sdf527 Posted December 1, 2007 Report Share Posted December 1, 2007 Lets start another tutorial here. All the experienced 4000 users chime in, the more info the better.Let's say you arrive at a new area you've never detected before. The ground is moderately mineralized and EM is minimal. 14" Mono coil. 1.Where would you start your settings?2 You find EM is a bit more than you thought, what's the first thing you would change? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonathan Porter Posted December 1, 2007 Report Share Posted December 1, 2007 Lets start another tutorial here. All the experienced 4000 users chime in, the more info the better.Let's say you arrive at a new area you've never detected before. The ground is moderately mineralized and EM is minimal. 14" Mono coil. 1.Where would you start your settings?2 You find EM is a bit more than you thought, what's the first thing you would change?Hello sdf, I would start with a Gain level around the 8 mark, bump up the Motion settings to Medium or even higher if the conditions would allow. In the Audio profiles I would use Deep mode especially if the ground had areas deeper the 12". I would not use Sensitive unless the ground was shallow or smaller nuggets were being encountered which would require using the Xtra option in the Sensitive menu.I would also be detecting in DD mode although Mono mode is fine in quieter soil types, but the main thing over and above normal settings like Tone, Signal adjust (I like a higher setting around the upper limits for Signal) is getting the Booster/Speaker combo purring along, which means making adjustments to the overall volume control of the GPX (to limit distortion in the audio in larger target hits) and then adjusting the Threshold and volume of the Booster to suit.If EM started to become a problem I would first tweek the Manual Tune control, then look into the Motion settings, as a final resort I would look at lowering the Gain or look into Quiet mode or different coil options such as a Cancel mode using a DD coil etc. Whilst making adjustments I would always have a small nugget as a test target to keep a check on how much performance I was passing up on.JP Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FlakMagnet Posted December 2, 2007 Report Share Posted December 2, 2007 (scribbling furiously)... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bandana Don Posted December 2, 2007 Report Share Posted December 2, 2007 Rob: I have had your order (?) for the SUPER SHAFT packed and ready to ship ever since we talked at Stanton... waiting for you to send check and mailing addy. Looking forward to doing business with you. Don Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shep Posted December 2, 2007 Report Share Posted December 2, 2007 JP, In our area, EM is heavy and ground pretty red and mineralized. I usually run in Deep mode, DD, high gain (whatever is allowable) and slow and sensitive smooth mode. I've tried out of sensitive, with gain down to 6, but then start dealing with alot of hot rocks. Haven't tried raising the motion speed up. Would running the above, in quiet, be more sensitive than running a higher gain and smooth? Sitting in my armchair and can't get out.Thanks, Shep Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonathan Porter Posted December 2, 2007 Report Share Posted December 2, 2007 JP, In our area, EM is heavy and ground pretty red and mineralized. I usually run in Deep mode, DD, high gain (whatever is allowable) and slow and sensitive smooth mode. I've tried out of sensitive, with gain down to 6, but then start dealing with alot of hot rocks. Haven't tried raising the motion speed up. Would running the above, in quiet, be more sensitive than running a higher gain and smooth? Sitting in my armchair and can't get out.Thanks, ShepI would rather run a gain of around 8 and make adjustments with the Motion being as high as possible to achieve maximum performance rather than running a higher gain and having to back off the Motion settings to get the detector stable. Unless the ground was extremely quiet and the gold small I don't feel there is a lot of benefit going higher than 8 with the gain.Would running the above, in quiet, be more sensitive than running a higher gain and smooth? No, you would be better off using Smooth with a Higher gain setting, but once again you have to consider what it is you are trying to quieten down. From what I can gather you guys suffer more from EM than noisy ground and that a lot of your targets are small and shallowish, so Quiet mode might be the only option for you becasue it does quieten the machine down a lot with reasonable performance on smaller gold in quiet ground types.Don't forget you can use the Auto GB to tune out hot rocks, try this sometime, place a small nugget on top of the ground (preferably mineralised) and balance the machine well away from the target (using Medium GB speed) then once the Forced GB has completed wait a little longer so the GB has taken a mean or averaging of the ground matrix then pass the coil repeatedly over the target whilst paying attention to how many passes are required to track out or greatly reduce the response of the nugget. Then repeat the exercise with a hot rock and pay attention to how FEW passes are required to cancel it out (should be a major reduction after 3 or 4 passes on most hot rocks unless the hot rock is extreme).This is the technique I used before the GPX 4000 came out and still use with the 4000 when the conditions don't merit using Smooth mode (Normal mode on the Soil Timings switch rather than Sensitive mode and Smooth in the menu and auto GB with a Medium GB speed).JP Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdf527 Posted December 2, 2007 Author Report Share Posted December 2, 2007 JP,I'm trying to keep up here, but still slightly confused on the use of motion speed. If you don't mind, can you give us the quick primer on motion speed effects and the general principal behind them. For example: a higher motion speed produces a .....(blank)... effect because the machine is ....(blank).... The will result in higher/lower sensitivity because it causes the machine to compensate for ....(blank)....Hope my matrix is not too confusing, but my brain has trouble absorbing this technical stuff and this seemed to be the least complicated formula. Stephen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonathan Porter Posted December 2, 2007 Report Share Posted December 2, 2007 JP,I'm trying to keep up here, but still slightly confused on the use of motion speed. If you don't mind, can you give us the quick primer on motion speed effects and the general principal behind them. For example: a higher motion speed produces a .....(blank)... effect because the machine is ....(blank).... The will result in higher/lower sensitivity because it causes the machine to compensate for ....(blank)....Hope my matrix is not too confusing, but my brain has trouble absorbing this technical stuff and this seemed to be the least complicated formula. StephenTry looking at this JP Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdf527 Posted December 3, 2007 Author Report Share Posted December 3, 2007 JP,I'm hanging on every word here. I appreciate your patience and willingness the guide the unwashed masses.Ok, I'm starting to grasp the concept. Slow produces a much more stable threshold. Why and what's the downside? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seeker Posted December 3, 2007 Report Share Posted December 3, 2007 Why not start with the default settings and adjust from there for every site until you are familiar. In fact you can store 3 setups its important you read the manual and understand the different functions.....Geo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonathan Porter Posted December 3, 2007 Report Share Posted December 3, 2007 JP,I'm hanging on every word here. I appreciate your patience and willingness the guide the unwashed masses.Ok, I'm starting to grasp the concept. Slow produces a much more stable threshold. Why and what's the downside?Motion settings adjust the length of a target signal, fast is more conducive to a faster sweep speed and very slow is better with a slower sweep speed (hence the naming convention in the menu of Very slow, Slow, Medium etc). The reason I put the clip up was to make people more aware that it also has an impact on overall smoothness of the threshold.When using a Monoloop coil you can get away with very slow Motion settings and still have a reasonably brisk sweep speed because Mono coils are very bright/positive in their response, so have a lot of latitude.JP Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdf527 Posted December 3, 2007 Author Report Share Posted December 3, 2007 JP,Thanks again, I'll give it a go tomorrow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
montana Posted December 3, 2007 Report Share Posted December 3, 2007 SDF. Pay special attention to the last paragraph in JPs last reply. Yesterday I was detecting a gully that I've gotten some nice nuggets out of in the past. Since I've detected it many times, I decided to try some different settings. I normally run quiet on the audio, very slow on the motion, gain at about 9 or 10, and sensitive/extra on the soil timings switch. I changed all this to deep on the audio, medium on the motion, 8 on the gain, and normal on the soil timings switch. Theoreticly this should have increased performance. What actually happened was horrible EM interference. I perservered all the way up the wash and finally got a maybe signal through all the hiccups and warbles. The bedrock was only 2 inches down and the maybe target was gone when I rechecked the hole. Whatever it was ,was in the pile , but with the 14"round coil I just couldn't pinpoint it with all the chatter. I gave up on it and decided to check it on the way back down the gully in my normal settings. On the way back down with my normal settings I got 4 nuggets , and when I got back to the questionable target , it stood right out and I had no problems locating it. That nugget was less than 1/10 of a gram. With my normal settings the threshold was dead smooth after tuning and it was very easy to hear the slightest disturbance of the threshold. This just reconfirmed my belief that a smooth threshold is far more important than trying to get a stronger target response amongst a bunch of chatter. These settings also are very good for handling the mineralization. This may be doubly important for a beginner.----Bob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admin nuggethunting Posted December 3, 2007 Admin Report Share Posted December 3, 2007 Hello Bob, I agree with you 100%! Done the same think Sunday and found out the best settings was a very smooth threshold, which produced more nuggets. Take care,Rob Allison Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonathan Porter Posted December 3, 2007 Report Share Posted December 3, 2007 Hello Bob, I agree with you 100%! Done the same think Sunday and found out the best settings was a very smooth threshold, which produced more nuggets. Take care,Rob AllisonYou guys are catching on fast, mineralisation is not your true enemey but EM is. Get a smooth threshold and let the detectors overall performance do the rest, especially in ground types no deeper than 18". Always test your settings in each place you detect by placing a small nugget on the ground, this does two things it lifts your confidence levels (because you can actually get the GPX 4000 running too quiet sometimes which can leave you wonderign if it is working at all) and it make absolutely sure you have not gone to far with the settings. I think running the smaller coils like the Platypus mono and the Nugget finder 14" elip are assisting in this also, once again shallower ground types, medium mineralisation and a small coil in combination with sensible settings on the GPX to control the EM and you find you have a very efficient nugget producer on your hands.Bob Dansie said.... I changed all this to deep on the audio, medium on the motion, 8 on the gain, and normal on the soil timings switch. Theoreticly this should have increased performance. What actually happened was horrible EM interference. Bob one little word of caution with going back to more conventional settings, just try to remember you have become used to running a very quiet machine and have tuned your mind to listen to very subtle target responses in a very quiet detecting environment. Quiet mode really does cut back on a lot of overall performance of the machine, however it can also lull you into becoming used to or addicted to a "quiet" way of working and could cost you some gold (especially at depth) if you are not aware of it. Remember you were pretty effecient at finding gold before the release of the GPX 4000, it would be very interesting to see your depth/nugget size ratios between the two platforms. Having said that I am sure you are getting a heck of a lot more pleasure out of your detecting these days and still seem to be very successful in ground that has seen a lot of attention.JP Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JW. Posted December 3, 2007 Report Share Posted December 3, 2007 SDF, if you don't have "The GPX Factor" dvd I highly suggest getting it as well as following the excellent advice given above. The dvd helped me out tremendously and it gave me the confidence that I needed to feel like I wasn't going in the wrong direction each time out. And when your machine does the same thing as JP's machine on the video it is really helpful.Bob, when is the book coming out? Seriously... HHJW Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdf527 Posted December 3, 2007 Author Report Share Posted December 3, 2007 Montana,Many thanks to you and JP for the education.My detecting trips are usually only one day, so I haven't taken the time to experiment with the settings. Unfortunately, those settings you used are the ones I have been running most of the time. Obviously, too much gain and too much sweep speed. Getting up at 0darkthirty and going out near the Dale. High hopes based on the current info. Hopefully, positive reports tomorrow night. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admin nuggethunting Posted December 4, 2007 Admin Report Share Posted December 4, 2007 Hello Steve, Montana and JP, My overall favorite settings on the GPX-4000 here in Arizona are Sensitive/Smooth, Deep, Quiet Audio and a Gain of 11-13. I've tried experimenting with different settings, but always seem to come back to my original settings since the machine runs much smoother. I know I'm probably loosing some depth with the Quiet Audio mode, but sometimes I wonder if I'm making up the different with a very smooth and stable threhold? I went an entire year without getting skunked with the GPX-4000, so I know those settings work well in shallow to moderate ground depths. Take care,Rob Allison Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
montana Posted December 4, 2007 Report Share Posted December 4, 2007 JP. Since I've dug only a few nuggets beyond 20" in Az. I'm convinced that most of our gold is relatively shallow in most cases, so I don't even let maximum possible depth concern me. What does concern me is getting as many nuggets as possible in the top 18" and I'm convinced I'm doing what is right to accomplish that. Interference hides more nuggets from us over here than bad ground does. A weak signal stands right out against a flatline threshold, but a stronger signal is drowned out with an erratic threshold. Too bad you didn't have a GPX4000 when you were over here last time. You'd be agreeing with me 100% . I've tried deep, boost, and normal on the Audio on undug targets after I located them in quiet audio and although the signal was stronger, I felt that in quiet audio the signal was much easier to pick out. The interference was so horrible in deep and boost that I doubt I would have noticed the target amongst the incredible noise. If I make a trip outside Az. or Ca. I might try deep audio . The guys in Nevada and Alaska say they don't have much trouble with interference with the GPX.----Bob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.