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Equinox / Vanquish Iron Bias " Bug "


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22 minutes ago, Jeff McClendon said:

I have repeatedly experienced this with the Vanquish 340 and 440. A coin spill will have broken audio, jumpy numbers, with negative numbers and iron tones included if hunting with all targets accepted.

Probably a combination of the built in high iron bias and DD near coil "multiple hit" effect. Just curious - why use a Vanquish if you have an Equinox? If I had both I know which one would get used and which would sit in a corner.

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11 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Probably a combination of the built in high iron bias and DD near coil "multiple hit" effect. Just curious - why use a Vanquish if you have an Equinox? If I had both I know which one would get used and which would sit in a corner.

I have inexperienced kids and grandkids and I let newbies use an easy detector at club hunts, etc. I could give them an Ace (a bit too heavy and so-so performance), an ORX (really light and adjustable but a bit too complicated) or a Vanquish 340 or 440 which is really adjustable, light weight, easy to use and as long as you get the coil over single targets in the ground, will ID them really well.

Jeff

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I rarely disc out anything and prefer to just tone down the Fe vol or run it at the barest minimum to take out the ground noise.  Ignoring modern nickels, copper/brass pennies, dimes or quarters you will be guaranteed to miss the old coins. We have a good variety of old coins with Id's that range quite a bit. Easier to learn the trash than the unknown.

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Only way Minelab could respond is to update the firmware. The default high iron bias for the Vanquish is F2 @ 8 or 9. The low iron bias on the 540 is around F2 @ 3-4. Just too much discrimination. Maybe it was intentional?

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Just now, 67GTA said:

Only way Minelab could respond is to update the firmware. The default high iron bias for the Vanquish is F2 @ 8 or 9. The low iron bias on the 540 is around F2 @ 3-4. Just too much discrimination. Maybe it was intentional?

Of course it was intentional. The Vanquish are Ace competitors, entry level models. Newbies don't like digging trash. It's really that simple.

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ML might have just made it easier to dig the obvious rather than have a beginner start digging too much trash and get discouraged. Other makers do the same I'm sure, much like the coin mode on the AT Pro.

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11 minutes ago, phrunt said:

I'm lucky our coins ID's are well defined.  Our modern coins are like the Canadians coins, they're even made there I believe.  It's easy to leave them in the ground.  And our modern $1 and $ coins ID as 21 and 22 on the Nox/Vanquish, numbers I always dig.

Canadian modern steel core clad, except for 5 cent coins which are mostly nickel and give 12-13, respond with positive and negative numbers on the Vanquish 340 and 440. The only way to hunt them is with as little iron rejection as possible. On the 340 that means hunting with nothing rejected or you can literally miss 10 cent, 25 cent, 1 dollar and 2 dollar coins. Canadian zinc/copper pennies are not a problem 20/21.

These Canadian coins are a good example of this "problem" with high iron bias. The lower conducting part of the coins is the most prominent response and the higher conductor part of the response is barely an occasional broken up high squeak.

Jeff

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Another example. Probably the best detectors made for getting rid of ferrous trash are the Minelab BBS models, like Sovereign and Excalibur. They hate ferrous, and are terrific at handling bottle caps and flat tin steel that drive most detectors nuts.

But they really suck at gold nugget detecting and thin gold chains, micro gold jewelry and have a low recovery speed. Masking is a big issue.

Enter Multi-IQ aimed at being hot on small gold and fast recovery.... and we got bottle cap and general steel issues along with it. It does make me wonder if the two are clearly connected, and eliminating one eliminates the other. Can we get a detector with BBS type ferrous elimination while still retaining small non-ferrous sensitivity and high recovery speeds? I do not know, though I hope that advanced signal processing will mean the answer is yes. The next generation of Multi-IQ might help answer the question.

It's a question that impacts me directly. I want a detector to hunt old mining camps that will kill the ferrous, but the best machines for that are the worst for gold nuggets. Equinox and Deus/ORX are about as good as it gets right now.

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    I think much depends on where you are detecting! 

   I'm not new at this, but far from a seasoned pro! I don't get access to old areas, because there really aren't any here! If you don't dig the clad and trash, it will be rare here, to find a "prize" target! Contrary to popular belief, beach and water detecting has it's limitations; here in "paradise"?!🤯 !!   So you have to use alternative locations,( ie, not old),  other than the beaches to keep up the skills! Here we get 180° area to search! Many of you have 360°! Not complaining, just the way it is! Moving not an option; yet!!👍👍

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