Leaving balance balancing at zero

[Truth]

I’ve noticed in a lot of videos they leave the ground balance at zero if they were to ground balance their soil would it be at zero? If not why would they leave it at zero?

 

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[vferrari]

The Equinox is very forgiving of a less than ideal ground balance as it is able to take advantage of the multi frequency receive signals and better infer target ID vs. ground phase without being perfectly balanced.

On the other hand, multi frequency also enables you to achieve a very precise ground balance, especially in wet salt conditions and also provides a very good ground balance tracking capability.

What does all this mean? Well if the actual ground phase is withing 20 or so points of where you have the detector set (say you use the default at 0 and actual ground phase is at 20), you should still be able to hear a target at depth. With a more precise ground balance, that target signal should be more clear.

I would say that only in the case of actual versus set ground balance difference being greater than 30 or 40 are you in danger of missing a deeper target. This becomes more pronounced in highly mineralized or high salt ground where your depth (even with a perfect ground balance) is somewhat limited in the first place, so it is even more important to have a good ground balance in those conditions. Also, just a reminder that you cannot infer the degree of mineralization at a site purely from a ground phase reading. High mineralized sites do tend to have higher ground phase readings, but there is no direct correlation. In fact, remember that each search profile mode will likely give a different GB reading on the same patch of ground which is why you need to ground balance each mode separately if you use multiple modes at the same site.

Finally, when in doubt, don't be afraid to use ground balance tracking especially at sites that have highly variable ground phase readings across the site (a typical attribute of mineralized sites). This keeps you from having to constant rebalance the machine or missing a deeper keeper just because you forgot to rebalance. Since the tracking ground balance relies on a certain level of mineralization and change in mineralization to work well, I would avoid using it at very mild sites and especially not on dry white sand beaches.

HTH.

 

[Truth]

The Equinox is very forgiving of a less than ideal ground balance as it is able to take advantage of the multi frequency receive signals and better infer target ID vs. ground phase without being perfectly balanced.

On the other hand, multi frequency also enables you to achieve a very precise ground balance, especially in wet salt conditions and also provides a very good ground balance tracking capability.

What does all this mean? Well if the actual ground phase is withing 20 or so points of where you have the detector set (say you use the default at 0 and actual ground phase is at 20), you should still be able to hear a target at depth. With a more precise ground balance, that target signal should be more clear.

I would say that only in the case of actual versus set ground balance difference being greater than 30 or 40 are you in danger of missing a deeper target. This becomes more pronounced in highly mineralized or high salt ground where your depth (even with a perfect ground balance) is somewhat limited in the first place, so it is even more important to have a good ground balance in those conditions. Also, just a reminder that you cannot infer the degree of mineralization at a site purely from a ground phase reading. High mineralized sites do tend to have higher ground phase readings, but there is no direct correlation. In fact, remember that each search profile mode will likely give a different GB reading on the same patch of ground which is why you need to ground balance each mode separately if you use multiple modes at the same site.

Finally, when in doubt, don't be afraid to use ground balance tracking especially at sites that have highly variable ground phase readings across the site (a typical attribute of mineralized sites). This keeps you from having to constant rebalance the machine or missing a deeper keeper just because you forgot to rebalance. Since the tracking ground balance relies on a certain level of mineralization and change in mineralization to work well, I would avoid using it at very mild sites and especially not on dry white sand beaches.

HTH.

Our soil can be 0 in one spot at 72 in another so I use tracking, but I left it on 0 today just to see and it seemed fine. But out soil is know for mid mineralization.

 

[67GTA]

https://www.detectorprospector.com/forums/topic/7990-couple-vids-i-did-experimenting-with-ground-balance/

 

[Truth]

https://www.detectorprospector.com/forums/topic/7990-couple-vids-i-did-experimenting-with-ground-balance/

Thank you for the video that explains a lot

 

[67GTA]

Just tripped across them while researching this myself. I've always ground balanced all of my detectors until the Equinox. Minelab recommends leaving it at 0. I haven't had the weather to test this out. I'll start ground balancing it from now on.

 

[HighVDI]

I found a bunch of silver on 0 and a bunch on tracking. Deeper finds in both configurations. Ive said it before but i cant seem to screw this machine up.

 

[Hawks88]

Thanks for sharing all the info.

 

[Truth]

Thanks for sharing all the info.

Hawk don’t you just love our Tnet members [emoji4]

 

[devldog]

They're the best, no hands down.