V3i, Slower Versus Faster Settings Suggestions Explanation

I have enjoyed reading the explanations for hunting, such as Jack's on curb hunting. I also would enjoy someone with total knowledge of the V3 and V3i to address the literal numbers on what constitutes lower and higher settings rates in the menus. What I mean is this: Say you are told to run the recovery delay slower for a particular situation. It's numerical range in numbers are from 1-who-knows-what. Is one(1) slowest, as it would be in a moving vehicle? Next example is SAT. Is 5 lower than 25, which to most people's minds is a stupid question, and if so, what is the real time effects?

Maybe it is just me, but many times my simple logic of well, slower means lower in number doesn't always hold water. If anyone cares to put together a simple chart with simple explanations on which directions are correct in these examples, along with any other information to help V3i hunters to understand when told to run in say, a slower recovery,,,I think it would be of benefit. There are other settings, such as sweep time, etc. All detailed, plain talking explanations will be appreciated. The manuals suck with these explanations Btw. Jm2c. Thanks. martin

Those are some great questions Martin. It does get hard to keep track of the variuos range of settings on the V3/V3i. Here is my take on the subject at hand.

Recovery Delay is the length of time the response from a target last, whether it be a tone or a null. The higher the number the slower the delay or the longer the response. There has been some pretty complex charting done concerning Recovery Delay verses coil width, and swing speed. The problem is that targets are not just at one depth. Unfortunately these charts, while very accurate are 2 dimensional in nature. If all the targets we hunt for were at a set depth (on the surface) they would be accurate. The deeper a target gets the narrower the field of the coil gets, thus changing the effects of the Recovery Delay and swing speeds. So, as you can see it is very difficult to get into specific settings and results. The settings I use are based on results from adjusting things in the field over actual targets and also quite a bit of test garden work. Conventional thought has been to use a faster recovery delay in trashy areas, and a slower delay in open areas to optimize the response from deep targets. However there is something you have to consider when using the V3/V3i. This detector has the uncanny ability to apparently give priority to a target and change it's tone and VDI in mid response. This can work against you, or for you. I see lots of good coins coming from the same hole as a bottle caps, nails and tin foil bits. So a slower recovery delay and slow swing speed can still pay off well in a trashy area. Clear as mud right. lol

SAT or Self Adjusting Threshold has to do with the all metal mode programing. This changes how aggressively the unit tries to return the threshold to a steady smooth state. This time, the higher the number the quicker the result. Seems backwards, like you stated. Unless your prospecting or using mixed modes you don't need to worry about this setting. I don't do either, and as a result have very little knowledge on this setting.

Jack

However there is something you have to consider when using the V3/V3i. This detector has the uncanny ability to apparently give priority to a target and change it's tone and VDI in mid response. This can work against you, or for you.


I suspect that this may be the crux of many issues users have when running this detector. That word uncanny says a lot, because treasure hunting, IMPO, should strive more for consistency in it's reports. It can be understandably stated that the uncanny abilities is what possibly makes this a stellar unit, but I don't agree. I just think that it adds more apples to the oranges.

Back to the RD speed and SAT settings though. it makes more sense to me, even though I do have a good background in electronic test equipment from my past profession, THAT it would be a whole lot better if Whites had inverted the speed setting per scaling to see 100 as 100 times faster than 1, instead of the opposite. It is only going to confuse buyers and new users to keep these slow-fast settings contradictory to one another. From a pure technical viewpoint, I see how it works, yet you'd think the White's people would have contoured it directly to the average public, with a setting of one to be slower, and 2 being twice as fast, instead of the opposite. Bad final design release choice IMO. The V3i has enough extra settings to alter everything else already. Why make it a maze of logic VS illogically based terms on the settings. It just makes no sense to me to sell this thing to the average joe-shmo consumer like they did.

Slower should be 1, and faster should be everything above that. If the device circuitry normally demands the logic registers to have it different, then pop in a simple inverter and let the egg heads wonder why it's different. It is the general public you REALLY care to sell these $1500 units too. That is just good business. martin

Thanks for the answers about the speed, etc. It makes perfect sense. ml

I like to think of recovery delay not as fast or slow, but short and long.

To simplify it a bit, Recovery Delay is how much time you want the machine to WAIT and analyze one target before switching over and looking at the ground again for a new one.

The number range (from short to long) is how much time you want the V3i to “think” about that target under the coil. The bigger the number, the more time it will use to gather data from the target. But spending too much time on any one target means it can miss other targets since you are sweeping continuously. Not spending enough time though means that the V3i cannot collect as much data from the target. It’s a balancing act between coil size and sweep speed.

The bigger the coil, the more time the machine can spend on a single target, since that target is under the large coil for a longer period of time. If you have a small coil, the target comes and goes briefly, so there is no need to make the machine stay and wait for more data since no more is coming! It’s already passed quickly.

Same with sweep speed. If you swing slow, you can afford to linger and collect data on one target. But if you swing fast, there’s no reason to keep looking since you have swing past the target already. If you swing slow, increase the delay setting (bigger number), so the V3i can spend more time and give you a more accurate analysis and find deeper or smaller targets. If you swing fast, use a shorter delay (smaller number) so the V3i can go back to looking for new targets quickly.

Same with a lot of trash. A lot of trash, and you want the V3i to NOT delay so much over one area. It needs to be able to quickly look between trash objects and find the elusive target between the foil and pull tab. A lot of trash – use a shorter delay (smaller number). No trash, use the longer delay (bigger number).

Peter