Is the Etrac really slow in iron?

Cant say much as far as performance in patches of iron or nail board test BUT I can say that the E Trac is a excellent performer in "Real World" conditions.
If I am going to a park or a private residence then I know this machine is going to find the goods if they are there.
Now if I am hitting an iron infested colonial cellar hole with tons of iron then the Deus gets pulled out.

Recovery is not slow, when most talk about recovery they refer to the machines ability to pick a good target among bad targets. In reality recovery is the ability of the machine to see and tone on multiple targets in close proximity to each other and most lay out a row of targets and sweep the coil at different speeds. If you can hear all the targets recovery is good, if you tend to hear only a couple of tones or a single blended tone, recovery not so good.

With the etrac it sees the targets and the trick we want it to do is tone off on a good target next to bad one. That is a matter of tweaking settings. Deus is very good at this. Also the smaller the coil the easier it is to accomplish this with most any detector. Impact IMO is the easiest machine to set up and run and ignore iron. It am digging silver dimes at 8 to 9 inches in very iron infested sites with super solid ID and tone. Etrac has been very popular for it's ability to have a very stable ID to about 8 inches. Deus ID is not so stable but tones are solid. I have also dug less false iron at 8 inch depth with Impact than any other machine i have owned, and that is almost all of them besides a polish and russian machines.

But i still grab my etrac with either 8x6 sef or smaller coil, and my deus to hunt and sometimes by ctx with 6 inch coil.

That's a good vid and basically shows how you set most machines here in the UK to relic hunt using disc or tone break.
But what happens when you add smaller/bent or more iron/nails etc, this is when the iron jumps above the disc level and gives a high dig tone, that's where this setting shows how good or bad the disc or tone break and separation between targets is.

Here's a vid showing a Rutus set as above to break tone at a 3" nail, but watch must how many nails can be added before it loses the coin, this isn't foolproof either as sometimes smaller thin bent nails are harder to disc out than large nails, but i'd bet in this scenario the Etrac couldn't handle as much iron, and would probably null and miss the coin long before the Rutus.


https://youtu.be/UBze7ZueJnQ

Impact has the best live feed meter application of any detector I have used when hunting in iron.

Meaning its meter, the way it behaves tells user more on average.

And this when used in conjunction with tones to include iron tones = deadly!!

My controlled site testing of unit showed this too.


Etrac can be set up to hunt in iron better, but this comes with some disadvantage.

Lowering disc to 32.
But what a person will be doing is resweeping a lot of high tone falses leaking through.
Caused by different sizes of iron.

Unlike the Deus, it does overall better job of IDing iron with correct tones and is smoother as far as reporting.

Need loads of patience using Etrac in iron loaded sites.
CTX really is similar but its audio reporting is smoother somewhat since combine mode is possible, and a person can at lest set their tones.

Fbs units running in higher manual sens will be doing a lot of snap crackle and popping.
And deeper and or smaller nonferrous, especially lower conductive will be walked by running auto sens or manual sens dialed in lower to try and help quieten fbs /fbs2 units,

I can run 93 sens on Deus in a really bad site and hunt pretty good.

Boat anchor weight detectors, really hard to have the true coil finesse movement needed for longer periods of time when hunting wall to wall iron sites.
Will take its toll on a person.

So Equinox here may answer the calling for some, even me.

People have no idea what they miss unless they hunt it with other detectors and other coils and from different directions. Can the Etrac hunt iron? Yes. Are there better detectors for hunting iron? Yes.

Not all audio, the way it works on detectors is created equal.

Some models audio is more intuitive.

For example Etrac is basically sound of tone really. And consistency of tone.
No so much duration.

Deus is sound of tone, consistency of tone and duration of tone.

Etrac closer to beep and dig ideally than Deus when hunting in iron.

So Deus capable of giving more latitude - signal wise vs Etrac.

Etrac would be more of a go/no go on suspect targets.
Deus would have more capability to give more grey area signals.
Some of these grey area signals could be ferrous or could be nonferrous.

Btw a Fisher F75 would be closer to the way Etrac reports tonally.
Makro Racers, Impact closer to the way Deus reports.
White's V3 series closer to Etrac the way they report.

Remember I am talking about really here, how each detector compares when they face a nonferrous target that is highly challenged yet detectable.
This not head to head tests.

Lots of people may read this thread.
Even new detectorist or folks thinking about getting in to detecting.

It is my humble opinion.
Best test to do with your detector, so you can see what you are up against while detecting, and how your detector performs using various settings / coils.
Get yourself a non metallic ruler to measure for comparison sake.
Get yourself a 10dd nail, bury say a dime at 3" deep and mark with some thing plastic as far as its location.
Lay the 10dd nail off to the side of your buried dime. And sweep the dime from various directions. Even consider changing orientation of nail.
Then start changing the distance the nail is placed form dime.

Then bury dime at say 5" deep and repeat.

Eye opening experience here for some folks.
Will definitely give them some great info to use and think about when detecting.

You can bury dime deeper and try depending on detector model.

And yes, even doing the test with both objects on top of the ground is important too.

When doing the buried dime and nail test above.
Key thing to do, try and booby trap the nail into a position so your detector JUST barely alerts you to the buried dime. And pay particular attention to your coil movement speed.

Sounds like the Impact is a better choice. Thanks for the feedback.

ghound said:

That's a good vid and basically shows how you set most machines here in the UK to relic hunt using disc or tone break.
But what happens when you add smaller/bent or more iron/nails etc, this is when the iron jumps above the disc level and gives a high dig tone, that's where this setting shows how good or bad the disc or tone break and separation between targets is.

Here's a vid showing a Rutus set as above to break tone at a 3" nail, but watch must how many nails can be added before it loses the coin, this isn't foolproof either as sometimes smaller thin bent nails are harder to disc out than large nails, but i'd bet in this scenario the Etrac couldn't handle as much iron, and would probably null and miss the coin long before the Rutus.


https://youtu.be/UBze7ZueJnQ

Click to expand...

I did a quick test just now to see how many nails i could stack like your video post. I put the ends of my nails 1/8 inch from a clad dime (pointed end) i put all the heads the other way. Heads are about the size of pencil erasers. Not sure if your video had heads that size or not, but i have noticed in other tests that nails with heads are worse than straight nails. Here are my results.

CZ-3d 2 nails, fails at 4
etrac 4 nails, fails at 6
ctx 6 nails, fails at 8
impact 8 nails, fails at 10
mojave 6 nails, fails at 8
at max 4 nails, fails at 6
v3i 4 nails, fails at 6

Etrac 6 inch coil, ctx 6 inch coil, mojave 7 inch, impact small elliptical , max elliptical concentric pro coil, v3i 5.3 inch coil. My deus is on loan should get it back soon and will add to these results.

Superb data Trashfinder, thanks for posting it as many of those detectors I've not yet used.
I'd say your Deus will be the same as the Rutus, i found them very close, Impact done dang good too.

Trashfinder said:

I did a quick test just now to see how many nails i could stack like your video post. I put the ends of my nails 1/8 inch from a clad dime (pointed end) i put all the heads the other way. Heads are about the size of pencil erasers. Not sure if your video had heads that size or not, but i have noticed in other tests that nails with heads are worse than straight nails. Here are my results.

CZ-3d 2 nails, fails at 4
etrac 4 nails, fails at 6
ctx 6 nails, fails at 8
impact 8 nails, fails at 10
mojave 6 nails, fails at 8
at max 4 nails, fails at 6
v3i 4 nails, fails at 6

Etrac 6 inch coil, ctx 6 inch coil, mojave 7 inch, impact small elliptical , max elliptical concentric pro coil, v3i 5.3 inch coil. My deus is on loan should get it back soon and will add to these results.

Click to expand...

Anxious now to get it back and try it.

What if I change the question and ask how the Etrac does in parks loaded with pulltabs, canslaw and bottle caps, where iron is present, but not predominant? Would the Impact still have the advantage here? Should mention the goal would be finding the old silver coins, not so much modern clad.

Thanks, and some very informative responses so far.

Dan

Dan B said:

What if I change the question and ask how the Etrac does in parks loaded with pulltabs, canslaw and bottle caps, where iron is present, but not predominant? Would the Impact still have the advantage here? Should mention the goal would be finding the old silver coins, not so much modern clad.

Thanks, and some very informative responses so far.

Dan

Click to expand...

So I have used the Etrac predominantly the last two seasons, and have pulled a coin with a clear coin signal with as many as three nails retrieved, and other ferrous hits still in the ground according to the carrot. I have just had the same results with the V3i just a month ago.

The Etrac does perform fine in real world test. Air testing and nail board test, do provide valuable info, but probably miss as much data as they provide, since the results don't often reflect the ground mineralization, the halo effect, depth, ground/signal filtering and 3 dimensional targets.

Some machines will outperform some machines in certain situations, and ground conditions, but just like you can't predict the non ferrous targets ahead of your coil, you can't predict the conditions you will be swinging in.

Dan,
A few things here.

You will see where folks compare detectors saying they see things another won't.

But there is some thing else to consider.

Actual use.

You see you tubes typically show when comparing detectrors,,,the location of find is already known.

So some comments could be applied to perfect/ideal use of detector and coil.
And some could be applied to actual general use. (More real world)

The sweeping of a coil is sweeping.
The hovering of a coil is hovering.
The wiggling of a coil is wiggling.

Targets can be found doing all of the above.

But does a person want to cover ground?
Or spend more time on average in few sites?

Time can be an important factor.

Finds per time detected.

Junk finds per time detected too.

There are trade offs.