Teknetics Forum

Ralph, have been following this thread and appreciate everyones input and the responses respectively. What I want to know is because the nickel has been moved up into the high tone category along with dimes, quarters, bottles caps and a few other items how are you being able to distinguish between them. The dimes and pennies I see no problem since the VDI numeric will take care of it, the same would probably apply to the nickel since it too though in the high tone range will display a VDI reading of between 56-57 though have picked up a few at 58. The one that is really giving me a fit is that of rusted bottle caps. These all seem to jump up into the quarter range and will read as such. I have noted that by watching the FeO4 bar graph and if I see two or more bars reading from the bottom of the graph upwards, you more than likely have a 80% probability of it being a rusted cap. Other than this method, how are you going about identifying bottle caps? I did find too that if you disc out everything (set the sens at 80) and use the three tone audio there will be a distinct clicking noise when making a pass over a rusted cap. One other thing too is that if you raise your coil slowly you will find that you will lose a quarter at approximately 8-9ins though if a bottle cap you will still be able to pick it up to about 10-11. Just want to know if you or any of the others have found a better way of identifying those pesky caps.

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Pineapple
http://koloheboy.freehosting.net

Darn Pineapple, I thought you had this all figured out by now. I was keeping up with your progress on your website. Sounded like you had it about down in the tone mode

I couldn't get out yesterday and the bottle caps and stability were two things I was hoping I would be able to do. Did you notice that you can "charge" iron and get the graph to raise in response?

Did you get to spend much time in the 3b mode. That's where I plan to spend most of my time next time I get out. There has got to be something there to help with them.

80% is not a bad figure, but I know its time consuming to spend the extra time on a quarter or dime signal to weed out bottle caps

Mike

Pineapple,

Glad to see you over here!

Another thing I have been trying on the rusty steel bottlecaps is to do a "quick-pass" off the tip of the coil, which will often cause the bottlecap signal to break up compared to a solid coin hit. I noticed this on a few suspect targets over the weekend when playing around with the T-2. You need to use just the point near the front tip of the coil where you just start to lose the signal. This tends to weaken the sensitivity to the bottlecap and allows it to break up a little better in the audio. Now whether this will work in all different ground conditions or not I don't know yet. But the Fe304 graph tends to "average" here at three bars (.1 ucgs) while sweeping the coil, and then gives an upward spike over iron to 4 or 5 bars, especially when you do several passes to let the iron "charge" as Mike suggests, depending on the target size. You can then move the coil off the target and then pump the coil over a clean spot sa couple of times to get the Fe304 to average back to the ground alone and just keep hunting. I think I would also tend to drop the sensitivity setting down some if the bottlecaps are a major problem in a particular area. There are several possibilities with this machine that could be combined to handle them pretty well I think. Have you tried the 3b tone option to see if it helps with the bottlecaps?

Nickels are easy to distinguish on the T-2. Every one I have dug so far (15 or 20 total) all registered a 57-59 VDI in our soil with a solid nickel lock. Lower-range tabs near or overlapping the nickel range seem to jump more from nickel to tab rather than giving a good 2 or 3 number minimal VDI shift below tab VDI numbers. I'm sure there is probably some variation depending again on soil conditions, depth, and target orientation. But those I've dug so far have left little doubt that they were nickels. The only exceptions have been a couple of square tabs that read exactly like the nickels, and those are always difficult to deal with, if not impossible.

Ralph



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/09/2006 06:05PM by Ralph Bryant.

Still working on it Mike, I was hoping that either you or Ralph would have maybe figured out another way to ID them. I have worked with the 3b tone for about 16hrs and can't really say I would prefer this setting. I do like the 4 setting though and am starting to see where maybe this one will help in ID'ing not only older coins but the bottle caps and the pull rings. The pull rings I think I have nailed down now just by the bounce and the VDI numeric on the high side. The pull tabs too I believe I can easily enough identify them but them pesky rusted bottle caps are the ones giving me a fit. If they're not rusted I can pretty well get a handle on them, but the area I have picked out to perform most my tests on is relatively old (dating back to the late 40's) and has lots of trash. The area is great though in that it is right next to a river/lake so I also have sand, clay, loamy, humus, soils to work with. There's also a playground within walking distance that I can easily enough stroll over to to play in the woodchips. Well if you guys ever figure it out let me know. Right now I have approximately 139hrs on the unit.

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Pineapple
http://koloheboy.freehosting.net

Thanks Ralph, Yes I have tried the 3b audio and didn't see where it could help me with my rusted bottle cap problem. I haven't tried doing quick passes using the tip as you mentioned though will give it a shot tomorrow. When you said: But the Fe304 graph tends to "average" here at three bars (.1 ucgs) while sweeping the coil, and then gives an upward spike over iron to 4 or 5 bars, especially when you do several passes to let the iron "charge" as Mike suggests, depending on the target size. have you found that it sometimes is difficult to find an area clear enough to get the units Fe3O4 back to average ground? Man, the area I am working I had to go down to the lake side to get it to balance out.

I'll try as you suggested and see what happens. If I get a 58-59 on my VDI around all this clay it will be a tab. The 56-58 VDI is where my nickels are landing....mostly the 57, I managed to beat my nickel find record with this unit..... I found 42 in one day. It's a nickel killer for sure. Dimes too are pretty accurate though the quarters are iffy so long as I have to keep digging RUSTED bottle caps! If you guys figure ou something plase do post it. Thank you both for the quick replies.

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Pineapple
http://koloheboy.freehosting.net

No problem getting the Fe304 ground reading around here unless you are in a "trash thicket" as my dad calls them ! The reading tends to read a bar low until you pump the coil over a clean spot to get the more accurate sampling. In this regard it is something akin to the ground balancing routine.

Ralph

You're ahead of me by about 100 hours. Just replaced the first set of batteries in mine. Right at 39 hours, but I took those out of the Xterra after a little use, so the 40 hour estimate seems close.

Ralph

Pineapple....I can't wait to read your finished report

I had some nice time off for the Christmas holiday. Got out about 3 hours a day for nearly a week. Unfortuantly, I had coil problems that rendered those days somewhat fustrating. I spent more time trying to figure out small signal falses than anything else. Luckily I was able to switch out coils and eliminated that problem. Thanks in part to your posts. You didn't seem to be having any problems, so it made me think something else was going on. Turned out I had a bad coil.

So now I get to start over Only thing is now my time is limited

I had hoped to put in 500 on the unit before completing my report but I doubt I will be able to do so. I will be at Anniston, Al. next week and will try to get some hours in there to compare it to what data I'm collecting here. I know of five places between here and Anniston, that I'll stop at to get maybe a hour at each place in just to see how the unit will respond to the soils between here and there. Should be interesting. The week after that I am supposed to be in New York so I'll take it with me there to and see if I can get some swinging time there.

I did 2hrs today after work, trying out some stuff. Most went well though still trying to crack the rusted cap egg. In regards to battery life I would hve to agree that they will last as advertised. My first set lasted 47hrs, second set 41, third 43, and now I am working on a fourth though this set is rechargeables. I wanted to see if it would affect performance and though I have only had them in the unit for the difference between the 131 total and what I have put on them since the 139 mark they seem to be working well. They even showed as adverised when put in there like they were only half charged. I wanted to see how fast they will discharge as compared to the alkaline.

All I got today was 3.14 in clad but some interesting results with the unit. one of the things I was concentrating on were items that I felt may be masked. I did manage to pull up several dimes and a couple of quarters that were within 2in of some serious trash. Did this using the slant toe technique. Basically I was shooting at a slant approx 30deg. It did allow me to shoot finds at 6ins. Yesterday I was able to put in about the same amount of time though only out 1.82 since I was really just testing audio responses more than I was looking for targets. Overall I think I am getting better with the unit though still feel like there is much, much more to learn to get it to work at it's fullest potential. Like Mike I want to find out what hidden capabilities this unit has. I have never seen a unit that will only do what they say it will. If various tricks/skills are applied during the hunt I believe one can easily take any given unit to the limit. IMO this unit has much more potential than what is in the manual or being advertised. Still can't wait to try it on the salt water beaches. Well lemme go and let me knwo how you two are doing, all lessons learned are appreciated.

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Pineapple
http://koloheboy.freehosting.net

Have you tried scanning top to bottom with the loop instead of side to side?

vlad, yes I have. I have tried scanning top to bottom, side to side, lifting the coil, decreasing the sensitivity while increasing the disc., tried all the various audio selections, heel/toe angle shots, max sensitivity and disc then adjusting sensitivity down to stabilize bounce, raising/the coil and a few other. The best I have come across thus far to ID them is to watch the Fe3O4 bar for a increase of one to two bars, coupled with the VID numeric and followed by a click in the audio on the backswing (L to R).

As Mike noted in one of his post I can ID them about 80% of the time which I think is pretty good, though am looking for the 90-95% solution. I truly believe there is one, just haven't found that perfect combination yet.

The T2 is awesome and is probably one of the most versatile detectors I have experienced in quite some time. It's sensitivity is probably one of the best though because it is so good I think it lends to some of the difficulty I am having with finding that combo. There are so many, many combinations one can set up with using this machine. My personal goal was to find that single combo that will work for each of the various types of soil conditions I normally get into. These fall into four major categories and I believe I have found all but that one that has to deal moist/wet loamy soils in rashy conditions. Separating the rusted caps in dry conditions regardless of type soil was fairly easy it is the wet/moist soil thats giving me the fit. It's in part due to the high increase in conductivity of the caps in this type of conditions. Add that with the increase of conductivity we already experience here in Ga. because of it's highly mineralized clay and hot rocks and brother I am here to tell you it's one tough egg to crack.

As I stated earlier the T2 is awesome and probabily one of the most versatile machines I have used to date. It's versatility provides the user so many options and the way it i set up to give the user such a vast range of settings only increases this aspect of the machine. In my field report I have dubbed this machine with the one thing I think it does best. IMO the unit if anything brings SITUATIONAL AWARENESS to the user better than any other unit I have worked with. You can easily glance at the face of the unit and make those crucial dig/no dig decisions with all of the info it provides VISUALLY. Having the 6 tone audio only increases that decision capability thus make it even more powerful as a decision tool.

Bottom line, I am determined to crack the combo and am confident I will do so in time. The unit is still new to me and I have every confidence in it that there is a combo there that I just haven't come across yet. I'm going to keep a positive attitude and continue to work on it. Thanks for the input.

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Pineapple
http://koloheboy.freehosting.net

You are right about sensitivity-you can run it so high on many detectors it will start to false on iron.
Have you tried to manually offset the ground tracking. Here's what I mean; turn off the function that continues to track the ground after you have set the ground balance. Try both some positive and negative offset and see if it helps. Also try this; take a 6 penny nail and hold it at a 45% angle 3 or 4 inches out from the center, and hit ground balance. This was a trick someone came up with years ago starting with the old Eagle-2. While you are not properly ground balanced, it added strongly to iron rejection.
Does the T-2 have the ground range to do this, as a CZ does not.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/13/2006 03:44AM by vlad.

The T-2 ground balance runs from approx -5 to +90 degrees, from under ferrite to just at wet salts. But there is no GB "tracking" on the machine, only the option of pre-set, grab, or fully manual balancing. Tracking I believe was avoided because of the tendency of all auto-tracking to track into very small or fringe depth target signals. I think even the best of engineers and designers would admit to that, though maybe not in public.

Ralph

Would hitting Grab with the loop near a small piece of iron help increase
iron rejection of BCs even if you are no longer correctly balanced? Or would it severly throw off the identification function?

I think that eventually, all of this rusty bottlecap "issue" is more than likely going to boil down to a combination of high gain, ground mineralization, and moisture conditions. When you're topping out a high-gain machine, you are going to have those problems. Lesser machines without the high-gain capabilities are not. Even some of the best IB gold machines will signal on some small iron as gold or visa versa, while other VID machines are subject to so-called "wrap-around" effect. I've yet to see a machine made that was 100% able to discriminate on rusty bottlecaps, round iron tack rings, round rusty washers, and the like.

Ralph