Digalicious

Steve,

7 years later...what are your thoughts on the V3i compared to the SMF detectors from the Equinox and forward?

DSMITH,

Analog and digital are just different ways of manipulating electrons to one's desire.

Analog does it with a continuous but varying flow of electrons. Digital does it by a series of ones and zeros. Neither method has any bearing on the detector's iron unmasking performance. 

What would make a difference in iron unmasking performance, is how the engineers designed that particular detector. For example, how they designed the iron bias, the algorithms, and the coil.

I can't recall if I mentioned this, but a couple of weeks ago, Nokta posted on their Facebook page that along with the two new Pi's, a "higher end" coin / jewelry detector was coming down the pipe.

 

5 hours ago, Dubious said:

A cpu-based digital detector might suffer from circuitry that is just too slow in running the code to keep up with a swing across certain configurations, depending on what it is trying to do.  A true analog detector likely wouldn't have that problem.  I think this is much less of an issue with the newer machines.  I believe I still have a couple of old Tesoro detectors, and may do some comparisons.

Hi Dubios.

An iron unmasking video comparing a true analog detector to a digital detector would be cool to see. Although I don't see speed as being a factor when trying to unmask in iron, because the detector sees the multiple targets as one target, regardless of speed. Speed is definitely a factor in separation though.

Also, speed isn't an issue on detector CPUs, because for detector usage, even bottom of the barrel CPUs are more than capable of the maximum needed speed for detector signal processing. For example, a typical CPU for a metal detector, has so little speed requirements, that the CPUs for that purpose cost about $5 to $10. Put more simply, the CPU in no way causes any sort of speed bottleneck in a metal detector 🙂

 

32 minutes ago, DSMITH said:

I think you are missing what I am saying when I say Digital I mean these detectors on a stick like the Legend and the Nox series detectors and several others with inaccurate target IDs and things like that, maybe i am stating it incorrect, don't really know

All I can tell you is the detectors I am referring to, have no computer screen with confusing settings to set up, you ground balance set your disc to what you want to disc out and start detecting, for me personally they have made detecting fun again and for me personally that is what detecting is supposed to be (FUN), for me personally you should not need a degree in setting up a dang computer (Detector), for the ground you are detecting.

Now that you elaborated, I can see we're referring to two different things. I'm referring to the type of circuitry. I think you're referring to ease of use and analog controls?

Then again, the Vista X could very well mainly use digital circuitry, coupled with analog type controls.


 

11 minutes ago, DSMITH said:

If you think your digital detectors can do that same test then try it and prove it,

Whether or not digital detectors can pass that test, isn't my argument. My argument is that the results of that test would be the same whether or not the detector used digital or analog circuitry.

For example, I'm saying that if the analog circuitry on that VistaX was digital, it would still hit that coin.

5 minutes ago, DSMITH said:

Well you can believe what you want, but I will tell you that you are wrong,

I don't think I'm wrong in stating that an analog detector doesn't have some sort of magical ability to unmask in iron any better than a digital detector. They both receive the same signal. Although if I am wrong, I'll gladly eat crow 🙂

I think the iron bias is the main factor when it comes to iron unmasking. Like I said in my previous post, any detector can hit that coin in the video, provided the iron bias can go low enough. The question is, how much iron falsing will that result in when hunting in the wild?

For that test to actually mean anything, the tester should have done a comparison with a competing detector, as well as shown if falsing occurs when the nails are vertical, like they often are in the wild. 

 

43 minutes ago, DSMITH said:

show me a digital detector that can do this and I will purchase one, this is what the Analogues offer.

I can't see how an analog detector would be better at unmasking in iron than a digital detector. After all, it's the same signal either way. Plus, any detector can do what is shown in the video, as long as the engineers introduce a low enough iron bias setting. Such a low iron bias can unmask great in a controlled tests with nails lying flat, but out in the wild with nails at different orientations, would likely result in major iron falsing.

1 hour ago, Skate said:

Not to hijack the thread but I have a question on your parks, specifically the age of the park you're hunting. Are your deep rings in old parks (50-100+ years old) or are they in newer parks? I'm trying to get more scientific (if that's possible) on my jewelry recovery. I'm curious if the sink rate is such that rings will go to greater depths faster especially in newer parks. My two parks in town are both on the new side, one 35 years old and one 15 years old. I have found rings in each but mainly in the top 2-5 inches. 

I can't say for certain Skate, because close to all of of my rings are found in the water. I just haven't found enough dirt rings to make a comment on the sink rate. However, 4 of the 5 rings in my picture, were in the shallow roots. Also, the second and third ring from the left look very old, and they were in the upper roots. Sure, rings can be deep in turf, but I do think that most get caught up in the grass roots. For example:



I could be wrong, but I would think rings would get hooked in that tendril mess 🙂 Well, at least much more so than something closed shaped like a coin.

Thanks Midalake.

Unfortunately, I didn't find a sweet gold ring in that experiment. I was just taken aback at the epic ring to aluminum trash ratio, compared to my dismal ratio when "digging it all" in aluminum infested sites.

The next couple of experiments I do, will give me a much better idea of how successful the method is for me. What can say for sure though, is that I will never, ever!, go back to "digging it all" in aluminum infested sites.

 

The instructions mention that if click on the "X", the message will go away. It does go away...for a while 🙂

I guess I could try entering my same email address. That might appease the red button god!

13 minutes ago, Tom_in_CA said:

I notice that of the 5 rings, none were gold.   Right ?   When it comes to gold rings and notching (in and out of certain coordinate #'s), in the old days this was known as "Ring Enhancement programs".

Hi Tom.

The point of my experiment, was to see if my ring to trash ratio would be much better if I used that notch method, instead of the dig all method. As it stands now, the answer to that is a resounding "Yes".
 

13 minutes ago, Tom_in_CA said:

But you can throw the programs out the window if you're in a park where lawn-mowers have made can slaw of aluminum cans.   The trick only works if your location has commonly recurring junk items.   But not if mowers have chopped things into confetti.   Then you can kiss Las Vegas odds goodbye at trying to get gold rings.   You'll be condemned to 100s & 100s to 1 odds.

For whatever reason, there is very little can slaw in my hunting grounds. Regardless, I don't understand what can slaw has to do with notching out the numbers that in my experience, are pull tabs and small foil 99.9% of the time. For example, I've dug hundreds of 28/29 on my Legend, and it's always been a rectangular pull tab. The odds are extremely remote that a gold ring will ID at 28/29 compared to those tabs. By ignoring 28/29, I stand a much better chance of finding a gold ring in the numbers above and below 28/29.

Thanks F350.

The ring isn't ferrous at all. Although I would think that if it's a precious metal, it would be marked. I found around 20 TC rings last summer. If I remember correctly, they were all marked to show they were TC.

Yes, some say "If you don't dig up all the foil and tabs in park like sites, you'll miss gold rings". While that is technically true, I think it's false when it comes to what's in the pouch at the end of the day. For example, I know that if I wasn't notching, that picture would have a hell of a lot more foil and tabs, and maybe 1 ring. The reason I tried the notching, was because I got fed up with digging so much aluminum trash when looking for gold in trashy park like sites. Using the notch method, I found more rings in 2 hours than I had in about 50 hours of "digging all". Plus, with the notch method I dig a lot less trash per hour, and I'm not wrecking my knees and back.

Putting the notching method in a different way: Some very small gold rings and chains can and do ID at 1 number above ferrous (11 on the Legend). However, I've dug hundreds of 11's and only ever got 1 chain...and it was a junker. My parks are blanketed with small foil that ID's at 11. It would be crazy for me to continue digging those. My time would be much better spent, by ignoring 11's and digging numbers which are far more likely to be a ring. Since I'm not wasting time and effort on digging 11's, that should result in more rings.

Granted, this was only one experiment, and maybe I just got lucky. I'll be trying out the same method a few times in the next week, so we'll see what happens 🙂

Good point about the deep pulltabs Strick.

I'll still stick with the notching method though, because I don't have the physical or mental desire to dig any more aluminum trash than what I did with the notching 🙂

 

1 hour ago, UT Dave said:

I do find rings quite deep, quite often.

- Dave

Hi Dave.

Is that on grassy sites?

I do find deep rings in the muddy lake bottom, in which there is nothing inhibiting the ring from going deep. Especially with people stomping on them further into the mud.

I'd say the deepest of those rings in the picture was about 6" in the grassy site, with the others being just below the surface in the grass roots.

I don't know if my "rings caught in grass roots" theory is correct, but I'm guessing it has some merit. I just don't know if that merit is enough to justify ignoring the deep targets 🙂

6 hours ago, strick said:

Thats one way to do it for sure. How many times have you hunted this particular park? I've noticed that when I hunt parks I will find most of my rings in the first several hunts and then it goes down hill from there...sometimes I'll notch out the small foil but it's hard to think that I could be missing a nice gold chain in the process...so I usually will hunt by sound and id stability when searching for jewelry and dig or pass based on those traits..nice hunt

strick 

Hi Strick.

That was the second time I hunted that park. The first time was "dig all" looking for jewelry. I mainly got clad and aluminum trash. I did that in a few parks and sports fields before deciding to give up on that hunting style.

I'm fairly new to water hunting, but the jewelry rewards are infinitely better than dirt hunting. Right now, I'm looking for all the ways to increase the odds of finding jewelry when hunting in the dirt.

I'm thinking that due to the ring shape of rings lol, that most of them are shallow due to being caught up in the grass roots. If so, I might be able avoid even more targets that I don't, by only digging the shallower targets.



 

Glad your wife only saw you swinging and not digging. Otherwise, she'd really set you up with some back breaking work!

BTW- Be sure to tell your wife that it's not Mr. Metal Detector. It's Mr. Metal Detectorist 🙂

19 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Most overrated idea ever. AI does not change the fact that for every good target there are countless trash targets that look exactly the same to the metal detector. AI can’t change the underlying physics.  

I gave up trying to explain that to a few who keep claiming that detectors need AI to determine trash from treasure. Some just have a fundamental misunderstanding of how AI works...to the point that they think AI has some sort of "magical" ability.

What kind of weight would be looking at with a PI / VLF combo?

How about a modular upgradable detector? Initial price for the bare bones detector would be very cheap. It wouldn't come with a coil or any technology in the pod. Basically, it would be a shaft of your choice along with the screen.

The manufacturer would make money by selling modular and upgradeable components such as PI coils, VLF coils, as well as switchable technology pods to convert the detector to a PI or VLF. 



 

I use the 9.5x6 coil on my Legend almost exclusively, and it hits deep for its size. Sure, there's a minor loss of depth on coin sized targets compared to an 11" round coil, but to me, the major advantages of an elliptical coil of around that size, far outweigh the slight depth loss

In my tests, the 11" round coil hits about 1.5" to 2" deeper than the 9.5x6 on a dime lying flat. On a dime on edge, or similar sized targets, the smaller coil could match the depth of the 11" due to the tighter field of the smaller coil.  When taking into account EMI and ground noise, the smaller coil can often be run at a higher sensitivity level than the 11" round coil, thus negating the particular depth advantage of the 11" coil.

The FindX models, do have two other coils available for it. They are a 9.5x6 and a 13.5x12.5. I too would have liked to have seen an option to purchase the detector with a different coil size. Then again, I would like to see that option on all detectors.



 

6 minutes ago, Chase Goldman said:

The short answer is yes.  That's why ground compensation and ferrous discrimination/ferrous bias are more effective with multifrequency detectors.

Right, but if I read what you said correctly, then that isn't what I was getting at Chase 🙂

I'm heading out for a few fours, but later tonight I'll explain what I mean in a much more detailed and thorough manner.

If an aluminum target is hit at 1 Khz and then 100 Khz, would the target signature change? If a gold target is hit at 1 Khz and then 100 Khz, would the target signature change?

What I'm getting at with the above, is if there is an amount of change in the signatures between the two, or one signature changes and the other doesn't, then can that amount of change (or lack thereof) be used to help differentiate between gold and silver?

 

15 hours ago, kac said:

The likely hood of a particular flip tab in an area having exactly the same response and id's as a ring is pretty remote.

 

Yes. The ID of 28/29 is always a "particular" type of tab for me, but depending on other variables, that particular tab can also ID a little higher or a little lower. Then of course, is all the other types of tabs.

To add insult to injury...foil / can slaw and all of its shapes and sizes 😡

4 hours ago, phrunt said:

I think they'll quickly have a bigger piece of the pie than the one missing from the gold pie.  Still can't see how the piece was taken from the pie with the crust left behind... 

Ha ha. No one ever wants the crust! Not even A.I. lol

Ok, well there is always the exception of "that pizza person" who says, "The crust is the best part". If someone replies to that with, "Ok, then you eat all the crust, and I'll eat the rest of the pizza", the awkward silence is epic 😁