New Update Has Arrived

[Steve Herschbach]

I think it is fairly simple. Going by what Tom has posted here Minelab simply extended the Iron Bias range in F2 to go both higher and lower. Tom is equating Iron Bias 0 with the F2 setting of 4 and Iron Bias of 9 with F2 setting of 6. This means four settings below Iron Bias 0 and three settings above Iron Bias 9. As Clive has noted it means a faster ramp up in the middle range but Tom also indicates the lower end is not linear and so less "ramp down" on the new low end.

Higher settings mean more aggressive rejection of bottle caps but there is never a free lunch, so more possibility of causing non-ferrous to react as ferrous, more possibility of masking. On the low end, for nugget detecting in particular, less chance of small non-ferrous reading as ferrous in mineralized ground, but also more chance of ferrous reading as non-ferrous. Stuff like this almost always involves a trade of some sort.

Note that the original Iron Bias settings allow better fine tuning in what is now the "mid-range".

[Chase Goldman]

Steve, 

The relationship between FE and F2 is fairly simple based on the above representation (thanks for that diagram), but I was surprised to find that what this is really saying is that some sort of iron bias filtering is ALWAYS applied in multi IQ.  I always had the mistaken impression that FE=0 meant the iron bias filter was "off".  I guess the only time the iron bias filter is turned off is in single frequency when the multi frequency bias curve cannot be calclulated.

So F2 =0 vs. FE=0 for maximum unmasking or for "more" all metal in Multi, I suppose   Glad ML is giving us choices, but they could do a little better in the explaining department.  Folks should not have to dig deep into DP or Tom's forum to figure this stuff out and the new mods to the user guide, especially with respect to the 600 and setting the 800 F2 defaults to 6 across the board are inconsistent with the above and/or are actually confusing.  I suppose, most folks fly by the seat of their pants via real world experience and tweak their settings based off what works for them rather than what the book says, but at least something like the above diagram in the book would help.

In any event, I'll take it and glad they are still refining the firmware on Equinox nearly two years in.

The other thing this shows is that with Multi IQ, ML is starting the "blur" the line between iron discrimination and notch as disc works in conjunction with Iron Bias to provide some sophisticated iron filtering.  It is like stacking or chaining filters together in photoshop or video editing.  And it is clear that Iron Bias is a "pre-filter" to discrimination in the Equinox.  May be a harbinger for a future Multi IQ detector with some sophisticated discrimination patterning like the FBS2 detectors.  I would look forward to that detector release if it is coming in the next couple of years.

[Steve Herschbach]

The line between ferrous and non-ferrous is blurred and every detector, simply by picking the point where they decide ferrous and non-ferrous splits, is applying a form of pre-set iron bias. In general, just for example, Fisher detectors are more biased against ferrous, and Nokta/Makro detectors less biased against ferrous. Newbies in particular hate digging ferrous so machines aimed at them have a high ferrous bias. The situation here is similar and the trade is always the same. If a detector is set to allow you to dig more ferrous you will uncover hidden non-ferrous targets. Or if you try to suppress all ferrous readings, some non-ferrous gets lost in the process. It’s true of all detectors that employ some form of ferrous identification. So the bottom line is yes, the Equinox has to have had some chosen amount of iron bias applied even at a so-called 0 setting, otherwise you are in a pure all metal mode.

Put another way, the only way a detector can detect all possible targets is a pure all metal machine without ground balance. No filters at all. Simply adding ground balance causes targets to be lost. Adding any discrimination causes more targets to be lost. The filters are imperfect due to the near infinite overlap between ferrous, non-ferrous, and ground readings.

https://www.detectorprospector.com/forums/topic/506-adjustable-tone-break/?do=findComment&comment=3852

 

[Cabin Fever]

My experience today running the new firmware was not what I expected.. It was a short hunt and I didn’t do any settings to settings comparison.. Just hunted as usual but with the new FE-2 settings.

Started in FE-2 2 but quickly dropped to F-2 -0 when I realized how well my Nox was running with the new settings..

Falsing seemed much easier to understand audibly and the Detector seemed to be able to analyze targets much faster and better,  making dig decisions easier.

two of the coins I found, (one Wheat and one V)were with iron and the detector locked on with a tight ID in both cases once they were isolated..

so far I’m happy

 Bryan

 

 

 

[mn90403]

I have been out every day since the update came.  I've watched a few of the videos where it shows the iron ring being ignored with settings.  That impressed me.

My 'results' of FE/FE2 adjusting amount to 'no change' in audio when it comes to bobby pins, iron screws, iron coins, paper clips or just about anything else including bottle caps.  I hear all that stuff if I'm in all metal in dry and wet sand.  I adjusted today with FE at 0 and FE2 at 1-9.  I've had FE2 at 0 and FE and 1-9.  Yesterday I used the 11 inch coil and today the 15 inch coil.  I like to dig 95% of my targets on the beach.  I'm surprised by what I find up to 10% of the time.  It is not what I expect.

The thing I like about the update and I noticed it the first night I used it is that the targets sound better.  That includes cheap rings and corroded pennies.

This afternoon I found 4 rings (top 4) and one 13g silver chain with the 15 inch coil. (I really like chains now more than rings!)  I did have to dig some falsing holes with the 15 and sometimes a coin will completely disappear.  It is why I call the 15 a finicky coil.  Most of the targets are the result of some wave energy finally coming with some wind to push these targets into an area where I detect.

The 4 rings at the bottom were found with the 11' coil in the same general beach.  On that hunt I also found many more coins.  The total time for the two hunts is about 6 hours.  I'll go back in the morning.

 

[Chase Goldman]

10 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Put another way, the only way a detector can detect all possible targets is a pure all metal machine without ground balance. No filters at all. Simply adding ground balance causes targets to be lost. Adding any discrimination causes more targets to be lost. The filters are imperfect due to the near infinite overlap between ferrous, non-ferrous, and ground readings.

Yep, I recognize we are not dealing with a true all metal mode machine in Equinox even when "AM" mode is invoked removing discrimination but not raw signal processing and filtering.  But the thing that I found surprising is that I never would have realized that FE=0 does not turn off the filter without this update being released.  The only time iron bias appears to be "off" is single frequency because I think iron bias filter relies on the multi-frequency input of Multi IQ to function, but even then, that is just as educated guess because ML does not clearly state there is no iron bias filtering in single, all I know is that iron bias "is not available" in single which could be referring to the filter adjustment not the filter.

I know this is repetitive and in the weeds, but for perspective, I always thought of iron bias as analogous to the XP Deus silencer filter (which supposedly breaks up or filters out mixed ferrous signals and has an adjustable level that is also tied to the recovery speed setting).  That silencer filter has a "0" setting but it also has a "-1" setting which XP describes as "off".  I usually set it to "-1" because I do not want to experience inadvertent non-ferrous masking due to the silencer filter.  I thought I was doing the same on Equinox by setting FE=0, but apparently not.  Again, I am down in the weeds here as I tend to go there due to my engineering and software background. 

I will end by saying that in a practical sense, the fact than neither the FE nor F2 iron bias filters can be truly "turned off" is really not a big deal because it appears the filtering is "minimal" and has little effect on masking at those low settings, but it is, I think, a fact that advanced detectorists should be aware of because the ML documentation is a little ambiguous in that regard.

Again, Steve's graphic visualization of the two filters posted above has been very helpful for me and I really appreciate that info as it will affect how I apply them in different situations.

[GB_Amateur]

8 hours ago, mn90403 said:

The thing I like about the update and I noticed it the first night I used it is that the targets sound better.

Is this experience independent of whether you're using FE or FE2 settings?

[mn90403]

4 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

Is this experience independent of whether you're using FE or FE2 settings?

Yes

[mn90403]

12 hours ago, mn90403 said:

I have been out every day since the update came.  I've watched a few of the videos where it shows the iron ring being ignored with settings.  That impressed me.

My 'results' of FE/FE2 adjusting amount to 'no change' in audio when it comes to bobby pins, iron screws, iron coins, paper clips or just about anything else including bottle caps.  I hear all that stuff if I'm in all metal in dry and wet sand.  I adjusted today with FE at 0 and FE2 at 1-9.  I've had FE2 at 0 and FE and 1-9.  Yesterday I used the 11 inch coil and today the 15 inch coil.  I like to dig 95% of my targets on the beach.  I'm surprised by what I find up to 10% of the time.  It is not what I expect.

The thing I like about the update and I noticed it the first night I used it is that the targets sound better.  That includes cheap rings and corroded pennies.

This afternoon I found 4 rings (top 4) and one 13g silver chain with the 15 inch coil. (I really like chains now more than rings!)  I did have to dig some falsing holes with the 15 and sometimes a coin will completely disappear.  It is why I call the 15 a finicky coil.  Most of the targets are the result of some wave energy finally coming with some wind to push these targets into an area where I detect.

The 4 rings at the bottom were found with the 11' coil in the same general beach.  On that hunt I also found many more coins.  The total time for the two hunts is about 6 hours.  I'll go back in the morning.

 

I went back to my spot this morning and there were already two detectorists on it.   No more goodies this time.