First impressions of the F5.

[Terry in PA]

Got my package yesterday and open the box the first thing I took out was the search coil. Boy that thing is small ! The unit was easy to put together and has a very nice LCD display with a lot of info for the user to see. The first thing anyone wants to do with a new detector is to give it the old air test. So that's what I did and was not able to keep the detector stable in side. So this morning I set up a test outside. I took a cardboard box that was about 20inches high and set it on my deck. Then I took three plastic containers one being 3 inches high the next one being 51/2 inches high and the last one being 71/4 inches high. To do the test I had a dime,penny,nickel,and quarter.Starting with the dime I placed it on the box and put the 3inch container over it.Then I took the detector out in my yard and ground balanced it and set the gain to 95 and threshold to -7 there are power lines in my back yard so running a high gain like that made the detector unstable so the low threshold setting calmed it down. Dime came in with a great tone as did the other coins with the 3 inch container on it. I repeated the process with the larger containers all coins gave a tone with the 71/4 in container with the dime and penny had a weaker tone as this was getting near the edge of the what the coil could reach.What was a surprise was the nickel came in clear at that depth. I repeated the test with a setting of gain 80 and threshold -3 all targets hit the same this was done in the discriminate mode as well as all metal.The quarter came in at the 8 inch mark it may have even hit it deeper but that was all I set the test up for. I took it out in my yard which has alot of iron slag in it.The detector sure does let you know there are target in the ground lots of targets lots of sound. I took it to the school down the street from my house. The playground is a wood chip one. I could run my gain at 85 and my threshold at -2 I tried it at a higher setting but got chatter so I backed it down a little. Targets there were from 2 inches to 5 inches all came in loud and clear. I had a quarter give a nice high tone that was softer which means a deeper target. I dug it out at 7 inches in depth not to bad. I had a few times I got a few high tones that hit on dime or quarter I dug down and found nothing but I had dug down to the blue clay that was under the wood chips and still got the tones but what I did notice was the Fe3O4 bar graph would have one or two segments on it when I would dig these targets. I think ground balancing in the wood chips didn't get the all minerals it could have if it were done on the ground. I was there for about a hour and took $ 2.00 in coins and I didn't get to do the whole playground. I'll be back! Next up is a spot by the old Pa canal with a few cellar holes near it. What I would like to see is a larger coil for this detector one like the T2 OR F75 has on it. Those deeper coins like the dime and penny at the 7 inch mark would hit hard with a larger coil like that. Hope I didn't put you all to sleep ! I'll let you know how the next hunt goes ! Keep'em swinging.

 

[Terry in PA]

I was looking at a earlier post by Mike Hillis about his settings on the F5.And indeed the detector will get a quarter at 10-11 inches and a dime at 8-9. He found a setting that can max out the detector and I can say it works well. Very deep settings in the disc mode.

 

[antsy]

Very helpful. Thank you. HH




antsy

 

[Cal_Cobra]

I was looking at a earlier post by Mike Hillis about his settings on the F5.And indeed the detector will get a quarter at 10-11 inches and a dime at 8-9. He found a setting that can max out the detector and I can say it works well. Very deep settings in the disc mode.

I looked for that post where where he had listed out his test settings for deeper coins, do you have the link ?

 

[Terry in PA]

Hey Cal,

Have post here. The 10 inch quarter was at the end of the depth for the coil. But that's not bad at all ! Let us know how you make out.




Post by Mike Hillis:
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What I am seeing in Disc mode is that the F5's circuitry and stock coil design limits the depth potential for coin size targets to 10". That is perfectly ok and normal. All machines have such limits.

The independent Gain and Threshold controls allow one to reach that maximum with different settings.

For example, with just the limited testing I've done so far, I know that I can reach that maximum design limit with a Gain of 50 & Threshold of +5. Or I can reach that same limit with a Gain of 75 & Threshold of -1.

BUT the Threshold isn't the key control, the Gain control is. The Gain control increases all signals, including the ground signal, which is much larger than the target signals. The ground signal is my number one depth limiter. The higher I raise the gain, the more I amplify my ground signal and start to mask the weaker target signals. Even though I am also amplifying the target signals too. Even when ground balanced. If I simply crank the gain and threshold to maximum all I have done is amplified my ground signal to the maximum and limited my achievable depth.

So the key is to be able to reach the F5's max design limits with as low of a gain as possible by using a combination of Gain and Threshold settings. Ideally with some adjustment room on the threshold settings for additional audio boosting as might be required.

All in all its a balancing act. The worse the ground the more important the balancing.

Once thats understood, the F5 becomes pretty straightforward