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Bad 2 Directional Falses After Upgrade With 6" Coil In Iron


amergin

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I personally have issues with iron in any machine.  Now since the update has come out, the area that I live in has become more precipitous and as a result the ground is more wet.  This makes the iron halo more conductive and appealing to the machine.  The science behind this is actually pretty interesting.  Iron can actually become water soluble when iron oxides (rust) are put in an anoxic (low-no oxygen) environment.  What happens is microbes will cleave the oxygen off of the iron reducing the electron charge of the iron.  The gain of an electron by the iron makes it behave dramatically different and when they are making algorithms for machines they are probably using Fe(III) and not the reduced Fe(II) when creating the way the machine behaves to a metal in the ground.  Makes me wonder if I could take some anoxic ground water loaded with Fe(II) and get it to ring up on my machine. 

 

Anyways, what I am trying to say (in a long winded way) is that ground conditions are changing a lot from day to day and I would give it more time before chalking up to the update being bad for the 6".

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10 hours ago, Vez said:

I personally have issues with iron in any machine.  Now since the update has come out, the area that I live in has become more precipitous and as a result the ground is more wet.  This makes the iron halo more conductive and appealing to the machine.  The science behind this is actually pretty interesting.  Iron can actually become water soluble when iron oxides (rust) are put in an anoxic (low-no oxygen) environment.  What happens is microbes will cleave the oxygen off of the iron reducing the electron charge of the iron.  The gain of an electron by the iron makes it behave dramatically different and when they are making algorithms for machines they are probably using Fe(III) and not the reduced Fe(II) when creating the way the machine behaves to a metal in the ground.  Makes me wonder if I could take some anoxic ground water loaded with Fe(II) and get it to ring up on my machine. 

 

Anyways, what I am trying to say (in a long winded way) is that ground conditions are changing a lot from day to day and I would give it more time before chalking up to the update being bad for the 6".

As an engineer, I love the science behind this theory, but since I have two Equinoxes, I have purposely kept one dialed back to the original firmware for comparison purposes and while I have not had a chance to do exhaustive, controlled A to B comparisons, I have observed the falsing (or should I say high tone ferrous affinity) associated with the small coil and even the stock coil to be relatively slightly more pronounced with the post upgrade machine vs. pre upgrade at the same site under the same environmental conditions.  Again not scientific, I did not walk around my iron field site carrying two detectors at the same time, just observed switching off between the two over the course of back to back multi-day hunts at the same sites and my qualitative observations. The effect you describe, however, is real and affects ground noise feedback, ground phase variability, and the ground balance tracking algorithm, as well.   The enhanced halo effect in moist ground can definitely result in more falsing overall, but there is something definitely different in the way Equinox responds in this regard post upgrade. 

Frankly, overall I have not seen anything that tangibly compels me to go solely with either the post or pre upgrade firmware versions.  I like that the known User Profile reset bug has been addressed in the update and low profile, high mass, high conductive coin target ID (aka as the quarter on edge issue) response has been improved but perhaps with the subtle downside of falsing being introduced, but I don't think they "broke" anything.  To me, the upgrade is kind of a move sideways from a performance standpoint rather than a full on improvement.  Perhaps that is a function of the Equinox performance being pretty damn good and dialed-in out of the gate, so all ML can do with SW performance tweaks is nibble around the edges which just results tradeoffs while fixing fringe "issues" like this low probability on-edge coin thing and depth meter performance which is inherently unreliable outside of dime-sized targets, anyway.  Regardless, looking forward to the next upgrade.

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Im guessing here...... but i went back and forth with the updates.   The old one to me IS more chatty..... but i equate that to its sensitivity.   I did notice beach 2 was closer depth wise in the newer program.   So i dont know if they increased some of that power loss the manual spoke of or reduced beach 1 for less chatter near the surf.   Im also not a big silver coin hunter, a PPer, and im not sure what the issue was with user profile .... mine seems to work correctly.   You cant go wrong with either program if you know its limits and what you want from it for your hunting.

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54 minutes ago, Chase Goldman said:

As an engineer, I love the science behind this theory, but since I have two Equinoxes, I have purposely kept one dialed back to the original firmware for comparison purposes and while I have not had a chance to do exhaustive, controlled A to B comparisons, I have observed the falsing (or should I say high tone ferrous affinity) associated with the small coil and even the stock coil to be relatively slightly more pronounced with the post upgrade machine vs. pre upgrade at the same site under the same environmental conditions.  Again not scientific, I did not walk around my iron field site carrying two detectors at the same time, just observed switching off between the two over the course of back to back multi-day hunts at the same sites and my qualitative observations. The effect you describe, however, is real and affects ground noise feedback, ground phase variability, and the ground balance tracking algorithm, as well.   The enhanced halo effect in moist ground can definitely result in more falsing overall, but there is something definitely different in the way Equinox responds in this regard post upgrade. 

Frankly, overall I have not seen anything that tangibly compels me to go solely with either the post or pre upgrade firmware versions.  I like that the known User Profile reset bug has been addressed in the update and low profile, high mass, high conductive coin target ID (aka as the quarter on edge issue) response has been improved but perhaps with the subtle downside of falsing being introduced, but I don't think they "broke" anything.  To me, the upgrade is kind of a move sideways from a performance standpoint rather than a full on improvement.  Perhaps that is a function of the Equinox performance being pretty damn good and dialed-in out of the gate, so all ML can do with SW performance tweaks is nibble around the edges which just results tradeoffs while fixing fringe "issues" like this low probability on-edge coin thing and depth meter performance which is inherently unreliable outside of dime-sized targets, anyway.  Regardless, looking forward to the next upgrade.

Thank you this is great, and on subject,   I am in communication with the service in Au and they asked me to do factory reset and do some tests,    

 

I welcome any new tests from users with 6" before and after upgrade in Heavy colonial iron nail situations

so I can send all feed back to them:

Hello

I have spoken with our engineering team in regards to this, they are currently doing some testing and if you can, can you please try a factory reset on your detector (turn the detector off then push and hold the power button for around 10 seconds. The screen will show the letters FP once it has been reset.)

If you could please try this then do some testing and email us back if there are any changes in performance or not?

 

 

Kind Regards,

 

Minelab Service

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On 11/28/2018 at 7:02 AM, Chase Goldman said:

Randy,

The reason why many relic hunters here in the US shy away from using any iron bias is that it has been shown to exacerbate iron masking of non-ferrous targets in thick iron situations.  I think the downside is that you will then get a lot more falsing and just have to take your medicine then and dig all repeatable falses.  Or you can take the iron bias route and take the chance of missing a masked target.  In these tough bed-o-nails situation it's a pick your poison proposition. 

Amergin-

So the message I have for amergin is, no one said treasure hunting is easy.  The hobby is really all about managing tradeoffs whether it is machine performance quirks, soil conditions, or trash.  Sounds like your best solution (aka tradeoff) is to just roll back the update when using the 6" if you found the perceived pre-update performance to be acceptable and hope 6" performance improves at the next update.  HTH

 

Thanks good advice, it is a pick your poison situation when dealing with various setting working against each other, But a marked change of performance before and after upgrade is the subject here and making Minicab aware of the situation

 a lot of people have rolled back for that reason, I am planing on rolling back and forth when interchanging coils when I find the time to do so in the field. But having Minelab so responsive to issues welcomes the opportunity for us users to seek a possible cure rather than a band aid

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On 11/26/2018 at 9:51 PM, Jeff McClendon said:

Hi Amergin,

I hope a lot of other users that detect in colonial sites will post something soon. I tested the oldest nails I have (late 1800s to early 1900s square nails from Colorado mining sites) with the 6" coil and did not notice any falsing or iron wrap around in either zero discrimination Field 2 or preset discrimination Field 2 with the settings you posted. On modern nails the story is completely different. In zero discrimination Field 2 I got some very minor falsing or what I think is more likely iron wrap around or alloy detection on every third or fourth sweep, single beeps, in the 18 to 21 or zinc penny range. With factory preset discrimination Field 2 I got fairly constant two directional beeps again in the 18 to 21 range. All of this testing was done at 2" depth in my 4 bar, 85 ground balance dirt test container. I know a lot of people wouldn't bother with the zinc penny range. For me though, I think I have found some of my most interesting and unusual finds in that range! Hope this helps.

 

Jeff

Thanks Jeff Good write up, if you have time test 6" coil with up grade and rolling back upgrade   it at a location with over 150 year old discintergrated iron and nails in soil

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In a hammered park I think those finds were amazing. That coil just paid for itself. I have got to get me a small and large coil soon.

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