Groundbalancing in trash

[ShortbusElite]

Okay, I got the Equinox out for the first time today to an older local park. I did a noise cancel and then attempted to find an area that didn't have any iron below the coil but could not find one. So that brings me to my question. When you guys run into this, what do you do? Leave the ground balance at 0? Ground balance anyway? The detector was set in park 2 stock settings with multi frequency. The detector was quite chatty at a sensitivity of 23 which I later lowered to 20. I found no shortage of modern clad but no old goodies today in the hour before I was rained out. I left the ground balance at 0.

 

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[DeepDigs]

I’ve dealt with the exact same conditions you’re describing, and I run in park 1/tracking and have had good results.

 

[vferrari]

The Equinox is very forgiving to a less than ideal ground balance due to MultiIQ, so running it at the default ground balance is usually ok or you can use tracking as DeepDigs suggested. One thing though, if what you were experiencing was a lot of bouncing high negative numbers (-9 to -7) and iron tones (presumably you were in all metal mode) while trying to find a clean spot, that was probably actually due to soil mineralization and ground feedback, which ironically is just a symptom of the need to ground balance. So unless you are over a big ferrous target (you can use pinpoint mode to get a better idea if you are over a large ferrous or non ferrous target), I would just do an auto pump ground balance to quiet the machine down (or use tracking).

Note also, that each mode behaves like a different detector so if you switch modes at a site you should noise cancel and GB the first time you switch into that mode during your detecting session. You don't need to do it after each mode switch after that at the site. For new Equinox users (regardless of detecting experience), however, I recommend sticking with one mode (typically Park 1 or Beach 1 depending on where you are detecting) while you are getting used to how the machine behaves and it's settings, otherwise if you mode hop its like switching from one new machine to another and who needs to learn two or more machines at once?

HTH

 

[1942 merc]

Use your pin point to find clean ground . As vferrari said ( that was probably actually due to soil mineralization and ground feedback) . Once you find your GB # you can manually set it and not have to worry about tracking . Mine seems good at 44 .

 

[ShortbusElite]

I didn't think about that. It probably was just mineralization. Next time out there I will go ahead and ground balance. Are you guys typically running the tracking feature or groumd balancing occasionally? I am coming from a ctx so I haven't ground balanced for awhile since everyone advises against it on that machine.

 

[vferrari]

I typically ground balance once at the beginning of the hunt then periodically check it if I am not familiar with the site and its mineralization variation. If I find myself rebalancing a lot due to large swings in the GB reading over relatively short distances then I just switch to tracking. I have honestly not found any drawbacks to leaving it in tracking but still prefer to set it once and forget it (i.e., auto GB once - not tracking) for the 80 to 90% of sites that have typical normal "mild" mineralization. I never GB at a (saltwater) beach in dry or wet sand (because if there is no black sand mineralization, there is nothing for the GB algorithm to latch onto) and switch to tracking in salt water only if there is a lot of wave action causing wild swings in salinity.

HTH

 

[Normsel]

I use mostly Park1 and have never had to ground balance. I sometimes start out in all metal mode just to see how much trash is there and then switch back to park 1 and I sometimes use park 2 just to get used to it. If I adjust the sensitivity a little my detector is very quiet. I sometimes look to see if it is really on.

 

[ShortbusElite]

I use mostly Park1 and have never had to ground balance. I sometimes start out in all metal mode just to see how much trash is there and then switch back to park 1 and I sometimes use park 2 just to get used to it. If I adjust the sensitivity a little my detector is very quiet. I sometimes look to see if it is really on.

What kind of sites do you normally hunt. I definitely know my machine is on because it is often pretty chatty. I typically run around 21 sensitivity so not sure if thats playing a part in it. I noise cancel and ground balance now although I have run it without at a couple of sites. I put my phone in airplane mode. The noise doesn't bother me too bad but I definitely know it is on!