MartinL
09-09-2011, 08:52 AM
OK, I've been using Lock for ground balance for quite a while because I have mainly been detecting/practicing in my own yard since it's been so hot. I decided to go back to Auto yesterday, and I believe I've found an issue, which caused me to think over the operation of the Auto feature. My V3i, after maybe 15 minutes of hunting in low trash ground, including time in known trashy areas such as next to the house. The V3i began to give me no tone at Pinpoint when I was about an inch above ground over the target dueing the end of the 15 minutes while in the trashy area, so I thought GB maybe. I went back to my good, clean area where I initially GB-ed 15 minutes before to re-GB, did a fresh GB, and the tone in PP came back to the good GB spot I always use, which is in the cleaner area of my circle drive, 30' away from this target where audio went silent. I've been pretty happy running manual GB during the last couple of months without any pesky issues of lack of audio in PP, and very little re-balancing at all. The change back to Autotrak seems to have resurfaced that issue.
My question is, how does the Auto balance of the V3i effectively adjust without getting all mixed up, since the coil goes over trashy areas just like it does cleaner areas, in the same general area? Logic seems to tell me that Auto may easily be troublesome and actually cause more unknowns than just a simple manual balance in Locktrak, because it has to be sampling trashy areas along with cleaner areas all the while it is doing it's Auto thing. You'd think that the computer processor would be getting mixed signals if working between trashy spots, adjacent to cleaner spots, all connected by common soil conditions concerning minerals and such. Ideas?
FYI, You really learn a lot from staying in constant detector school with your own machine, in your own yard, when you are basically stuck with no place to go hunt, little time, and/or the heat is just too unbearable for a reall hunt. You can adjust and try a new setting, then scoot back inside to the PC and the internet to cool off, check the board here and elsewhere, run back and tweak some more...it just seems a lot easier to digest what's going on with these V3 based machines programming when done in nibbles rather than sessions, especially when you have an excess of home time. Might be more me, but I don't get my V3i so mixed up like I do when I purposely go out and spend an hour or so JUST practicing and doing tweaks. Jm2s. martin
My question is, how does the Auto balance of the V3i effectively adjust without getting all mixed up, since the coil goes over trashy areas just like it does cleaner areas, in the same general area? Logic seems to tell me that Auto may easily be troublesome and actually cause more unknowns than just a simple manual balance in Locktrak, because it has to be sampling trashy areas along with cleaner areas all the while it is doing it's Auto thing. You'd think that the computer processor would be getting mixed signals if working between trashy spots, adjacent to cleaner spots, all connected by common soil conditions concerning minerals and such. Ideas?
FYI, You really learn a lot from staying in constant detector school with your own machine, in your own yard, when you are basically stuck with no place to go hunt, little time, and/or the heat is just too unbearable for a reall hunt. You can adjust and try a new setting, then scoot back inside to the PC and the internet to cool off, check the board here and elsewhere, run back and tweak some more...it just seems a lot easier to digest what's going on with these V3 based machines programming when done in nibbles rather than sessions, especially when you have an excess of home time. Might be more me, but I don't get my V3i so mixed up like I do when I purposely go out and spend an hour or so JUST practicing and doing tweaks. Jm2s. martin