QED

[washgravel]

Thanks Cando for your report.
When you mentioned you have the QED2 version from Detech I take it to look the same as the one in the latest pictures that "grubstake" posted in the the "QED info thread" which is different to my version. Sounds like the Detech 11" ultra coil is the go to coil. Keep persevering as there is no doubt the QED is capable of detecting gold in mineralised ground and it will be interesting when you try the Coiltek 14" if it is the Elite type?

 

[petere]

Thanks for the reply Cando. Will be at Laanecoorie this w/end so may be able to try a detech coil

 

[Cando]

Thanks Cando for your report.
When you mentioned you have the QED2 version from Detech I take it to look the same as the one in the latest pictures that "grubstake" posted in the the "QED info thread" which is different to my version. Sounds like the Detech 11" ultra coil is the go to coil. Keep persevering as there is no doubt the QED is capable of detecting gold in mineralised ground and it will be interesting when you try the Coiltek 14" if it is the Elite type?

Yes it's a Coiltek Elite

 

[washgravel]

Howard will be at the Laanecoorie Gold Bash and will happily demonstrate that the QED with the 12 EVO will detect the coins at the distances in the chart.
These are the settings he used when he repeated the test this morning using the external speaker.
Mode 3, gain 3, bias neutral and vol 52 on his QED. The coins both give a low tone. If you use headphones these distances can be exceeded if you listen just for changes in threshold pitch. The pitch change will trigger before a change in vol and for some targets the only indication is a change of pitch or threshold break.

Cando it will be of interest on how you feel that 14" elite compares to the 11" Ultra on your QED.

Btw in regards to me questioning those air depth results of 15" on a $2 coin and 17" on a $1 coin that I was unable to attain with a 12" Evo then as AEGF says the QED will be demonstrated at the Gold Bash that it is capable of attaining those depths although I did not use the exact same settings for the results that I got.
Maybe you could see what your QED can achieve on both coins with your 11" Ultra and 14" Elite using the settings that AEGPF posted.

It appears also it may be best to use headphones and concentrate more on the threshold Pitch response then the Volume of the response from the target.
Therefore I just have to my head around that difference between the Pitch and Volume responses for extra depth?

I struggle to raise my Gain above 1 on the ground that I have detected over so far even after trying higher Mode settings although this could be due to the 12" Evo?

I see "petere" will be at the Gold Bash so be interesting if he reports back here on what he saw in regards to the QED and coils?

Thanks
Robert

 

[Guest]

Howard will be at the Laanecoorie Gold Bash and will happily demonstrate that the QED with the 12 EVO will detect the coins at the distances in the chart.
These are the settings he used when he repeated the test this morning using the external speaker.
Mode 3, gain 3, bias neutral and vol 52 on his QED. The coins both give a low tone. If you use headphones these distances can be exceeded if you listen just for changes in threshold pitch. The pitch change will trigger before a change in vol and for some targets the only indication is a change of pitch or threshold break.

Cando it will be of interest on how you feel that 14" elite compares to the 11" Ultra on your QED.

Btw in regards to me questioning those air depth results of 15" on a $2 coin and 17" on a $1 coin that I was unable to attain with a 12" Evo then as AEGF says the QED will be demonstrated at the Gold Bash that it is capable of attaining those depths although I did not use the exact same settings for the results that I got.
Maybe you could see what your QED can achieve on both coins with your 11" Ultra and 14" Elite using the settings that AEGPF posted.

It appears also it may be best to use headphones and concentrate more on the threshold Pitch response then the Volume of the response from the target.
Therefore I just have to my head around that difference between the Pitch and Volume responses for extra depth?

I struggle to raise my Gain above 1 on the ground that I have detected over so far even after trying higher Mode settings although this could be due to the 12" Evo?

I see "petere" will be at the Gold Bash so be interesting if he reports back here on what he saw in regards to the QED and coils?

Thanks
Robert

The VCO (pitch changes) in the QED will trigger at much ,much lower signal level than the VCA (vol change). On some very deep or very small targets only the VCO may be triggered.Dean at Goldsearch who has found hundreds of tiny bits with his QED only listens for pitch changes.Headphones will help with this but it needs to be understood that the QED VCA has no gain circuit(in contrast to the supplied external speakers) so a headphone system needs to have some gain which is why some users are using wireless systems like that JRbeatty uses (sennheiser RS160) which work very well with the QED.
The EVO is the most sensitive coil to use on the QED but is also the most difficult to use on hot ground. On very hot ground the experience is that a gain of 1 may be the most you can use and the mode may even have to be taken out to 15.

 

[Cando]

Howard will be at the Laanecoorie Gold Bash and will happily demonstrate that the QED with the 12 EVO will detect the coins at the distances in the chart.
These are the settings he used when he repeated the test this morning using the external speaker.
Mode 3, gain 3, bias neutral and vol 52 on his QED. The coins both give a low tone. If you use headphones these distances can be exceeded if you listen just for changes in threshold pitch. The pitch change will trigger before a change in vol and for some targets the only indication is a change of pitch or threshold break.

Cando it will be of interest on how you feel that 14" elite compares to the 11" Ultra on your QED.

Btw in regards to me questioning those air depth results of 15" on a $2 coin and 17" on a $1 coin that I was unable to attain with a 12" Evo then as AEGF says the QED will be demonstrated at the Gold Bash that it is capable of attaining those depths although I did not use the exact same settings for the results that I got.
Maybe you could see what your QED can achieve on both coins with your 11" Ultra and 14" Elite using the settings that AEGPF posted.

It appears also it may be best to use headphones and concentrate more on the threshold Pitch response then the Volume of the response from the target.
Therefore I just have to my head around that difference between the Pitch and Volume responses for extra depth?

I struggle to raise my Gain above 1 on the ground that I have detected over so far even after trying higher Mode settings although this could be due to the 12" Evo?

I see "petere" will be at the Gold Bash so be interesting if he reports back here on what he saw in regards to the QED and coils?

Thanks
Robert

The VCO (pitch changes) in the QED will trigger at much ,much lower signal level than the VCA (vol change). On some very deep or very small targets only the VCO may be triggered.Dean at Goldsearch who has found hundreds of tiny bits with his QED only listens for pitch changes.Headphones will help with this but it needs to be understood that the QED VCA has no gain circuit(in contrast to the supplied external speakers) so a headphone system needs to have some gain which is why some users are using wireless systems like that JRbeatty uses (sennheiser RS160) which work very well with the QED.
The EVO is the most sensitive coil to use on the QED but is also the most difficult to use on hot ground. On very hot ground the experience is that a gain of 1 may be the most you can use and the mode may even have to be taken out to 15.

I'm using the minelab Koss UR-30 headphones.. do they have this gain? what do I have to do to make these work with qed as I thought they were working fine? I really don't want or like wireless, already have enough crap to charge and remember to keep charged. I'm running out spots on the power board in the car..The external speaker that came with mine is in the bin as it was rubbish couldn't hear jack on it.

 

[Cando]

Howard will be at the Laanecoorie Gold Bash and will happily demonstrate that the QED with the 12 EVO will detect the coins at the distances in the chart.
These are the settings he used when he repeated the test this morning using the external speaker.
Mode 3, gain 3, bias neutral and vol 52 on his QED. The coins both give a low tone. If you use headphones these distances can be exceeded if you listen just for changes in threshold pitch. The pitch change will trigger before a change in vol and for some targets the only indication is a change of pitch or threshold break.

Cando it will be of interest on how you feel that 14" elite compares to the 11" Ultra on your QED.

Btw in regards to me questioning those air depth results of 15" on a $2 coin and 17" on a $1 coin that I was unable to attain with a 12" Evo then as AEGF says the QED will be demonstrated at the Gold Bash that it is capable of attaining those depths although I did not use the exact same settings for the results that I got.
Maybe you could see what your QED can achieve on both coins with your 11" Ultra and 14" Elite using the settings that AEGPF posted.

It appears also it may be best to use headphones and concentrate more on the threshold Pitch response then the Volume of the response from the target.
Therefore I just have to my head around that difference between the Pitch and Volume responses for extra depth?

I struggle to raise my Gain above 1 on the ground that I have detected over so far even after trying higher Mode settings although this could be due to the 12" Evo?

I see "petere" will be at the Gold Bash so be interesting if he reports back here on what he saw in regards to the QED and coils?

Thanks
Robert

Don't take this personally mate, but I think air tests are a waste of time they proved sweet fa. you know where the target is you can adjust the settings for the best possibility, it's not real world.. so I can't bring myself to do it, I'd rather be out there detecting .. everything was going great today had the dtech 11" coil on, finding all the junk (where is this yellow stuff) :lol: when I drop my gain to 1 my threshold goes wobbly it doesn't like it, 3 or 4 works best but sometimes it's stable at 6. I don't know if I'm doing this right. I just keep on turning the dial until I find the best channel/ number and I go through all the numbers I don't just stop at the first one. The day was a little overcast to start out and got worse as the day went on but no rain. It was dry, cool, very little wind.
Setting were, gb 123 , THS B 49, THS A 40 , GAIN 3 and Mode 8 it was puring nicely. Reluctantly I headed back to the car to change coils. this was a mistake as i slipped and i nocked the qed's control box in to the side of a tree and broke the control box clean off. The plastic mount it too weak.. I will make a aluminium one when I get back. so the qed is out for the rest of the weekend.
Luck i have to many toys so I can dedicate the remainder of the trip to using the gpx4500 i just picked up

 

[washgravel]

I'm using the minelab Koss UR-30 headphones.. do they have this gain? what do I have to do to make these work with qed as I thought they were working fine?

The Koss UR- 30 headphones have an Impedance of 100 ohms however the headphones I have used on the QED have an Impedance of 32 ohms.

The Sennheiser RS160 headphones also have an Impendance of 32 ohms so whether the Impendance has anything to do on how well a headphone works on the QED?

 

[washgravel]

[Don't take this personally mate, but I think air tests are a waste of time they proved sweet fa. you know where the target is you can adjust the settings for the best possibility, it's not real world.. so I can't bring myself to do it, I'd rather be out there detecting

Yes I take your point Cando so why the chart of air tests was published in the first place by the developer of the QED is the question I ask.

But hey keep your reports flowing in as it all helps to understand how this detector works.

 

[washgravel]

when I drop my gain to 1 my threshold goes wobbly it doesn't like it, 3 or 4 works best but sometimes it's stable at 6.

Maybe the Gain at 1 does not suit the 11" Detech as much as it does for my 12" Evo?

 

[mbasko]

Low impedance headphones (~ <50ohm) take less power to get high audio levels & work well with devices with little or no amplification like a lot of portable devices. Higher impedance take more power & are usually more suited to applications with an amplification system. Higher ohm are regarded as giving better audio quality & a heap of other benefits but most not overly relevant to detecting.
As the QED has no gain this would be why a lot of people say that lower ohm headphones like 32ohm appear better or have a better volume level. Cando the UR-30's have no gain but if the are working for you ok then all is good. If you do find that you prefer a higher impedance set of headphones but find the audio level is too low then you may need some amplification like a headphone amp, B&Z booster, SteelPhase amp etc.
With wireless headphones the impedance won't matter so much as most have variable ohm input controlled by the transmitter attenuation (volume).
Washgravel the chart of air tests was most likely done & put out by the developer due to pressure from people wanting to see something in regards the QED v other detectors. It means little really.
The settings I find best with the Detech 11" Ultra are:
GB 117 (varied); Ths B 52 (this is where my QED seems to null); Ths A 50; Gain 3 or 4; Mode 3

Tried the Nugget Finder Advantage 16" mono out & it ran well. No gold on this occasion but dug some deep targets & still had good sensitivity to small, shallower targets.
Settings: GB 132 (varied); Ths B 54; Ths A 50; Gain up to 5; Mode 7

Tested a few undug targets found with GPX5000 with 12" Evo. The only target I couldn't pick up was with the NFA 16" mono & turned out to be a small bit of rust. Smaller coil & sensitivity of the Evo proved better than the NFA 16" there. With the Detech 11" Ultra Sensing Mono on I picked up all the other undug targets from the GPX (none ended up being overly deep or difficult targets though but still good to compare). There were also 2 x "targets" that I couldn't pick up - both of these turned out to be ground noise. In fairness I dug a few ground noises as well at this spot that has mostly milder ground but the odd noisey pocket of orange/red clay but it was a bit of an eye opener to see the QED handle this ground on par with the GPX or on a couple of occasions better. No doubt the spiral wound coils play a part on picking up these hot pockets too. Manually adjusting the QED up or down 4 notches on the ground balance will get rid of ground noise but occasionally the sceptical side of me still has to dig them to double check. It hasn't been wrong yet.

 

[washgravel]

Thanks mbasko for your reasoning regarding the air test chart that I have eluded too.
Also the info regarding headphones, those settings for your coils and test report.
Since I have a 12 Evo have you compared it to the 11 Ultra on your QED and any settings that you found to best suit the 12 Evo?

Robert

 

[Cando]

Tested a few undug targets found with GPX5000 with 12" Evo. The only target I couldn't pick up was with the NFA 16" mono & turned out to be a small bit of rust. Smaller coil & sensitivity of the Evo proved better than the NFA 16" there. With the Detech 11" Ultra Sensing Mono on I picked up all the other undug targets from the GPX (none ended up being overly deep or difficult targets though but still good to compare). There were also 2 x "targets" that I couldn't pick up - both of these turned out to be ground noise. In fairness I dug a few ground noises as well at this spot that has mostly milder ground but the odd noisey pocket of orange/red clay but it was a bit of an eye opener to see the QED handle this ground on par with the GPX or on a couple of occasions better. No doubt the spiral wound coils play a part on picking up these hot pockets too. Manually adjusting the QED up or down 4 notches on the ground balance will get rid of ground noise but occasionally the sceptical side of me still has to dig them to double check. It hasn't been wrong yet.

Without getting into a pissing competition with which detect is better, your results don't surprise me.. thanks for the info on the earphones, most helpful :Y: :Y:

 

[davent]

Ground noise it what makes the QED a bit hard for me.
No matter what coil,mode and gain, I keep getting ghost targets in really hot ground.
I get ground balance usually from 132 up to 150.
Mode. 1, gain 1, still get false targets, but the problem is, they aren't always false!
No doubt, in easy ground 130-138 or so, its a very quiet and sensitive detector! Picks up the tiniest bits of metal, but here (in some places)the ground can go from 130 to 148 in a few steps then back to 132 again and so on.
Having the GB # is a great help though.
I find it does see targets just as well as my 4500, it just slows my day down to much, and makes me 2nd guess myself, that's not the detectors fault!
With the spiral wound coils, it is sooo sensitive to mineralized soil.

 

[mbasko]

Thanks mbasko for your reasoning regarding the air test chart that I have eluded too.
Also the info regarding headphones, those settings for your coils and test report.
Since I have a 12 Evo have you compared it to the 11 Ultra on your QED and any settings that you found to best suit the 12 Evo?

Robert

Never tried the 12" Evo but have seen other comparisons to the Detech 11" Ultra Sensing Mono & it appears that they are very close in performance.
Here's a report by Nenad comparing on GPX5000:
https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=248078#p248078

 

[Cando]

Thank davent. At least you have found gold with yours. all I seem to find it Bullets and nails... I reckon I find found enough wire to repair the rabbit fence for the next 10 years .. could you get it to ground balance at 148/ in the red hot ground? Or was it still to chatie?
By the way Mate, you can't have it all!! Barra and gold :lol: :Y:

 

[mbasko]

Ground noise it what makes the QED a bit hard for me.
No matter what coil,mode and gain, I keep getting ghost targets in really hot ground.
I get ground balance usually from 132 up to 150.
Mode. 1, gain 1, still get false targets, but the problem is, they aren't always false!
No doubt, in easy ground 130-138 or so, its a very quiet and sensitive detector! Picks up the tiniest bits of metal, but here (in some places)the ground can go from 130 to 148 in a few steps then back to 132 again and so on.
Having the GB # is a great help though.
I find it does see targets just as well as my 4500, it just slows my day down to much, and makes me 2nd guess myself, that's not the detectors fault!
With the spiral wound coils, it is sooo sensitive to mineralized soil.

Dave your issues here sound very similar to the issues that I was having initially.
I've been going a lot better with it now by using a higher mode - was trying to use mode 1-2 at some places just wasn't going to happen. I had the mindset that I needed to be in the lowest mode to maintain the best sensitivity.
I remembered a post of yours where you said "His GB was considerably lower than mine, at about 112 compared to my 132". You mentioned his was a prototype but I believe internally they are the same? Initially I was getting some big ground balance numbers in areas up to 150 & dropping down quickly within metres. In those areas I'm no longer having issues like that. Probably too late as you're selling yours but here's what I changed:
Threshold A (volume) - had been as high as 90. I now have it at 50. (Probably the root of most of my issues).
Instead of trying to use mode 1 or 2 now I set it to suit the ground & coil but still try to use as low a mode as the ground/coil will let me. Haven't used a coil yet that I can use in a mode lower than 3.
Gain I had been only using 1 or 2 which was possibly due to running too much volume. I now seem to run gain between 3-5.
With these changes I still get good response on my test piece through most modes but the lower you can get then yes the signal is sharper - I try to compromise on a signal that will pull me up but not so that it's overly reactive on the ground.

With the minor changes I'm finding that I'm getting GB readings 10-20 less than I was before. I am also finding it no more onerous to GB than a GPX by leaving the GB screen open & adjusting +/- 4 on any iffy signals. If I'm getting a heap of ground noise/hot spots I generally find that if they dissappear by lowering or raising the GB 4 then I'll leave it there - no different to quick track & bobbing the coil periodically really. I had the AGB button added but find I prefer to do it manually.
I still do dig the odd ground noise but as I seen the other day it was no different to the GPX here. They both picked up ground noises. From experience with the GPZ also, although the auto ground tracking is great, I still dug my fair share of ground noise & even tree roots with it too. If you try to ramp your settings up on the Zed it gets worse too. It's all part of the game I reckon.

 

[Jarrod84]

Ground noise it what makes the QED a bit hard for me.
No matter what coil,mode and gain, I keep getting ghost targets in really hot ground.
I get ground balance usually from 132 up to 150.
Mode. 1, gain 1, still get false targets, but the problem is, they aren't always false!
No doubt, in easy ground 130-138 or so, its a very quiet and sensitive detector! Picks up the tiniest bits of metal, but here (in some places)the ground can go from 130 to 148 in a few steps then back to 132 again and so on.
Having the GB # is a great help though.
I find it does see targets just as well as my 4500, it just slows my day down to much, and makes me 2nd guess myself, that's not the detectors fault!
With the spiral wound coils, it is sooo sensitive to mineralized soil.

Hey Dave, just something I noticed, you do understand mode 1 is the most sensitive and gives the most ground noise by far, maybe typo? I never use below 3, if you get ground noise you go to a higher mode not lower. I just leave mine in mode 8 and crank everything else up as much as it let's me. Cheers.

 

[davent]

Last few trips I started in mode 5, gain 1.
Ended up in mode 8/gain 1.
Tried mode 10, but it didn't even see a tack on the surface, so went back to 8.
Still get false targets and high GB readings.
Its more to do with the ground than anything else.
A lot of the gold where my mates with zeds do well, is in red clay, with large dolerite rocks, rounded and about the size of cricket balls to footballs and larger, they are in HY difficult and still get false targets, but find gold, sometimes 3/-4/inches under a footy sized lump of dolerite.
The other problem is laterite, talk about hot rocks!

 

[mbasko]

Sounds like a bugger of a spot!
I thought all the hot ground was in Victoria
There's a few areas around here you seem to pick up a hot rock on every swing to regardless of detector. I've found gold on some of them but can't spend much time detecting them. It would end up driving you loopy :lol: