Minelab E-trac tips, settings, questions

[Goldbuzzhashit]

Hello all, happy Easter,

Went out for a detect with scoopa the other day, and was getting rather different responses from my etrac.

The ground had a light shower of rain over it, but was extremely dry an inch down.

Responses such as pennies reading usually 12:30 were now 14:30 14:25.

Silver, usually 11:30 1140 now 13:53

Would this small mount of moisture change thing so dramatically? :/

Looked like the spot has been heavily hit by some one very recently, with land mines blown up all over the place.

 

[Pedro]

Hi GB,
Are you sure about the reading of 13f-53c or was that a typo error. The highest an E-Trac should read in ferrous is 35 and the highest in conductivity is 50. If it is in fact reading 53 conduct, there must be some gremlins in the system. I have experienced on a couple of occasions wet grass and leaf/grass matter stuck all over the coil and found the detector gave phantom signals and was pretty much useless until I wiped the grass clippings and dried the coil. It would be good to know what coins gave what readings and what settings you were using. Ground conditions would probably make some difference to the readings as well.
On auto sensitivity with a reading of below 19 you are in highly mineralized ground, so in the menu, and set ground to DIFFICULT and 19 and above on NEUTRAL. I generally find copper coins like pennies and halfpennies, if they are not too corroded, read something like 12f-44c to 12f-47c, and silvers (92.5%) lets say a shilling, will read about 12-46 to 12-47.
I hope this helps a bit.
Cheers

 

[Goldbuzzhashit]

Thanks pedro, yes a typo, yes there was a hell of a lot of grass on the coil.

Yes went out today, ground dry, and readings for silvers and copper back to normal, found a couple of threepents. An two coppers.

 

[Eddie Roselea]

Hello all I am a newbe and am thinking of bying a minelab e-trac ive been reading all i can about them and think its a very good detector [on paper] but there is nothing here in the forums about them can somebody give me advice about it thank you Eddie

 

[Willo]

Eddie I have had a Etrac since 2010 and it is a terrific machine - cant speak highly enough about them. Have resisted the urge to upgrade to the CTX 3030 because to be frank I dont see an extra 1000 dollars value add.

What I like about the Etrac is the capacity to assess the ferrous component of the target as well as its conductivity, it is therefore great i trasky areas.

Willo

 

[Eddie Roselea]

Hello Willo
Thank you very much for your reply I know what you mean with the extra grand if only they gave the same extras as kellyco in the usa it would be a very good deal
thanks again m8

 

[Eddie Roselea]

Hi again Willo
I see you also used a GPX5000 do you think the extra $5000+ is worth it ?

 

[Scoopa]

Hi Eddie Roselea. I've been using an Etrac since they were released and I also think it's great. Paid for itself many times over and I wont be changing detectors any time soon. However a big advantage the 3030 has, is it's water proof abilities. However as I have an Excalibur 11 as well, it doesn't worry me. If you're not planning on going under water than I would recommend the etrac.

 

[Eddie Roselea]

Hi Scoopa
Thank you very much for your reply
The more i read about the e-trac the better it looks
How deep do they detect and are they good for gold prospecting?
Thanks agaim m8

 

[Kingsolomon]

Hi Scoopa
Thank you very much for your reply
The more i read about the e-trac the better it looks
How deep do they detect and are they good for gold prospecting?
Thanks agaim m8

Hi...
The etrac is a good coin machine , as for gold , they seem to be good in high trash areas . The discriminatory factor has found nuggets in theses places ( but it has to be of some size) . Mine came with red dust on it from a prospector ... So it was used in wa. It has its place ... But not a go too gold machine. I'm still looking for help on getting the most out of it as gold machine . Some say they can detect sub gram nuggets with it , I just can't see how just yet.
An sd, gold bug, at gold .. Or so , maybe an old GPX . Would be better ?..
Gold is hard to find with the best machine...
Barney

 

[Ben78]

I have an explorer which is the model before etrac, the explorer and 3030 don't null on hot rocks but the etrac does, I have found a few nuggets with my GPX5000 and whilst the explorer will detect them there is no way the explorer would have found them in the bush. The Minelab FBS machines are very good. They are a little heavy though. Even though they are VLF machines they use a form of PI which is why they are so good in the hotter grounds, on the beach etc.

 

[Eddie Roselea]

Hi Barney
Thanks for your reply
As i am still looking there are a lot of good detectors on the market but i like to keep it an aussie one if i can they say that an e-trac is like 28 detectors in one thats why i like to find out all there is about them before i buy one

 

[Eddie Roselea]

Hi Ben 78
Thanks for your reply
I have read the manual of the e-trac a few times now and am still a bit comfused about the numbers on it like 11-24 e.d. i understand a bit what the bigger number means but what is the little number mean i hope someone can explane it to me
thanks again
Eddie

 

[Ben78]

Little number is 'Ferrous', and shows the level of ferrous response the target gives (Ferrous not only releases eddy currents like all metals do but it has a magnetic response also), Etrac and 3030 is biased toward 11-12 Ferrous numbers being good targets. Explorer gives a more linear spread of Ferrous numbers, eg a 925 Florin gives me a 0-31 reading in the ground, ie NO ferrous FULL conductivity and gives 31-31 for Iron in the ground for FULL ferrous FULL conductivity. In practice you get used to the numbers but in reality I barely check the screen as I find the tone ID to be extremely accurate.

 

[dave14110]

Hi just wondering if some of the e-trac help. Could someone please tell me if there was any change from the early machines to current machines.
If they are upgraded what is the difference? Thanks dave

 

[Kingsolomon]

I have one... No expert though.. Think it upgraded to the cox 3030 , which you have, other than tat I think they are standard make from the start...and any tinkering you get done , minelab won't look at it . Which I'm sure your aware from your impressive detector quiver

 

[dave14110]

I believe you are correct CTX did replace, I have no intention on playing with it. The reason I ask is my brother is looking at getting an Etrac as the CTX is out of his price range but we were unsure if all models of etrac were the same. Such as if all etrac have same functions such as connecting to computer & software. Thanks for that hopefully someone else might know more.
.

 

[mike90199]

well guys decided on the etrac .I spent several hrs last night searching through forums and skypeing with a few previous owners of the ctx 3030 and the problems that I heard with the unit kinda changed my mind .the leaking problems ,screens dying, o rings having to be brought from a dealer cause they break when cleaning them and also a pin pointing problem that is still not fixed with the unit .this was all just to much for me to justify paying $2600 for a unit .

the etrac is supposed to be hard to learn but ive been watching tutorial videos and reading manuals and what not and apparently auto sens makes the machine not search as deep and its better to use manual and how to pinpoint properly etc etc .the only thing I am worried about is I hunt parks with a lot of trash and people say that the etrac isn't very good in trash and that it is very slow machine .so Im still not that sure .but I guess I want to etrac cause I like the way it looks and it seems like a powerful machine and a lot of people swear by it .im just wondering how good it would be in parks with trash and on the beach ?.

 

[Guest]

Mike,

You have decided, that's half the battle.

Now spend about 12 months with the machine. You will not master this one in 4 outings as well, put some time into it. A couple of hours as many days as you can.

You can not find coins or cool targets if they are simply not there. Dig the trash, learn the machine and have fun with your new toy!

Cheers

 

[mike90199]

hey thx retirement .im realizing that its gonna be a long process and I have to try stay patient with this one .a lot of people have told me its a great machine once you learn how to use it .im a bit disappointed by the ctx 3030 but being a watch technician by trade once I seen that battery pack on the back with a oring I knew straight away there would be problems .I work on watched worth 20thousand and up and these watches are guaranteed water proof for 200mtres but once you take the o ring out once you need a special pressure tester to make sure there is no leaks or u need to repeat the process and I laughed when minelab is advocating people clean the o ring cause this is the worst possible thing a ctx 3030 owner could do is take that seal out cause when you place it back in it need to be properly seated and made sure there is no leaks and this is impossible unless you have a big tank that you can pressurize and look thru to check for leaks .this was a major design flaw in the 3030 .so sad .

and the other incredibly stupid this is the o ring is square which makes it even more likely to be reseated wrong and more likely to let in leaks .shame.