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Ground Balance The GPX 6000


billdean

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Each time I try and ground balance my 6000 there is no detectable change. While holding the GB button I pump the coil then move it side to side. It’s like it don’t work. I friend of mine says his does not either. What am I missing? I run in manual mode with the threshold on. The noise cancel works very well. 

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  1. I ground balance religiously at start up and occasionally while detecting and don’t notice much if any difference, I kind of assume the auto ground balance is simply very fast and the 6000 acquires a ground balance immediately on start up or is something else going on?
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34 minutes ago, 1515Art said:

I ground balance religiously at start up and occasionally while detecting and don’t notice much if any difference,

Exactly….Does the 6000 auto GB in manual modes?

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Thinking about your question a little more I wonder if the effect of the geo sense really only makes it appear to the user that the detector is not reacting to ground balancing because the geo sense software is compensating for the GB being off by adjusting gain and other settings maintaining relatively steady ground noise while in the background ground balancing is directly affecting performance?

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If the mineralisation is low then there will seem to be little effect. The main thing is to not have much or any signal with the coil being lifted up and then pushed down to the ground again with a movement of say 100mm when there is a big signal and say 40mm when there is a small or minimal signal.

The GPX6000 has a ground balance that is continuous, that is to say it is slowly tracking and compensating for ground signals all the time regardless of the modes used. The Quick-Trak button is for when the ground is extremely variable and the slow auto GB can’t keep up, at start up there can be a big difference in GB if say for instance you have driven hundreds of miles to a new gold field and the ground is completely different etc.

A good operator in variable ground will be using the QT button all the time, successful VLF users from days gone by will know all about keeping on top of the ground balance as a means of wringing out max performance. When the QT button is depressed the tracking algorithm ramps up really quickly then throttles back over time while the button is triggered, in variable ground it pays to keep the coil controlled and accurate when pumping so the initial fast GB state doesn’t get knocked off course by excessive movement signal from things like salt ect, always used a controlled measured pumping of the coil just varying the height of the pump if the conditions require it. Usually a good rule of thumb is big signal, big slow pump, small signal, small controlled pumping of the coil.

Hope this helps

JP

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Thanks Jonathan. That help me understand it much better.

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In hotrock rich areas frequent GB  can make a big difference. I also wonder if X drift issues are at play with the auto tracking of the 6k. I noticed that the same hotrock can lead to different audio responses when you come back to it.  One reason why I like the semi auto GB option of the 7k

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If you are never getting any signals from the ground, you may want to try the Normal ground mode, as this will give you a little more depth. 

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