ0hbSkI[/video]
Test 2 - Recovery speed test on 5 coins and then with nails in between.
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KP7gHE3dPVg[/video]
Test 3 - 2" square nail at 1" above coin (nickel and dime tried).
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6ehDymA-_c[/video]
Test 4 - 2" square nail next to coin
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19a3mbNOCTU[/video]
I hunted with the Jupiter for 3 hours today and pulled 6 or so coins. It was very sensitive on the small stuff but I wasn't fooled that much once Iearned the sounds some. I think running the filter higher up helped me to avoid some of a smaller tricky signals. I did get fooled on some very large deeper iron, but that gets most of the machines I've had.
The pinpoint (via trigger) works quite well at sizing objects and it's very easy to use. I say that as I've had some machines where the pinpoint didn't work so great. It has an E-Trac reminiscent quality to the sound - I think you can hear what I mean. Thus far, I wouldn't say it's a deep detector, but I'll have to see how deep it will go. I dug no coins deeper than 4" or so and know there are some deeper ones at the spot I hunted. I lowered the iron tone from what you see in the videos aboved and coins stood out quite a bit better (the lower tone sounded softer).
The detector seems VERY FAST but also quite manageble. Again, that filter setting is nice. I remember I had forgotten it was on 0 (from the testing) and things were noisy but then I remembered and after upping it from 0 to 4, things really quieted down. I ran the disc at 20 but probably could have dropped it a bit from there and still had a quiter hunt. I was able to run the machine at 42 (of 45 sensitivity) with no problems and it was VERY stable. I say that because some of the early machines had problems (circuit board too close to the screen caused falsing above 5!). My unit has not such problems. You can still send them in for a free upgrade though and that include the coil being re-attached to the control box (and not the back of the screen.)
The maching is around 600 Euro or Dollars. I bought it in used but like new condition for 300 on ebay. It is fairly programmable. You can adjust all of the following: ground balance - default or manual - gives ground voltage (40-200mV) and Phase, discrimination up to 50 (of 80 or so VID range, iron is up to 37 - wide range), notch, frequency adjust, backlight, volume, hot rock reject, threshold (level, tone), Tones - 1 or 3 or 2 programs (fully adjustable to 20 tones each), audio gain (for weak signals), masking filters, non motion mode - with audio threshold and tone and SAT, AND a mixed mode! Cool. (No, I'm not connected at all to Rutus in any way or to any distributors, dealers, etc.) It is a pretty fun machine, very simple but flexible.
I really got the machine to be a backup machine and also a site specific machine (heavier iron). The one thing I sort of dislike is the rod, you can't shorten it enough to be just in front of your feet. I do that to keep weight off my back. But the machine only weighs around 3 pounds with good balance so there were no problems at all today.
Hit me with questions and I can scan and upload the 19 page instruction book as a PDF if anyone likes.
Hope that was helpful,
Albert
The Jupiter runs at 16kHz and has a CLEAR liking for low conductors, which you will notice in SOME of the tests. I got mine (luckily) with the DD coil - they also make a concentric.
The masking setting I talk about is quite interesting. At first it sort of seems a bit like a recovery setting but it is just a series of 6 filters numbered from 0-5. The lower range allows clipped or shorter signals to come through, which can be handy if you are after smaller targets, especially those in iron. The upper range would be more useful on coin hunting (I use 4), in mineralized ground to quieten things, etc. I think bottle caps produce a shorter signal and it might be helpful there, as well as with hot rocks - if I understand the instructions correctly - need to test.
I recommend you watch these in order, a bit more info on the machine early on in the videos. (Around 3 minutes each). The tests are going in the standardized direction but not thre yet. I would say it did quite well in the tests (I'm really unfamiliar with these sorts of tests - first I've done).
Test 1 - Monty's Nail board test
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQiGQ0hbSkI[/video]
Test 2 - Recovery speed test on 5 coins and then with nails in between.
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KP7gHE3dPVg[/video]
Test 3 - 2" square nail at 1" above coin (nickel and dime tried).
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6ehDymA-_c[/video]
Test 4 - 2" square nail next to coin
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19a3mbNOCTU[/video]
I hunted with the Jupiter for 3 hours today and pulled 6 or so coins. It was very sensitive on the small stuff but I wasn't fooled that much once Iearned the sounds some. I think running the filter higher up helped me to avoid some of a smaller tricky signals. I did get fooled on some very large deeper iron, but that gets most of the machines I've had.
The pinpoint (via trigger) works quite well at sizing objects and it's very easy to use. I say that as I've had some machines where the pinpoint didn't work so great. It has an E-Trac reminiscent quality to the sound - I think you can hear what I mean. Thus far, I wouldn't say it's a deep detector, but I'll have to see how deep it will go. I dug no coins deeper than 4" or so and know there are some deeper ones at the spot I hunted. I lowered the iron tone from what you see in the videos aboved and coins stood out quite a bit better (the lower tone sounded softer).
The detector seems VERY FAST but also quite manageble. Again, that filter setting is nice. I remember I had forgotten it was on 0 (from the testing) and things were noisy but then I remembered and after upping it from 0 to 4, things really quieted down. I ran the disc at 20 but probably could have dropped it a bit from there and still had a quiter hunt. I was able to run the machine at 42 (of 45 sensitivity) with no problems and it was VERY stable. I say that because some of the early machines had problems (circuit board too close to the screen caused falsing above 5!). My unit has not such problems. You can still send them in for a free upgrade though and that include the coil being re-attached to the control box (and not the back of the screen.)
The maching is around 600 Euro or Dollars. I bought it in used but like new condition for 300 on ebay. It is fairly programmable. You can adjust all of the following: ground balance - default or manual - gives ground voltage (40-200mV) and Phase, discrimination up to 50 (of 80 or so VID range, iron is up to 37 - wide range), notch, frequency adjust, backlight, volume, hot rock reject, threshold (level, tone), Tones - 1 or 3 or 2 programs (fully adjustable to 20 tones each), audio gain (for weak signals), masking filters, non motion mode - with audio threshold and tone and SAT, AND a mixed mode! Cool. (No, I'm not connected at all to Rutus in any way or to any distributors, dealers, etc.) It is a pretty fun machine, very simple but flexible.
I really got the machine to be a backup machine and also a site specific machine (heavier iron). The one thing I sort of dislike is the rod, you can't shorten it enough to be just in front of your feet. I do that to keep weight off my back. But the machine only weighs around 3 pounds with good balance so there were no problems at all today.
Hit me with questions and I can scan and upload the 19 page instruction book as a PDF if anyone likes.
Hope that was helpful,
Albert
