GPZ Technical Question For JP

[Condor]

The cumulative effect of the GPZ ground balance storage

 

Observation:  I ran Steve's Hot settings, HY, Normal, Sens 20, Threshold 35, Smoothing Low for several days in a row and the machine seems to be running as stable as before I switched to the hot settings. 

The desert southwest ground is fairly mild, especially where I've been working lately, but I know when I first started running these settings my machine was noisy, growling and squealing unless I slowed my sweep speed way down to a crawl.  Now, the machine seems to have really settled down and I can increase my sweep speed without a bunch of extra noise.  I did the Minelab update but I never had the ferrite to do that particular ground balance procedure.

Question:  Is the machine storing the ground balance information such that it now recognizes this ground and has made enough internal adjustment to account for a noticeably quieter machine, or is it just my own brain and hearing have made the adjustment and I have imagined the improvement?

I just received a Minelab ferrite,( thanks to Rob @ NuggetHunting.com), but now I'm afraid to re-ground balance and F up a good thing by clearing that stored data. 

What's a guy to do in this situation?

By the way, I got a deep, faint tone today and experimented with the settings some.  The results are probably moot since the target was a piece of wire down about 14 inches, but I got as good a tone if not better on this target with the General, Normal, 20 sens setting.  When I backed the Sens down to 15, neither HY nor General picked up the signal.  Switching Smoothing off, I got an awful lot of chatter and the signal was very hard to hear through the chatter. 

[jasong]

Bump for visibility, I'm also interested in this. I've been running pretty hot settings since Mar/Apr (which I detailed in novel length posts back then) and I've wondered the same thing myself, even before the update. I can't tell if the machine has "settled in" or if I settled into the machine, even now after all this time.

 

I know the first week I had it out I couldn't get it to quiet down enough to convince me it wasn't defective. Now I can run it almost all out and still get a nice stable, fairly quiet threshold where I like it to be and I can't tell if it's something to do with the update, my new locations, or what?

 

BTW, regarding the ferrite, I got my ferrite way late too and I balanced over it and I didn't noticed really any effect better or worse so I think your probably safe to do it but I hesitate to say that and have some go awry and feel responsible for it, so just my experience for what its worth and I'll let the pros answer. 

[Condor]

I know that before the update, my machine would drift to a negative ground balance and every time I raised the coil I was getting threshold over shoot. That's gone away, but I still get banged hard if I make a sudden movement either up or down.

[Norvic]

Interesting, I too have found either I can handle stoking the Z more, or it`s auto GB is handling it better. Whatever it is getting the weight.

 

On the subject of the ferrite, I suspect it is a sort of placebo, a knee jerk reaction by ML to what was a very unfair reaction by some users that could not or would not accept the Z`s capabilities.

[Steve Herschbach]

My GPZ seems better behaved now than early on. It is probably both the update and my getting used to the detector. I use the ferrite at least once every day without fail, more if I move to new locations. 

[Condor]

As I recall JP mentioned something about a quick ground balance that doesn't dump your stored ground balance data. I wonder if that's possible over the Ferrite and get the same benefit.

[fredmason]

He suggested NOT holding the quicktrac button for more than (I think) 10 seconds...it is in one of the recent posts by JP...

fred

[vanursepaul]

I thought it was 8--- but maybe JP could chime in on that and remind us what he said and why....

[fredmason]

http://www.detectorprospector.com/forum/topic/1317-gpz-new-quick-track-behavior/?hl=%2Bground+%2Bbalance#entry15177

 

 

if I did that correctly...the short answer is <10 seconds.....

[Condor]

I followed up by reading the JP original post on the Australian forum. Under 10 seconds even over the Ferrite. Repeat if necessary, but don't dump the accumulated data by holding quick track too long. Makes sense that this accumulated ground balance data is stabilizing or perhaps immunizing the machine to some extent.