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Ferrite Ring 8 Years Later


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Ferrites are shinier and silver-grey colour. They are normally extremely hard, you can't abrade them; scratch them with a knife, you get a silver steel streak on the ferrite.

Powdered iron is duller and blacker, and is medium-hard. With effort, you can scrape off small bits, and strong abrasives like silicon-carbide paper will remove it.

So the ML ring is powdered-iron. The colour isn't very informative ... they might just have painted it black themselves to hide the manufacturers part marking.

The 'Doc' toroid seems typical of ferrite: shiny, hard. But ferrite is almost always electrically non-conductive, though I have read about some that will conduct ... I have no idea what type. 38 Ohms is surprisingly low. Again, color coding is hard to interpret .. yellow with one white face is typical of Type 26 ferrite blend.

Edit:
It is the very-high mu ferrites that are electrically-conductive ( mu over 5000 typically ), and I've just measured one example ( probably mu=15000) in my 'bits box', and it reads 200 Ohms across its diameter. That may be indicative of the 'Doc' ring material.
Jason: Do you have an inductance meter?
Wind 50 turns of enamelled copper wire on each toroid ( diameter 0.15 to 0.6mm, not important ), and see what an L meter gives. I guess the ML one will measure about 30 microhenry. The 'Doc' sample may be anything, up to 20 millihenry.
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12 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

https://www.minelab.com/__files/f/254884/KBA_26-1 GPZ 7000 Tips for Better Ground Balance.pdf

"In order to artificially add extra data for improved ground balance calibration, you can use a dust iron toroid, commonly referred to as an electronics 'ferrite'. The electronics industry uses these magnetic cores extensively in computers, televisions, and mobile phones. Ground balancing using a ferrite means that less soil needs to be covered during the initial ground balance period because the ferrite artificially adds very useful data to assist achieving an accurate ground balance."

Emphasis added. There is nothing in this document that implies that using the ferrite is mandatory, but simply that it can help aid, or speed up, the ground balance process.

Obviously detectors need to ground balance, but not one other Minelab detector needs a ferrite ring, so this is an issue regarding the GPZ, not detectors in general. As it was explained to me the need for a ferrite balance was for soils that lack enough naturally occurring ferrite. In that situation, the GPZ would not balance properly, or take longer than normal to get balanced. For soils with sufficient naturally occurring ferrite, no additional ferrite in the form of the ring is needed. Apparently Oz soils tend to lack this component, but in the U.S. naturally occurring ferrite is abundant. This is what I was told directly by Minelab, and if incorrect, then you'll have to argue with them, not me. I will say that in general, I rebel at being told what my personal experiences are, or are not, and most especially, how to react to things, how seriously to take them or not, etc.

That all said, I'll repeat what I said earlier:

"Can't swear it ever made a difference in my use in the U.S., yet I always used it as part of my tune up routine. Maybe it helped and I simply don't know it. Long story short, it can't hurt, might help, why not? You want to own the most expensive nugget hunter ever sold, best performance possible.... but that one little thing is just too much?"

Steve did I quote you at any stage? I’m not telling you to do anything, mandatory or otherwise. I am also not telling you about your personal experiences only my own, which in the case of the US was extremely limited.

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24 minutes ago, Jonathan Porter said:

Steve did I quote you at any stage? I’m not telling you to do anything, mandatory or otherwise. I am also not telling you about your personal experiences only my own, which in the case of the US was extremely limited. I’d appreciate the name of your contact at Minelab so I can take it up with them.

Steve pulled those words off the sheet JP so I don't think it's a quote.  All is great info though.

This is from the sheet: "An advanced ground balancing method for optimum performance In order to artificially add extra data for improved ground balance calibration, you can use a dust iron toroid, commonly referred to as an electronics 'ferrite'. The electronics industry uses these magnetic cores extensively in computers, televisions, and mobile phones. Ground balancing using a ferrite means that less soil needs to be covered during the initial ground balance period because the ferrite artificially adds very useful data to assist achieving an accurate ground balance. The easiest way to add this data during the initial ground balance, and and ideally, at all later ground balancings, is to place the ferrite on the soil surface and swing the coil over it several times in wide sweeps at the operating height of the coil, whilst ground balancing, so as to include data from both the soil and the ferrite."

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1 hour ago, PimentoUK said:

Ferrites are shinier and silver-grey colour. They are normally extremely hard, you can't abrade them; scratch them with a knife, you get a silver steel streak on the ferrite.

Powdered iron is duller and blacker, and is medium-hard. With effort, you can scrape off small bits, and strong abrasives like silicon-carbide paper will remove it.

So the ML ring is powdered-iron. The colour isn't very informative ... they might just have painted it black themselves to hide the manufacturers part marking.

The 'Doc' toroid seems typical of ferrite: shiny, hard. But ferrite is almost always electrically non-conductive, though I have read about some that will conduct ... I have no idea what type. 38 Ohms is surprisingly low. Again, color coding is hard to interpret .. yellow with one white face is typical of Type 26 ferrite blend.

Heard, but I still don't think the ML ring is powdered iron. At least, not if that's what the other ring is, which it has to be because it rusts and is much more dense and highly magnetic. The ML ring is painted yellow, not black. The black is the ferrite itself after I sanded the yellow paint off. Density, magnetism, conductivity all indicate it's ferrite when compared to the other ring. Looks, walks, quacks like a duck...

But I'll try to find those rings again and throw them on the XRF just to see for certain. I'll post back here if I can find them, all my unused stuff is packed into boxes right since I'm moving so I'm going to have to do some digging.

It'd be good to know, whatever the case may be. What I can say for certain is this: the ML ring balances out on the 7000. The other ring does not, it sounds like an iron target. So they are definitely two different materials and one probably isn't doing the job it was intended to do. 

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Check out that link I posted on the other page. This was a ferrite I bought 3 years ago. I told Rob about when I bought it.

If the ones they are selling now aren't shiny metal iron underneath the paint, then the ring they are selling changed since I bought mine. What you see in that post is exactly what I got off Ebay at the time though.

*Actually, the more I think about it, the more I think the Doc ring (at least, at first, maybe things changed now) was just a solid iron ring some manufacturer sold as "ferrite" or something. It was probably sourced from China, and I know a lot of times I get inexpensive Chinese components, they aren't actually what they say they are - they are just whatever is cheapest to make that performance "roughly equivalent". If the ML ring is actually powdered iron and not ferrite, that's the only logical explanation, and also explains why the other ring rusted after sanding paint off it. 

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On 8/9/2022 at 1:34 PM, Jonathan Porter said:

X signal is no joke on the 7000 so I’m surprised by all the head in the sand humour surrounding it’s use on here. Yeah I get the humour, Octopus dance, Ferrit, ritualised activities around the fragile yellow round thing etc, but in reality it is an important aspect to ZVT and should be taken very seriously.

Just a bunch of people with heads in the sand, yup. My comment was simply about how serious all this is, when in my world it’s not serious at all, and I think people making fun or jest over it, not worth getting all worked up over. But that’s just me.

Been ages since I was discussing GPZ with any engineers, and not inclined to spend any more time on this. 

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I’m sorry if I came across all worked up, that was not my intention. I was however trying to get across the importance of using the Ferrite especially for GPZ users who want to get the absolute best out of their investment. Words are hard things to put together especially when talking about technical things and more especially when one word can be used to describe a multitude of subjects. This becomes even more complex when there is a cultural divide where phrases can have different meanings. My attempt at mirroring the tongue in cheek approach of the OP whilst attempting to impart information has clearly fallen flat.

 

 

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14 hours ago, Jonathan Porter said:

I’m sorry if I came across all worked up, that was not my intention. I was however trying to get across the importance of using the Ferrite especially for GPZ users who want to get the absolute best out of their investment. Words are hard things to put together especially when talking about technical things and more especially when one word can be used to describe a multitude of subjects. This becomes even more complex when there is a cultural divide where phrases can have different meanings. My attempt at mirroring the tongue in cheek approach of the OP whilst attempting to impart information has clearly fallen flat.

 

 

JP, No need to be sorry on a subject you have mastered.  In a room with a few Alpha Males on the subject of Electronic Gold Prospecting, there's always going to be a little riff.  That's expected and not going to go away.  But in the end, we all sit at the table have dinner and behave. It's your/our passion and desire to help folks "get it right" and sometimes "all of us" say a word or sentence that might be taken in a different way.  Heck, I put a giggle Emogi on a post and it pisses someone off, but I didn't mean it that way.  The good thing my friend.. here on DP, most of the time, our comments, communications and sharing are all for the greater of Success.  

The passion from you/Steve/I and many others about gold nugget detecting is something we are proud of.  Through many years in the field with a variety of gold detectors and continued Success even to this day... has proven each of us have earned the right...to be a little protective of our comments.  After all, if we were not sensitive and didn't care, there would be no good discussions, no new techniques or ways shared, no new detectors or Settings talked about and the end, no DP.

Keep being the same JP we have known you to be (experience on the subject beyond most, passion to the bone, desire to educate) and we'll keep learning/listening and asking questions.

This site is so unique and unpolluted (thanks to Steve) and each of us play a part.  With professionals like you on here to help share passion and knowledge, I think we'll be perfectly happy in the long run.  

Now lets go dig some more Au.

PS.  The Kalgoorlie speci stuffed in my mouth is to keep me quiet on occasion.  I just wish it happened more often.

gerry3.JPG

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Best post of the month, if not the year Gerry. Yeah, I have big passions, and a big ego, and the latter in particular I have worked hard the last decade to try and bring it down, be more humble, more understanding.... more forgiving. It's a battle, because as I age I also tend to fall into the grumpy old man trap, of not caring much what others think about stuff. That can be a very good thing, but it's a two edged sword. Anyway, once again, I genuinely appreciate your post, some very wise stuff there.

And just for the record, I appreciate Jonathan Porter, and his insights, and friendship. I look forward very much to seeing him again, as in real life together we really hit it off well. It's these internet communication things that tend to get betwixt people, as keyboards lack all the nuance of face to face clues in tone and facial expression, and those make all the difference in the world when it comes to imparting what we really mean when we say stuff.

 

why-old-men-dont-get-hired.jpg

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