My ACE 250 finally lets me down!

[Monty]

Since acquiring my ACE 250 as a backup to my GTI 2500 I have made any number of posts bragging on it but I finally encountered a situation that it just couldn't handle. There use to be a huge foundary nearby that put out tons of slag each year. They were having trouble disposing of it because of its trace metal contents. So, several years ago the City decided it would make great backfill for projects such as road beds, athletic fields, etc. and it was free for the hauling off. Anyway nearly every contsruction project from the past half century probably has some slag backfill in it. Day before yesterday I took my ACE to a private athletic field I had permission to hunt. I found I couldn't effectively hunt it with my ACE because it had the slag backfill not far under the surface. The particles of slag acted much like a hot rock and I kept getting false signals. It was one of those where you would get a target signal at 2", dig down and run your coil back over it and it would still say two more inches, and repeated this until you had gone down about 8 inches and found nothing! Since the ACE 250 has a preset ground balance it could not compensate for the slag and its trace metals. Yesterday I went back with my GTI 2500 that has a ground balance tracking feature. In other words as conditions change it automatically adjust the ground balance to compensate for it. In about an hour and in a strip about 10'X10' I dug over $3.00 in clad that I couldn't pick up with my ACE. The day before I had dug a couple dozen dry holes and only recovered a few cents in clad with the ACE and finally gave up in frustration. The ground balance thing is the only reason I can figure, but if anyone else has a theory, please post. And thanks for listening. Monty

 

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[RatRacer]

Same problem here, Monty. I live 15 miles from Pittsburgh, PA, the "Steel City." This whole area is covered with slag, and it drives my Ace 250 crazy. I can't use it in my yard at all because it just dings all the time. Sounds like the lack of ground-balancing is the problem. What's funny is they're mining the slag dumps now, because they can recover the steel that was skimmed with the slag. Too bad they lost so much of it under houses and ballfields.

 

[gossunc]

In encountered something very similar today at a friend's house built in the 1920s. Only got three clean signals over an hour...dug out two memorials and a makeup compact case from the 20s. Otherwise, the 250 beeped almost constantly, but not in that consisten manner that it does over a coin.

Goose

 

[Monty]

There's no way you can change it (ground balance), but the factory might. But they will probably tell you it is set for "average" conditions. Not having an adjustable ground balance is one of the reasons they can sell the ACE series so inexpensively though. If you like Garrett products you might want to check into one of the more expensive models such as the GTI or GTA series. Not sure but think they all have manual adjustments or at least fast-trac. Monty

 

[jeff from east pa]

I don't have an ace I use a whites 5900di pro sl but am thinking of buying one for a back up mines from 1993. Your detectors are working fine slag has alot of hot rock and iron impurities in it alot of detectors well act like that. If you go in a yard and get alot of bad signals and get 3 good ones and dig up 3 good targets that detector is doing a great job! the yard could be loaded with trash like tin foil and square nails. if this ace is as good as everone says it is garrett could make one to compete with whites dfx for a few bills more they could give whites a good run for there money especially one for around 400-500 bucks.

 

[Sandman]

Monty you are correct on the slag being the cause of the lack of performence of the ACE 250. You correctly stated that for the price it is a good detector. The companys used to be able to adjust the detectors for your area but it is very difficult to set the preadjust right for each area. That is why it is much better to use a more costly unit with manual or automatic ground balance.

It is the same problem at some beaches where slag was dumped as fill. It is heavier than a rock of equal size so it doesn't wash away. The slag gives some machines fits. The only way around this is a Minelab or other detector with the IRON mask feature.

 

[melvin_it]

It's happened to me too. Where I live there's not minerals and mining activities now but ancient peoples as Italics, Romans or Medievals they did work with some small iron vein. So there's some field with slag, I've found some large piece on surveys (I'm archaeologist). There are in a small area of my yard too. Once I dug a monster of a hole because of those strange signals , discrimination was unuseful, and my ACE was fooling...And I could'nt find anything cause these was very small. At last by using a magnet I've found some small piece similar to rocks, very hard to see, but still magnetic despite were slag. In fact ancient melting technology was'nt very efficient, they missed a good iron part in the slag.

Melvin