Iron Filter And Stability Settings

[Jeff McClendon]

4 hours ago, HerrUU said:

I had some time to test the Iron Filter with several targets, from pure iron (rusted) to shotgun shells and several good sounding targets (musket ball, coin, WW2 ammo). I'm going to be very honest but I don't see what this filter does? If I put it at 1 or 9, it gives the same signals on my Legend. Which made me wonder : what does it precisely do? 

Having no clue to it's use, I just set it on 4 at the moment being the middle of the settings.

The same goes for the Bottle Cap reject by the way, tried it on several bottle caps (I'm a homebrewer so I have a few laying around 😉 ) and ok, it masks them but doesn't this mean at the same time that other, perhaps more interesting things as some modern currency, are filtered out too? For this setting, I leave it at 0. I rather dig a bottle cap and be sure that other, more valuable targets are showing up, than set it too high and miss the good stuff.

The iron filter settings and bottle cap settings are included to help with iron target identification and to avoid digging iron targets if one chooses. These settings offer options.

Using a magnet to help identify questionable mixed ferrous/non ferrous targets when testing them or adjusting settings in the field can help especially on shotgun shell head stamps that have ferrous components and steel shotgun pellets or other mixed alloy targets.

So, these settings will have very little effect on totally non-ferrous targets tested by themselves unless you are testing those non-ferrous targets on highly iron mineralized ground or black sand OR there is an actual ferrous target nearby that you didn't notice somehow.

The iron filter setting will help to identify and avoid targets that are true iron targets as you noted. Depending on what discrimination pattern is being used, raising or lowering the IF setting will help to give iron targets more or less iron responses if the discrimination pattern accepts iron and more or less non-ferrous chirping if the discrimination pattern rejects the iron target IDs. 

I could be at an old home site where the most predominant targets are nails of all sizes that are iron or steel alloy and I am just looking to dig non-ferrous targets only. Good luck with that no matter what detector is being used. I personally would probably try to hunt that site with some or all of the iron target IDs accepted, with the iron audio volume set a little lower and with IF and IS on 1 to begin with and then adjust the IF and IS settings upwards if needed. I could also just run the F discrimination pattern, set IF and IS at 3 or so and take my chances on hitting some partially masked non ferrous targets while hearing very little non-ferrous chirping from the nails. I could take extreme measures and raise the IF value even higher but the risk of making the masking of non-ferrous targets even worse is a real possibility.

The Bottle Cap setting work similarly on steel alloy bottle caps.

I am at a beach or park where the most annoying target that keeps fooling me and my detector and wasting my time are steel alloy bottle caps which are magnetic according to the magnet I am carrying with me. My Legend is setup to not hear iron meaning that I have my discrimination setting on F but my bottle cap reject is on 0. I can go into the bottle cap settings and raise the bottle cap value to 1 or 2 and see if the non-ferrous responses from the bottle caps stop or at least begin to crackle or break up. I could also go to the nuclear option and just put the bottle cap setting on 5. If the pesky bottle caps don't have any aluminum foil on them I won't hear them. However, if a desired target is near a steel alloy bottle cap and the BC setting is 5......good luck hearing the desired target unless one gets lucky.  

In the same scenario I could have my Legend's discrimination pattern setup for some (G) or all (A) iron targets to be accepted and heard. A BC setting of 0 may cause the steel alloy bottle cap to have little or no iron responses. Just changing the BC setting to 1 may help to identify some bottle caps as the mixed ferrous/non-ferrous target that they truly are. A BC setting of 5 may cause the same steel alloy bottle cap to sound like all iron with little to no non ferrous response.

There is no perfect way to use these settings. It all depends on the site and the targets being hunted and what approach you want to take. At least the Legend gives the user a ton of viable options.

[Cal_]

42 minutes ago, Jeff McClendon said:

The iron filter settings and bottle cap settings are included to help with iron target identification and to avoid digging iron targets if one chooses. These settings offer options.

Using a magnet to help identify questionable mixed ferrous/non ferrous targets when testing them or adjusting settings in the field can help especially on shotgun shell head stamps that have ferrous components and steel shotgun pellets or other mixed alloy targets.

So, these settings will have very little effect on totally non-ferrous targets tested by themselves unless you are testing those non-ferrous targets on highly iron mineralized ground or black sand OR there is an actual ferrous target nearby that you didn't notice somehow.

The iron filter setting will help to identify and avoid targets that are true iron targets as you noted. Depending on what discrimination pattern is being used, raising or lowering the IF setting will help to give iron targets more or less iron responses if the discrimination pattern accepts iron and more or less non-ferrous chirping if the discrimination pattern rejects the iron target IDs. 

I could be at an old home site where the most predominant targets are nails of all sizes that are iron or steel alloy and I am just looking to dig non-ferrous targets only. Good luck with that no matter what detector is being used. I personally would probably try to hunt that site with some or all of the iron target IDs accepted, with the iron audio set a little lower and with IF and IS on 1 to begin with and then adjust the IF and IS settings upwards if needed. I could also just run the F discrimination pattern, set IF and IS at 3 or so and take my chances on hitting some partially masked non ferrous targets while hearing very little non-ferrous chirping from the nails. I could take extreme measures and raise the IF value even higher but the risk of making the masking of non-ferrous targets even worse is a real possibility.

The Bottle Cap setting work similarly on steel alloy bottle caps.

I am at a beach or park where the most annoying target that keeps fooling me and my detector and wasting my time are steel alloy bottle caps which are magnetic according to the magnet I am carrying with me. My Legend is setup to not hear iron meaning that I have my discrimination setting on F but my bottle cap reject is on 0. I can go into the bottle cap settings and raise the bottle cap value to 1 or 2 and see if the non-ferrous responses from the bottle caps stop or at least begin to crackle or break up. I could also go to the nuclear option and just put the bottle cap setting on 5. If the pesky bottle caps don't have any aluminum foil on them I won't hear them. However, if a desired target is near a steel alloy bottle cap and the BC setting is 5......good luck hearing the desired target unless one gets lucky.  

In the same scenario I could have my Legend's discrimination pattern setup for some (G) or all (A) iron targets to be accepted and heard. A BC setting of 0 may cause the steel alloy bottle cap to have little or no iron responses. Just changing the BC setting to 1 may help to identify some bottle caps as the mixed ferrous/non-ferrous target that they truly are. A BC setting of 5 may cause the same steel alloy bottle cap to sound like all iron with little to no non ferrous response.

There is no perfect way to use these settings. It all depends on the site and the targets being hunted and what approach you want to take. At least the Legend gives the user a ton of viable options.

 Fact is it is impossible to generalize about how metal detectors function in the field.  There are simply too many variables to be considered.   

[JCR]

I think someone needs a good general understanding of how a detector functions & how the setting adjustments relate to performance if they want to enjoy detecting & be successful beyond just the new toy stage. Without this understanding you are going to be frustrated when you go out into a real world site. This is the knowledge that helps you make the correct adjustments to suit the site & have fun and success.

Jeff's illustration above on the Iron Filter and Bottle Cap settings is well put. The Nokta User's Manual should be that descriptive.

[Jeff McClendon]

40 minutes ago, Calvin said:

 Fact is it is impossible to generalize about how metal detectors function in the field.  There are simply too many variables to be considered.   

As far as the Legend is concerned, I am not generalizing. Those scenarios I described are based on real experiences. 

[HerrUU]

1 hour ago, JCR said:

The Nokta User's Manual should be that descriptive.

That would be nice but I understand that Nokta wants to keep their manual more summarized. 

In the end, I'll figure it out. Last weekend I had a great hunt and was able to finetune quite a bit on fields where I mostly hunt. Clynick's book on the Nokta Legend helped me a lot in setting up and using the detector. I can strongly recommend reading this book. Just a bit of a shame that he doesn't really cover the Iron Filter. 

Next weekend another hunt's on the program in an adjacent field and I think I'm going to play a little with the Iron Filter settings, only through use will I learn to use it 🙂

 

[Jeff McClendon]

10 minutes ago, HerrUU said:

That would be nice but I understand that Nokta wants to keep their manual more summarized. 

In the end, I'll figure it out. Last weekend I had a great hunt and was able to finetune quite a bit on fields where I mostly hunt. Clynick's book on the Nokta Legend helped me a lot in setting up and using the detector. I can strongly recommend reading this book. Just a bit of a shame that he doesn't really cover the Iron Filter. 

Next weekend another hunt's on the program in an adjacent field and I think I'm going to play a little with the Iron Filter settings, only through use will I learn to use it 🙂

 

With the creation of the user adjustable iron filter and with subsequent updates to that feature and the addition of the bottle cap feature, writing and publishing an actual physical book with current information is just about impossible.

[HerrUU]

Once the software is more stable, I'm thinking to start writing things down. For my job I occasionally need to write manuals so I have a little experience. But there are so many things to cover 🤔 It will take some time and a lot more hunts to even get to a point where I can write down anything useful.