Manticore Center Line Question...

[Chase Goldman]

1 hour ago, GB_Amateur said:

Is this in any way parallel to what the Deus 2 does, setting a discrimination level independent(?) of notching?  (I may be way off base with this, never having had an XP detector and thus not understanding its language...).

To a certain extent this IS what discrimination does on Deus 2.  That's why I advocate use of discrimination (and highly reactive pitch audio) because it helps to differentiate ferrous from non-ferrous in the presence of both and helps to keep ferrous down averaging from affecting the non-ferrous TDI.  It's not full proof but it does help and if you want to not hear the iron, simply turn off iron volume.

If Manticore is indeed doing something similar, then that would be a definite feature enhancement beyond the Nox's discrimination implementation that peaks my interest in Manticore.

Will be interested in how this unfolds.

[abenson]

Probably didn't give enough information on the first post about this and it might seem a bit more clear cut that it really is. To address pinpoint first, there is no difference in the way the target pinpointed with disc on vs disc off. Second, when I run an open screen I have my ferrous volume turned up quite a bit and that is probably one reason it's harder to tell a comingled target for me. So I should probably turn that down. But when disc is implemented I only hear the targets that are in the open screen and I would say they sound more clipped than they do studdery like they do on the Equinox. Look at Rattlehead's video and you can see how it acts. Third, Audio was all over the place running open screen 1 region all tones and the ID was mostly high single digits with an occasional high number spike. Disc on cleaned those ID's up to mostly 78-80. Possibly could make that sound better by running prospecting audio.  Finally, the target trace when open is is quite a bit more active than when running a disc pattern. From what I can remember, on this particular target when the screen was open I had a big blob that was almost S shaped that went from left lower limits, smeared across the middle line over to where the dime ID was and then straight up to the right top of upper limits. There were also various other small black dots in a few places on the screen. When the disc pattern was implemented I clearly remember it changing to two separate traces, one in the left lower limits and one that went from the top of the screen to the center line at about where a dime would ID. Galvanized pipe is steel with a zinc coating so kind of a unique target setup here.

Decided to add a drawing of kind of what I saw.

 

[strick]

1 hour ago, abenson said:

when I run an open screen I have my ferrous volume turned up quite a bit and that is probably one reason it's harder to tell a comingled target for me. So I should probably turn that down.

I've been running it down to were I can just here it comfortably...the ferrous audio  can get insanely loud on that machine I think I've been running it around 3-4 if I remember right for my ears...

strick  

[schoolofhardNox]

1 hour ago, strick said:

I've been running it down to were I can just here it comfortably...the ferrous audio  can get insanely loud on that machine I think I've been running it around 3-4 if I remember right for my ears...

strick  

From what I remember from the Equinox, that iron audio is not just iron targets but ground noise as well. I kind of wished they didn't combine iron targets and ground noise together on the Manticore as well. It clutters up the audio a lot. I hope I'm remembering that correctly?

[steveg]

3 hours ago, abenson said:

Probably didn't give enough information on the first post about this and it might seem a bit more clear cut that it really is. To address pinpoint first, there is no difference in the way the target pinpointed with disc on vs disc off. Second, when I run an open screen I have my ferrous volume turned up quite a bit and that is probably one reason it's harder to tell a comingled target for me. So I should probably turn that down. But when disc is implemented I only hear the targets that are in the open screen and I would say they sound more clipped than they do studdery like they do on the Equinox. Look at Rattlehead's video and you can see how it acts. Third, Audio was all over the place running open screen 1 region all tones and the ID was mostly high single digits with an occasional high number spike. Disc on cleaned those ID's up to mostly 78-80. Possibly could make that sound better by running prospecting audio.  Finally, the target trace when open is is quite a bit more active than when running a disc pattern. From what I can remember, on this particular target when the screen was open I had a big blob that was almost S shaped that went from left lower limits, smeared across the middle line over to where the dime ID was and then straight up to the right top of upper limits. There were also various other small black dots in a few places on the screen. When the disc pattern was implemented I clearly remember it changing to two separate traces, one in the left lower limits and one that went from the top of the screen to the center line at about where a dime would ID. Galvanized pipe is steel with a zinc coating so kind of a unique target setup here.

Decided to add a drawing of kind of what I saw.

 

abenson,

THANK YOU for the additional information. 

1.  OK -- so NO change on target pinpoint, for this target, when disc. was on OR off.  That is what I would have expected, as pinpoint is, I thought, a mode WITHOUT discrimination, such that EVEN IF you have targets discriminated, that should NOT be reflected once you enter pinpoint mode.  So, that's good.  One "potentially mind-blowing" thing has been clarified!

2.  Next, you said audio was "all over the place," in open screen, but when you switched to disc, you would get "clipped" high tones, which -- again -- makes sense to me.  Sounds like, as would be expected, you are hearing the PORTION of the co-mingled target that was the non-ferrous high tone, and eliminating (via disc.) the low-tone-generating aspects of this co-mingled target.    OK, so I think this makes sense under my "current" understanding/paradigm, and nothing "mind-blowing" here.  Good...

3.  You said in open screen, the mostly single-digit VDI with an occasional high-VDI spike, changed to mostly 78 to 80 VDI when disc was engaged.  Again, this basically makes sense to me, as -- just like the audio -- you "took away" the higher percentage of low VDIs being generated by the zinc pipe, leaving the machine with only one choice...which was to display any VDI it could generate that was in the accepted range (as 78-80 was).  I think the only part here that surprises me, is that it was ABLE to generate 78 to 80 VDI -- i.e. very accurate dime ID, EVEN THOUGH that pipe was there, and COULD HAVE (and would have, I'd think, on many machines) biased the dime ID lower, i.e. more of a "mixed" ID or "average" ID of the two targets.  Sounds like the MC did a great job of separating, showing you two distinct targets.  But, it took your use of disc. to make it MORE CLEAR that there WERE two targets.

4.  Finally, the target trace.  This one remains the most puzzling to me.  WHAT HAPPENED to all of those traces, between the low-VDI "blob" lower left, and the high-VDI blob on the right-hand side of the screen?  Yes, with no disc, things like EMI, ground noise, etc. can show up as small, brief, transient dots all over the screen.  So, I get why turning on disc would clean some of that up (since SOME of those random plots/dots would be "discriminated").  BUT, that doesn't explain that "west-to-east" or "left-to-right" strip of target plots across the center of the screen DISAPPEARING, apparently, when you entered disc. mode.  Again, those plots should show up EITHER WAY; the only difference should be if, and then how, they report audibly (based on your disc. and limits settings).  This part is the primary thing I have yet to reconcile...but...perhaps it could be explained by slight "sweep angle" changes, slightly not centered over the target in the same way, etc., when you switched from open screen, to disc. mode?  

I think bottom line, is that my understanding/current paradigm is still correct, such that I don't think anything is happening here that cannot, at least generally, be explained as falling into the realm of what we have understood in terms of how MC operates.

WITH THAT SAID, abenson, your post STILL illustrates (which was probably your original point) that you are learning some interesting ways to effectively use MC's discrimination (and "iron mask" as you were noting as a hold-over term from FBS days) and its limits settings, to "clean up" the audio and the VDI when there are mixed-target scenarios, so that the "good" can shine through more easily, instead of being partially drowned out by the "bad."  Given what seem to be very good "separation" capabilities on this unit, it makes things like this possible, apparently...

And finally, I hope none of this comes across in any way "offensive" or as though I am "challenging" you.  I really am just trying to understand in a very detailed way, AND I am an "external" processor, so I figure things out using words, LOL!  And so, when my words come out, it's all out there...everything my brain is thinking, ends up "spoken" (or, on the page, in this case)!  So, my point is that this is truly me just trying to wrap my brain around this machine, and trying to test --  against my current understanding -- all of the things that folks I trust are witnessing/experiencing as we all learn this machine together...

Good stuff abenson.

Thanks!

Steve
 

[steveg]

17 minutes ago, schoolofhardNox said:

From what I remember from the Equinox, that iron audio is not just iron targets but ground noise as well. I kind of wished they didn't combine iron targets and ground noise together on the Manticore as well. It clutters up the audio a lot. I hope I'm remembering that correctly?

You ARE remembering correctly, BUT, I'm not sure there is a way to "un-combine" the location that iron targets report, and the location that most ground noise tends to report.  Reason being, at least in my mind, is that since the source of the "ground noise" often IS the background irony composition of many types of soil, the ground IS essentially an "iron target," and thus why it tends to "ID" as "iron."

Steve

[basstrackerman]

Good information guys.   

[abenson]

2 hours ago, schoolofhardNox said:

From what I remember from the Equinox, that iron audio is not just iron targets but ground noise as well. I kind of wished they didn't combine iron targets and ground noise together on the Manticore as well. It clutters up the audio a lot. I hope I'm remembering that correctly?

So that's the other thing I have been noticing on deep targets running iron audio off. That ground noise gets cleaned up in my soil and the target is a lot cleaner sounding. But here again if I turned the iron audio down, the difference might not be that defined.

[abenson]

7 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

Is this in any way parallel to what the Deus 2 does, setting a discrimination level independent(?) of notching?  (I may be way off base with this, never having had an XP detector and thus not understanding its language...).

I also wonder about analog vs. digital processing.  With a Tesoro (maybe not all of them...) the discrimination completely silences a target whose overall 'conductivity' is well below the discriminator threshold.  You never know its there.  With the Equinox, with notching (for example silencing the negative VDI's) if you get a mixed non-ferrous/ferrous signal it makes choppy/herky-jerky non-ferrous tone(s) as you swing over the target(s) -- and it's especially noticeable if you set an audible background volume threshold tone.

I'm probably oversimplifying or even just mis-representing what is really going on....

Yea I think it is working kind of like that. With the Deus 2 I had been running a combination of notch, silencer and bottle cap reject in ghost towns. It literally has been silencing most of the nails, bottle caps and flat tin. One target in particular that turned out to be a Barber quarter was in a mess of nails and flat tin. I got a 94-97 TID and clean audio, started going through the soft dirt left by bottle diggers it was in and pulled out a piece of flat tin thinking that was the target. But when I waved it over the coil no sound. Went back over the area and still get a 94-97 and clean audio, dig with my fingers again and out pops a Barber quarter, surprised the heck out of me. And yes that one is on video. So one thing that I think is better on the Deus 2 in regards to using notch, is the audio is not as clipped when using PWM, a more rounded audio and much more descriptive. Where as the Manticore/Equinox sounds clipped or choppy.

So one other thing I will bring up. Running this disc program on the Manticore in parks with basically everything except IHP and above and nickels open. When you pass over some closely spaced targets such as a coin (accepted) and pull tab (rejected). You will see the pull tab on the trace but won't hear it and the pull tab will have it's own separate trace from the coin. But the audio will be clipped. When I have opened up the screen on some of these the trace now looks like a long smear from where the pull tab starts and the coin ends. Also the VDI becomes more jumpy and audio funky (if running prospecting audio you don't notice the audio being funky) Doesn't happen every time but has happened more than once.