ID'ING GOLD RINGS FROM TABS AND FOIL.

[captainbottletop]

I think their must be a way to somehow electronically tell a gold ring from a pull tab or foil or a bottle top. many have said it impossible to do. . . Having a target shape display feature would be a start.. My own guess is that some kind of computer analyser circuit would be needed that accurately measures the targets size ,thickness, shape , and conductivity and inductance , and some how computes all this information from a pre programmed set of data that is tested from buried rings and tabs and foil. My own guess is that no one has done any research into the subject of rings vs pull tab and foil discrimination. I believe it will one day be possible to tell a ring from a pull tab or foil.. Not for another 100 years maybe though!!

 

[NealNoIN]

n/t

 

[captainbottletop]

That would be an big machine to wheel about
Would it penetrate the ground more than 6 inches though. The cost would be astronimical too. good idea though........

 

[alton]

... and that is some (not including me) are able to use their hearing to ID a ring better than others (me). Gold does have a very clean sound to it. It is a fairly easy thing to hear on the Excalibur, and I'm sure if I ever find a ring with the Explorer then the next one will be easier.

As for electronics doing it I don't know, but it is probably just a matter of time.

HH Alton

 

[jackintexas]

If there are engineers that can put a man on the moon. For them being able to devise an instrument to tell gold from aluminum I don't believe it would be a monumental task.

 

[Trashcityguy]

One thing is for sure - A monumental task it would be yes. towing an mri imaging machine across a park on wheels is highly likely to attract men in white coats hahaha .

 

[Dan-Pa.]

Greg from Transbay Detector sales a Cal. dealer..over the years has talked about sizing and harmonics and everytime I mention audio variances I can hear the snickers from other forum members..Do remember a gold ring weighs much more than the junk that imitates it whether it be foil and thin rings or tabs and larger rings so in reallity listen up as audio variances( differences in audio responces) are indeed there to perhaps allow you cut down the odds, but no sure 100 percent way..I always thought the old Tesoro's probably had the best audio variances although they lacked the fancy meters, bells and whistles of todays units..Personally I think the best feature of an Explorer is its ability to grab deep silver and grab my Sov. when I am looking for gold rings perhaps on a beach or local park area..Granted at 69 probably don't have the best hearing(just ask my wife) but the tonal responces from an Explorer or Sov. are music to my ears as my tonal hearing is excellent and may be the reason audio variances come easier for me and gosh a lot depends on your unit and how much expertise you have with it no matter what companies units you use...I am sure a lot of the fellows have their own trade secrets which they use to cut down the odds so do some experimenting and a lightbulb may go on..On the other hand have talked to many experienced detectorist who say definetly no way to tell at least thats what they say..In addensum probably cost prohibitive for a company to work on a unit to tell gold rings and night have to mortage your house to buy one and really if hit the market just might take something away from the hobby...

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Greg may have said that at one time, but he's not saying it anymore. He and I had long debates about that, on the Kinzli CA forum. I challenged him to go an inner-city urban junky park, and show that it could be done. The resulting debate basically boiled down to..... it can't be done. He admitted he'd probably dig dozens, if not hundreds to 1 ratio on aluminum vs gold. That's nothing more than random chance!

If he or anyone thinks, when they found a gold ring "aha, I KNEW that sounded different than the 100 tabs/foil I just dug!", it's only selective memory. Subconsciously, each time we stop to dig a target, we think it sounds "different". But when it turns out to be a tab or foil, we think "yeah, afterall, it did sort of sound crappy". But if it's a gold ring, we think "aha, that one sounded different!". Sure, it may have sounded different. But so too does each tab, foil, nickel, and gold ring, sound different from each other too, depending on depth, size, weight, angle it's lying in the ground, etc.... Gold rings are thousands of different sizes, shapes, and weights.

About the only thing you can do is to try to buck the odds with ring-enhancement TID programs, but that's not the same as saying there's a different sound. That's just nixing certain commonly recurring tabs, etc... You will miss some gold rings even doing that.

If the day ever comes where a machine really can be designed to tell the difference between aluminum and gold, the world will beat a path to their door! $$$

 

[locusman]

Hey captainbottletop, I have often thought about what you were mentioning...are there technologies available that could tell aluminum from gold.

I have read that there are. I have heard that Tom Dankowski (nicknamed "Nasa Tom"), an electrical engineer who works with Nasa and Fisher detectors, claims to have developed a device that he can add to a Fisher CZ detector that can somehow measure a signal that is proportional to the density of the metal in detected metal objects. Since gold (19.3 g/cm3), lead, and platinum, iridium are very high density atoms, and aluminum atoms are low density (2.7 g/cm3), theoretically, the density measurement should be very different for aluminum and gold/lead/pt, etc. even though all 4 of these metals may pick up similarly on a conductivity or inductance scale, which is what standard metal detectors measure.

How Tom actually measures this signal and how much it would cost are two things I don't know exactly. I don't know if this density measurement signal is already an embedded part of the raw electrical received signal of the detector or what. Actually, I am fascinated by the details, being an EE myself, I would be curious as to how he does it from a signal processing point of view.

For an advanced discussion, the atoms gold and aluminum surely have very different precession frequencies, when excited by a high magnitude RF signal (as from an MRI device). Theoretically, the MRI concept would work. But then the problem remains, how do you generate a 3-4 Tesla field from a handheld device and then radiate it through a loop antenna (the detector's coil)?

This is just my two cents worth...


Mark