Detector Mineralization Displays

[EL NINO77]

Pimiento ... 👍 I think you have defined really well what the GB indicator does - it is the "Terain Phase  "meter,...... and what is the function of the "Mineralization meter" -it is the "indicator of the strength of the X signal feedback" from the Field ...

[PimentoUK]

To help understand what these 'ground strength' / Fe3O4 / mineralisation meters are showing, it's worth a read of a few posts on the "Equinox improvement ideas" thread, starting from this post:

 

 

Notice the scaling of the F75 bargraph is logarithmic, to handle the wide range of possible values, and observe that it's not that precise, it goes in roughly factors of 3 increments, so there could be a 50% discrepancy between two different machines, and you wouldn't see it. This makes comparisons harder.

[kac]

The ground balance seems to be the same value across most my machines. The scale is probably machine specific but the value would be proportional to them.

[Mike_Hillis]

The FE0304 meter doesn't have anything to do with the ground phase number.    It simply tells you how strong the minerals in the dirt are.  The minerals could be magnetic like black sand or they could be conductive such as salt, or some combination of both.

 You can have dirt that ground balances in the teens and give you a high FE0304 reading because its highly conductive like wet salt,  or it could balance in the 50's and 60's and give you high FE0304 readings because its highly oxidized like some red clays  and you can have dirt in the 90's give you high FE0304 readings due to black sand.   And you can have some combination of both.

What is important is understanding how ground with high FE0304 readings affect target signals on your detector.   

At some point ground mineral strength starts to affect target signals.   It will either start masking it, or start interacting with the target response, either raising or lowering the target's phase numbers.   In my environment, as the ground mineral strength increases, the target phase number rises and based upon the target conductivity it can quickly wrap around to the iron range, or in the case of tiny targets, completely mask them.

The FE0304 meter responses give the operator a heads up about his ground and allows him to make appropriate setting changes to deal with it and/or better interpret his iron signals.

HH

Mike

[kac]

Doesn't any of the fe sensing taken in account for ground balancing or is the ground balancing an entirely independant reading? Or does that just depend on the machine and settings used?

[Mike_Hillis]

Kac,

They are independent.  Ground balance number is the phase of the ground signal.   FE sensing is the strength of the ground signal.  That is really the only relation between them.  

Ground balancing may silence the ground response but it doesn't affect the strength of the ground signal.   The FE meter is a handy tool if you know how to use it.

On the F75,,,higher FE values mean I need to sweep a little faster and notch in some low iron values for investigation or maybe go to all metal mode and take out some filtering.

On the Impact, higher FE values tells me I need to look at my target ID values, maybe lower my frequency and/or change my iron disc range (from 15 to 40) and maybe notch in some of the very low numbers or go to one of the all metal modes to reduce filtering.

Without the FE meter I wouldn't be able to adapt as fast.

HH
Mike

PS....The FE meter can also tell you when its a good time to go to a smaller coil.   Small coils see less dirt so they can keep you in the Disc mode longer.

 

[Mike_Hillis]

I just want to add....before the advent of the FE0304 meter...my only clue to how strong the ground mineral signal was the depth high conductive coins wrapped around to iron responses.   Now I can look at a meter reading and know what to expect.

HH
Mike

 

[EL NINO77]

The correctness of the Fe3o4 meter depends on the used coil and on the used coil and also on the used frequency .. provided that the detector has the possibility to change the frequency ...

But in general it can be said that the full rock of mineralization in F75, G2, and XP will be somewhere at the level of 5% concentration of magnetite in the ground ...
 These are strongly ferrous magnetic terrains which strongly influence the identification of all types of conductors upwards up to the zone of the high conductor..or the identification passes up to the zone of the iron ..

For red-colored hematite / iron / terrains, the meter will be Fe3o4, .. the meter will already show a significantly lower level of mineralization even if the terrain will be very difficult to detect .. because it strongly reduces the ID / sometimes up to iron ID - especially for low conductors - small gold and silver ... / jewelry and hammereds / or nickel coins ..
By simply burying a low-conducting object to a depth of 4-6 "and testing the detector, you can quickly find out that this is the type of soil ..
The interesting thing is that highly conductive objects will still have the exact identification of VDI.

[JCR]

Thank you to all for the helpful insights. My next step in learning how best to hunt in my more mineralized sites is to build a new small test garden in some 3-4 Bar(out of 5 bars) ground. It may well prove more educational than my Sandy 0-1Bar test garden.

[PimentoUK]

As Nok-Mak have a good reputation with regards to customer relations, it may be worth asking them about the scaling of the Ground Strength meters for the particular machines you're using.