Something about ground balance and the Omega...

[CladDog]

I used to own the Omega and have thought about replacing it, but I have one big problem with it that maybe someone here can talk to me about.

My soil is very mild. I would ground balance the machine and start hunting.

The ground balance screen would fluxuate and ulitmately go to three bars at the top and stay that way.

Wow. Maybe I ground balanced over a piece of metal. So I re-ground balanced and started to swing again.

Same thing.

Tried again.

Same thing.

Went to another site. Same thing.

Went to a third site, same thing.

I could not understand it. The machine was telling me I was wildly out of balance even in almost zero mineralization soil.

And no matter how many times I ground balanced it kept going back to unbalanced quickly.

I found myself ground balancing eveyr few steps and finally got fed up.

Was I doing something wrong?

BTW, I did ground balnce according to the owners manual with no problems.

 

[tabman]

Don't worry about it, those bars fluctuate up and down all time. I never paid much attention to them. I just ground balance ever so often and keep digging good targets.

The best coil for the Omega is the NEL Sharpshooter coil. It helps tame the Omega's EMI issues.

tabman

 

[supertraq]

I can second the nel sharpshooter..Mine came in 2 days ago and put it on,turned unit on and nothing happened..It was like dang new coil bad out of box,then i swung it over quarter on the floor and beep..In the house and no emi, I just new i had a bad coil..Went out to a spot today where emi is so bad all my amchines,cz's also have a huming pulse sound..Still got a little cracle every now and then but within 10 minutes 2 dimes and a quarter.Hunted many time and found nothing,gonna change now..

 

[MarkCZ]

Those bars your talking constantly read and should vary, the idea is to average for middle, one or two bars above, then center, then maybe a bar or so below then back to middle. Your's going high and staying there sounds like it had an electronic issue of some sort and probably needed a service repair done to it. Now, if you didn't try another coil then it have been possible the coil had a problem.

As far as the NEL helping, I didn't get anymore help with EMI that I do with the smaller 5" DD coil.

If those bars went high and stayed there then something about the detector was faulty!

Mark

 

[CladDog]

Glad to hear all this. Thanks guys!

 

[Hightone]

I'll verify the same as the others. The F5 Fisher does the same thing and the manual says to not place any concerns with the numbers while swinging. It will falsh different numbers due to the constant changes in slight mineraliztion. If you want those numbers to calm down, pump the coil to see the ground rather than swinging it. Pumping one spot gives you the true difference, not swinging.

 

[MarkCZ]

I'll verify the same as the others. The F5 Fisher does the same thing and the manual says to not place any concerns with the numbers while swinging. It will falsh different numbers due to the constant changes in slight mineraliztion. If you want those numbers to calm down, pump the coil to see the ground rather than swinging it. Pumping one spot gives you the true difference, not swinging.

"Hightone" what concerns me about the title post is his statement about the bars "ulitmately go to three bars at the top and stay that way".
That's saying they stopped "fluxuating" if that's the case I would think the detector was malfunctioning.

Mark

 

[Monte]

Usually, the Ground Error bars might fluctuate a bit, especially if you have varied ground mineral make-up and/or you are sweeping over targets. Especially iron targets or small ferrous trash. Note the Omega's Owner Manual comments on pages 16 to 18:

Ground Error
Pg. 16
The bottom left-hand corner of the display contains a graphic which indicates
if your detector’s ground balance setting needs to be adjusted.

The Omega has a tracking system which continuously analyzes the phase of the
ground you are searching.

It then compares this ground phase value with the detector’s internal Ground
Setting indicated on the bottom right of the display.

* If the detector’s internal Ground Setting is equal to the actual phase of
the ground, the detector is properly ground balanced and the Ground
Error window is clear.

Pg. 17
* When the detector’s internal Ground Setting is higher than the actual
phase of the ground, the bars on the top of the graph will be illuminated.
The bigger the error is, the more bars will show up.

* When the detector’s internal Ground Setting is lower than the actual
phase of the ground, the bars on the bottom of the graph will be
illuminated. The bigger the error is, the more bars will show up.

* If the Ground Error exceeds the level of three bars, or will appear,
indicating that the maximum error has been reached, and action must be
taken to adjust the Ground Setting.

To maintain maximum detector performance, keep the Ground Error to a
minimum by adjusting the Ground Setting.

Before making an adjustment, it is best to verify the Ground Error as follows:
1. Place the detector into Auto-Tune Mode.
2. Pump the searchcoil up and down over a patch of ground free of metal,
repeatedly moving the coil to within 2” of the ground and lifting it up
about 6” over the ground.

If bars appear at the top of the graph, adjust the Ground Setting by pressing
the until all of the bars disappear. If bars appear at the bottom of the graph,
adjust the Ground Setting by pressing the until all of the bars disappear.

While in Auto-Tune Mode, pumping the searchcoil over the ground, you will
also hear audible evidence of an out-of-adjustment Ground Setting. If the
Ground Setting is too low, there will be a difference in the sound as the
searchcoil is moving away from the ground. It will sound like you are pulling
the sound out of the ground. If the Grown setting is too high, it will sound
like you are pushing the sound into the ground.

• If the sound is louder as you raise the searchcoil, press to increase
the ground balance setting.
• If the sound is louder as you lower the searchcoil, press reduce the
ground balance setting.

Note that it is best to achieve a proper Ground Balance by selecting a metal-free spot and pumping the search coil, especially in the All Metal Auto-Tune setting [size=small](while listening to a slight audio Threshold hum)[/size]. Sweeping the search coil will encounter metal targets, accepted or rejected, as well as changes in ground minerals, all of which can be reflected in the Ground Error read-out. I have experienced similar performance with more than one Omega in several situations, and all I need to do is use the pinpoint feature to locate metal-free ground and then quickly Ground Balance.

Monte