Question about detector ground balancing

[Phantasman]

Some detectors are preset, some are set and need to be retuned, and some track and set automatically.

We all have mineralized soil, some more some less.

Does ground balance seek out the average of the most predominately effect on the field and nulls that one measurement? Sort of like a zeroed in notch of one number on the conductivity scale?

Lets say I ground balance to 54 in my soil. Is 54 now eliminated from my conductivity scale as a "notch" so to speak? The question that arises would be that is there a possibility that since 54 is the predominant mineral(s) that less predominant minerals "could" still effect say 42.

When one air tests their detector, it seems that it would be a way to compare two or more detectors to see where and how the field reacts in regards to depth. But once you shove that field into the ground, lots of parameters take place to affect that field. A 10" quarter in air tests is not going to get 10" in the ground. Even ground balancing doesn't eliminate all parameters, just the dominant one. Some may see a 20% reduction in depth and ID and some may see 40%, depending on the soil and whether there are more or less minerals. In this respect, adjustable ground balance helps, but just a little over preset. Presets are for most common soil minerals.

I would think, then, that the ground plays around a lot with the field as the coil sweeps. If you could see it, the field would be rising and falling like peaks and valleys somewhat, which is why every once in awhile a person can dig a quarter at 10" and other times the coil barely detected a quarter at 6". Also a reason to retune GB every so often.

Thoughts?

 

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[CoinandRelicMan]

I use E-Trac mostly now and in past have used Safari , never pay any attention to minerals .

 

[Phantasman]

I use E-Trac mostly now and in past have used Safari , never pay any attention to minerals .

Like I said. Some soils have more, some less. Maybe you're in a light area of mineralization that lets an Ace 250 detect 8" easily.

 

[high_sierra_yj]

Some detectors are preset, some are set and need to be retuned, and some track and set automatically.

We all have mineralized soil, some more some less.

Does ground balance seek out the average of the most predominately effect on the field and nulls that one measurement? Sort of like a zeroed in notch of one number on the conductivity scale?

Lets say I ground balance to 54 in my soil. Is 54 now eliminated from my conductivity scale as a "notch" so to speak? The question that arises would be that is there a possibility that since 54 is the predominant mineral(s) that less predominant minerals "could" still effect say 42.

When one air tests their detector, it seems that it would be a way to compare two or more detectors to see where and how the field reacts in regards to depth. But once you shove that field into the ground, lots of parameters take place to affect that field. A 10" quarter in air tests is not going to get 10" in the ground. Even ground balancing doesn't eliminate all parameters, just the dominant one. Some may see a 20% reduction in depth and ID and some may see 40%, depending on the soil and whether there are more or less minerals. In this respect, adjustable ground balance helps, but just a little over preset. Presets are for most common soil minerals.

I would think, then, that the ground plays around a lot with the field as the coil sweeps. If you could see it, the field would be rising and falling like peaks and valleys somewhat, which is why every once in awhile a person can dig a quarter at 10" and other times the coil barely detected a quarter at 6". Also a reason to retune GB every so often.

Thoughts?

Yes i believe thats what its doing. It makes more sense when Ground Balance (GB) is referred to as Ground Rejection Level (GRL) cause thats basically what it is. I know there are machines like the xp Deus that actually have a Notch Ground feature. Its mainly for "Positive Hot Rocks". So lets say the ground has a mineralization index of 78, you can set a range from 81-88 to notch out the hot rocks. If you are meteorite hunting then it would be bad to notch ground in the 84-89 range since thats what they come in as. As far as notching other metals it wont do that since mineralization in the ground is mostly an iron. If it notches out iron relics, that im not sure of.

 

[ivan salis]

issues occur when your preset or manually set level are below the rating the mineral level of the ground your working ..say its set at 42 and the ground level is 54 ... then the detector still "sees" the background minerals --beep ,beep,beep non damn stop .. however if you got it at 54 when then soil is actually 42... you are over doing it by 12 and are losing depth and sensitivity needlessly ... you want it to be "balanced" equal to but not above the grounds mineral background level .. however if one must error a bit it will be to the high side because otherwise the machine just screws up non stop--on preset machine when one can not reset the ground balance -- often reducing the amount of power / sensitivy pushed can help smooth out a machine so it will work..

 

[Phantasman]

Three quarters of the US has mild soil which seems to be in the high 70s, low eighties. My FTPs are preset at 82. If your ground is anything other than 82, GB doesn't benefit you and you take the ground along with the target. But I don't think it's that much of a difference. I can crank my preset QDP all the way up in sensitivity in my 56 soil. I can GB the LRP and crank it up to 9 before I get a bit chatter. Same processor in both. You'd think the QDPs concentric would pick up mineralization with the preset over the LRPs DD coil with ground balance. But it doesn't.

I'm thinking that the mineralization has a "calming" effect to an extent, and the preset unit is just not sensitive to deeper coins as if it was nulling the ground minerals. I watched a guy one time at the beach detect the wet shore with an Ace 250. I was surprised to see that the unit wasn't sounding off. But he said he hadn't found anything either.

So the question arises: does mineralization cause false signals or do they just mask depth.

 

[atomicscott]

Three quarters of the US has mild soil which seems to be in the high 70s, low eighties. My FTPs are preset at 82. If your ground is anything other than 82, GB doesn't benefit you and you take the ground along with the target. But I don't think it's that much of a difference. I can crank my preset QDP all the way up in sensitivity in my 56 soil. I can GB the LRP and crank it up to 9 before I get a bit chatter. Same processor in both. You'd think the QDPs concentric would pick up mineralization with the preset over the LRPs DD coil with ground balance. But it doesn't.

I'm thinking that the mineralization has a "calming" effect to an extent, and the preset unit is just not sensitive to deeper coins as if it was nulling the ground minerals. I watched a guy one time at the beach detect the wet shore with an Ace 250. I was surprised to see that the unit wasn't sounding off. But he said he hadn't found anything either.

So the question arises: does mineralization cause false signals or do they just mask depth.

High concentrations of minerals like black sand WILL give a false signal. It has happened to me when trying to nugget shoot with a concentric on my Vaquero. But I think generally, ground minerals mostly affect depth.

 

[DaytonaRacer]

I just purchased the new F22 which apparently has preset ground balance. Do your posts here mean that the detector's set at a specific "number" and will only negate readings at that exact number to counter the average ground mineralization? And if so, does it then run the risk of then not picking up targets at or near that reading level?

 

[high_sierra_yj]

I just purchased the new F22 which apparently has preset ground balance. Do your posts here mean that the detector's set at a specific "number" and will only negate readings at that exact number to counter the average ground mineralization? And if so, does it then run the risk of then not picking up targets at or near that reading level?

It will still pick up targets with high VDI numbers. Most machines have a custom number range but true mineralized irons have a negative "phase". The most common ground has a phase between zero ferrite and -5. So when you see numbers on a ground grab or balance its not the same set of number range as the higher target numbers. So on my Land Ranger Pro, Iron reads between 1-19 and i can adjust GB between 0-99, from what i understand those two ranges are the same phase. GB is just stretched out farther to fine tune better.

 

[Phantasman]

I just purchased the new F22 which apparently has preset ground balance. Do your posts here mean that the detector's set at a specific "number" and will only negate readings at that exact number to counter the average ground mineralization? And if so, does it then run the risk of then not picking up targets at or near that reading level?

Well, yes and no. Ground balance separates the conductivity scale by 1000 rather than 100 that the TID uses. There are 10 fine tuning adjustments within each TID number. Ground Grab or Preset is to that exact tenth within the range (or so it appears). So you get the other 9/10s of the number displaying.

@ high sierra yj
Note this in your LRP manual:
Note that when adjusting the Ground setting, the displayed setting changes by
1 number only after 10 keypad presses. The detector actually has 1,000
different ground settings to choose from, but uses only 2 digits to display the
number. Reasons for this manual ground cancelation feature are explained in
the Ground Cancelation section of the manual.

Ground cancellation cancels the ground phase as a whole, not the individual minerals that make it up.

 

[high_sierra_yj]

Hey Phantasman, after i responded a couple days ago I had looked in my manual to see if it had any more info and i saw that it has a 10/1 adjustment. I went outside and set it up in All Metal mode and with a "Positive Response" and it made a huge difference. My yard is littered with junk iron though so I had to stop testing it haha

 

[Phantasman]

Hey Phantasman, after i responded a couple days ago I had looked in my manual to see if it had any more info and i saw that it has a 10/1 adjustment. I went outside and set it up in All Metal mode and with a "Positive Response" and it made a huge difference. My yard is littered with junk iron though so I had to stop testing it haha

Cool. I need to try that.

 

[Olegrumpy]

I just purchased the new F22 which apparently has preset ground balance. Do your posts here mean that the detector's set at a specific "number" and will only negate readings at that exact number to counter the average ground mineralization? And if so, does it then run the risk of then not picking up targets at or near that reading level?

I don't know about the F22 preset GB setting, but it wouldn't surprise me if, like other products from FTP, it would be set at 82.9.

That being said, you must be aware that a setting of 82.9 allows higher senitivity to lower conductors, while, should you have to adjust the GB lower, e.g. to salt, you are losing sensitivity on those same low conductors (small gold, thin gold and nickels...).

In theory, a detector balanced to salt ("0" on my GB DP), is more sensitive to coins. It will aslo help getting stable positive readings on steel cored coins (e.g. canadian coinage).

Being a beach hunter, I never let a metal detector decide which GB is the best for the ground I sweep, unless I swing a preset GB unit on the dry sand. I do not care for tracking. I always set it manually. In the AT pro's manual, Garrett advises, regarding wet sand, to leave the GB at around 20 if possible (salt =0), to maintain some sensitivity to gold.

If there's something I've learnt in 31+ years of hunting, it's to be cautious about ground balancing.

HH

Grumpy