Ground cancel

[HanoverDigger]

I've been watching videos on the setup. One particular guy says he sets up the machine first THEN ground cancels. I'll go along with the manual. What's y'all's thoughts? Thanks.

 

[Dig2Deep]

Ground balance or noise cancel? I always noise cancel after setup. I never touch my ground balance.

 

[kschae4]

Coming from Safari. and maybe more of personal taste, I do both as ground conditions vary.

 

[HanoverDigger]

Ground balance or noise cancel? I always noise cancel after setup. I never touch my ground balance.

I meant noise cancel, sorry for the confusion. Another guy says it's a good idea to ground balance too. I tend to agree with that.

 

[bigtim1973]

I set mine up first then noise cancel and do ground tracking.

 

[jmaclen]

I pick a search mode, set sensitivity around 20, noise cancel, ground balance and go detect. It takes 30 seconds or less.

 

[5900_XL-1]

I don't GB either. In all my testing done over known targets with a ground balance, and then rolling the GB number back to zero, I could never see an iota of difference.

 

[HanoverDigger]

Good to see different opinions on ground balance. I've been doing it for so long I guess it won't hurt one way or the other on the 800. Thanks.

 

[Monte]

"5900_XL-1,": I don't GB either. In all my testing done over known targets with a ground balance, and then rolling the GB number back to zero, I could never see an iota of difference.
You must have very favorable ground. In the over 45 years we've had Ground Balance function on our recreational detectors, I have a habit of making the best proper or functional GB adjustment at any search site. I do it because quite often I found that an errant GB setting can really mess up detector performance. While I have a couple of detectors I my Daily-Use Team that do not have a user-adjustable GB, most of my detectors do. And since I live in an area, or travel to various hunt sites that differ drastically from where I live, I like to be able to adjust for the challenging ground mineral make-up that confronts me.

And I had an Equinox 800 for a while I noted some significant changes in performance between the default GB and a properly adjusted GB.

Monte

 

[5900_XL-1]

"5900_XL-1,": I don't GB either. In all my testing done over known targets with a ground balance, and then rolling the GB number back to zero, I could never see an iota of difference.
You must have very favorable ground. In the over 45 years we've had Ground Balance function on our recreational detectors, I have a habit of making the best proper or functional GB adjustment at any search site. I do it because quite often I found that an errant GB setting can really mess up detector performance. While I have a couple of detectors I my Daily-Use Team that do not have a user-adjustable GB, most of my detectors do. And since I live in an area, or travel to various hunt sites that differ drastically from where I live, I like to be able to adjust for the challenging ground mineral make-up that confronts me.

And I had an Equinox 800 for a while I noted some significant changes in performance between the default GB and a properly adjusted GB.

Monte

I would GB running a single frequency but multi...nope. The Nox certainly makes a difference running with balances in any frequency besides Multi. Minelab said it wasn't needed in multi. I balanced all of my earlier machines since beginning in 2010, it was a mantra. I would have thought that the Eqionox after a GB, would improve even in Multi, because my GB number settles around 60. Mine simply works fine with zero GB, forced to "0" after doing a GB in Multi. Sixty is quite a big number for it to not have resulted in a noticeable improvement at all. I always got improvement with my other machines. I believe my soil is generally rated at moderate mineralization.

 

[Dig2Deep]

The soil where I hunt is very mild. I don’t do much beach hunting. I don’t typically adjust my GB on my equinox. When I was using my Garrett machines I would always did the manual GB. Seemed as if it were necessary on the pro and max. A lot of the places I hunt have so much iron, emi and modern trash around that it is hard to find a clean spot to GB.

 

[Mark kus]

Ground balance or noise cancel? I always noise cancel after setup. I never touch my ground balance.

Same here

 

[Ted S]

X 2!

 

[jmaclen]

So Minelab did say in the Equinox manual that leaving the ground balance on its default setting is good enough for most detecting. I agree with that. However, when I follow this recommendation I literally cannot use two important functions that I need to use. I have owned multiple Equinox and Vanquish detectors and the result is the same. If I don’t ground balance or in the case of the Vanquish, can’t adjust the ground balance setting, I get loud ground feedback when raising, lowering and even just sweeping the coil if I press the horseshoe button to accept all targets. I get the same ground noise effects when trying to use the onboard pinpoint function. So, obviously I detect in areas not covered by Minelab’s “ground balancing is not necessary” recommendation.

Doing a quick ground grab completely solves the problem. Most of the time the ground balance numbers end up between -3 and +7 where I detect. On the Equinox and the X-Terras, higher numbers usually mean less mineralization and milder soil conditions unlike most other brands which are the opposite.

 

[fwcrawford]

So Minelab did say in the Equinox manual that leaving the ground balance on its default setting is good enough for most detecting. I agree with that. However, when I follow this recommendation I literally cannot use two important functions that I need to use. I have owned multiple Equinox and Vanquish detectors and the result is the same. If I don’t ground balance or in the case of the Vanquish, can’t adjust the ground balance setting, I get loud ground feedback when raising, lowering and even just sweeping the coil if I press the horseshoe button to accept all targets. I get the same ground noise effects when trying to use the onboard pinpoint function. So, obviously I detect in areas not covered by Minelab’s “ground balancing is not necessary” recommendation.

Doing a quick ground grab completely solves the problem. Most of the time the ground balance numbers end up between -3 and +7 where I detect. On the Equinox and the X-Terras, higher numbers usually mean less mineralization and milder soil conditions unlike most other brands which are the opposite.

I agree about higher numbers representing lower mineralized ground with the XTerrra, but not sure if that is true with the Equinox.
Where I detect (Virginia), generally the ground balance on my XTerra 50 is around 13 or less.... sometimes as low as 3-5.
On the Equinox at these same sites, it is up in the 50’s or higher.

 

[jmaclen]

I agree about higher numbers representing lower mineralized ground with the XTerrra, but not sure if that is true with the Equinox.
Where I detect (Virginia), generally the ground balance on my XTerra 50 is around 13 or less.... sometimes as low as 3-5.
On the Equinox at these same sites, it is up in the 50’s or higher.

I don't know if this matters but the XT 50 had a ground balance range of 0 to 50 (I think) the XT 705 which is what I was referring to had a ground balance range of 0 to 90 and the Equinox has a ground balance range of -9 to +99.

When I got my first Equinox I still had my XT 705 and a XT 50. My XT 50 would ground balance around 15, my XT 705 would ground balance around 8 and my Equinox would ground balance around 3 on the same hot ground. (In contrast, my Deus and Teknetics G2+ have almost full mineralization bars and very high ground phase numbers from 87 to 93 in the same areas.)That was using the automatic ground grab or manual ground balance. Where I detect, using tracking ground balance with the XT 705 and the Equinox would result in numbers going wildly up and down by over 50 numbers just moving the coil a few feet. I just quit using tracking since it made those detectors too unstable.

 

[fwcrawford]

I don't know if this matters but the XT 50 had a ground balance range of 0 to 50 (I think) the XT 705 which is what I was referring to had a ground balance range of 0 to 90 and the Equinox has a ground balance range of -9 to +99.

When I got my first Equinox I still had my XT 705 and a XT 50. My XT 50 would ground balance around 15, my XT 705 would ground balance around 8 and my Equinox would ground balance around 3 on the same hot ground. That was using the automatic ground grab or manual ground balance. Where I detect, using tracking ground balance with the XT 705 and the Equinox would result in numbers going wildly up and down by over 50 numbers just moving the coil a few feet. I just quit using tracking since it made those detectors too unstable.

The XTerra 50 ground balance range is 0-20.
I see what you are referring to now.
It’s odd the two XTerras gave such different numbers on the same ground.
I normally do not ground balance the Equinox and have used it in many different types of soil and it seemed to do fine.
After reading some of these comments, I may run some tests at some sites.
Thanks for the examples above.

 

[jmaclen]

The XTerra 50 ground balance range is 0-20.
I see what you are referring to now.
It’s odd the two XTerras gave such different numbers on the same ground.
I normally do not ground balance the Equinox and have used it in many different types of soil and it seemed to do fine.
After reading some of these comments, I may run some tests at some sites.
Thanks for the examples above.

Your post helped me remember that I had an XT 505 too. I think I was giving numbers for the 505 (15) which has 0 to 50. Obviously I can't keep my detectors straight and I don't remember what ground phase numbers were for the XT50.

 

[fwcrawford]

Your post helped me remember that I had an XT 505 too. I think I was giving numbers for the 505 (15) which has 0 to 50. Obviously I can't keep my detectors straight and I don't remember what ground phase numbers were for the XT50.

I see.... that makes a little more sense now.
Still up in the air about the Equinox though, I see why you arrived at your conclusion though... just not seeing the same thing at my sites.