Nexus Standard MP V2 Metal Detector - It's Like Tuning A Drum - Part Two

The first part of this blog can be viewed here Nexus Standard MP V2 Metal Detector - It's Like Tuning A Drum Part One

I've explained how to set the detector up in the previous post. You can set it up to hunt on beaches, black sand and on extreme mineralised ground but I don't search these types of environments so it would be wrong of me to explain how to tune the machine without any experience within this area. Basically because of the acute ability to fine tune the MP it can be setup to run stable on any terrain however heavily mineralised and magnetised. 

True Threshold Is King

So I finished the last post explaining how to set the threshold up, to me the threshold on the Standard MP V2 sounds like a 'resonance' rather than an actual tone. Having it quietly humming away in the background really makes you feel like the detector is running on all cylinders, you're not going to miss much. Obvious signals are pretty self explanatory, there's no mistaking them, the threshold comes into play on the deeper objects. Deeper targets have a tendency to be whispery, the more you use the machine you'll start to understand what deep targets sound like. They tend to give a raised deviation within the threshold resonance and the LED meter will give a short indication. One element to also take into account is the size of the target, small shallower targets can produce a signal very similar to that of a deep target, with continuous use you'll start to be able to read what the MP V2 is telling you. 

Lets move on to the features of the machine, to help with discrimination Nexus have come up with an LED technology that discriminates between both ferrous and non-ferrous materials. When you go over a ferrous target the LED meter will turn blue and when you go over a non-ferrous target it turns red. I've experimented with this a huge amount and the colour system is very reliable and accurate. When I first started using the machine I dug everything to give myself peace of mind that the detector was assigning the right colour to the correct target type. I can tell you with 100% honesty that the MP V2 hasn't got it wrong yet, even on really deep targets '15' inches plus' the LED identification has been 100% correct.  

Another point that I've seen come up a fair few times are the signals that show a mix of the two colours, what I mean by this is, when you swing over a target you're getting a blue light one way and a red light the other. My advice is to dig all these signals, it was only the other week when I was searching I got mixed colours on one specific target, I dug my plug fairly shallow and checked the hole again, this time it showed a solid red LED both ways, it ended up being a button on it's side at 10' inches. There have been several occasions where this has been the case, I don't know the exact science behind the mix of colours that these targets initially gave but you would be a fool not to investigate signals like this, in some circumstances there will be some iron in with the good targets and the machine is picking up a mix of both the ferrous and non-ferrous materials. 

 

Another nice little feature is the "dual tone", this is to be used in all metal mode, having this engaged assigns a low pitch to the ferrous items and a higher tone to the non ferrous items. You can change the pitches by turning the dual tone knob clockwise. For this to work correctly and comfortably you have to keep your swing speed slow to medium, concentrating on keeping it consistent, I'll remind you again that the Nexus MP is a slow recovery machine. This feature helps if you don't want to keep checking the LED bar. Personally I don't use the dual tone a great deal I like keeping it in the single tone mode. Once you've used the machine for a while you'll start to notice the subtle nuances within the one tone. One example I can give you is, on certain non-ferrous trash items you get this fizzy distorted quality, this is the machines way of telling you that it's a potential trash target. BUT you can also get this fizzy, distorted quality from a good target that has a fair bit of erosion on it. Once again, the more time you put into it the more you'll understand and if in doubt you dig.

Iron reject mode is 'exactly what it says on the tin', it rejects iron, with the double D coils, leaving the discrimination set to zero will discriminate out all ferrous items. With the low frequency double D coils some targets might get masked if they're really close to large iron objects but the low frequency double D coils are specifically designed to punch deep, their speciality isn't separation. However using a coil from the silver scout range you'll get both unrivalled unmasking and separation abilities that haven't been matched by any digital machine that I'm aware of. If you're using either of the 24KHZ silver scout coils a good starting point for the discrimination setting is around the 2 o'clock position on the dial. Reading older forum posts about the Nexus Standard MP people say that it's not a particularly versatile machine, I can confirm that with the introduction of the silver scout, high frequency/fast recovery coils. It now makes the MP as versatile as you'd want it to be, it can easily be used as your primary detector.

 

For super mineralised and problematic terrain the MP has acute 'mineral control' that you can dial in, living in the UK I'm not going to come across an environment where I'm going to need to use these settings. Once again, I have no experience in applying these adjustments so it would be wrong of me to try and explain how to set them up. That pretty much sums up the different settings of the machine, none of it is overcomplicated it just takes revision and practice. I think the problems occur if you've only ever had detecting experience with a digital machine, I've mentioned it in part 1 but I'll point it out again. There's nothing 'turn on and go' about the Nexus MP, you have to set up everything from scratch. If you want to get the most out of it you have to practice and experiment until the handling of the detector becomes second nature. If you're reading this blog thinking "What's the point in getting a manual analog detector like this when I can buy a digital one that does it all for me?" then you've already proven that Nexus isn't for you. 

Now there's one unique point I'd like to mention, Nexus have developed a technology called (SDT) this stands for "Super Dumping Technology". This built in system extends the limits of IB technology in all soil conditions, maximises efficiency of ground and mineral suppression, eliminates mineral interference completely and uses the ground conductivity to enhance metal target detection, this creates better results in the ground, than in air. Basically to explain this in the easiest way possible, the Nexus standard MP V2 detects targets deeper in the ground than it does in the air. I've put this theory under scrutiny and I can confirm that it is in fact correct. The item that shocked me the most was a tiny little clothing button that I dug on its edge at 9' inches using my 9' inch silver scout coil. In air with the button on it's edge it was registering at around 6' inches so it was getting detected in the ground an extra 3' inches. When the Nexus (SDT) technology is mentioned it appears a lot of people question it as being a myth, below is a video demonstrating what I've explained above.

Click Here For Part Three