Funny thing today while ground balancing XT70

[Smithfire]

On our club dig today I tried to ground balance in both auto and manual, but the figures would not budge?. I could increase and decrease the GB number by using the plus and minus keys but the machine refused to alter from say 5 or 85 when I tried to auto ground balance. Does this mean that the soil was off the scale in being mineralised or acid or something?. The soil was a thick clay.
In the end I chose a mid range number (40) and could run the sens at 28 without too much problem. When I got home I tried it in the back garden and it ground balanced fine.

I guess what I'd really like to know is if this occurs again, is there a way of finding out which end of the (extreme) scale I should be using to maximise the XT 70's performance?

Many thanks

Clive in the UK

 

[TomB]

This is one that Digger will half to explain. I have swung my X-70 for three years and have never had this to happen. The only problem I have encountered when ground balancing was once I got a over load. I cut the unit off then back on and have never had a problem since. HH TomB

 

[Digger]

Let's see if we can help figure this out. Questions...... Did you Noise Cancel first? Did anyone else have a problem with chatter or an unstable detector? Was your Sensitivity set at 28 during the Auto GB process? Were you in the All Metal mode and make sure you didn't have the coil over a buried metalic object. When you pressed the GB pad and then the Auto pad, did the display show you the letters AU? Did the progress menu appear to be running the Auto GB setup? When you press the GB button, did it feel like it was "kicking in" or feel flat?

To answer the question "is there a way of finding out which end of the (extreme) scale I should be using to maximise the XT 70's performance?", the answer is yes and no.
Yes, there is a way to find out where you need to be operating without using Auto GB or Manual GB on your X-70. That is to use Tracking mode and let the X-70 make the ground phase adjustments "on the fly". You can then check it periodically (by pressing the GB pad) to find out what the ground phase setting is at that specific time.
The "no" part of the answer is that you will not likely be able to maximize the X-70's performance (manually) by running at either end of the extreme scale. As sure as I say that there is not any ground that is so highly mineralized that the X-70 will properly ground balance at 1, or say that soil is so lightly mineralized that the X-70 will properly ground balance at 90, someone will tell me that they once hunted a place that did. But it is highly unlikely that you can set the X-70 at either extreme to maximize it's performance. For 99.999% of the world, it will fall somewhere in between. And telling you what setting that might be for your site would be nothing more than a guess.

It's tough to determine what happened, after the fact. But if you give us some additional information to the questions above, we might be able to keep it from happening again. HH Randy

 

[Smithfire]

Thanks guys and sorry for my delayed answer.

Yes, I auto noise cancelled 1st, and yes the sens was at 28 while I tried to auto GB, though I did try it again at a lower setting (1 but with the same result. No, there were no signals in the ground where I was attempting to GB. I didn't see the letters AU at any point. The progress wheel on the display rotated as per usual and the buttons are ok.

And I've just re-checked in the garden that it would GB manually and on auto at a variety of sens levels, which it did just fine.

The battries were at about half charge, though I would of thought that this would have little or no effect on the workings of the detector?

All very strange

Clive

 

[Smithfire]

Maybe I should try my old concentric coil to see if I could replicate the problem?

Clive

 

[Thisoldgoldchaser]

You said the ground was clay? Clay can have a very high mineral content. Hey Digger...couldnt that make a difference? Silver City, Nevada got the name, if memory serves me, because of the silver there but it was discovered in a type of clay that they had been mucking out of their mines and discarding. It was very high in silver. Not saying that the area he is talking about is the same, but it could be high in black sands iron or other. Wouldnt necessarily cause an overload but might keep it from balancing. Might be going out on a limb here and could be totally wrong. Just a thought though.

 

[SeniorSeeker]

Don't have my X-terra 70 anymore but, when I did, I never had any problems with it and especially those you've mentioned. I had hunted all over the state and never had a problem ground balancing.

 

[Smithfire]

Thanks,

I'm a pretty logical kinda guy, so it gets to me when something like this happens and I cant work it out. I'm tending towards some sort of freak set of conditions environmentally and electronically that, combined to make this happen. the only way I may get an answer is if it happens again.

Clive