My V3i

[Ward]

Why does my V3i only show two soil types in the menu, is this right or am I doing something wrong.
Have only had unit for one week, and still trying to figure things out.:roll eyes:

 

[ak_1234]

There are only 2 soil types.
Normal soil limits tracking adjustments to be in the ferrous region (normal ground without any wet conductive salt content). The goal here is to keep the machine from tracking to iron targets.
Salt soil includes the whole range of possible grounds so that if you are running on the beach with wet salt content, your machine can track to salt. However, that also means that iron targets can trick the tracking system better.

There are different frequency settings. You have the choice of 3 frequencies running at once - which allows the machine to identify a broader range of targets. But, because the power is dispersed among the 3 frequencies, this mode typically will not go as deep. You can select 1 of 3 individual frequencies - 2.5k, 7.5k, and 22.5k. Running in single frequency mode will let the machine see deeper. If your running in 2.5k, you silver dollars, quarters and such will be better separated for ID, but nickels, pulltabs and foil will typically be scrunched up and harder to identify. Running in 22.5k will do the opposite.

Hope that helps a little.

 

[nw1886]

Normal and salt are the whole enchilada. These adjustment "titles" are meant to only convey the difference between the 2 baseline algorithms needed. (W/Salt compensating for challenging conditions created my the existence of salts, fertilizers etc.... can help a bit with EMI too.....?)

Like all the mixture combinations of metals in the targets we detect, there are the same multitudes with how ground has been "changed" to control pests or fertilized/adjusted for plant growth. Add to that naturally occurring salts and mineral variables, "Salt" is meant, as the starting point, to detect in these "changed" environments. ("Normal" is for everything else.)

There is another "salt" component to the V3i......and that is a "wet salt" algorithm built into the Beach Program. This exclusively compensates for the conductivity that salt has when wet. Others can probably add to all of this.

Posted and seen that Ann chimed in....doesn't get better than that!

 

[ak_1234]

My cold is making my head stuffy! I forgot to mention salt compensate. I think Scott got it.

So, the 2 different three frequency choices are normal 3 frequency and salt compensate. These are 2 different tracking algorithms. Normal 3 frequency operation does not remove the conductive salt component, while salt compensate does. As an example, if you are running at the beach you have areas of dry sand and wet sand. The wet sand will have wet conductive salt. Because of that, the ground point is very different between the 2 areas - not only for the ferrous component, but also the wet salt content. Setting your machine to salt compensate will allow the machine to remove the wet salt content from the signal and just track the ferrous portion of the signal. And chances are decent that the ferrous content between the wet and dry sand areas are not all that different. However, if you are running in normal 3 frequency mode, it is not removing the salt content, so you will need to balance when shifting between the different areas.

Single frequency operation does not allow removal of salt - need at least 2 frequencies running to do that.

In salt compensate, the soil type is ignored - it already is opened up to the salt region.
In normal three freq and single frequency modes, the soil type will be used - normal soil will limit the tracking range to the ferrous region, and salt soil will open up the range to include salt.