normal for F70 to be this noisy?

[caheaton]

Hello, my day to day unit is an F2 which I enjoy very much, but a couple years ago I bought a used F70 that I tried a couple of times and then stored away. Tonight I have it another go, but soon remembered why I stored it away...it just seems too noisy. Even if I turn the discrimination all they way up (65, with a threshold of -5 and sensitivity to 50), the unit just chatters away with every swing. Most disconcerting is that I can still here the beeps from zinc pennies and tabs (using the target ID), yet these are allegedly discriminated out. With the F2, once they're discriminated out I don't hear them...with the F70 they still just chatter away (I'm using 4 tone mode, by the way). About the only sound that seems blocked is the lowest level iron grunt.

Is this normal or is there a problem with my unit? (I did do the ground balance routine prior to starting out). If it's normal, I'm beginning to think the F70 just isn't for me....shame since I love the little F2...it's chatty but not anywhere near as bad.

 

[dfmike]

That is strange. Can you try the F70 with another coil ?
Maybe Revier will chime in or send him a PM.

 

[After-1-]

Try it in SL ---3h-- Disc 1-5----------and try a different frequency ---------- up or down --------You will get more answers ------I am sure--------after1--------

 

[caheaton]

I was afraid of that (detector problem....). Bought it used so no recourse, especially since it was a couple years ago. I've tried it at two sites...both are school yards that are littered with quite a bit of trash (mostly foil and pull tabs). Haven't tried it with sensitivity below 50 yet nor tried changing the frequency, I'll try those before contacting Fisher. Quite disconcerting that the discrimination setting seems to have no effect on what I hear coming out of the machine (except for not hearing the lowest iron grunt). I was hoping that maybe it was just a case of the signal on those items being strong enough that they overrode the threshold setting (which I've only run as low as -5).

Sigh.....

 

[WV62]

Check your manual and see if you have anything like a factor reset. I have never ran a F70 but we have fixed a lot of F75 buy just doing a factory reset.

Your stated settings should run in most of your areas that the F2 will run. Most of the problems with the F75 are people get into setting notches and don't get them cleared out.

Ron in WV

 

[After-1-]

Factory reset ---Hold the MENU & GROUND BALANCE buttons down and turn on machine --you will see I think ----88-------after1-----

 

[MarkCZ]

RESET function
The F70’s microprocessor will save all settings which you input, even after the power is
turned off.
If you wish to reset the settings to the factory preset, follow this process:
1. Turn detector off.
2. Press-and-hold both the GROUNDGRAB and MENU buttons.
3. Turn the detector on, while you are still pressing the buttons.
4. Detector displays “88”.
5. Release the buttons.
6. The detector is reset, and operating in program-1.

 

[shadowulf]

Where are you "testing" your F70?

I've become accustomed to my F70's "burps & farts" because of the high mineralization in my area.
You can quiet it down, but then you'll start thinking you're missing something.
Hopefully REVIER will chime in with some links and advise.

A couple things I pay attention to,
1) Check your connectors/connections- A dirty/loose connector, cracked cable/coil will raise havoc.
Be sure the connections are snug, and that the cable is not flopping around. A cable that is moving around on the shaft can cause falsing.
2) Watch you ground minerals meter, the more bars, the the harder time the F70 has on getting a "correct" ID on some targets.
3) Less tones, the "quieter". A trick REV found from another site. In difficult conditions, going to 1 or 2 tones can allow you to turn up the sensitivity.

The F70 is a raw beast. Having all the power of the F75, with less "pre-set" programs.
The great thing about it (IMHO) is that it can be tuned to your conditions, once you learn how it works and what it is telling you.
But that learning curve can be steep sometimes.

There's always a chance it needs service, in which case contacting Fisher would be you're next move.

 

[caheaton]

THANK YOU! I tried the factory reset, haven't tried it in the field yet but an air test shows the detector to be dead quiet scanning a zinc penny during an air test, with a dime giving a nice clear signal. So, guess it was just a software glitch. (Working in IT I can relate to that....)

 

[caheaton]

Somehow my post got listed out of order, so I'll post again. THANK YOU! The factory reset seems to have worked (at least with air tests). Good to know it was likely just a software glitch....

 

[MarkCZ]

Somehow my post got listed out of order, so I'll post again. THANK YOU! The factory reset seems to have worked (at least with air tests). Good to know it was likely just a software glitch....

Well a factory reset is good to get settings back to a known point.
I think the problem was most likely in your notch settings, notch in, notch out, if your in the notch setting when you hit the menu button it flips the notch back and forth. So I'm thinking that it may have been possible that at one point you had those items notched out and the notch setting for them got flip around.
Looking at my F70 right now I have the disc set low @ 25 and the display has the 5 cent and the tab with a line through them meaning they are notched out! (set to reject)
but If I raise the disc to 65 the lines through the 5 cent and the tab are gone, meaning the are now set to except!

What you have notched out at low discrimination will notch back in once you raise the discrimination above that point.
So, I'm going to say that you had the tabs and the zinc notched out at one point with the discrimination set below them, then you increased the discrimination to 65 (MAX) which reversed the notch settings for tabs and the zinc's.
Like with mine right now, I'm looking at the display, I have the discrimination set to 65 and the zinc graphic has a line across it, so I drop the discrimination to 25 and line across the zinc graphic is gone and its now excepting zinc's

I didn't change the notch, the discrimination flips a set notch as it goes above it, or drops below it.
The factory reset clears the notch settings most likely.
Notch on the F70 can be very confusing.

Mark

 

[REVIER]

Yea...he posted his problem on a few forums and after the reset he seems happy.
He has also been clued in on the confusing nothing system more than once so hopefully that was the issue that caused this problem.
Who knows, maybe he got a great deal on this thing precisely because the previous owner messed with the settings and could not deal with the resulting and confusing results so it got sold off cheap.
I have heard of a few hunters that picked up F70's and F75's ridiculously low priced like way below $400 for just this reason.
We Fisher guys love it when stuff like this happens...there will probably be a lot of barely used upper end Fishers in the used pipelines for the foreseeable future available at fire sale prices because of this.

 

[WV62]

As I said a factor reset may fix your problem. Stay away from notches until you understand what is going on. If you can't help but to mess with notches always do a factory reset when done.

I worked with a guy through PM's for a couple of weeks, and his big problem was notches and he was trying to make a big deal out of them. One day he PM'ed me back after one of my sends and said there has to be more to it than that. So he went off on his own after he could see what was really going on.

Factory reset is your best friend,

Ron in WV

 

[shadowulf]

When I got my F70, a factory reset was the first thing I did before trying it out in my backyard.

Now, it's my first option if things get silly on my F70.. I listed the other items, as they seem to be some of the other issues that I have ran across or heard of.

 

[WV62]

Well said shadowulf; very good rule of thumb.

This story is not about a F70, but I got call from a lady and she couldn't get her detector to power up. I meet with her and just took everything apart and looked for any problems, something I messed with fixed the problem. The last thing I did was put the batteries back in it and pushed the on button and it came alive.

Ron in WV

 

[REVIER]

Knowing what I know now I wish I had a factory reset for my life....
Things would have ended up waaaaay different.

 

[After-1-]

Wow, after reading that I was thinking what age was I when I first thought that? I'm thinking around 50 -----------Happy to be able enjoy the Grand kids ---------GH--------------after1------