ace 250 ground balance question...

[pris]

That's too bad. I'm sure you'll find them in a month or two. hehehehe

[GoldDigger]

Where do you live, I will stop by at night and find them fo you.

[JEBar]

Originally Posted by Oz_IL

the two I buried on weird angles I can't find LOL. I know the area I buried them, but not the exact spot

.. indeed !

Jim

[tiger4life]

well ive had the 250 for a little while and bought one because of the feedback here and some other places but im having the same problems seems all i find is shallow clad and i did dig a 3 to 4 inch hole place a quarter in there and didnt get a sound at all but i have found a good bit of clad at the same depth. i have noticed now when i hit a target there is a strong bell tone, but i get a lot of half bell tones and other tones and some times i dig those and never find anything.
For others who have had the 250 for awhile, when you find a coin deep does it still give off a clear good bell tone ?? or is it sorta in and out??

[Hightone]

When you do an air test, the field that is generated by the coil is not as stable as it is in the ground. It would be like a speaker on a stereo hanging by its wire in open air rather than being in a speaker box that uses the box as a resonator to help amplify the sound. The field uses the ground as a "baffle" of sorts, to define the shape of the field, as stray frequencies are absorbed rather than shot out in different directions. This makes for better stability and how the preset GB is adjusted. When you bury your coin, you loosen the dirt and cause it not to be as packed and it has a lot of "open air" between the coin and coil. This again makes for a less stable environment for the field. You have to wait until the dirt packs with time to have your test garden operate like real world treasure environments.

Ground balance is so important to hunting. I compare it to trying to see below water in a lake. The reflection of the water stops you from seeing what is in the water. Put on a good set of sunglasses and you can now see the fish in the water as the sunglasses filter out the reflection. The 250 is "preset for minimal mineralization. Nothing is better than GBing to the exact mineralization of your soil. Stability improves as well as depth.


I get 5" to 6" of stable IDing out of my 250 in my soil that has little mineralization. My CXIII gives me 9" to 10" when auto GB is working. I would hope manual GB may get me an extra inch or so.

.....will change with depth. The signal will be weaker at deeper depths, and will tend to "go in and out". If you get a bell tone at all......something caused the tone, 99.9% of the time it's metal and conductive, and is in the hole! Whether you see it or not, it's there! Perhaps an electronic pinpointer such as the Vibra Probe 560 is in order. You may be leaving behind, many nice finds!

The Vibra probe 560 is on sale this month at Compare Metal Detectors Online, in case you're interested.

Originally Posted by tiger4life

well ive had the 250 for a little while and bought one because of the feedback here and some other places but im having the same problems seems all i find is shallow clad and i did dig a 3 to 4 inch hole place a quarter in there and didnt get a sound at all but i have found a good bit of clad at the same depth. i have noticed now when i hit a target there is a strong bell tone, but i get a lot of half bell tones and other tones and some times i dig those and never find anything.
For others who have had the 250 for awhile, when you find a coin deep does it still give off a clear good bell tone ?? or is it sorta in and out??

[tomkat83]

Originally Posted by tiger4life

well ive had the 250 for a little while and bought one because of the feedback here and some other places but im having the same problems seems all i find is shallow clad and i did dig a 3 to 4 inch hole place a quarter in there and didnt get a sound at all but i have found a good bit of clad at the same depth. i have noticed now when i hit a target there is a strong bell tone, but i get a lot of half bell tones and other tones and some times i dig those and never find anything.
For others who have had the 250 for awhile, when you find a coin deep does it still give off a clear good bell tone ?? or is it sorta in and out??

tiger4life, i've had my ace 250 for 4 weeks now. i'm having the same experiences you are. i notice if i find nothing in a hole, if i dig just to the side of the hole maybe an inch or two i can usually find the target. a tool that really helps me is a treasure probe. a brass rod with a screwdriver handle. one can be had for under $10. for the price it can be just as effective as a $100 pocket probe. unless you're in rocky soil.
if you burry a coin the detector won't pick it up. the way i understand it is that when a coin is in the ground for awhile it reacts with the soil and creates an aura of minerals. also, if it's clad, it will corrode and the corrosion will cause funky signals when your coil passes over it. scan the target 10 times in each direction, if the majority of the time it pings as a single coin, or maybe fluctuates between a penny or dime it's likely one of the two. quarters are larger and more accurately represented. one trick i've learned with my 250 is i'll pinpoint the target, hold the coil still, directly over the target, if it's shallow aluminum the md will go nuts. i've dug enough aluminum cans to retire and move to italy at the ripe old age of 24. if the target jumps from foil to coin to foil to coin and the depth jumps from 2" to 8" and back i don't even bother. now, gold will consistantly read as pull tabs or some where in that range. consistantly. check your depth. if it only fluctuates an inch or two i'll dig. silver will be displayed under the $1. also when pinpointing, find the "sweet spot" where you get the loudest tone and bigest signal o the display, move to the left or right untill the signal just starts to drop on the display, maybe a quarter of an inch or less. release the pinpoint button and press it again. this somehow increases the accuracy. don't hold the coil directly over the target or it will cancel out the target completely. this will give you a better idea of the size and depth of the object. if your sweet spot is still pretty broad then it's either a large object of it's just below the surface. or right at the surface covered in grass.
so far i haven't found anything deeper than say 4 inches. i'm starting to think that's all i'm gonna get.
just my two cents. i'm still learning myself.

[Hightone]

The signal will be weaker at deeper depths

People claim Ace 250 finds at 12" for clad. I don't see it, but we know about the fish that got away story and how big people "want" things to be. The Ace has constant depth indication in the scan mode. For micro circuitry that power has to come from somewhere, and the frequency transmission of the coil would be effected by the drain. One reason why AM is deeper than disc. as the unit can only supply so much power on 6v batteries operating in the milliampere range. As Chuck said, the only tones I get below 6" are cans and larger objects and many give a Belltone. I prefer a unit that gives me the depth scale when I ask for it and not always draining during scan. Judging the drain on the Ace, I find it hard to believe that it is always detecting accurately at 10", providing constant depth (accurately), sounding tones and lighting the LCD screen while providing 20+ hours of battery life. Something has to give in power requirements and my first thought would be coil transmission followed by discrimination followed by true depth perception followed by LCD illumination. This conclusion is based on the fact that when the batteries can't maintain full capacity, the LCD screen is lit, but the signal transmitted gives off a lot of false tones due to the absence of a transmitted field that the discrimination circuitry is trying to analyze.

[tiger4life]

Ok guys thanks for all the feed back, Im really wanting to go out and try some of these tips. Just have to wait till the weekend and give it a try, I have a old homestead to try and of cousre some kiddie parks with about 8" inches of pine bark . Ill report back and see if Im getting any better.

P.S. I do relize that alot of my problem is knowing my machine but it would be so much better if i had some one that knows what hes doing be there with me, so im also trying to find some locals around here that could help me see first hand. Im the type person that learns more with some one faqce to face Thanks again guys

[lil al]

also try jewelry mode ive read that is will go a little deeper sometimes and if that doesnt work and you know the about spot you buried them in try to go over it in pinpoint mode. hope this helps