Stability for Iron Filter

[KidZRGone]

According to the manual:
Stability (St) setting is the fine tuning for the Iron Filter (IF) setting.

Does anyone know what that means? What's the effect on the detector?

I was at a small park today that's infested with modern and old trash. The park is where there use to be a home that burned down, the town bulldozed the place and turned it into a park.

I messed around with the stability settings today and couldn't tell what effect it was on the detector.

 

[Odanscoils]

I remember there were some yotub videos on that.

 

[Odanscoils]

Wondering if you can turn both off then gradually increase them to see a difference.

 

[Picketwire]

It means that for each iron filter setting there are 5 divisions, each approaching the next highest iron filter setting. For instance, between IF 1 and IF 2, there is IF 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5 and then 2.1, 2.2, etc . If you lay a very rusty old crown cap on the ground with no iron tone, it will sound much like a high conductive coin. The higher you raise the iron filter, the more it sounds like iron. So basically you have 45 iron filter adjustments increments. The problem is that deep coin responses turn to iron in mineralized soil. The more you increase the IF, the more it suppresses some of the deep and contaminated good targets.
Right or wrong, I usually start low and if I am digging an unacceptable amount of iron, I will raise it. I don't think the individual stability settings make enough difference for me to tell. Going from 1 to 9 definitely does.

 

[KidZRGone]

Thanks for the replies.
I did finally find a few videos on the subject, once YouTube's algorithm finally caught on to what I was looking for. Still not really clear on the stability settings other than its a partial adjustments. The one video I watched suggested increasing stabilty adjustment when the grass and or the ground is wet.

So if I understand this right. A low IF setting will make iron sound like a coin, and a high IF setting can make a coin sound like iron, and ST adjustment is just fine tuning. The ST adjustment seems like a strange adjustment to me because each site can be so random.

I think what I'll do is set it and forget it.

 

[Ronstar]

Sometimes default settings is the best of the averages.

 

[Picketwire]

A low IF setting will make iron sound like a coin

It allows more high tone "squeaks" or "blips" or "tics" from deep high conductors near the iron, many times a good target.
The problem is it makes bent nails and a few other things sound better too. Default stops that crap. The real problem is that in mineralized soil, coin numbers and sounds eventually turn to iron as depth increases. The Legend in default with no iron tone will not give any indication there might be something there. It is plenty deep as is and not many want to go that deep for what might be iron.

I am pretty sure the factory wants the best performance as delivered for the majority of their customers, here and abroad but if everyone agreed, there would not have been so many adjustments made available.

However it's easy to see if it might make a difference in some circumstances. Go to 0 IF from default. Consider default as on and 0 as off, or add IF4 for a three position switch. I don't think stability would make enough difference for almost anyone to tell. It will take a little time though. You could even use side by side profiles to quickly check. It is like having 2 or 3 metal detectors to compare while only carrying one. If you can't tell a difference default it is.

 

[Odanscoils]

It allows more high tone "squeaks" or "blips" or "tics" from deep high conductors near the iron, many times a good target.
The problem is it makes bent nails and a few other things sound better too. Default stops that crap. The real problem is that in mineralized soil, coin numbers and sounds eventually turn to iron as depth increases. The Legend in default with no iron tone will not give any indication there might be something there. It is plenty deep as is and not many want to go that deep for what might be iron.

I am pretty sure the factory wants the best performance as delivered for the majority of their customers, here and abroad but if everyone agreed, there would not have been so many adjustments made available.

However it's easy to see if it might make a difference in some circumstances. Go to 0 IF from default. Consider default as on and 0 as off, or add IF4 for a three position switch. I don't think stability would make enough difference for almost anyone to tell. It will take a little time though. You could even use side by side profiles to quickly check. It is like having 2 or 3 metal detectors to compare while only carrying one. If you can't tell a difference default it is.

I'm a little confused.
Are you saying create three customs and switch between to compare ?

 

[Picketwire]

You could do two and switch back and forth with fewer clicks than going to to iron filter and changing settings from 0 to 9 to check although it would take more time to set up the profiles initially. It is nice you can test it while in the settings. I did some testing on my garage floor and it was easy to change from 0 to 9 and see what it does. Granted, this is targets on the surface, not buried but I have an old rusty flattened crown bottle cap that still had a little high tone almost up to 9 when it went full iron tone. The thing is, I knew it was iron because it would sound off before the coil was was near it in pinpoint and it gave an iron tone as the coil was pulled back. I like having an iron tone. The reference threshold is useful here if you don't have an iron tone, it will null as it nears a bottle cap. The lowest iron filter did allow a better signal where I have a dime near some paper clips and thin wire. 9 knocked out everything but iron.

 

[KidZRGone]

It allows more high tone "squeaks" or "blips" or "tics" from deep high conductors near the iron, many times a good target.
The problem is it makes bent nails and a few other things sound better too. Default stops that crap. The real problem is that in mineralized soil, coin numbers and sounds eventually turn to iron as depth increases. The Legend in default with no iron tone will not give any indication there might be something there. It is plenty deep as is and not many want to go that deep for what might be iron.

I am pretty sure the factory wants the best performance as delivered for the majority of their customers, here and abroad but if everyone agreed, there would not have been so many adjustments made available.

However it's easy to see if it might make a difference in some circumstances. Go to 0 IF from default. Consider default as on and 0 as off, or add IF4 for a three position switch. I don't think stability would make enough difference for almost anyone to tell. It will take a little time though. You could even use side by side profiles to quickly check. It is like having 2 or 3 metal detectors to compare while only carrying one. If you can't tell a difference default it is.

Thanks for putting it in laymen terms, that really helps. The manual can be quite vague on a few settings.
How would you describe ground stability setting? I was hunting a site today, and was getting random 60 with cracks and pops while swinging the coil. Nothing much seemed to help until I set the ground stability to 2 and the detector really settled down and the tones really cleared up. I thinking it must be a ground/track offset setting.

 

[Picketwire]

Probably either that or a lowering of the threshold, similar to what the threshold setting does on an F70 or F5.

 

[SOFLO Treasure Finds]

For salt beaches I keep my IF at 4 and Stability at 1 in Dry mode and Wet mode. I get rather good results, but I have tried playing with the Stability while on IF 4 and no notable differences were noticed with ST at 1 or 5.

 

[Odanscoils]

I'd like to know how everyone has developed their skills since this post.

 

[bwstephen]

Sometimes default settings is the best of the averages.

You are so right, sometimes tweaking settings gives you more problems than the ones you try to solve.

 

[Picketwire]

The nice thing about these detectors is that if it does cause problems, a reset back is easy to do.

 

[Rob183]

This detector can be very confusing at times.

 

[bwstephen]

The nice thing about these detectors is that if it does cause problems, a reset back is easy to do.

I have used my reset and corrected my mistakes. They work good as new!