What Does Geosense Actually Do?

[phrunt]

 What does Geosense do? Surely it's not just a name for auto sensitivity and auto tracking of the ground and we don't even know if it does actually adjust the sensitivity at all.  I've often wondered what it actually does and nobody seems to really know from what I've been able to see, maybe I've just missed an explanation from someone who knows.

This is what Minelab's description of it is

GeoSense-PI™ technology analyses and responds to ground signals with great clarity and precision, so you can detect in difficult environments once thought undetectable. It rapidly suppresses unwanted signals via three overlapping feedback systems for superfast detection of even the tiniest gold pieces.

So it's a form of auto ground balance that sounds like it's in 3 different feedback systems, what are these so called feedback systems? could it be like on the older GPX where there was sensitive extra, fine gold,  enhance and the 6000 runs in all three of these timings Minelab selected as optimal all at once for the ground conditions its in?

So maybe according to ground conditions it selects the timings most suitable out of the range it has available for the ground automatically and keeps analysing the ground and if in a difficult situation it changes selected timings?

I guess it's Minelab's secret sauce for the GPX 6000 and the engineers probably have a giggle at me when I say I'd like a way to disable it sometimes as then it wouldn't be a GPX 6000 at all 😉 It would be nice to know a little more about such a defining feature of the detector.  It could explain why there is no fixed ground balance as using the three different timings at once it needs to constantly check in case ground conditions change enough that one of the timings is no longer suitable.  It would also explain why Jason's pointed out if you hit enough bad stuff, like a few big steel bolts shallow or something the detector appears to lose sensitivity and take a while to get it back, as it's switched out to a more difficult timing that's not so sensitive.

If it was just the big bolt throwing out ground balance the auto tracking by Minelabs own admission maybe too slow to update and a quick trak is recommended, see here from the manual.

GPX 6000™ tracks automatically to changing ground conditions during normal use. It is effective for typical detecting in most grounds. There will be times when the automatic ground tracking will not be able to track fast enough, such as when moving to a different type of ground. In these situations, a Quick‑Trak Ground Balance will quickly recalibrate the detector to the new ground.

And for those that say the GPX doesn't track out small gold like the Gold Monster does, again Minelab say it does and when recovering small targets its wise to use quick trak to prevent it happening.  I'm sure many of us have experienced targets disappearing when trying to find them with the GPX, especially those of us that hunt small gold.  Just like the fully automatic GM 1000 it tracks them out, again from the manual.

Quick‑Trak
`
Ideal for both new and experienced users.
` Tracks successfully to most ground conditions.
` Detector continuously tracks ground during detecting, but

Quick‑Trak may still be used to rebalance to changing or
  variable ground conditions.
` Ground balances more slowly than Quick‑Trak.
` Quick‑Trak is a manually initiated Ground Balance process for
   faster ground balancing than Auto.
` Use to ground balance to a chosen area of ground,
   e.g. patches of extreme mineralisation, hot rocks etc.
` Use in between digging and checking for a target, so that the
   target is not ‘balanced out’ accidentally.

All this Geosense stuff is just a wild theory of course but my understanding of what Geosense could possibly be. 

Models are usually successors of older models so features we saw on older models are often incorporated into new models like the GPX timings, perhaps in a modern world they were able to automate them and auto adjust which timings you're using while allowing multiple timings at once with the software doing the work to pick signals out of each timings results.

We went from having 9 timings on the GPX 5000 to no longer having any on the GPX, although you could say that normal and difficult are its only timings.  The conductive setting and the EMI setting on the DD coil don't appear to be associated with timings, more functions of the DD coil.  It also detects both small and larger gold at once and handles various ground conditions at once eliminating the need for manually selecting timings like we do on the older models.

 

 

[Nedkelly]

Wow  simon that's to serious for me .🙂 After lots  of testing  I only use the one button on the 6000 now , on and off . Great change from the 5000 .  l know I'm still missing  gold , but show me a detector that doesn't, stress free detecting 👍

[phrunt]

7 hours ago, Nedkelly said:

Wow  simon that's to serious for me .🙂

It's all well over my head too, I'm just curious and was hoping someone knew something about what it actually does, Minelab's description leaves more questions than answers but I guess they don't want to give away secrets.  I probably won't get many responses as I would guess nobody else knows either 🙂

I do really like the 6000 now I've got a fixed up one, can't wait to get the little Sadie for it. 

They say it detects in difficult environments once thought undetectable, but this isn't the case as it's pretty bad in hot rocks that the older model and the GPZ handle with greater success.  Maybe other environments I don't have around here it handles better than other detectors like some really bad or salty soils.

[Lynk]

Great analysis, Simon and I imagine you are correct or definitely directionally correct. The lack of timings from prior units to the 6k suggests current processors and coding have the ability to make some determination around the best timing for a given set of factors in the ground.   We all have our real world preferences driven by experience, so the "best" here is likely a theoretical best.  

I like the change as timings always seemed archaic to me, but that's likely primarily because I don't live in gold country and could never get enough time on the machines to develop a proper feel and understanding of them. 

The most puzzling part, which you also point out, is the "difficult environments" phrase.  The SDC can operate in what I would call difficult environments. 

So then the question is, how does Minelab define "environments" in this statement. Is it static mineralization, variable mineralization, gold size relative to mineralization, a weighting of those, etc.  The analysis can get a bit lawyerly and, in the end, it may just be marketing.   

Even with all the undefined parameters and its share of growing pains, it has evolved into a good machine and I am happy to have it. 

[jasong]

9 hours ago, phrunt said:

Maybe other environments I don't have around here it handles better than other detectors like some really bad or salty soils.

Yeah, in wet alkali soils (common in the US) the 6000 does notably better than the GPZ. Part of that is the smaller coil though, but it still does better in wet alkalis than the GPZ running a 12" coil too.

The fact that no one really knows what Geosense is kinda shows the point I was making about it being too opaque of a detector in the other thread, none of us know what's happening, why or when. For general use it's not a big deal I guess, as long as it's finding gold and fun is being had. But for those who need or want to know what they are missing, why, and when, it's not really a good thing. 

 

[Steve Herschbach]

22 hours ago, phrunt said:

Surely it's not just a name for auto sensitivity and auto tracking of the ground

[davsgold]

I don't know to much about the 6000 yet as I have only used it for just under 3 weeks so far, but I do know this, it works very well.

Mostly I use it in Difficult (wriggly lines) and get a minimum of hot rocks, when I use Normal (straight lines) it finds hot rock heaven.

I don't know if it is "Geo Sense" working, but a couple of swings over a suspect signal, (that's a signal that's not a signal) it just fades out after a few swings.

On a signal no matter how faint if it is gold is remains and it gets better after as bit of a scrape, so just dig it up, and plenty of the tiny bits I'm finding are like 6" to 8" deep, and of course there are the shallow 1" deep bits as well that can't be missed, they just say dig me now.

So I just reckon I don't need to know how a sportz car is built, I just need to know how to drive it.

cheers dave

[phrunt]

I do find it tracks out really tiny bits, but you can get them back again with a ground balance or even swinging off to the side of your dig for a bit but they're probably a bit smaller than your gold Dave  I think our hot rocks are basaltt?  Well I've been told they likely are by images of them but the 6000 has a lot of trouble with those particular ones, the GPZ had trouble with some green hot rocks we have too.  Both are highly magnetic.   We do have a few volcanoes dotted around though that according to my research threw out a lot of basalt.  The best for me and hot rocks has been the GPX 4500 and 5000.

The two closest to me are extinct now, the North Island is home to all the active ones and lots of them, the ones closest to me threw out a lot of basalt and surrounding them is filled with it.  They even have Taupo supervolcano that is twice the size of Yellowstone so if that ever blows....    White Island is the one that blew up two years ago killing a heap of tourists that were checking it out. 😞

This is a basalt outcrop they call the organ pipes at the Volcano nearest to me.  Pretty cool how the lava formed like this.

My soils maybe often pretty mild but hot rocks are my issue.