Ace 300 freak out over concrete.

[NuffaloBickel]

Any particular reason the Ace would go ballistic over concrete? I understand why it might in the particular spot that's reinforced with rebar. However, I've got an outbuilding in the back of the property and my machine went nuts over top of it. It's concrete "slabs", about 2'x2' with dirt under it as far as I know. I don't think they're reinforced. Even when I discriminate iron it goes nuts. A bunch of high tone signals and it's almost as if the machine overloads. Is this typical? I ran out of time to investigate today.

 

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[RngrRachel]

Any particular reason the Ace would go ballistic over concrete? I understand why it might in the particular spot that's reinforced with rebar. However, I've got an outbuilding in the back of the property and my machine went nuts over top of it. It's concrete "slabs", about 2'x2' with dirt under it as far as I know. I don't think they're reinforced. Even when I discriminate iron it goes nuts. A bunch of high tone signals and it's almost as if the machine overloads. Is this typical? I ran out of time to investigate today.

My 150 does that too. Any concrete, doesn't matter where. I have resigned myself to the fact that I do not live over a massive coin dump. [emoji12]

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[pepperj]

Take a sledge hammer smash the slab apart and see. JUST KIDDING!
There's can be wire mesh in the concrete for stability, rebar, or just about anything metal. I owned a scrap yard and one of my customers was the crushing plant for concrete. It was amazing the amounts of non-ferrous metal that came out of the cement. Brass, alum. copper stainless, coins. It was one way of getting rid of trash around the construction sites. The Eddy Current magnet systems would separate the metals from the stone and sand crushing.
I bought the precious metals gold/silver separately from the other scrap. There was even large cents once in a while all bent/chewed up.

 

[NuffaloBickel]

Ok. So I'm not sitting on a hoard of old coin and I'm not crazy. Well, I suppose a little crazy. I mean, I do go hunting for underground treasure.

 

[bradyboy]

yep, concrete slabbed requires wire mesh or rebar to stabilize and keep the concrete from cracking

 

[trdking]

Nah, Its treasure. Rip it up and have a look.
signed
wife who wants a new slab

I believe the California building code is #4 rebar 18" Squares or 6x6" square Wire mesh 8 gauge. Concrete is loaded with iron

 

[NuffaloBickel]

Thanks for the help. Almost fells like a foolish question now. I was pretty sure this was what was going on but just wanted verification.

 

[digger27]

Most concrete I swing over has metal in it but there have been some, like some older sidewalks in my neighborhood,where it stays silent.

BTW, you mentioned dishing out iron and your detector still going crazy...and you were surprised.
Let me clear up something that will help you out for the rest of your time in this hobby.

When you use disc that doesn't mean you are necessarily shutting out metals.
Many things, like the big metal that is in this slab, can still bleed right through that disc no matter what you do.
In this case when you told your detector to knock out iron all you did was tell it you didn't want to see, hear or know about it...but it still could.
Your tool could still sense it just the same and be affected by it.

I believe the same thing happens out in the field with much smaller problem metals like nails near coins to a lesser extent.
Yes, some tools can disc out the nail and still hit pretty good on the coin as when using Monte's nail board test, some better than others, but even the best ones are still affected by all metals in the vicinity.
Even using and listening to my Tesoros or even my Fishers on a target like a coin next to masking trash like a nail I can hear a good enough and solid enough tone to get me to dig it but take that nail away and listen again...
The tone over just the coin usually gets better, sharper, a bit more solid...different without that other metal affecting everything.
That is no matter how much disc I am or I am not using.

Discrimination is not magic, it is a bit of programming and tech that helps us cut down on the sounds, signals and noise levels of unwanted areas of conductivity so that our ears and brain will not be confused by tons of signals and helps us pick out, hear and see the more wanted signals of the better targets we go after.
Should it be trusted all the time?
That depends, I found in some areas and site conditions it works well, in others like sites with a lot of iron, sometimes heavy trash and in mineralized soil disc can hurt you and works to cut out a lot of the good targets along with the trash or won't let a good enough signal on good targets come through so we can notice them...sometimes way more than you think.
That is why in the areas I hunt now which are mineralized and filled with a crazily amount of extra helpings of trash and iron I found when I use less disc, either all metal or my disc setting on 0 or at the most 1, I can notice and find more.
I had to learn to use settings like these over time with practice, it wasn't easy, very jumpy, noisy and confusing but it is doable and just something that I needed to do to stay the most successful.
If I hunted in beautiful, clean, black low mineralized dirt things might be different but they are not...so I learned to deal with it the best way I know how.

 

[NuffaloBickel]

Thanks for the help. Almost fells like a foolish question now. I was pretty sure this was what was going on but just wanted verification. I have to agree about the discrimination. What I've been doing is running in zero-disc mode. I'm new to this and new to my machine so it goes beyond just missing potentially good targets. I want to know what it sounds like when there's a goodie sitting next to a pile of nails. To here all those iron grunts and a faint bell tone hiding in there. If I hear something like that, then I'll go into coin mode and try to see if I can isolate it. I know I'm going to, for now at least, dig it no matter what. Even then, I'm trying to take note of what those mixed signals are saying and if or how it changes as I change positions on the target. I'm trying to notice my digital target I'd numbers as well. Are they solid? Do they jump around? There's so much to learn here and I'm having a blast doing it. The people on this forum help out quite a bit too!

 

[P.ALLEN]

250 does it from time to time, I don't even swing over it anymore

 

[sprailroad]

Aw heck, I found it's hard to dig a plug of concrete anyway.