"Iron Bias" What Is It?

[Chase Goldman]

6 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

It took 30 hours for it to be noticed . I will be leaving it to Minelab to provide an exact explanation of this control. Soon.

Ha. Everyone was shining the bright light on Gold Mode and the other new mode descriptions, of course we latched on to that diversion.  Lol.

I only noticed it when I was reviewing the guide again to recount the 600 vs. 800 feature deltas.

Can I get a gold flake star on my forehead for being the first to notice.  Lol.

 

[steveg]

30 minutes ago, Chase Goldman said:

Ha. Everyone was shining the bright light on Gold Mode and the other new mode descriptions, of course we latched on to that diversion.  Lol.

I only noticed it when I was reviewing the guide again to recount the 600 vs. 800 feature deltas.

Can I get a gold flake star on my forehead for being the first to notice.  Lol.

 

You get one from me, anyway, Chase!  LOL!  Nice catch!

Steve

 

[steveg]

While this IS an Equinox thread, I'd still be interested in hearing a brief description of what the "silencer" does, on the Deus.  While this setting on the Equinox may be NOTHING like the Deus "silencer," I think there's at least some chance it could possibly have a similar function, being that the Deus is one of the targeted competitors.

I'm curious...

Steve

[Chase Goldman]

On 1/16/2018 at 8:46 AM, steveg said:

OK, so would it be correct to say that it's sort of a "fine tuning" of the discrimination, down in the iron ID area?  In other words, more "resolution" or "control" or "precision" with respect to exactly how much you disc. out the iron, versus letting a partially masked non-ferrous target "bleed through?"  Or is it just a more artificial audio "enhancement" of sorts...do you know?

Steve

Silencer is def a target signal processing filter vs. a pure audio signal mask like notch.  What is weird is that XP tied it to the Deus reactivity setting (XP speak for recovery speed).  I don’t know if there is something to take away from the proximity of the Equinox iron bias setting to the recovery speed setting on the guide.

I’m guessing iron bias on the Equinox is more about mitigating iron wraparound and the tendency for big iron, especially flat and/or round big iron to ring up high.  But a silencer like iron reject filter that compliments discrimination is also a possibility.  

[steveg]

I'm trying to put this together in my head a bit.  I may be way off here, but...

I'm going to "think out loud."  Consider say the CTX.  Instead of the normal 0-99 ID scale, where on a normal single freq. VLF unit both a steel bottle cap AND a quarter might read "89," we know that the CTX uses FE and CO numbers.  On this type of "scale," thanks to the FBS multi-frequency ability, a quarter and a steel bottle cap both might register "46" on the CO scale, but the quarter should read "12" FE, while the nail might read "35."  So, Minelab "does some things" in FBS that allow that different, additional "read" of the target to occur -- instead of one digit, there are two, one giving more of the "Ferrous reading," and the other the "Conductive."  And as such, steel bottle caps are "not a problem" on a CTX -- even though on a single freq. VLF they can be.

Now, many of us have wondered why the Equinox went back to simple, single-digit CO numbers, and some have speculated that a 2-D, FE/CO readout and 2-D screen might be something to be included on a later "flagship" Equinox 1000 or something.  BUT -- here's what I am pondering.  I wonder if perhaps this "Iron Bias" adjustment might be using sort of that "2-D" approach, but in a "behind the scenes" way?  In other words, while we don't get to directly SEE the "FE/CO" info, I would expect it's still "in there" and "available;" after all, Multi-IQ IS Minelab multi-frequency (LOL), and I fully expect that Multi-IQ can "do the same thing," in terms of exploiting the FE and CO information from the receive signal.  SO -- maybe this "Iron Bias" adjustment will allow us to utilize what the machine already "knows" as far as an "FE" reading on a target?  Maybe it is allowing us to "tune out," say, a steel cap, USING the same information inside the machine as what would be displayed as an "FE" number on a CTX?  In other words, maybe it's the equivalent of applying "discrimination" to the "FE number" of a target whose FE number we aren't getting to see directly...

This is just complete pondering and speculating on my part, and I don't even know if I was clear enough in my description of my thoughts for anyone to even understand.  But, I'm wondering...   This has me intrigued.

Steve

 

 

 

[Jeff in Pa]

I would bet it's gonna be very similar to the "Silencer setting" on the Deus.

  I always wished for a wider range of it on the Deus. I see so many people don't use the Silencer but there are many times that it can help to "clear up" a signal.

Just another plus for this new machine.

 

[Wayfarer]

My guess would be that like with the Recovery Speed settings, it gives both a wider range higher and lower as well as finer in-between settings.  So 1=2, 2=4, 3=6 or something similar. 

My other guess is that the Iron Bias setting is a filter setting that allows some of the iron signal to bleed through even though it is being discriminated against.  When slow hunting for deep coins, for example, you might want to opt for a higher level of "bleed through" to get stronger signals on deep high conductors that have both a tendency to wrap and read as iron.  The opposite situation would be cherry picking in heavy iron where depth is not as important and you can adjust to make sure the iron gets fully disc'd out.  Just a guess, of course, but it's probably something along those lines.  This would be a very useful adjustment.  This is yet one more reason to choose the 800.  

[Chase Goldman]

15 minutes ago, Wayfarer said:

My guess would be that like with the Recovery Speed settings, it gives both a wider range higher and lower as well as finer in-between settings.  So 1=2, 2=4, 3=6 or something similar. 

My other guess is that the Iron Bias setting is a filter setting that allows some of the iron signal to bleed through even though it is being discriminated against.  When slow hunting for deep coins, for example, you might want to opt for a higher level of "bleed through" to get stronger signals on deep high conductors that have both a tendency to wrap and read as iron.  The opposite situation would be cherry picking in heavy iron where depth is not as important and you can adjust to make sure the iron gets fully disc'd out.  Just a guess, of course, but it's probably something along those lines.  This would be a very useful adjustment.  This is yet one more reason to choose the 800.  

At least as far as recovery speed adjustment is concerned, I am hoping all you are getting is fewer settings (less fine control) and not a compressed range because this would potentially mean that the 600 couldn’t achieve the recovery speed of the 800, which to me seems like unnecessary artificial crippling of 600 performance, though I suppose you could say the same about lack of Gold Mode and 20/40 kHz indivusl frequency selection, as well.

[Steve Herschbach]

Detect Speed (Recovery Speed or Reactivity) ranges from 1 to 3 on the Equinox 600 and 1 to 8 on the Equinox 800.

Here are how the Detect Speed settings map one against the other:

600                    800

  -                          1

  1                         2

  -                          3

  2                         4

  -                          5

  3                         6

  -                          7

  -                          8

All lack of function or adjustments on the Equinox 600 is intentional to create a simpler to operate, less expensive alternative to the Equinox 800. The settings on the 600 could be described as the most common likely settings. The additional range in settings as offered on the Equinox 800 are less likely to be used due to the extremity of the machine response at those levels, and as such they can be regarded as “Pro” settings.