Menu
What's new
Find's Treasure Forums

Welcome to Find's Treasure Forums, Guests!

You are viewing this forums as a guest which limits you to read only status.

Only registered members may post stories, questions, classifieds, reply to other posts, contact other members using built in messaging and use many other features found on these forums.

Why not register and join us today? It's free! (We don't share your email addresses with anyone.) We keep email addresses of our users to protect them and others from bad people posting things they shouldn't.

Click here to register!

Need Support Help?

Cannot log in?, click here to have new password emailed to you

Changed email? Forgot to update your account with new email address? Need assistance with something else?, click here to go to Find's Support Form and fill out the form.

Setting the Sensitivity on the Minelab Explorer

D

Dennis 2

Member
I thought some people would like to read this info, I got it from another site .
hope it can help some.


Setting the sensitivity is the single most important adjustment you need to master on the Minelab Exlorer. It dictates the depth that you will achieve and ease of which you will be able to use this amazing machine. The techniques that follow are meant to guide you through the most neglected aspect of the machine.

First of all, realize that when you set sensitivity to a level where your threshold disappears for a second or two at a time, you have set it to a level that is detrimental to achieving maximum depth. When the threshold disappears, the detector is actually nulling. As the detector nulls, your visual ID actually hangs as the internal processor struggles to get things going again. Until you get the threshold back, you won
 
At least about the nulling. There is a good article pinned at the top of the Fisher F-series forum. It talks about modern detectors and states that the sensitivity control is for dealing with electromagnetic interference. Except in a very few exceptions one would like to run their detector as sensitive as possible, but at many sites this is just not possible because of all the electrical noise around us. The explorer series with the DD coils automatically takes care of ground balancing. Contrary to popular believe the nulling you hear is not from mineralized ground, it is from all the junk in the ground and the discrimination you use. No disc- no nulling. I've hunted many areas that are typical of human activity; iron signals everywhere- no threshold, but once you get out in the woods the junk disappears and the threshold is a constant hum, even at very high sensitivities. Same dirt, same amount of mineralization. All that beeping and/or nulling is caused by targets in the ground.

If you are turning down you sensitivity to the point of little or no nulling you are basically telling your machine to ignore all but the biggest and shallowest targets.

Chris
 
I can only say whats working for me. What i have noticed is if i hunt with hight GAIN im using less sensitivity about 24. If i hunt with low GAIN..... 7 then i have to boost the sensitivity or im really straining to listen to those shallow targets. I do agree that too much sensitivity and i can tell by the HANG of the screen... once i reduce it im good to go.
 
Having just completed my first hunt and experiencing long passages of nulling (like for a whole slow sweep) in some areas, I'm curious if there are any techniques to overcome that, other than a traditional small coil for trashy areas. I had semi-auto sensitivity at around 26-28 (mostly 2:geek:, gain at 8, and the Pro coil on an SE. Iron mask off, coin and jewelry disc settings. Given that there was still a fair amount of disc set, I assumed it was mainly due to trashy targets, but the recovery time from null seemed longer than I would have expected. If I moved to a less trashy area in the same general vicinity, the treshold seemed fine. I didn't try the fast on setting though.

Is it just normal that with such a large coil like the Pro that the threshold nulls a lot with the near factory disc settings?

Lots to learn!

HH,
DirtFlipper
 
I dont know the area you are hunting in so its hard to say if you are getting trash or EMI. However with the disc you are using that does clean up a good bit of EMI. Normally i can hunt about anyplace in manual 24 and IM 28 with the SE. In that kind of trash you need to move snail slow to the point you are still getting hits from good targets. Simple things you need to do occassionally, clean your coil cover, make sure your battery is FULL, noise cancel occassionally when you change locations, and disconnect and reconnect your coil cables.... especially that upper one for some reason, and just turning your detector on and off helps reset it. Fast on helps, but chops the signal... for me i leave it off move slower. The processor is faster than its given credit for... i mean listen to all the sounds on a slow sweep im not leaving that much.

Dew
 
It helps to think of the Explorer as a metal detector, not a discriminator. The metal detector has additional features that permit the user to discriminate but people often misunderstand or misuse the features.

The discrimination feature on the explorer is useful, but when you are discriminating too many targets too fast it overwhelms the machine ( nulling or whatever we are calling it). So if you are hunting an area full of "Iron", Iron mask might be what you think you need, but in these instances you actually want to allow the machine to just beep rather than process out all the discrimination which ultimately will cause the threshhold pauses that will inadvertently mask deep good targets because your machine in nulling from all the targets you are discriminating. This is when you have to let your ears do the discrimination work. Think of the Explorer as a Jack of all Trades, but you need to closely manage how much multitasking you ask it to perform. When it is nulling your selection of discrimination features in that particular metal detecting environment is giving the Explorer a nervous breakdown.
 
Even in AM, if its trashy you will hear more targets and less movement on the screen if you dont turn down your sensitivity a bit.

Dew
 
I tried these settings for an hour tonight w/o removing crown caps and nails. I have to say i like it very much as the coins ring out loud and distictively clear. I have never dug many crown caps, but i did tonite. I also dug a very deep piece of copper in an area i have been over before. Thuis tells me that something has changes whether on the machine end or mine.IDK but I oke this technique and simple explaination by a very observant, educated fellow. I will report as progress is made.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top