F5 basic settings?

[olstinker]

I just got an F5 and I am struggling with remembering the best baseline settings. I have searched youtube and find mostly coil tests and hunts but very little about settings. I need to make a cheatsheet of some sort to carry with me. Any help would be great.

 

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[steve1357]

I use 75% gain, -5 threshold and be sure to ground balance it. It's your personal preference if you want to run all metal or discriminate though all metal is deeper.

Do not crank it up to 100%.....

You can crank a Fisher or Teknetics too hot very easily. I run my F70 around 60% all the time.

You having issues?

 

[olstinker]

could you give me a rundown on your method for ground balancing?

 

[steve1357]

Page 12 of manual.

Switch to all metal.

Threshold 0 is good.

Pump the coil from 6" to 1" off ground.
You'll see the phase reading on bottom right. While pumping, hold down the phase lock button until the lower left gnd bal reading equals the lower right phase reading. I think it'll beep at you when it locks in and matches.

As you search you'll see the bottom right phase change. If it gets too far out from the bottom left reading, I'd repeat the process. But don't let it overwhelm you.

http://fisherlab.com/hobby/manuals.htm

I don't mind getting my F5 out and helping if I can.

Basically that's how detectors work, quick changes in phase makes it go beep. Like my phase runs 60, hitting a coin will knock it to 40 or 30. I noticed with my F70, I can adjust it to go off with only a change of 3 points. It'll drive you nuts going off just by swinging it....

I see you're in LA. If you're doing the beaches, salt will change the phase pretty quick. I've read search parallel along the beach, running in and out will affect the phase too much going from wet to dry sand.

 

[snokid]

I use 75% gain, -5 threshold and be sure to ground balance it. It's your personal preference if you want to run all metal or discriminate though all metal is deeper.

Do not crank it up to 100%.....

You can crank a Fisher or Teknetics too hot very easily. I run my F70 around 60% all the time.

You having issues?

in my area I can run 90-95 and -2 -1 or 0 without it getting chatty

I also manual ground balance if it gets chatty I can just turn the balance up or down a little till is goes away with out even missing a swing...

 

[steve1357]

in my area I can run 90-95 and -2 -1 or 0 without it getting chatty

I also manual ground balance if it gets chatty I can just turn the balance up or down a little till is goes away with out even missing a swing...

That's why my ideal detector today would be the F70 guts inside the F5 user interface. I get tired of those chiclet buttons and clicking through menus. Waste way too much time, one appeal of the Tesoros.

Pretty good dirt if you can run all metal at 90%.

 

[olstinker]

Running - on threshhold seems to make it sharper on targets. Just my observation.

 

[Hookedondetecting]

On the F75 the more positive the threshold the more noise and better detection on smaller objects.
Negative settings do opposite.
Test.........
So if you are looking for tiny gold nuggets, what do you do with threshold?

 

[olstinker]

I wont be finding any tiny gold nuggets where I live in south Louisiana.

 

[steve1357]

I wont be finding any tiny gold nuggets where I live in south Louisiana.

How's it going since your first post?

 

[olstinker]

Pretty good. In clean ground I run 80-90 gain and -3 threshold. Been experimenting with the different tone settings. I remember reading that 1 tone or 2 tone is best for deeper coins.

 

[Hookedondetecting]

I wont be finding any tiny gold nuggets where I live in south Louisiana.

Well it was an example. They say raise threshold until you hear a bit of noise. More threashold will give you smaller objects and sense deeper.

As far as gold, dont count out jewelry.

 

[fella]

They say raise threshold until you hear a bit of noise. More threashold will give you smaller objects and sense deeper.

The green is correct. The red is NOT!

It's true you want to hear the threshold, but just barely. This way you'll be able to hear the fluctuations in it much better. If one cranks up the threshold, a weak signal will have a harder time or in fact just not be able to push its way through the threshold and the target will go undetected. You get smaller, weaker, deeper targets with MINIMUM threshold.

 

[olstinker]

So should I turn up the threshold until I hear it just a bit? Is running gain on about 80 ok ?

 

[fella]

So should I turn up the threshold until I hear it just a bit? Is running gain on about 80 ok ?

Yes on the threshold and run what ever gain your site will allow before it gets unstable. If the machine runs fine at 80 and not 85, run it at 80. I'd run it as hot as I could before it starts falsing and adjust accordingly. If all the hotter you can is say 60, 50 or 25 (just guesses on your machine) to just make it stable thats what I'd run.