Ferr digital reading

[dewcon4414]

Cold today so i thought id ask some of those electronic and techie sorts a question. I know the Ferr reading is nothing more than a digital point of a scale and that the Explorers arent really reading the metal content of a target.... IE iron. I was wondering if they used TWO peaks to determine the readings or are just using a SINGLE peak and the Ferr reading is just a decimal point figure. What that would mean is the processor indicates a 1 to 31 conductive reading on a target on a stright line. Then it figures a point something to show the Ferr. IE.... on a dime it would have read 29.03 on that stright line Conductive reading. Which would mean, 03 Ferr and 29 Cond on the screen. Ya Ya i got to much time on my hands

Dew

 

[Erik in NJ]

It's my understanding that they are calculating two discrete values from the data read from the coil.

 

[captn_se]

Dew,

I believe, just like Erik, that the Explorers/E-Trac are using two different pieces of "metallic property" criteria to arrive at those Fer/Cond. numbers. One, obviously is calculated from a metal's conductive properties, which most of today's machines provide, while the other is calculated based on the metal's magnetic or ferrous properties. Since Iron has very high magnetic properties, it will have the highest FER values. I know a lot of machines will show iron as a 'negative' number reading (i.e. below 0 on a Conductivity scale), but I think that's just their way of being able to represent it on a single conductivity scale.

The thing that's a little confusing for me is that on Explorers/E-Tracs, iron will usually be represented as high on the conductive scale (and also have high-pitched audio while in Conductive sounds), while on machines, such as White's, the iron will have negative conductive properties(at least on a digital/analog reading), and will typically be low-toned on this conductive scale.

The most accurate answer to this question would need to come from a design engineer from Minelab.

HH,
CAPTN SE
Dan

 

[Erik in NJ]

It's my understanding that the machine is not really determining the conductivity and ferrous content of the target - these were names given to the axes.

 

[dewcon4414]

Inductivity seems to ring a bell to me to Eric. Not sure about COIL VALUE. Wouldnt it be more the PROCESSING value... which ive heard most of the time, once averaged is around 3 kHz? Sounds like a pretty good explanation thou Eric.

Dew

 

[widebody]

[size=large]you guys have way too much time on your hands.

Captn se, i had that same problem with iron this afternoon. i'm out learning my brand new se and this thing goes off on what it said was way in the black but a very high pitch. i learned my stuff on a whites xlt. this is proving to be a hard machine to read. i may have learned to pin point with it but had to stop before really giving more testing. one good thing was i'm able to compare my whites with it. or rather i'm using my xlt to confirm the pin pointing and whether or not what the target is. so far the only thing showing it may be better than the xlt is that my nickel count went from 2 sometimes to 6 just today. all other coins could have been found by my xlt but the se seems to show nickels better than the xlt. that ends up being i may not have read them when i was over that ground before or the vdi numbers seem to say junk. not so with the se. need to practice much more on qtrs. and dimes and silver and toys and GOLD. one thing for sure was what eddie said. the going is slow. much slower than the whites. i also found i don't have the positive sounds like i enjoy with the xlt and the garretts. that has to be the dd effect. a narrow field as opposed to a circle. the dd is going to be deeper i hear but it still seems to shorten the signal. had a real hard time homing in on targets.and now having to figure out this iron with a high pitch thing.

HH[/size]

 

[Erik in NJ]

When I say "coil value" I mean the most fundamental electrical measurement that a coil produces by inducing an eddy current in a metalic object. Most detectors have the same metals in the same order leading me to believe that this is a basic coil measurement. Minelab is somehow deriving a secondary "value" with the coil that's being mapped to Ferrous. Interestingly enough the Whites V3 displays three curves leading me to believe that displaying some sort of measurement in a 3D space is possible.....perhaps with a set of special electronic goggles......but no one has picked up the ball and cornered the market with it. Minelab should add color to the display and timbre to the audio to add new dimesions to what we are "seeing" in the ground. Unfortunately we still seem to be in the "dark ages" of detecting until these companies pony up some real money to attract some of the best software developers.

 

[Erik in NJ]

Best way to start is to open up a square in edit mode 3/4" x 3/4" in the upper right corner of your machine (edit with the large cursor) and just dig repeatable targets for a while. You'll find most good coins except nickels. The double D coil gives you a much bigger swath than a concentric coils you're used to unless you're happy with less than 6" of depth.

 

[dewcon4414]

You may be right about us having too much time on our hands It just fun trying to figure out how things are working, especially when there is so little info on how the MLs work. I get a chuckle everytime i try and read their patent. Thanks Eric good info. Widebody you seem like you been at this a bit so you know your finds sometimes suffer until you learn the machine. Give it some time my man, i have no doubt you will be impressed.

Dew

 

[widebody]

[size=large]the wholle reason for getting the se was depth. i did make it known i is a newbie with the se. everything is a new learn. somethings are quick and others i have no idea about. such as opening squares. will have amble time for reading this next week. the rains are arriving. i will be smarter in a week. i did enjoy getting those nicles though. i knew they were out there.

HH[/size]

 

[Chris(SoCenWI)]

I don't have a problem with Minelab switching the axis on the E-trac. Conductive readings are probably more accurate/repeatable than the ferrous readings; so it makes more sense to have the Conduct values laid out on the longer side of the screen, thus giving more pixels. But assigning almost every object's (keepers and junk alike) ferrous value to 12 ( I just looked at Jim Upstate NY chart again) is nothing short of idiotic. I have a feeling that this move was initiated by marketing and not engineering. Hopefully Minelab will rectify this in future models. Not saying the ETrac can't hunt, plenty of evidence the contrary. But I believe it would even be a more powerful machine with the varying ferrous locations and tones of the earlier models. Perhaps when they do this they could have a user settable break point for the low and high tones for the people who got used to two tone. Though I expect not many of them would use 2 tone if they had the choice of identifying different targets by sound alone as we can do with the older models.

Chris

 

[Steve(MS)]

IMO has to do with iron in the form of a nail gives off more than one conductive reading
to any detector, not only the Explorer.
I have seen nails not only give high pitched tones but even lower non ferrous tones albeit transitive.
In other words, nails can give off conductive properties across a wide band of conductivity values.
Of course the key with the Explorer is learning the falsing warbles of nails especially while using
conduct sounds.
I am convinced that a lot of those high falses caused by nails is off to one side of the coil as the
coil approaches or leaves the center of where the nail is positioned in the ground.
Another false can occur when 2 nails are positioned to where they are on the left and right side
of the coil and sometimes we get to wiggling the coil between them trying to create a good
signal, I have done that on countless occasions, and sometimes I dig when I am going
after a super iffy.

On a different note, I suggested years ago that ML use the stereo to send ferrous tones
to say the left side and conduct tones to the right, that would make for a dose of
much audio activity!

 

[dewcon4414]

You are right about those nails Steve.... worse than that are those pesty bolts. They sound repeatably sweet. I havent bought an Etrac just because i believe the next generation may have some improvements based on comments like yours. These companies listen... i hope... to what us user DONT and do like about their equipment. Improvements sell machines at what is now big dollar prices. If they miss the ball park... well they have a lot of spare parts for those who jumped on a band wagon too quickly. Id mentioned it before to someone that you can make a BAD target like a nail sound sweet just by wiggleing the coil and NOT moving around the target... really bad on those nails. That would be interesting to get Ferr and Cond out of seperate ears.... or just drive us who dont know their right from left crazy lol. If they could move those low tones on targets a bit more, say in that hot rock range, everything might sound differently. Id still like to see more money spent on the processor and program side of the house. It shouldnt have to be so slow and if like say a GPS or other electronics if i could down load improvements off the net id be willing to pay for that.... as well as those updates. Cant believe we cant do this... i mean a few years back we used reel to reels... now its all on a Ipod the size of a postage stamp.

Steve have you ever tried to disc out Hot Rocks.... 00 31 and seeing what affect it would have on those deep nails? I know on the DFX a lot of us used to disc out that highest digit to keep over lap from doing that very thing. I may have to try that and see what happens.

Dew

 

[Steve(MS)]

Fortunately for me we don't have hot rocks in my area.
I have heard about putting a dot in the upper right hand corner for hot rocks.
Really I don't have much of a problem with digging nails but I tend to go for
more iffies in an attempt to pull out something extra between nails.
My settings however are not standard, I detect in nails almost
all the time, made most of my best finds amongst them....