EMI or Ground balance?

Tedyoh

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Well if the chatter continues when you're not swinging the coil its EMI....ground balancing will.do nothing to help with the chatter.....lowering the sensitivity may help.
 

Rookster

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It's also a good idea to carry a backup machine to try if EMI is happening. Some machines handle it better than others.
 

CharlesUpstateNY

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Wait, the EQ has 19 different noise cancel channels interesting, I'll be checking all of them for changes to TID.
 

vferrari

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Wait, the EQ has 19 different noise cancel channels interesting, I'll be checking all of them for changes to TID.

Should have practically no impact on TID even though the channels imply different transmission frequencies, that is really not the case with Multi IQ. The TID is post processed and does not vary appreciably between search profile modes despite the change in multi IQ frequency weighting. You will, however, see TID vary with frequency, somewhat, when running in single frequency mode amongst the various single frequencies, similar to the Deus.
 

CharlesUpstateNY

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Should have practically no impact on TID even though the channels imply different transmission frequencies, that is really not the case with Multi IQ. The TID is post processed and does not vary appreciably between search profile modes despite the change in multi IQ frequency weighting. You will, however, see TID vary with frequency, somewhat, when running in single frequency mode amongst the various single frequencies, similar to the Deus.

We shall see, I mapped an Se Pro across the 11 channels and TID changed significantly from channel 1 to 11. Several TID points difference. Somewhere I have the mapping saved.
 

Tedyoh

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We shall see, I mapped an Se Pro across the 11 channels and TID changed significantly from channel 1 to 11. Several TID points difference. Somewhere I have the mapping saved.
Could that be because your "forcing" a channel to be used that's less than ideal? Causing signal processing "errors"?
 

vferrari

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We shall see, I mapped an Se Pro across the 11 channels and TID changed significantly from channel 1 to 11. Several TID points difference. Somewhere I have the mapping saved.

That may be the case, but I have found a nickel to be 13 regardless of emi channel selected and regardless of mode. I am not overly focused on tids though, because the audio is the key. If I had my druthers, I'd have about 5 tid numbers and 50 tones. My experience is that ML tried to make the Equinox seamless to the user experience (as far as TIDs are concerned) regardless of what EMI channel or search profile is selected. Seems a little in the weeds to go there, but I would be interested if you found anything significant once you have it all mapped out. When you have it figured out, you can find me at the beach looking for targets... ;0
 

CharlesUpstateNY

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Could that be because your "forcing" a channel to be used that's less than ideal? Causing signal processing "errors"?

No if that were true the TID changes would be random. Instead the TID steadily decreases as I change the noise channel from 1 to 11. If you connect an Explorer to an oscilloscope and run a noise cancel you can watch the frequency shift a tad each time the channel changes.

I tested a Barber Dime on all 11 noise channels TWICE and I got the same results on both runs. Here's the data.

Channel 1 - 03/30
Channel 2 - 03/29
Channel 3 - 03/29
Channel 4 - 04/28
Channel 5 - 04/28
Channel 6 - 04/28 to 29
Channel 7 - 04/28 to 29
Channel 8 - 04/28 to 05/28
Channel 9 - 05/28
Channel 10 - 05/28
Channel 11 - 05/28
 

vferrari

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I know to noise cancel before hunting in each program because of phones ,power lines ext. But beyond that how do you tell the difference if chatter is from the ground, making it necessary to GB or its just EMI? Just trying to learn when GB is necessary. HH



i

You have already got pretty good advice. More specifically, if you hear noise with the coil in the air, then it is EMI. First thing to check is to make sure you don't have your cell phone in a pocket where it is close to the control head. If you can, put your phone in airplane mode. If the source is unknown or you cannot control it (e.g., power lines), consider running another EMI noise cancel just in case it did not catch the quietest channel on the first go round. The auto noise cancel process on the Equinox is not bad, but it doesn't always choose the quietest channel, that is where the 800's manual channel setting comes in handy. The next step is to gradually lower sensitivity to quiet the chatter down. Don't worry about losing too much depth, the Equinox is plenty sensitive even down to around 15. The key is getting the machine to run quiet. No sense in overdriving the sensitivity if you can't hear through the chatter. Sacrifice an inch or so in raw depth by lowering sensitivity enough to let you hear the targets. With the Equinox sometimes less is more. Minimize fiddling too much with the default settings and don't overdrive the Equinox by running sensitivity higher than it needs to be. The default setting of 20 is pretty good. Running it somewhere between 17 and 23 should give you plenty of performance.

Ground noise is differentiated from EMI when you swing the coil. Specifically, it shows up noticeably if you are in all metal mode (the horseshoe button) and you are getting a lot of high negative numbers and ferrous grunts on each pass. Use your pinpointer to confirm you are not swinging over a bed of nails. What you are hearing is ground feedback from the ferrous oxide mineralization in the soil. That is telling you to do a ground balance. If you have a lot of mineralization or finding you have to frequently ground balance, then go ahead and shift into ground balance tracking mode. There is little downside to using tracking. I would avoid using tracking where there is little mineralization for the tracking algorithm to grab onto (e.g., dry sand beach). In that case tracking will not work well and it is also unnecessary. HTH

btw - have you told your husband the Equinox arrived yet or are you just getting some swings in on it on the QT. lol.
 

vferrari

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No if that were true the TID changes would be random. Instead the TID steadily increased as I increased the noise channel from 1 to 11. If you connect an Explorer to an oscilloscope and run a noise cancel you can watch the frequency shift a tad each time the channel changes.

I tested a Barber Dime on all 11 noise channels TWICE and I got the same results on both runs. Here's the data.

Channel 1 - 03/30
Channel 2 - 03/29
Channel 3 - 03/29
Channel 4 - 04/28
Channel 5 - 04/28
Channel 6 - 04/28 to 29
Channel 7 - 04/28 to 29
Channel 8 - 04/28 to 05/28
Channel 9 - 05/28
Channel 10 - 05/28
Channel 11 - 05/28

Well, at least you don't have to worry about the FE number variation with Equinox - lol. Looks like the CO number barely changed. I am not sure you are going to like the simplicity of the Equinox TID scale. This is not going to be deep silver monster with perfect TID's. You will also likely get frustrated with the bottle caps and pull tabs, until you figure out how to deal with them (well there is not much you can do about the pull tabs, but the bottle caps can be unmasked for what they are based on the audio)
 

Last edited:

CharlesUpstateNY

Sr. Member
Nov 13, 2015
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That may be the case, but I have found a nickel to be 13 regardless of emi channel selected and regardless of mode. I am not overly focused on tids though, because the audio is the key. If I had my druthers, I'd have about 5 tid numbers and 50 tones. My experience is that ML tried to make the Equinox seamless to the user experience (as far as TIDs are concerned) regardless of what EMI channel or search profile is selected. Seems a little in the weeds to go there, but I would be interested if you found anything significant once you have it all mapped out. When you have it figured out, you can find me at the beach looking for targets... ;0

EQ is a different animal so the noise channel could be meaningless, but since I freaked myself out when I only learned the Explorer TID changes after using the thing for like 20 years I'll be testing the EQ to lay this one to rest.
 

vferrari

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Or the eTrac OH I can't believe I went there LMAO!

Enjoy that Equinox it is a strange beast but has some cool features and performance. I think it makes a great compliment to my HF Deus.
 

OP
OP
M

MRS GOLD

Greenie
Jun 6, 2018
19
13
Southern California
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You have already got pretty good advice. More specifically, if you hear noise with the coil in the air, then it is EMI. First thing to check is to make sure you don't have your cell phone in a pocket where it is close to the control head. If you can, put your phone in airplane mode. If the source is unknown or you cannot control it (e.g., power lines), consider running another EMI noise cancel just in case it did not catch the quietest channel on the first go round. The auto noise cancel process on the Equinox is not bad, but it doesn't always choose the quietest channel, that is where the 800's manual channel setting comes in handy. The next step is to gradually lower sensitivity to quiet the chatter down. Don't worry about losing too much depth, the Equinox is plenty sensitive even down to around 15. The key is getting the machine to run quiet. No sense in overdriving the sensitivity if you can't hear through the chatter. Sacrifice an inch or so in raw depth by lowering sensitivity enough to let you hear the targets. With the Equinox sometimes less is more. Minimize fiddling too much with the default settings and don't overdrive the Equinox by running sensitivity higher than it needs to be. The default setting of 20 is pretty good. Running it somewhere between 17 and 23 should give you plenty of performance.

Ground noise is differentiated from EMI when you swing the coil. Specifically, it shows up noticeably if you are in all metal mode (the horseshoe button) and you are getting a lot of high negative numbers and ferrous grunts on each pass. Use your pinpointer to confirm you are not swinging over a bed of nails. What you are hearing is ground feedback from the ferrous oxide mineralization in the soil. That is telling you to do a ground balance. If you have a lot of mineralization or finding you have to frequently ground balance, then go ahead and shift into ground balance tracking mode. There is little downside to using tracking. I would avoid using tracking where there is little mineralization for the tracking algorithm to grab onto (e.g., dry sand beach). In that case tracking will not work well and it is also unnecessary. HTH

btw - have you told your husband the Equinox arrived yet or are you just getting some swings in on it on the QT. lol.

I was a good wife and let him open the box, But I have learned so much from this forum that I have to be careful not to be a know it all. Im way ahead of him on the learning curve. Have a few other question but will save them for later. Thanks to all!
 

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