What does"trash density" do?

[Ohio bud]

I try to remember to change this depending if I am in a high trash area or not. I can't say that I can really tell the difference. Does anyone know what it does and what is changed??

Ohio Bud

 

[Idaho PRB]

The way I understand it is that in "Low" the ETrac will lock onto the strongest signal, whether it is accepted or rejected. In "High" the ETrac will lock onto the strongest accepted signal. I am still trying to digest all that I have read in Andy's book but I am sure that is close.
Maybe someone more experienced can elaborate.
Idaho PRB

 

[Nick A]

I believe I have it on all the time now, but I've experimented and like fast on/off and deep on/off it seems to make little (if any) difference. I think these three settings are more like a placebo to make you feel better or for tweakers who need to change settings. Regardless of how they are set, the machine is still going to work just fine and get the goods.

 

[CDDZ]

With it set to high it does lock onto the stronger ACCEPTED target. I know most of us have a fairly open disc. I personally have not noticed a difference in either setting..... still like those damn nail heads

 

[NebTrac]

Idaho has it right. With it on the machine will lock onto the strongest accepted signal...BUT...I believe that it only updates this in the display - meaning, I take it, the numbers. I leave mine on all the time and just enjoy my machine. My opinion is when you don't need it (clean ground) you're gonna get the signal anyway. When you do need it in the trash and iron, you're gonna want to have it on because it just begs to be on.

NebTrac

 

[Deep Digger]

Ohio Bud,
I guess all the E-Treckies (I should "coin" that one) that have read Andy's book are probably the ones to listen to.
I also leave it on all the time, but I think that the combination of high trash and fast on will shorten the
signal response. Fast on will do it alone, but no reason to run one without the other.
I have noticed the area of a signal seems to shrink, so a slower swing speed is necessary.
This is NOT a bad thing.... since many of the good stuff is still in the junk it actually helps shorten the lag
from target to target. Hard to believe some of us without electrical and or mechanical engineering experience
can figure out such a piece of work. It's still fun to read the application and theory books, even though the theory
is MUCH sexier than most of the reality!
Have fun,
Deep Digger

 

[JamesBondaka]

I agree with most all said to be true but I think this relates only to deep, iffy and/or fringe targets. On a standard good signal, It WONT make any difference in the signal strength. Furthermore, this would only apply to a signal or target that was just on the brink of being "transmitted" to the speaker or screen. I think it does have limited capabilities as to its effectiveness. Nevertheless, it is there and can be used if you wish to do so.

I think a larger coil would do better for depth and a smaller coil would be better for separation of targets than use of these alterate controls on the etrac. I personally like the standard 11iin DD coil for target recognition, target separation and being lightweight. I have tried 3 other coils and dont see a major difference in any on depth. The 5 inch coil does a bit better picking out good for bad as it should compared to a larger coil.

If someone knows to the contrary on depth....I would really like to hear about it.

 

[Nick A]

I agree with most all said to be true but I think this relates only to deep, iffy and/or fringe targets. On a standard good signal, It WONT make any difference in the signal strength. Furthermore, this would only apply to a signal or target that was just on the brink of being "transmitted" to the speaker or screen. I think it does have limited capabilities as to its effectiveness. Nevertheless, it is there and can be used if you wish to do so.

I think a larger coil would do better for depth and a smaller coil would be better for separation of targets than use of these alterate controls on the etrac. I personally like the standard 11iin DD coil for target recognition, target separation and being lightweight. I have tried 3 other coils and dont see a major difference in any on depth. The 5 inch coil does a bit better picking out good for bad as it should compared to a larger coil.

If someone knows to the contrary on depth....I would really like to hear about it.

I have found that around here at least depth is not the problem. Everyone seems to be overly concerned about depth, and back before the 90s, this was a valid issue with detectors then on the market. The E-Trac and Explorer go plenty deep for almost all the detecting we do. All the targets I want are within detection depth of the stock coil.

The problem now is target masking and separation, which I think the Pro coil and the E-Trac do quite well as evidenced by everyone's fantastic results with the machine. A small and or large coil may have their place, but the stock coil does everything I want it to do very very well.

The more I consider my E-Trac, the more impressed I am with just how fantastic the engineers did their job - the E-Trac is a very powerful and formidable machine right out of the box and the presets and stock coil are ideal for coinshooting. I'd say the only thing they did not address (or perhaps could not resolve) is pull tab beavertails sounding like nickels!

I suppose everyone likes to fiddle and tinker with things to see if they can make it better, but the engineers at Minelab are smarter than me, I can't figure out a way to improve on what they have produced. It seems near foolproof - unlike the White's machines that have a million undecipherable settings that can really screw up performance, you'd be hard pressed to find a way to screw up the E-Trac to make it give poor performance. The one thing I can do to get better performance is just getting my butt out there detecting and constantly learning the machine by using it, so that it is even more an extension of my brain, ears, eyes and arm.

 

[UtahRich]

. . . Everyone seems to be overly concerned about depth, and back before the 90s, this was a valid issue with detectors then on the market. The E-Trac and Explorer go plenty deep for almost all the detecting we do. All the targets I want are within detection depth of the stock coil.

The problem now is target masking and separation . . . .

The more I consider my E-Trac, the more impressed I am with just how fantastic the engineers did their job - the E-Trac is a very powerful and formidable machine right out of the box and the presets and stock coil are ideal for coinshooting. I'd say the only thing they did not address (or perhaps could not resolve) is pull tab beavertails sounding like nickels!

I agree with Nick on this thought about depth, I love being able to locate a good DEEP target, and when I see the glint of silver or the edge of an old coin in the depths of a hole, my heart skips a beat for a moment in anticipation.

A couple days ago, I stopped by an old park on my day off to try and get in an hour or two of hunting before getting back to some yard cleanup at my place. I was carefully moving along through an area I had not hunted before, listening for the faint little sound of a deep coin. I came upon a loud, obvious, high, deep silver sounding hit. Checking my meter, I was hitting 11/46 and the target was showing up at 2/3 depth meter using the standard Pro coil.

I pinpointed and had a nice steady, but softer and narrow target. I took a 6" plug and check the hole with my X-1. Still there, but slightly off center on the right. Out came 2 more inches of dirt. The X-1 indicated I had a target on my ground cloth, but with a lower reading. I found a 2" piece of brass or copper wire with a smooth bullet shaped lead weight near one end. It looks old and I'm not sure what function it performed. And it definitely comes in much lower than 11/46 on my meter. Must not be the right target.

I put the X-1 back in the hole and there was a discriminated target beneath the location where the lead/wire target came from, but deeper. I wasn't running that much discrimination so I figured it must be some deeper iron that messed up my original target reading. I switch off the X-1 and checked the hole with the 11" coil. There was still a solid 11/46 reading showing near the bottom of the depth meter. Must be too deep for the X-1 to reach so I took about 4" more dirt out of the bottom of the hole where the lead item had been and checking again with the X-1 it is a quiet hole. I checked the drop cloth and there was a solid high bing there. I started breaking up little clods of dirt and then see the silver reeded edge of a dime. There's a beautiful looking 1917-S Mercury dime looking up at me.

Now, I've had a E-trac for less than a year and used an Explorer XS for about 10 years before that and I've been impressed by the abilities of both. Before buying the E-trac, I bought Andy's book and read through it a couple times to see what the E-trac could do for me over and above the abilities of the Explorer SE-Pro. One of the big differences Andy points out in his book is the TRASH DENSITY setting. (pg 44)

Here he points out that the E-trac software, when set to LOW TRASH DENSITY, will lock onto the strongest Target during detection, whether that target is discriminated out or not and will display the most stable Target ID value IF it is being accepted. A rejected target will blank out a nearby good traget if the rejected target is stronger..

In the HIGH TRASH DENSITY setting, the E-trac will look for the strongest accepted target signal during detection and then diplay the most stable Target ID associated with this signal.

This allowes us to detect accepted targets very close to rejected objects. (not just iron, but pull tabs or Zincolns or whatever else we want to discriminate)

I have always hunted with a pretty wide open Quick Mask screen and allowed the detector to do it's thing, and just been careful when I am hunting to be attentive when going thru trashy areas. After reconsidering the TRASH DENSITY capability, I am experimenting with closing down my accepted targets and see how well this 'feature' works. It seems a little foreign to me to hunt with a less than wide open screen, but I'll see how it goes.

I am very interested in results others out there have found.

Rich -

 

[JamesBondaka]

Yes, whites v3 can be screwed up pretty easy if you dont know what you are doing. I do like the v3 better in trash because I tend to dig more good stuff and less trash, because of what its telling me on the analyze screen.......Ive always said....."Now, if I could have a E3(half etrac & half v3)....that would be a great machine!" They are the only 2 I use on a regular basis.