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XP Orx Vs Equinox 800 Vs GM1000 Hot Ground Austrália


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It's a well known fact that tiny targets can get lost within the tracking with any machine, and regardless of who the expert reviewer is they nearly all tell you to ground balance and lock the Tracking/GB, On the size of the targets in the video having the GB on will only soften the signal response slightly but when it comes to targets the size of what "Phrunt" posted then there is a high risk of them being ground balanced out so tracking needs to be Locked, 

The reason behind locking the tracking/GB is because you have no way of knowing how big or how small the targets are because you can get weak signals on larger bits and strong signals on tiny bits and "VICE VERSA"  So to avoid any loss of targets it is better work the area with the GB/Tracking locked and unless the ground keeps changing then you don't need to be in Tracking This is just Detecting 101 as with all machines.

There is no magic happening here, even as far back as 2000+/- we have had detectors that although the tracking/GB is locked they will still monitor the ground conditions and will update them when the User allows the detector to do so, So the simple task of ground balancing is a lot quicker than it would be if the person had just turned up at the site. As with most modern machines the thing that makes them better is being able to fine tune them or by switching on the fine tuned factory programs.

The single most impressive thing about this video and "All" three machines is the fact that they work in Hot Aussie soil. and it is what I have been saying for years having used VLF's in Australia and for all the surface shallow Gold that most folks use the SDC for A person can buy one of these machines and still have a good chance of finding Gold at a fraction of the cost,

And again I thank EL NINO77 for posting the video.

 

J.

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3 hours ago, auminesweeper said:

There is no magic happening here, even as far back as 2000+/- we have had detectors that although the tracking/GB is locked they will still monitor the ground conditions and will update them when the User allows the detector to do so,

Well, maybe just a little magic...?

Thing is with the Equinox, even if you "lock" the GB, Multi IQ is still continuously compensating for ground conditions in the background (not a user choice) if you believe this ML statement from the ML treasure talk article describing Multi IQ:

  • Gold 1 and Gold 2 process the higher weighted combination of the Multi-IQ band while still ground balancing for soil. However, they use different setting parameters better suited for gold nugget hunting.

This is purely describing Multi IQ signal processing differences between modes and does not factor in default user settings for those modes (e.g., whether GB is "fixed" or in tracking).  In other words, ML implies similar Multi IQ soil or salt balancing for the other modes which don't have tracking on by default.  So one might argue that if you genuinely want Equinox to fix the ground balance point for prospecting so micro gold is not "tracked out", best to put Equinox Gold mode in single frequency also, which is where ML was originally headed as the default for Gold mode.  Thoughts?

As an engineer, I find the ambiguity and vagueness in ML's descriptions of ground compensation to be somewhat frustrating especially since the relationship/magnitude difference between multi IQ ground compensation and Equinox ground tracking (independent of multi IQ) is really unknown.  I guess for prospecting, I would "trust" the Multi IQ ground compensation "more" than ground tracking, but who knows, quite frankly...

 

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4 minutes ago, Chase Goldman said:

Well, maybe just a little magic...?

Thing is with the Equinox, even if you "lock" the GB, Multi IQ is still continuously compensating for ground conditions in the background (not a user choice) if you believe this ML statement from the ML treasure talk article describing Multi IQ:

  • Gold 1 and Gold 2 process the higher weighted combination of the Multi-IQ band while still ground balancing for soil. However, they use different setting parameters better suited for gold nugget hunting.

This is purely describing Multi IQ signal processing differences between modes and does not factor in default user settings for those modes (e.g., whether GB is "fixed" or in tracking).  In other words, ML implies similar Multi IQ soil or salt balancing for the other modes which don't have tracking on by default.  So one might argue that if you genuinely want Equinox to fix the ground balance point for prospecting so micro gold is not "tracked out", best to put Equinox Gold mode in single frequency also, which is where ML was originally headed as the default for Gold mode.  Thoughts?

As an engineer, I find the ambiguity and vagueness in ML's descriptions of ground compensation to be somewhat frustrating especially since the relationship/magnitude difference between multi IQ ground compensation and ground tracking is really an unknown.

 

As with many companies ML are not going to release info on what makes their products Tick, and as for being able to work in Salty locations each mode will has a GB range to suit the conditions as to what those ranges are and which mode they are only ML knows the Answers to that, I prefer a machine that has a separate Salt Mode or Salt Switch that can be switch on in any mode.

What ML have created here with the NOX is a machine that be it Novice or Pro can just go to the store and Buy a machine that will get them up and running straight off the Bat and while that suits 99% of people there are some who like to mess with things, This is where pre set programs fall short but for the rest of the world are more than impressed with how they work, One of my pet hates was with the Sovereign GT where it had an Iron Mask switch but even with it switched off the Iron Mask was still running in the back ground which slowed the machine down by a huge margin and because of that the Sovereign GT fell short when it could have been so much more,

So with all the above just how many manual over rides should ML fit in to these Machines, I know for a fact that Whites tried that with the V3 and the V3i and "most" people shied away from the V3's because most folks want to switch it on and get on with detecting, I for one am one of those people and not being the most patient of people that machine would have become a tree ornament on the first day. So ML has made a machine where detecting remains an enjoyable venture and I am still not convinced that we need to have even more access to how the machine works because get that wrong and it will effect something else within the program.   

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All I’m asking for is a little clarity on how tracking GB is different than Multi IQ ground compensation.  While I understand that ML has to protect it’s intellectual property, that aspect should’t be a state secret, quite frankly.  Especially considering all the other information ML decided to put out in its Treasure Talk Multi IQ articles.  

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3 hours ago, Chase Goldman said:

All I’m asking for is a little clarity on how tracking GB is different than Multi IQ ground compensation.  While I understand that ML has to protect it’s intellectual property, that aspect should’t be a state secret, quite frankly.  Especially considering all the other information ML decided to put out in its Treasure Talk Multi IQ articles.  

Yeah I understand where your coming from and it seems that having different names/labels  as in ground tracking and multi IQ ground compensation can be a bit confusing, But you can bet they are similar and with just a few subtle changes like a faster or slower SAT speed or a lower level of gain multipliers etc  although SAT is mainly a thing found on threshold based machines,

I think you might find the answers in Andy's new book because he has a habit of delving in to the unknown with most of the machines he has written about, He's pretty switched on when it comes to this type of stuff. or maybe Chris or JP could explain just how this process works.

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  • 4 months later...
On 6/19/2019 at 5:24 PM, Chase Goldman said:

With all due respect to Steve's description, I still don't consider ground tracking to be a filter in the traditional sense, like discrimination or iron bias, as it is not directly acting on how a target signal is processed, it is merely setting the ground balance point reference and in that context, I have a hard time understanding how it can actually be detrimental to target detection. 

Tracking responds to ground responses and then adjusts the ground balance setting. The amount of ground response it takes to trigger the change plus the speed and amount of the shift constitute the amount of filtering taking place.

So the engineer decides first - how much ground response must the machine detect before it decides to change the ground balance setting. It has to be something obviously or there would be no tracking. The problem is the machine cannot tell the very weakest signals from a ground signal. Very tiny items or large items so deep that they appear as tiny items (it's all tiny signals, target size actually is not the issue) all appear as a ferrous type ground signal to the detector. That is why blocking some ferrous range will block some non-ferrous targets.

The bottom line is that in order to track at all the machine triggers on a certain level of ground response, and that level includes weak ferrous and non-ferrous signals. That's the first level of filtering since that setting is variable from an engineering standpoint.

How often do you want to sample the ground signal and make a change? Every tenth second? Every second? Every two seconds? How rapidly is the tracking occurring? On a Minelab GPX this is a variable setting and in general the faster/more aggressive the setting, the most chance of tracking out non-ferrous. So that's another level of filtering effect.

Finally, how much/how far/how big a jump in setting do you want to allow in one discrete track? If the machine detects it is out of balance, should you let the setting jump a tenth of a GB setting in the proper direction, a single number, or multiple numbers. Like the rate of sample above this can make the changes slower and more mellow, or near instantaneous/aggressive.

Add these all up and a machine may take two pumps over the ground to track or ten. It can adjust in a second or take a minute.

 In general the less aggressive the sum of the internal settings the less chance of tuning out tiny non-ferrous signals but the slower the ability of the machine to react to rapid changes in mineralization.

Cal it what you want to me that's all a filtering effect, a variable effect based on multiple variable inputs. What it filters is ground responses plus weak ferrous and non-ferrous responses, trading one off against the other. Unfortunately in most machines it is all preset and ground tracking boils down to on or off.

I used to never use ground tracking unless absolutely forced to do it. Now we have new machines that give us no option, like the SDC 2300. The new tracking algorithms are quite excellent but for low mineral ground eking the last bits out of a small area I would still prefer to be able to use a fixed ground balance setting to get that little extra edge.

This is all far more applicable to nugget detecting than most other types of detecting, but is where an experienced nugget hunter develops an edge most other detectorists don't have.

TRACKING, MOTION, AND SWEEP SPEED – PART 1

TRACKING, MOTION, AND SWEEP SPEED – PART 2

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One thing I noticed about some of the good older machines apart from the obvious power some of them had is when it comes to ground balancing you could GB the ground as best as possible but where not all magnetic soils can/could be wiped out completely where the machine still gives off a very slight noise or rise/drop in the threshold you could/can fine tune those signals out with the use of the DISC control so those faint rises etc all but vanish,

Also machines like the TDI series you can adjust the GB to the point where is will filter out unwanted target as a crude form of discrimination, The bottom line is, It does not matter if it is a 40 year old VLF or a modern PI machine the GB system is most definitely a filter system, And on all VLF's and PI's there is a cross over point which is often referred to as the HOLE where some items just fall in to the same setting as the Ground balance setting and they totally Vanish out of sight from the detector, where as in dryer or wetter soil those targets can come back in to view for the detector, This is why you can hunt the same ground over and over and still keep finding stuff whether it be a new detector of an old one, Auto GB systems have good and bad points but locking them when you can is still the best way to go.

If your ML machine is still compensating when the GB is Locked then that is not such a good thing, If it only monitors the ground then that's a good thing while it is locked, But not if it is making adjustments because the whole idea of locking it is to stop it adjusting, As I said before ML did the same thing with the Sovereign GT where you could turn the Iron Mask off but it kept running in the background which was the one thing that ruined that machine in Iron infested ground along with s few of their FBS machines which was behind the reason I changed brands, because in my soils the Iron mask takes away about 95% of the machines usefulness.

J.

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