New to the forum with F5 questions

[Dude]

First I'd like to say Hi to everyone.
I have been detecting for 10 or so years now and have owned several detectors over the years.

This forum seems to have more F5 users than on other forums and it seemed like the place to ask questions.

I've been using the F5 for about a week now and I have a lot of questions about the F5. The manual as far as I'm concerned is lacking in information.

Question 1: What's the best way to set the gain?

Question 2: After going from auto tune to disc mode does the threshold become more like a sensitivity control?

Question 3: Is it really that bad at discrimination because I dig a lot of trash that reads good numbers.

Question 4: What's the purpose of being able to push the Ground Balance button? It doesn't do anything on mine.

Question 5: While detecting today the machine went coo-coo and started flashing numbers and making sounds while laying next to me as I recovered a target. Is that something that happens? I got it home and it was fine.

The ground phase for me so far has been around 70 and to get the machine to run stable I have to turn the gain down to 50-60 with -4 threshold even lower if I hit a spot that has a lot of trash. Would I be loosing depth with such low settings?

 

[Cal_Cobra]

First I'd like to say Hi to everyone.
I have been detecting for 10 or so years now and have owned several detectors over the years.

This forum seems to have more F5 users than on other forums and it seemed like the place to ask questions.

I've been using the F5 for about a week now and I have a lot of questions about the F5. The manual as far as I'm concerned is lacking in information.

Question 1: What's the best way to set the gain?

Question 2: After going from auto tune to disc mode does the threshold become more like a sensitivity control?

Question 3: Is it really that bad at discrimination because I dig a lot of trash that reads good numbers.

Question 4: What's the purpose of being able to push the Ground Balance button? It doesn't do anything on mine.

Question 5: While detecting today the machine went coo-coo and started flashing numbers and making sounds while laying next to me as I recovered a target. Is that something that happens? I got it home and it was fine.

The ground phase for me so far has been around 70 and to get the machine to run stable I have to turn the gain down to 50-60 with -4 threshold even lower if I hit a spot that has a lot of trash. Would I be loosing depth with such low settings?

A1 - I run the gain as high as possible as long as the machine is stable
A2 - From what I've found yes. I thought it might be more like the threshold on the Coinstrike whereas you can use it to filter out smaller target triggers (like foil), but it hasn't worked that way for me. I can also use it to keep a higher gain, while reducing the threshold to keep the machine stable if needed. I've noticed that in all metal mode I can use it to set a threshold hum, but in disc mode I've never been able to get a threshold hum.
A3 - It seemed OK here to me with the following exceptions - pull tabs come in under nickels (this is stated in the manual), but I've also noticed that nickels come in under the pull tab icon. It has a propensity towards rusty iron, which ID's as a high coin ID/tone. Another forum member figured out if you high a target you suspect could be iron, to pump the coil a few times while watching the fe04 meter. If it raises, it's iron, if it lowers, it's a good target. I played around with that and found that it seems to work.
A4 - nada. I found it interesting that this pot was also a push button that served no purpose. I suspect it did when the machine was in development, and they decided to pull the feature for whatever reason, otherwise, why use that pot, surely it's a more expensive component then the other pots that don't have the push button function. Personally I think they should've used it to replace the phase button for ground balancing.
A5 - Your machine went into overload mode, meaning the coil got too close to a piece of metal. Some people (myself included) are having issues with it being too sensitive whereas if you swing over a small shallow or small surface target (like a pull-tab, coin, etc) the machine will go into overload mode. Most folks are raising the coil a few inches and then the machine properly ID's the target, but it's not doing that for me, it stays in the overload mode until I hit a deeper target.

Where I've been running my F5 I've been able to run the gain in the 90-99 range, with the threshold around +8 or higher, I haven't tried the lower settings yet.

HH,
Brian

 

[Dude]

There's no way I could run my F5 with those high settings. They would put me in a straight jacket after 15 mins with all that chatter.

There's one thing I noticed about the F5 it's very and I mean very sensitive.

The threshold and gain seem to contradict each other and I'm having a hard time getting it straight in my head.

You turn the gain up to make small targets larger which gains you depth but you turn the threshold down to eliminate the weakest signals and allow the detector to run silently if the gain is not to high. (per the manual)

By turning down the threshold aren't you canceling out turning up the gain?

It sounds like double talk to me.

I owned a C$ when they first came out and it drove me nuts, this F5 reminds me a lot of the C$.