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Meaning Of Equinox Ground Balance Number


Veisal

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Hello everyone, maybe some information about orientation in minelab equinox 800, I searched a lot, but I can't find such information.
I am looking for information on minelab equinox 800 in the ground balance how we can orient ourselves in the numbers for setting the ground in the ground balance, on the equinox 800 the numbers are from - 9 to +100 how to find out how much our land is ore.
On some brands of metal detectors soil balance is from 0 to 100 and 100 is the most degraded land ?

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Ground balance at best indicates the type of mineralization being canceled, not the amount. Some detectors have a separate reading that indicates the amount of magnetite type mineralization being canceled. In neither case are the numbers telling you how much “ore” you have in the ground. The Equinox does most of its ground cancellation internally via multifrequency processing. The ground balance number in my experience has a minimal range in actual practice, and in my case is usually in the single digits, not far offset from zero.

https://www.detectorprospector.com/forums/topic/1599-gb-numbers-mineralization/

In other words, you want those numbers to mean something they do not. It’s just another type of discrimination number. There is no discrimination number for gold, or copper, or silver. The numbers are a mix of size and conductivity, and any metal can read almost anywhere depending on size. A single disc number can mean gold, or aluminum, or lead, or copper, or silver, if each of those items is sized properly. If you know the metal, the number sorts by size. If you can set the size, there is a rough correlation as to type of metal. Unfortunately we don’t get to preset target sizes we find.

It’s the same way with ground balance numbers. The correlation between a GB number and mineralization is loose at best, and generally only tells you if you are dealing with iron type ground, or salt type ground.

I’ve never seen a correlation list for the Equinox but maybe the salt water users can tell us the GB number they see most often.

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Interestingly enough, I have found the discrimination number more meaningful than the ground balance number when it comes to dealing with ground issues like hot rocks. A wide open Equinox, no numbers discriminated, will typically give ground feedback in the low id range of -9, -8 , -7. The worse the ground is, the larger this range gets, so maybe -9, -8 , -7, -6, -5, and -4 need to be blocked in a certain area to eliminate ground chatter.

Then certain hot rocks appear. I’ve seen 12, 13, and 14 as a problematic range for hot rocks in some locations. Blocking them is dangerous, as some nice gold nuggets may read there. But if every swing beeps with those rocks, block away.

If a person was to log both gb readings, and disc readings, then get the ground assayed and hot rocks identified, this information might be helpful in rare situations. I’d probably use a Gold Bug Pro instead, as the Fe meter adds yet another piece of data that could be analyzed. But I have to say, as a lifelong prospector, I’ve found detectors to be of minimal use for this sort of thing. They do best at finding certain target types, like gold nuggets, or a certain hot rock. But general ground reading… not so much.

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29 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

A wide open Equinox, no numbers discriminated, will typically give ground feedback in the low id range of -9, -8 , -7. The worse the ground is, the larger this range gets, so maybe -9, -8 , -7, -6, -5, and -4 need to be blocked in a certain area to eliminate ground chatter.

Yes, it was in this area that my question was, thank you for the quick and comprehensive answer

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Equinox 800, Old Thracian pottery is giving GB in the range of 40-50

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4 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

I’ve never seen a correlation list for the Equinox but maybe the salt water users can tell us the GB number they see most often.

I run the Equinox in auto GB for all of my salt applications.  It is recommended by Minelab. After some testing, it is the most stable for salt.  

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East central Florida: most of the 30 miles in my AO the auto GB=0

After erosion last week hit one city block size spot of “black” sand that auto GB in the 40s up by the dune but wondered if wifi emf could cause a higher GB. (Some residents figured out if they move their wifi modem towards the beach, the despicable treasure hunters keep away.)

Normally one or two spots are in the negative numbers down to -9 but this changes quickly as I move around.

I NC and auto GB about every 20 minutes or if the sand changes drastically or if I get an increase in EMF.

 

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1 hour ago, midalake said:

I run the Equinox in auto GB for all of my salt applications.  It is recommended by Minelab. After some testing, it is the most stable for salt.  

Yeah, but that is not in question. Where is the GB number settling at in a salt environment?

In most of my dry ground environment out west I am set at 1-3 while coin hunting or gold prospecting. I set by pumping manually, and only run auto in really bad ground, very rare. Yeah, auto is generally the way to go at the beach, but even then a GB number is being obtained and that’s what I was curious about. It should vary depending on hot salt locations versus brackish bays and estuaries.

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It may just be me misreading these posts but it seems like some are mixing terms.  Even if I'm wrong and everyone is using the Minelab terminology (which also may not be the same terminology used by other manufacturers) correctly, for clarity I include snippets from the manual (pages 40 & 41 of manual release #7) for the three Ground Balancing Methods:

2034043604_Screenshotat2021-11-15160504.png.af368db6cbf34028a81711c4228c87cd.png

1457132364_Screenshotat2021-11-15160529.png.ca0bffe46246c9e0bddc9ad71cd7f298.png

1561822862_Screenshotat2021-11-15160621.png.1559ea5258b59dd9a2030fd5efea1433.png

There is even a 4th method -- the setting which is the factory default Ground Balance value of zero:

1272952883_Screenshotat2021-11-15160557.png.cb7765d78c295b2a796b106cbc56658f.png

Some manufacturers (Fisher being one) use the term 'Ground Grab' for what Minelab refers to as 'Auto Ground Balance' above.

Finally, I seem to recall a thread back in early 2018 when the Equinox was released, that sometimes Tracking Ground Balance might not (or at least not right away) work unless an Auto Ground Balance (or Manual Ground Balance) were performed first, then enabling Tracking Ground Balance.

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