Triangle?

[CarsonChris]

I’ve been having a triangle symbol pop up on my screen. What does it mean?

 

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[Chug And Red]

metal detector or computer

 

[Jason in Enid]

It means READ YOUR OWNERS MANUAL!

 

[CarsonChris]

It means READ YOUR OWNERS MANUAL!

That would be great if I could get the manual to open but since the link is down I can’t. Any help or just snide comments?

 

[nagant]

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/...ture.JPG.9321a458c2c5bb9ec67e2b01430ca3ca.JPG

 

[BH505Man]

I’ve been having a triangle symbol pop up on my screen. What does it mean?

It means the detector is running at reduced sensitivity do to an overload condition caused by heavy black sand. Once the detector senses you are out of that heavy black sand and it is possible to run at the higher sensitivity level the detector will return to the higher sensitivity level and the triangle will disappear from the display. The triangle message normally will come up in the beach modes in heavy black sand. This triangle symbol is called a Beach Overload Indicator

.

 

[midalake]

It means the detector is running at reduced sensitivity do to an overload condition caused by heavy black sand. Once the detector senses you are out of that heavy black sand and it is possible to run at the higher sensitivity level the detector will return to the higher sensitivity level and the triangle will disappear from the display. The triangle message normally will come up in the beach modes in heavy black sand. This triangle symbol is called a Beach Overload Indicator

.

Not 100% true. It is an overload in ALL conditions. As the overload symbol comes on in my condo. No black sand involved.

EMI, Large iron.....EX............

 

[BH505Man]

Not 100% true. It is an overload in ALL conditions. As the overload symbol comes on in my condo. No black sand involved.

EMI, Large iron.....EX............

You can read what you want to into it...however, The response that I wrote came directly from the Minelab manual on the Equinox 600/800 series detectors. And BTW, I don't believe CarsonChris was in your condo when that triangle popped up on his screen. Yes, the symbol does occur when an overload condition triggers it. Simply stated, you will see that symbol appear when the detector defaults to running in a reduced sensitivity setting. It will disappear when it returns to operating at the original sensitivity setting.

 

[vferrari]

You can read what you want to into it...however, The response that I wrote came directly from the Minelab manual on the Equinox 600/800 series detectors. And BTW, I don't believe CarsonChris was in your condo when that triangle popped up on his screen. Yes, the symbol does occur when an overload condition triggers it. Simply stated, you will see that symbol appear when the detector defaults to running in a reduced sensitivity setting. It will disappear when it returns to operating at the original sensitivity setting.

Just a point of clarification since we are being sticklers about the what the manual says. When Equinox senses the overload condition it reduces detector transmit power not sensitivity. In other words, it reduces the strength of the magnetic field being generated in the transmit coil while keeping receive sensitivity fixed at the user setting. The net effect is similar in that the depth capability and target received signal strength is effectively lowered but so is the interfering magnetic field generated by the ferrimagnetic black sand from the coil field. The analogy is like lowering headlight intensity to increase visibility in fog. HTH.

 

[Donut]

Manual
https://www.minelab.com/__files/f/414877/4901-0249-7%20Inst.%20Manual,%20EQUINOX%20600%20800%20EN.pdf

 

[BH505Man]

Just a point of clarification since we are being sticklers about the what the manual says. When Equinox senses the overload condition it reduces detector transmit power not sensitivity. In other words, it reduces the strength of the magnetic field being generated in the transmit coil while keeping receive sensitivity fixed at the user setting. The net effect is similar in that the depth capability and target received signal strength is effectively lowered but so is the interfering magnetic field generated by the ferrimagnetic black sand from the coil field. The analogy is like lowering headlight intensity to increase visibility in fog. HTH.

If we wish to be real sticklers about it...the only way that I know of to reduce the transmit power on the Equinox 600 or 800 if I'm doing it, is to lower the sensitivity setting. If there's any other way to accomplish this...please enlighten me. There isn't any user adjustment labeled transmit power! simply stated...the sensitivity adjustment controls transmit power. With my Teknetics T2 Classic & my T2SE LTD the sensitivity adjustment also controlled transmit power and when you got into an overload condition in black sand like we're talking about, you lowered sensitivity to reduce transmit power to enable you to detect in it.

 

[vferrari]

If we wish to be real sticklers about it...the only way that I know of to reduce the transmit power on the Equinox 600 or 800 if I'm doing it, is to lower the sensitivity setting. If there's any other way to accomplish this...please enlighten me. There isn't any user adjustment labeled transmit power! simply stated...the sensitivity adjustment controls transmit power. With my Teknetics T2 Classic & my T2SE LTD the sensitivity adjustment also controlled transmit power and when you got into an overload condition in black sand like we're talking about, you lowered sensitivity to reduce transmit power to enable you to detect in it.

If your T2 sensitivity control actually also controlled transmit power, all I can say is that would be a very unusual design. Typically, transmit power which determines the strength of the magnetic field that is pumped into the ground by the transmit coil, is fixed. If it is variable it is either automatically controlled like the Equinox Overload feature (there is no manual user control of transmit power on Equinox) or manually controlled independent of sensitivity - like on the XP Deus. Sensitivity merely controls amplification of the relatively weak received target magnetic field that results when the strong transmit magnetic field induces eddy currents in the target.

Lowering coil transmit power in high mineralization/black sand situations helps to reduce ground feedback caused by the ferrimagnetic mineralization magnetic field that gets activated by the transmit coil field. Lowering receive sensitivity in this case just makes a bad depth performance situation worse. Magnetic black sand or mineralization already limits depth (presuming you keep coil transmit power constant), so lowering sensitivity just makes the received target signal weaker, but if you have no way to control transmit power it might be your only way of getting the detector to be stable though your depth is now severely limited [my suspicion is that is what was really happening with your T2 but the documentation in the manual doesn't really address it from what I can tell other than to say the sensitivity adjustment merely controls "electronic gain"]. By being able to lower transmit power you at least give yourself a fighting chance to punch through the magnetic interference of the black sand to detect the target and by settting sensitivity to a higher level that puts the detector just on the edge of stability but helps you to be potentially able to detect that now weaker target signal. So transmit power and sensitivity are two completely different parameters that have some similarities in how they affect the received target signal strength but also some significant differences and independent control of both parameters, whether automatic (e.g., Equinox) or manual (e.g., Deus) is an ideal design approach

Even though a metal detector is more like a transformer than a radar, a radar analogy might help here. The strength of the radar wave that interacts with a target is controlled by the transmitter power and and the strength of the received, reflected wave signal is controlled by the sensitivity adjustment on the radar receiver (also called RF gain or amplification). If you increase the radar transmit power too high you might pick up too much ground clutter and perhaps even water vapor reflections that can obscure your desired target signals, increasing sensitivity does not help the situation, nor does lowering sensitivity. But lowering transmit power and increasing sensitivity can help keep the ground clutter and weather from obscuring the target giving you a fighting chance to see the weak target.

Anyway the words right out of the Equinox manual are this:

"Some beaches contain black sand, which has
high natural iron content and is often
magnetic. This causes continuous false
ferrous detections, making normal beach
detecting impossible.
Beach Mode automatically senses black sand
and reduces the transmit power to ensure
that targets can still be detected without
overloading occurring. When black sand
is sensed, the Beach Overload Indicator
will appear on the LCD. When this icon
disappears, full transmit power automatically resumes."

I have an engineering background and teach classes on these principles so I am pretty certain how this works at least on the Deus and Equinox, but can't speak to all detector designs.

HTH.

 

[BH505Man]

If that's the case, why do we reduce the sensitivity to reduce ground chatter? There must be some co-relationship between the two. Other wise detector stability and the ability to detect a target would be impossible. Think about it, black sand is a metal (iron) and as such you would need to lower the sensitivity to it or to discriminate it out to not detect it.

 

[vferrari]

If that's the case, why do we reduce the sensitivity to reduce ground chatter? There must be some co-relationship between the two. Other wise detector stability and the ability to detect a target would be impossible. Think about it, black sand is a metal (iron) and as such you would need to lower the sensitivity to it or to discriminate it out to not detect it.

Well I have thought about it, extensively. Like I said in in my response above, if the detector does not have adjustable transmit power, your ONLY choice may be to reduce sensitivity in order to gain stability, but in that case you are significantly losing depth from both the mineralization attenuating the transmit signal and your reduced ability to sense the target signal because you have lowered sensitivity. Not ideal. However, by having the ability to lower transmit power to reduce the effect of the reflected mineralization noise "signal" and then being able to independently raise sensitivity to be able to "see" or compensate for the reduced strength target signal (due to the lowered transmit field strength) you at least have a better chance of retaining some depth capability.

That's why some people find that using the Equinox in beach 1 or 2 mode in hot dirt and letting it go into overload with reduced transmit power to be an effective way to deal with mineralized soil conditions. This is also why the Deus is considered a good hot dirt machine, because the X35 coils also give you the ability to manually adjust sensitivity independendent of transmit power and is a technique taught by Andy Sabisch and myself when I assist as an instructor in his Deus bootcamp sessions. Equinox just gives you less control than Deus because it is an automatic process that is only available in the beach modes.

One other, less effective, but available adjustment you have to lower mineralization ground noise on both Equinox and Deus is increasing recovery speed. Again, you sacrifice some depth, but if you can lower the ground noise overall in the process, it may help to reveal some shallower keepers in the mineralized muck.

Here's another way to think about it, BH505Man: If lowering sensitvity alone was the key to dealing with black sand, why did ML bother with having an automatic process that simply lowered sensitivity. Just give the user an indication when to lower sensitivity manually. The answer is obvious when you think about it, it is because the user does not have ready access to a transmit power adjustment on Equinox, so the process has to be automatic in software. ML could have chosen to give the user access to a manual transmit power adjustment similar to Deus but for reasons known only to ML, they chose to do it this way, perhaps for user simplicity because you would only encounter it very rarely. That is also why ML carefully and intentionally used the term "transmit power" and not "sensitivity" when discussing the black sand overload feature in the manual.

None of these techniques and features for dealing with mineralization are foolproof btw. Similar to dealing with EMI (where lowering transmit power really has little to no benefit, but lowering sensitivity and/or recovery speed or transmit frequency can help), they all involve reducing noise at the expense of some depth capability, and finding the sweet spot in the tradeoff or at least some level of improvement in an otherwise bad situation (black sand salt beach, super hot soil of Culpeper VA (where I frequently detect) or near an electric cattle fence) can make the difference between finding something or packing up and leaving empty handed.

HTH.

 

[nuggetdog]

Dang, all this technical talk is wearing my old brain out, think I’ll just turn my 800 on and have some fun, the machine can figure all that other stuff out. [emoji23][emoji38][emoji16]

 

[vferrari]

Dang, all this technical talk is wearing my old brain out, think I’ll just turn my 800 on and have some fun, the machine can figure all that other stuff out. [emoji23][emoji38][emoji16]

A question was asked by the OP, just trying to give an accurate answer. Agree, no need to give yourself a headache if all this mumbo jumbo doesn’t matter to you (the detector takes care of the issue automatically), so swing away in bliss. But Chris asked, BH505 gave a great answer except for one minor detail, and I tried to simply clarify that detail and that should have been the end of it. However, BH took issue with my take on sensitivity vs. transmit power so down the technical rabbit hole we went and now I’m getting a headache. Lol.

We should probably all just head out for some detecting fun rather than belaboring the nitty technical details further but I respect BH505Man’s right to respond to my last post and point out any erroneous or confusing statements on my part.

 

[BH505Man]

Very interesting discussion and thanks for your replies vferrari. I just received the Equinox Series Handbook by Andy Sabisch yesterday. It should help shed some light on some of the mysteries of the Equinox 800. So far from what I've read, it appears that the book helps to explain the Equinox's controls and settings in a language that most people can understand and relate to. Sometimes the technical jargon that engineers use can get your head spinning in trying to understand and digest it all. As a former Aircraft Electronic Navigation Systems Technician I understand some of the theory involved, however the names that are given to some controls do not always accurately describe what they actually control or do. Sometimes it's also hard to envision what affects a setting has on and how it interacts or affects other settings or the overall performance of the detector. Anyway I believe that Andy Sabisch's book should help explain a lot about the Equinox. Once again, thanks for your input.
Walt

 

[vferrari]

Very interesting discussion and thanks for your replies vferrari. I just received the Equinox Series Handbook by Andy Sabisch yesterday. It should help shed some light on some of the mysteries of the Equinox 800. So far from what I've read, it appears that the book helps to explain the Equinox's controls and settings in a language that most people can understand and relate to. Sometimes the technical jargon that engineers use can get your head spinning in trying to understand and digest it all. As a former Aircraft Electronic Navigation Systems Technician I understand some of the theory involved, however the names that are given to some controls do not always accurately describe what they actually control or do. Sometimes it's also hard to envision what affects a setting has on and how it interacts or affects other settings or the overall performance of the detector. Anyway I believe that Andy Sabisch's book should help explain a lot about the Equinox. Once again, thanks for your input.
Walt

Totally agree with you on detector tech language. Each of the manufacturers have their own jargon, terminology and trade secrets for similar features (e.g., recovery speed on Equinox vs. reactivity on Deus), makes it difficult to understand what the settings actually do and how they work especially similar but different features such as discrimination vs. notch and transmit power vs. sensitivity. A lot of it is guesswork or learned through trial and error because the manufacturer documentation is so poor (though the Equinox user manual is top notch). Plus tweaking a detector is often centered around tradeoffs between depth, separation, and coverage. Trying to eliminate junk without masking treasure.

Andy's books help navigate these tradeoffs. It should be a good read. Look for my recommended relic settings. Hope you got the just released latest edition (Blue cover) that references the latest firmware updates. Ironically, I scanned the book and I can't see that he specifically addresses the Overload feature. If you come across a section where he addresses it, let me know. But the book is top notch regardless and gives you some great tips and explanations. Congrats.

 

[BH505Man]

Yes, I did order and received the blue cover one (the latest revision).