Any advice on settings for using an XL Pro in a gravel lot ?

[wainwright]

Hi All,
I'm using a XL PRO in a hard packed chipped gravel parking lot. Any loose gravel and/or dirt is only about one inch deep. There is a lot of trashy pulltabs and bits of wire and nails and so on, and clad. It gets lots of hits that are deeper than the 1 inch but it would take a rock chipping hammer or the like to get to them. I'm new to metal detecting and thought this would be a good place to practice at because of all the different stuff that is there.I was wondering if anyone would have advice on what settings I could use to just concentrate on the stuff that is 1 inch deep or less.

Should I set the sensitivity as low as it will go instead of setting it high for deep stuff? And set it for "Hot Rock Reject" because of the many different rocks in the gravel ?? I realise that it has a meter to tell me how deep the targets are but would like to avoid the deep ones for now. Would like to search for all metal so I can learn what the junk sounds like too. I have the 950 standard coil and a 5.3 BullsEye coil.

Thanks for any help ........ wainwright

 

[matthias]

Hey wainwright. I have been using my DFX in a gravel/ hard pack environment all summer due to the hot weather. The parking area I detect has different layers of material- all hard packed. As much as I'd like to go deep I don't usually because of the heat. I use the DFX factory 'Coins and Jewelry' program which is not very hot but is very stable. When I get a good signal I click on the Sun-Ray DX-1 probe to check my target. If I cant pick it up with the probe I call off the dig as being too deep. Many probes will only give 2-4 inches and maybe less if you can adjust the sensitvity. I use a large coil to cover lots of ground. If my target is not within 3- 4 inches deep I stop. I will return in cooler weather for those targets. Besides my Gator digger I also use a very long, heavy duty regular screwdriver to get down and pry stones out of my way. Try some different ideas to find what works best for you for your conditions. This is just what works for me. I hope it helps you somehow. Good luck and HH. Matt

 

[wainwright]

Thanks matthias for your insight .... I remember reading that someone liked using a screwdriver best in packed gravel like that. It does make sense. I was hoping that there was some way to adjust the settings so that it wouldn't go deep at all and just hit on the surface stuff.
I think I'll use your idea of prying with a screwdriver and follow your advice, I'd probably put an eye out with a chipping hammer.
Thanks again, wainwright

 

[matthias]

Hey again wainwright. I just got another detector yesterday and I am trying to set it to only get me 2-3 inches down. The hardpack ground is so difficult to dig and this hot weather isn't helping. So far I have only turned down the sensitivity. Still hitting targets at 8" according to the detector. Sounds silly but I was also swinging the coil about 6" off the ground. I hope no other detectorists saw me LOL! I guess we both need to keep experimenting. The pic is most of the lot I have been searching all summer. Good luck and HH. Matt

 

[TC-NM]

Hi All,
I'm using a XL PRO in a hard packed chipped gravel parking lot. Any loose gravel and/or dirt is only about one inch deep. There is a lot of trashy pulltabs and bits of wire and nails and so on, and clad. It gets lots of hits that are deeper than the 1 inch but it would take a rock chipping hammer or the like to get to them. I'm new to metal detecting and thought this would be a good place to practice at because of all the different stuff that is there.I was wondering if anyone would have advice on what settings I could use to just concentrate on the stuff that is 1 inch deep or less.

Should I set the sensitivity as low as it will go instead of setting it high for deep stuff? And set it for "Hot Rock Reject" because of the many different rocks in the gravel ?? I realise that it has a meter to tell me how deep the targets are but would like to avoid the deep ones for now. Would like to search for all metal so I can learn what the junk sounds like too. I have the 950 standard coil and a 5.3 BullsEye coil.

Thanks for any help ........ wainwright

Hello wainwright,

I use my XL Pro quite extensively. When I start hunting, say parks, then to wood chip tot lots to gravel parking lots as you described, I always ground balance and re-ground balance from one site to another. The XL Pro does not have a sensitivity knob that I know of and is a single tone machine. The two most important controls are the Signal Balance and the Auto GEB switch. Next is your Discrimination. Use this setting until you get familiar before going onto All Metal. . . say 40 to 60 hours of detecting time. I set the Disc. to just right of the preset "P" this will eliminate the bits of wire and nails. As far as pulltabs, if you disc. them out too much, you'll will also disc. gold rings too. On the power control, set it at the preset "P" or Reject as you mentioned.

I would put on the 5.3 coil, this will narrow your search area or cherry picking for the good stuff. You didn't say what your after in the parking lot? Don't swing the coil too fast, slow down so that the detector will distinguish the good stuff next to trash. The XL Pro is a single tone machine so you gonna have to pay attention here. As far as junk sounds, listen to one-way signals and chattery blips. If you hear this, rotate you and the detector 90 degrees and sweep the coil over the target again. If you hear the same, most likely trash. Good target signals come in solid and hit hard in your headphones. Also watch the needle on the meter. If the needle locks on and does not move, most likely a good target. If the needle twitches ever so slightly to the left most likely trash. If your just a bit curious in whats in the ground, then dig everything I say! Practice, practice, practice...

I hope this helps, good luck and have fun with your XL Pro.

TC-NM

 

[wainwright]

Thanks TC ... I'll try to soak in everything you said. As far as what I am aiming for.. nothing in particular, I just thought that since this lot had so much stuff that it would be a great place to learn how to use the detector. The main thing is though is that it's just a waste of time to dig past about one inch deep. I'm getting lots and lots of hits that are past the one inch mark, they're not really helping me cause I never know what they actually are so I would just as soon disc everything thing out at a certain depth.

I think that would be a great option on a detector. Everyone always talks more depth but what about in a situation that you only wanted to go so deep? I know a guy that has a auto repair shop that has had fill dirt brought in and he has already graded and smoothed it out. Well lets say I just want to detect the top four inches of fill dirt and not the stuff in the deeper ground cause it's filled with all kinds of washers and nuts and tiny scrap pieces of metal? It would be neat to be able to set the detector to not go beyond the fours inches, you could then still search in all metal with no disc the first four inches without getting the thousands of hits on the deeper junk. And just like in this gravel lot, I'd like to just get hits on the first inch of depth and not get all the hits from the deep stuff.

Thanks again for your advice.
wainwright

 

[Hombre]

If you want shallow targets, just reduce Signal Balance close to "bad ground" on the dial, then do the ground balance procedure because every time you adjust signal balance you must ground balance again, true story.

 

[wainwright]

Thanks Hombre .... I'll give that a try ....

 

[Aarong81]

I think the depth meter will always show a full range of 'depth' on the meter no matter what the sensitivity is set to. I'm not saying it will show the same depth at different sensitivitys settings but it will still show, say, 8" for a target at about 2" if the sensitivity is set really low. If you crank it up, the depth meter will show closer to the actual 2" that it should. Even with my MXT PRO the depth meter is rarely accurate. In fact, when switching to depth it highly depends on where you begin notching the ground out. For example, I hold the coil to the side of the target and then squeeze the trigger which puts it in all metal or depth mode. Then I move the coil over the highest signal of the target, this should then show the depth on the meter. The problem is that where ever I first squeeze the trigger the machine assumes it is in a clear area and automatically shows 0" and no signal, otherwise known as notching. If I happen to have the coil over a signal at the moment of squeezing the trigger it will notch out that amount of signal and therefor be blind to that much signal of the target your trying to get a depth on. There are other variables that cause the depth meter to be in-accurate as well such as small targets show deeper than they really are and large targets show shallower.

Basically, you cannot trust the depth meter all the time. It should be used as an estimate of depth or after you have alot of experience it can actually help you decide if its a large target thats deep or a tiny target thats really shallow. They can actually be confused so the depth meter helps determine if you should dig or not. Sometimes I get a solid signal that says 0"-1" and I dig beyond 2" and it is deeper yet, so I know its going to be a really big, undesirable, target. Or the oposite happens and the depth shows as 8" and I remove a 3" plug and the target is already out of the ground, in that case its going to be a tiny target (.22 bullet or ear-ring backing, ect) close to the surface mistakenly showing deep on the meter.

 

[Monte]

As far as what I am aiming for.. nothing in particular, I just thought that since this lot had so much stuff that it would be a great place to learn how to use the detector. The main thing though is that it's just a waste of time to dig past about one inch deep. I'm getting lots and lots of hits that are past the one inch mark, they're not really helping me cause I never know what they actually are so I would just as soon disc everything thing out at a certain depth.

If it is a "waste of time to dig past about one inch deep", then the site is so heavily littered that you're about defeated before you even turn a detector on! A decent detector is up against a real challenge to try and limit the detection depth to that degree, especially if you also want to reject unwanted targets inn that 1-inch depth range.

Back in the last half of the 1960's and into about 1970-'72, many of the detectors we had came with a 5" or 6" search coil, and by design they lacked much depth. Many of the weaker-performing models struggled to hit that 3" mark! Also, many of the earlier detectors had a Sensitivity control that was a direct tie to the Transmit Sensitivity and that let us reduce the induced EMF when hunting trashier sites or close to metal structures, etc. One of those ancient detector models might achieve your goals for very limited depth of detection. Most didn't have Discrimination, and this was prior to Ground Balanced models so coil control was very important.

Our modern detectors are designed to ignore the ground signal (with a proper GB) and get reasonably good depth. They are more sensitive and will respond to targets deeper than that 1-Inch mark. Besides, if there is that much trash at any site, the targets down below the inch zone are usually going to mask the shallower targets, good or bad.

I think that would be a great option on a detector. Everyone always talks more depth but what about in a situation that you only wanted to go so deep?

If you want very limited depth you can select a detector with an adjustable Sensitivity control that might allow that much reduction in performance, and opt for a smaller search coil, too, like a 3

 

[wainwright]

Well Guys ... Thanks for the responses ... You've given me plenty to ponder over and study over the weekend. I'm afraid some of it is getting over my head. Also I used a poor choice of words when I said, "waste of time to dig past about one inch", what I was trying to explain is that the lot is like concrete past the first inch.
I've not been able to spend very much time on it yet, maybe an hour or so total. It looks like I'm going to have a pretty good collection of those little GM Auto Fuses.
Thanks again, wainwright

 

[bigtim1973]

Bring a pick axe