How would YOU define "clean","moderate trash",and "dense trash"

Since it's all relative,how would YOU define it? Is using an 8" coil of any use when the targets are all less than that apart from any direction? Trying to get a handle on my X-8. One thing happened that was totally my fault for not thinking of it,totally the processors fault for glitching out. I put the 5" coil on it and the machine did the same thing! I'd turn it on,noise cancel,auto 16 and the second the coil moved ANYWHERE it would make a sound,any sound,you pick. I did a factory reset and it was WAY better,about as good as I could expect in the area I was in. I'm going out to try the X-8 AGAIN and see what happens. Another question....I've read that there is a further reset you can do that is an even "deeper" reset than holding the power button,and that is...while turning the machine on pull the battery out. Is there any value to this statement? I've never heard of that on the Explorers,but I'm willing to listen to experience.

I know on most Whites detectors you can turn it on and take the battery out and reset to factory, but don,t know about the MineLabs.

The Etrac has a master reset in the menu system. I would imagine the Explorer does also if you look in the owners manual.

Harold,ILL. Wrote:
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> The Etrac has a master reset in the menu system. I
> would imagine the Explorer does also if you look
> in the owners manual.

I WAS using the manual as a coaster but maybe I'll take a look in there...
Thanks guys!

Kevin

IDXMonster Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Harold,ILL. Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > The Etrac has a master reset in the menu system.
> I
> > would imagine the Explorer does also if you
> look
> > in the owners manual.
>
> I WAS using the manual as a coaster but maybe I'll
> take a look in there...
> Thanks guys!
>
> Kevin


Yes Kevin----If all else fails--consult the owners manual! -----Seriously---(especially when you are learning these Minelab machines--Explorers. Etracs & CTX's)----it really "pays" big dividends to read & re-read the owners manuals.----There is a LOT to these detectors & their capabilities.-----Also, if you haven't already done it--pick up a copy of Andys book "The Minelab Explorer & E-Trac Handbook".----It's a good, informative read--I know I've "gleaned" some things out of it & I've been running these Minelabs since the beginning.------Hang in there & you will get the hang of it! -----Del

I will report that my chirpy erratic X-8 has been rectified by doing a factory reset! For some reason the factory 1050 wasn't as upset about the whole deal,but the two smaller coils just went bananas. Anyway,sorry for wasting reading time on this...the moral I guess is,if you have a situation like I've been describing,thinking about a factory reset procedure might be the thing to do. My bad for not realizing it. I AM curious as to why it happens and what gets "corrupted", if that's what happens. It's easy to fix now if it happens again,I run with all stock programs anyway so there's no fear of wiping out some really hard work by doing the reset.

Kevin

Clean is sporadic signals if any..

Moderate is targets scattered about but not usually 2 under coil at same time only occasionally 2 or more targets..

Trash is a constant multiple targets under coil while swinging..more than 2 on any pass..


infested is machine gun reports ...

Keith

“I don't care that they stole my idea . . I care that they don't have any of their own”
-Nikola Tesla

Thanks for the words guys. Excellent break down Keith,that's about how I can describe the sites I hunt,with "clean" only being a farm field.

I am happy to report AGAIN that the Explorer is stable again for sure,I was going through my trashy park in "conductive" this morning and picking modern coins amongst the trash like nobody's business. Though that's not what I normally do it was just a test session to see if the X-8 was doing its thing and it was actually producing way more than I thought was even there for clad. I've found that though Vari 10 works in some situations I like 7 better in Conductive and hunting in garbage. The coins just jumped out at me, it was extremely encouraging knowing that the machine can do that kind of precision hunting without even trying. Now to get on with the deep coin hunting again...

I know most everyone here is a seasoned hunter but for the newbies and lurkers who may have questions or may be having trouble with the Explorer....hold down the power button for 5 seconds at startup and reset the machine. And again,I don't know what gets corrupted in the software but I could not move my coil at ALL without it just going haywire and bleeping and chirping all over the place,no matter WHERE I was or what I did. If this post saves one person the headache I just had it'll be well worth the typing. Hopefully it'll be of some help,if not now,at some point.

Thanks again guys,you all sure make this detecting thing a lot easier and a lot more interesting!

Kevin

I would define a few of the sites I hunt as very trashy.
When you have to dig several trash targets out of a one square foot area just to GB that is trashy.
Over time I have figured out ways to dig less trash and still find great targets.
Below is a couple of examples of the trash I dug when I used to be afraid of missing something good.
I think differently now, there is always another day and other hunts and plenty of time to clean up trashy areas looking for the good stuff.

I have to do it about a every 4-5 hunts with my explorers. Makes a big difference.

Diggwr27-very true,I'm not "cherry picking" per se,but I do NOT want to investigate every little bleep and blurp,unless I like the sound of it and the display tells me something I REALLY like. My ratio of good finds to bad is not that stellar right now as I'm new to the Explorer,but my IDX I can tell MOST of the time if it's worth digging. Simple experience at play. When I first started with THAT machine,let's just say it was fugly. In retrospect,I don't know why I kept detecting,but obviously I did. And amazingly,I dug almost exactly what you have pictured,give or take.
Deadlift-you are resetting every few hunts?? Why in the world would this be necessary? I know that it is necessary sometimes but to have the machine get weird that often is not exactly what I want. Software is ones and zeros,no? What is happening with these things that is causing the glitch? Are ALL Minelabs susceptible to this behavior? Anyone hear of other brands doing this? Perhaps the processors don't like a lot of signals all at once and just fall that far behind and never "catch up"? I would love some further answers or opinions about this glitching thing,maybe to be safe we have to noise cancel AND factory reset before a hunt! Until I know better,that's exactly what I'm going to do. It doesn't take me long to page through the menus and get it to be where I want it anyway. I don't want to blow this problem out of proportion but this is highly unexpected.

Kevin

Hi Keven, this is the straight poop out of Minelab's own website.

...About your Explorer ll, it was introduced in May of 2003, the Explorer SE was introduced in September 2006. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but your Explorer is getting "long in tooth". As you may know, Minelab will not work on any of their metal detectors older then 10 years. So you are out of luck there unless the big KellyCo will work on it.

...Your IDX Pro is the same age as your EX ll and I bet it will still be finding stuff long after the EX ll is dead.

IDX, I'm not sure why. Its a become a habit. Not a big deal at all... I can plug all my settings back in, noise cancel and be off hunting in less than a minute or two. Like I said I do it every 4-5 hunts but not set in stone, some times it REALLY needs it. Others I the machine is perfectly usuable but it smooths it out. Runs quieter and the processor relay to the screen doesn't hang up as bad.

Randy-it is odd that not 2 weeks ago I was thinking about their age and though I don't know the exact age of the Ex2 the IDX is a 2004,so they are just about the same age if not within a year. I'm hoping you're completely wrong about that last statement but I have a feeling you're not. I'll roll with it and see how things go,it's just an unexpected development. Like Deadlift says,it's not a big deal to redo it for peace of mind and be hunting in no time,as long as it doesn't get any worse. I just wish I knew WHY it happens,then maybe I could do my part to minimize the issue.

fwiw, I've heard it said that 2 coil widths of no targets = Low Trash.

Champ-I would classify that as an anomaly,if I have no disc EVERY swing produces some hint of something,even at a very low Sens setting. It has really opened my eyes as to what problems may arise trying to look for 10" deep coins with this much pollution in the ground. It makes a guy wonder if there's a way to GB against the garbage itself,kind of a "macro" GB,if that makes sense. GBing against the soil itself doesn't seem like it's even in the scope of usefulness at many sites. Welp....off to bed,thanks for the thoughts guys!

Kevin

Yeah Kevin, I agree. Just passing along what I saw or read somewhere.

I've wondered too about GB'ing out the thick trash. Probably would be hit or miss just depending on the luck of where you put your coil. Might be interesting to devote a hunt to trying it.

((I laugh when people say you have to find a "clean" spot to do a GB. that's just not possible at many of my sites without a LOT of digging which kinda defeats the purpose when you disturb all that ground))

I would define clean as what I dug today - in 1.5 hours I had maybe 10 hits - 1 was a pop top, 2 were quarters, and the rest were iron so I didnt dig...man my beaches are really sanded in right now

The engineer in me thinks some formal definition of 'trash level' is needed. My thoughts:
*A simple scale of about 5 or 6 'steps' is best, no need for 10 or more steps.
*Low number = lowest trash, Higher number = higher trash level.
*It needs to measure the Linear spacing of the the targets, not how many per unit area
*It needs to be logarithmic in some way, in order to cover a wide range.

So I propose starting with a 'medium level' of 'One target per 10 inches (25cm) of sweep'. Each step up represents a doubling of linear trash density, each step down represents a halving of density:

Level 5 = 4 targets per 10"
Level 4 = 2 targets per 10"
Level 3 = 1 target per 10" (the medium level)
Level 2 = 1 target per 20"
Level 1 = 1 target per 40" (= about 1 sweep length)
Level 0 = minimal trash (often many sweeps before a 'hit')

Comments are welcome.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/22/2015 04:49PM by Pimento.

Only on a Metal detecting forum can you stumble upon the Pimt unit as a measure for the Level of Target Density.

HH
Johnb

Pimento Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The engineer in me thinks some formal definition
> of 'trash level' is needed. My thoughts:
> *A simple scale of about 5 or 6 'steps' is best,
> no need for 10 or more steps.
> *Low number = lowest trash, Higher number = higher
> trash level.
> *It needs to measure the Linear spacing of the the
> targets, not how many per unit area
> *It needs to be logarithmic in some way, in order
> to cover a wide range.
>
> So I propose starting with a 'medium level' of
> 'One target per 10 inches (30cm) of sweep'. Each
> step up represents a doubling of linear trash
> density, each step down represents a halving of
> density:
>
> Level 5 = 4 targets per 10"
> Level 4 = 2 targets per 10"
> Level 3 = 1 target per 10" (the medium level)
> Level 2 = 1 target per 20"
> Level 1 = 1 target per 40" (= about 1 sweep)
> Level 0 = minimal trash (often several sweeps
> before a 'hit')
>
> Comments are welcome.

Pimento,I love it so far!! So you're chart would NOT take into consideration the three dimensions dictated by coil size and sensitivity applied? I know that still leaves some variables on the table,such as target size,condition of minerals affecting detected targets,machine capabilities....it could go on. Its too bad physics has to get in the way of things,we could all have machines that detected nothing but what we want and were never wrong at any depth! . Of course,if that were true,experience would mean nothing and there would be a five year scurry to pick up everything and besides the future drops there would be nothing to hunt. It's a good thing in a way that we,the detectorist,are still a very integral part of detecting....technology cannot make everyone equal,nor should we be. The smartest,most diligent and hard hunting people,on average,should wind up with the most "good" finds. This is assuming we are all rabidly addicted to detecting and foaming at the mouth,which I know I am...but not all are,thankfully.
Engineers have provided us with some really good tools to ply our trade,let's help them to improve even upon that,if reasonably possible!

Wouldn't targets per square foot be simpler?...Say 9sf=3fx3f. Or 1 square = 10fx10f. For us US guys anyway. Now of course, if you have a deeper unit you may have to measure in cubit feet or cubic inches....deeper unit will add to the amount of targets hence change the target density. The ground can also be a target to the detector until it's GB out....how would that count? My head hurts, on to the next thread for me.

It is easy to define trashy, if you are in a spot that you think or actually holds deeper good targets and there are surface trash targets. Then you need to get busy and clean small areas of the surface trash to hear the deeper good targets. Mark off and grid an area and leave nothing in the ground, I'd hate to clean an area of surface targets and then have someone else come in after me and dig all the deeper goodies.

Quote:"Wouldn't targets per square foot be simpler?...Say 9sf=3fx3f."
I said in the post I didn't think area was the way to go, though I did ponder over it. For a start it just extends the range of figures we are trying to quantify, eg. 144 per square yard down to about 0.5 per square yard. I was also thinking that when sweeping the coil, it's linear target density that you're observing, if you wanted to express that in an area measure, you'd need to do mathematics.
There are problems with linear density, too, of course. If you actually had targets spaced out on a 2.5 inch grid (the Level 5 quantity) and you swept a typical 8 inch coil over it, you would experience more than the 4 targets per 10 inches of sweep, as you coil would respond to the targets that were 2.5 inches either side of the sweep-line. Likewise, if you had the '1 target per 40 inches', you wouldn't see one target per sweep, because they would be spaced out every 40 inches in the other direction, too, so you would make maybe 5 passes before you got the next 'hit'.
As for the Imperial/Metric thing, I intentionally chose 10 inches for you US guys, knowing that you wouldn't care for 'targets per metre' or such like.[ I made an error, I hope I can correct it, I was originally suggesting 'per foot' hence the 30cm reference, but changed to 10 inches]

And regarding the 3rd dimension, depth: clearly if you're using a 1970's BFO, you might think an area was low in trash, until you fire up your CTX. I don't know how to cater for this.

Being a U.K. based detectorist, the idea of 'trash' is almost non-existant here. All the 'trash' targets could be good ones, only heavy iron is considered a nuisance, but we don't complain, as heavy iron is often a good sign of human activity. Or maybe a big bonfire....

Hombre Wrote:
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> It is easy to define trashy, if you are in a spot
> that you think or actually holds deeper good
> targets and there are surface trash targets. Then
> you need to get busy and clean small areas of the
> surface trash to hear the deeper good targets.
> Mark off and grid an area and leave nothing in the
> ground, I'd hate to clean an area of surface
> targets and then have someone else come in after
> me and dig all the deeper goodies.

By the time you boil it down that is really the only way I know to be sure,but the "lazy" in me wants to skip this step. Don't we all? What it is is this...I'm in too much of a hurry to skim and pick,rather than really paying attention to one spot. We drove an hour and a half round trip today to find plated silver ring and an 1883 Indian. It doesn't compute. I didn't even find the Indian,my buddy with his ATPro did. It was in a park from 1836,Janesville WI first park. That's NOT what I want to do and won't do it again,my town was founded in the 1850s and there's NO reason I'm traveling,other than I need to get permissions. So off I go to do that.
Randy has the working mans view,do the work,the reward will come. We all just want to skip to the reward. Such is humanity....carry on Pimento! Surely we don't have to do all that digging and cleaning that Randy's doing!