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No adjustable ground balance?

GoldChaser

New member
I've read the manual and from what I can tell, the ground balance is similar to the Infinium - i.e. It's auto only. Am I correct in seeing there is no tweaking or manual adjustment of the ground balance?
 
I seen a guy adjust somthing to Iliminate a hot rock , must be an adjustment
 
kaolinwasher said:
I seen a guy adjust somthing to Iliminate a hot rock , must be an adjustment

Probably the discrimination control....
 
What is to answer - links to the manual are available on this forum. The ATX has automatic ground tracking that can be left running or locked into the last best setting. There is no manual up or down adjustment control. I see no need for manual ground balance in a PI since PI detectors are extremely forgiving on the ground balance, not needing the hairline tweaking of a VLF. My Minelab GPX I just momentarily run automatic and then lock. I would run ATX the same way.
 
Steve, you have written extensively on the flexibility of being able to adjust the GB on the TDI.
And how, by adjusting the GB, you can gain additional information on the possible target.
 
I wrote an article on how to set the TDI to hunt for coins by purposefully misadjusting the ground balance. Which in turn reduces depth to mediocre VLF type depth. I have a TDI still and have not actually used that method in years. If I want discrimination I break out my CTX 3030. For me personally the goal with a PI is sheer power i.e. depth.

Bottom line is no, the ATX does not have a manual ground balance. That in all honesty is not an issue for me personally or my intended use of the detector. It certainly may be an issue for you however. We all want different things from detectors. What I want is for the ATX to clearly outperform my TDI, in which case I sell the TDI, manual ground balance and all.

It would be just fine with me if the ATX did have a manual ground balance, and my GPX also. I will take adjustability wherever it is available just because you never know when and where it may be useful.

Ultimately for me the Infinium proved a more useful detector than the TDI. This is because the GPX 5000 clearly trumps the TDI and the Infinium for above water use. What I really want is a waterproof GPX 5000. So far the closest I have got is the Infinium, but it is way short of the GPX in performance. I was hoping for a waterproof TDI, but White's has not delivered. The ATX is my current hope for a better waterproof alternative to the GPX. Above water, there is no alternative.
 
Steve,

Check out the new vid on YouTube from Warren, NQExplorers.. It discusses performance in the gold fields of WA AND HOW THEY've been finding smaller gold in areas that have been flogged by the other PIs down there....

Cheers,

Tye
 
Steve, the ATX will hit a .1 gram nugget very well...just tested my ATX on them and so far so good. Got one very clearly at 2.5 inches in air test with stock coil.
 
Still getting used to the iron check. So far seems to work best on 3" nails...
 
It will also ID as iron like the AT Series on some bottle caps, iron washers, bits of rotted tin cans just to add some more that I have experienced. It seems to ID iron deeper on bigger targets also.
 
Thank you, John. Has it ID'd anything as iron that turned out to be non-iron or a good target? (Other than bottle caps)
 
No....so far, that low grunt identifying iron has only ID'd it as such. But a rusty nail at 12 inches will probably not give that iron grunt. Chances are, if you are getting signals at those depths, you will probably dig it regardless, especially if you are a relic hunter.

DEEPER USUALLY = OLDER
 
Thanks for the link....read all the comments.
I didn't get a lot out of them but it was a fun read anyways.

I will say the last comment was pretty level headed.

Cheers,

Tye
 
Thanks John. That's exactly what I wanted to know. The main advantage of a VLF in searching for gold is that it can discriminate small pieces of iron, and if this PI does that it's a double win.
 
The Aussie poster gave permission to copy the post to here.
This is the post in total.

aurumpro Today at 2:37 am

.Hi guys
Well I finally got to try the new Garrett ATX pulse induction metal detector today.
I was very exited I am always looking for better technology to make my work more profitable and enjoyable.

So I suppose you would like to know what I thought about it so here goes:

Well for starters really liked the new platform it seemed robust and was easy to operate, but I could see that the bottom knuckle where the coil attaches to the shaft would be prone to failure in the field with me operating it as I'm a coil scrubber.
And I do not like how the coil attachment is on the trailing edge as it makes it hard to align the coil with the ground in the normal way by just pressing the coil against the ground and I can see this being a real pain in the field.
I can also see that people with larger fingers will have allot of trouble changing the coils over as the space where the coil's lead plug connects is very confined.
The platform is easy to adjust and I like how it works and how the coils inside the shaft but I still wonder if over time the coil lead may become loose inside and cause falsing but maybe it wont.


And now for the important part PERFORMANCE.

To ascertain as best as I could in the short time I had with the detector its performance level against the BENCH MARK GPX 5000 I got Bob to turn the sensitivity up to maximum on the ATX and sat it on the ground static.
I then set up my GPX with the 11in DD and adjusted the settings to try and eliminate the emi that was present.
I had to dumb down the settings to below F.P. to quieten down the detector (it was at half the sensitivity that I normally would run the detector at).
And then I turned it off.

Then We turned the ATX on and swept the 1st target over the coil which was a small piece of about 0.1 to 0.2 of a gram and recorded the depth by marking a stick and turned the detector off.

Then I turned on My GPX and repeated the same procedure.

The ATX picked up the small nugget at about 150mm
The GPX picked up the small nugget at about 90mm

The ATX clearly won at around 50mm extra depth on the fly Sh*t

OK I must admit I was shocked And Now it was starting to get me excited.
I Though about it for a minute hows it go on larger slugs tha kind ya don't want to walk over.

So I asked if any body had a nice slug we could use to test but no body had bought any..................
MMMMM so I grabbed out one of the smaller ones that I had stashed in my bag a 3ozer.

And we repeated the above procedure but with the 3ozer.

The ATX picked it up at about 250mm
The GPX picked it up at about 350mm

The GPX clearly won at 100mm extra depth

MMMMMM...... WTF ........My excitement over the ATX quickly dissipated in to nothing

after this result I quickly lost interest in the ATX and packed up the old trusty GPX and had a yak with
Dave's Gold (nice ta meet you Dave ) then left for a swing.


Ok I know air tests are next to useless but they give you an Idea of the maximum they are capable of in ideal 0- mineralization conditions.

My thoughts on the ATX
- Its way better than its predecessor the Infinium (Which was CR*P).
- Its simple to use as it dosen't have many settings
- I like the platform apart from the coil knuckle and coil mounting on the trailing edge
- the New DD is sensitive to small gold
- The ATX runs stable even near emi sources (allot more stable than the GPX but I believe this is because its way LESS sensitive)
- Its reasonably priced.
- It performs well on small nuggets with the standard coil but the GPX with a mono is still better (I know this from experience. DD was used in testing for fairness)
- The standard coil appears to handle mineralized ground (further testing would be required)
- I'm now suss on the Garrett with its performance with mono's (why didn't they send them for the demo's are they hiding something ).
- It dose NOT perform well on larger nuggets......the kinda ones ya don't wanna walk over! (in my view this is VERY IMPORTANT)

MMMMM am I gunna buy one............No!.

Last edited by aurumpro on Sun Nov 03, 2013 2:47 am; edited 2 times in total (Reason for editing : more detail)

_________________
 
Seems that the user in that test wanted the ATX to fail. Do I think the ATX will perform on par with the GPX? No I dont. I would rather see a comparison of all the major PI machines, ie Infinium, TDI, TDI Pro, TDI SL, ATX, And the GPX series. Some users will never come to terms with the ATX, just like they have with the infinium and TDI series.
I think its just going to take some getting used to, it is a new machine and you cant just take it out and do a comparison without learning the machine first. Only then can a fair comparison be made.
 
Yea this guy posted some time ago on that sight that his ML3030 detected a ,2 nugget at 5" or something along those lines :rofl: give us a break so many key board experts that think they know it all and haven't Evan held one,good :nopity: on you Garrett you are at least having a go to satisfy us with new technology which means more booty in our pockets. good luck to you guys who are lucky enough to have the new ATX and keep those reviews coming its getting very exciting . :beers:
 
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