White's Spectra Vision (V3)

[CyberSage]

Nice pile of loot you have there Leon! Very impressive for 2 months. Chains are tough targets you seem to have the knack. I am very interested in your experience withe the little SEF coil. Please keep us filled in on your discoveries with this coil. The slow swing is really the secret with the V3. Welcome to American Detectorist. Looking forward to hearing about you metal detecting adventures.

Keep Swing'in
Jack

[Lope_along]

Thanks for getting back to me, Jack.

The (V-rated) 6x10 is fer sure my next coil.
I wasn't sure how fast or slow an elliptical would be as compared with a concentric.
That is to say, if the narrower slice of ground the elliptical is reading meant that
you had to go slower for the unit to process the info it was recieving as compared
to a concentric which is reading a larger area of ground. It sounds like the V3 will
handle both fine. I think there's a natural tendency to swing a little quicker when
cherry-picking as you have fewer operator judgements to make re: Dig or Not Dig.

Lope_along

[Leon]

Thanks Jack, I have found that the V3 is great on gold chains which the XLT and The DFX had problems with. They found rings fine but had a problem with chains. As for the SEF coil that excelarator puts out I have found it to be very stable in high mineral soil so far. I am still working with it and trying various adjustments to see if I can increase the depth without falsing......As I'm sure some of the V3 user's have experienced/

[xzlr8n]

Well I tried my V3 today at my neighbors farm house. I tried Jack's correlate program and didn't have any definite coin signals, not too many left as I have hammered this site with w/ my DFX and MXT. Ground is still frozen good where I am at so I didn't even bother to bring my digger to recover anything. I was itching to get out and swing a bit just to see how the machine worked.

First observation was that I had a lot of false signaling and some repeatable +95 signals showing the the old horseshoe icon. I couldn't get any peak formations in the analyze screen so I'm assumed this stuff was junk iron. I did hit some solid +3 vdi targets with one target that peaked nicely in all three frequencies with 22.5 being the highest, is this gold or aluminium??. Hit some other lower VDI targets that jumped a bit and didn't analyze all that great so I assumed those to be definately aluminium or foil of some sort. I tried the stock coin and jewelry program and also had some false signaling and nulling going on with this same patch of ground, which supports the junk targets.

Question for Jack and others: How do you quiet down your correlate program a bit and should I be investigating those +95 targets with no peaks at the lower frequencies (did I just answer my own ? ). Seems like I'll be rechecking a lot of iffy signals with no good target to be found with my current setup.

[CyberSage]

Hey xzlr8n!

To get started answering your question I have a couple of questions for you. What coil were you using? What do you feel the mineralization content of the soil in this area you hunted? At what depth were the previous finds at this site?

Excessive +95 hits could be from several things. Hot rocks or high mineralization is the most common. Having the gain set to high, and moving the coil to fast are other possibilities. Remember with lower filter settings coil movement becomes more critical. Of course with the hunt location being an old farm you could just be dealing with lots of rusty deep iron. The later should be recognizable by an unusual large number of spiking hits in the negative VDI range. Let's see if we can figure out what your dealing with here.

Keep Swing'in
Jack

[xzlr8n]

Jack,

I was using the 10 D2 coil. The mineralization is relatively low, although there is iron and foil debris. I have pulled old horeshoes and bladepoints at this site some being 8-12 deep that sounded pretty good at times on my MXT. I have pulled indian heads at 3 to 8 deep here, several wheats at 6-8, one '51 Rosie, two buffalos, and '02 V-nickle.

I used the 5 hz high filter, swinging slowly. The recommended RX gain was 6, I tried 9 and 6. 6 was quieter, although I wonder how my depth is being compromised.

This site is tough on wheats and IH's, so I wonder how the mineralization really is.

[CyberSage]

Jack,

I was using the 10 D2 coil. The mineralization is relatively low, although there is iron and foil debris. I have pulled old horeshoes and bladepoints at this site some being 8-12 deep that sounded pretty good at times on my MXT. I have pulled indian heads at 3 to 8 deep here, several wheats at 6-8, one '51 Rosie, two buffalos, and '02 V-nickle.

I used the 5 hz high filter, swinging slowly. The recommended RX gain was 6, I tried 9 and 6. 6 was quieter, although I wonder how my depth is being compromised.

This site is tough on wheats and IH's, so I wonder how the mineralization really is.

Sounds like the PH of the soil is acidic. Is there evergreen trees of some kind in the area? I have to be honest with you I have always struggled with the D2 coil. I just went down to my local metal detecting shop this weekend and picked up a new D2 coil. My first 2 where bad and finally Whites was kind enough to replace it with a V rated Super12 coil. That was 7 months ago. I wanted to get another so I could experience the V3 as the engineers at Whites designed it. I got this new coil home and strapped it on the V3 and am experiencing horrible EMI issues. It is unusable at my home coin garden and I can only get the RX up to 5 in the local park. Now I can run my V- rated Super 12 up to 14 and maintain stability in the park. The SEF will go to 11 or 12. 2.5 kHz is the worst. Using the probe function in the air I get 15 in all three frequencies. This tells me it is properly nulled. There is a huge noise problem though. I think I will take this opportunity to send both the D2 coil and the V3 back to Whites for a checkup. Ground is hard as a rock right now so no big deal. I desperately want to work with the D2 coil, but just can't seem to catch a break. Sorry I am really no help, but lets give it a shot...

I would try the 5hz Band Pass and turn on your modulation and set the range to 3 or so. This will at least quiet those 95's some. You can also experiment with locking your ground tracking. (turn it off) If you do this remember to ground balance often. Hope this helps. When I get my unit back I will go to work with the D2 coil and share my results here on the forum.

Keep Swing'in
Jack

[xzlr8n]

Jack,

I really don't have too much time on this machine so it is hard to say if I have a good V3 and 10 D2 or not. If you remember my post about my V3 spontaneously turning on, I did talk to Todd at Whites about it and he said he hadn't heard of the problem before but did say anything is possible with electronics. Since then I did come home to find my V3 on again one more time, it is always turned off before I put it in its corner. So I just might send mine back just to get it checked out. At least get the ghost in the machine out rofl.

I have plenty of time before any prime hunting will be had where I'm at anyway. Besides I want to make sure the machine is 100% so I can rule out the machine and blame myself for my problems.

[CyberSage]

I thought I would post a little follow up on the EMI issues with the new D2 coil. I took it out again today and same problem as mentioned in the above message. I remember on my DFX when you want to reset or reboot the computer in the detector you dump the battery while the detector is on. I have not seen this documented for the V3, but gave it a try anyway. BINGO! Things got very quiet and I was easily able to drill every coin in the test garden. I would really like to verify this procedure before everybody starts dumping out there batteries and doing possible damage to the V3. Has anyone heard of this on the V3 before? In any case the D2 coil is performing nicely now and I can start experimenting with it. I am really trying to overcome my dislike for this coil and do some in depth comparisons over deep test targets in my local park. If only the snow would go away. >:\

Keep Swing'in
Jack

[Lope_along]

The sole reference I can find to it in any White's literature is:

• Removing battery does NOT restore factory programs.

This is found on pg12 of the Field Guide.
Honestly, to me yanking the batts sounds like what Computers Guys used to call a Cold Boot.
Such as is used when confronted by the Blue Screen of Death,etc. I do it on my home PC every
once in a while whether there's a problem or not and it always improves performance - for a while.

Don't know if this helps,

Lope_along

[CyberSage]

I think this is reference to the V3 being set up differently from the DFX. On the DFX if you pull the battery out you will loose any changes you have made to the loaded programs. The hard reset (pulling the battery while the detector is on) would force the DFX computer to do a bios level boot and refresh the environment. On the V3 you can make changes and they will be preserved even with the battery pulled out. This is the function of storage memory somewhat like a USB memory stick does. What I am referring to is the the state of the operating environment. It definitely made a difference. I did have the battery out overnight charging and when I initially put it back in I had the same problem. When I took it out with the V3 on is when things got a lot better. I will try and give Whites a call.

Keep Swing'in
Jack

[Lope_along]

No, I still think we're talking about the same basic thing. It's just that I lack the White's or PC expertise
to prove what I'm saying in the proper engineering lingo.

You probably already know that most computers have two basic ways of storing operating instructions:
RAM and ROM. ROM never gets erased (at least in theory) and RAM which stores dynamically and anything
loading into RAM will be instantly lost if power fails. The classic example is a document that you forgot to
back up, the power fails, and you've lost everything and have to start over again. Often times, after much
usage these same operating instructions can get shotgunned around to different mapped locations in
the RAM so that the PC's ability to seek, assemble, and carry out said instructions becomes bogged down.
A full power down to OFF, brief wait, and re-boot (NOT A Restart) will often refresh your memory, decrease
seek time and hence, the computer is faster, smoother.

Please understand I am not lecturing - I know many out there have college degrees in this and Im not trying
to toot my own horn here. All I'm saying is that perhaps yanking the batteries is improving your machine's
apparent functioning by a similar action. Clearly, the Library must be in some form of ROM, and clearly on-the-fly
changes must add to what the RAM is dealing with - along with all the various screens, color schemes, and other
expert instructions. If I'm right is that a good thing to have to do ? Definitely not. I'm just making an analogy to
your problem and the solution others have found - with computers that is.

Again, Cybersage - Not talking down to anyone anywhere, just trying to make my point. It remains a honest issue
whether your particular machine - or the state of your batts - might somehow be off in some way. I don't know.
I think it would be great to hear what White's sez on this.

Lope_along

[xzlr8n]

Jack,

Was wondering if you tried the frequency offset option with the D2 to quiet it down?? One of the recommendations in the manual to quiet things down and possibly use a higher RX gain is adjusting the frequency offset. I haven't tried it yet to see if it does anything for me.

Sidenote w/D2, when I was at my farm site I started the machine at RX gain of 9 and then did a ground probe and the machine said best gain was 6, so I tried mine at 6 and did another probe and it said best RX gain was 5 . So, I too am wondering whats up with the D2. I don't have EMI noise problems per say like you but I'm definately using lower RX gain #'s. I'm going to give Whites a call before I send mine back, maybe there is some things I can try or learn to ease my uneasiness. Still cannot explain why it turns itself on thoughthinkingabout:

Scott

[CyberSage]

Was wondering if you tried the frequency offset option with the D2 to quiet it down?? One of the recommendations in the manual to quiet things down and possibly use a higher RX gain is adjusting the frequency offset.

That's a great idea Scott. I have not tried that yet. I will see if makes a difference. The D2 is doing a lot better now. I have a call into whites to try and get an explanation of what happened when I first put the D2 on the detector.

Jack

[CyberSage]

No, I still think we're talking about the same basic thing. It's just that I lack the White's or PC expertise
to prove what I'm saying in the proper engineering lingo.

You probably already know that most computers have two basic ways of storing operating instructions:
RAM and ROM. ROM never gets erased (at least in theory) and RAM which stores dynamically and anything
loading into RAM will be instantly lost if power fails.

Andrew,
In the case of the V3 we are dealing very specific types of Non-volatile memory. I believe the library of the V3 is stored in a memory configuration know as (EPROM) Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory. The user based custom programs or stored in a configuration known as (EEPROM) Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory. As you make changes to your programs, even without saving them they are retained in the EEPROM. On the DFX these changes were not automatically written and as a consequence lost when the battery was removed. The V3 has approximately 164 times the memory as the DFX. The processor of the V3 is a RISC processor. In there documentation Whites states that this is a Freescale ARM-9 without built in memory. I have not found any documentation on the RAM operating environment as of yet. I am waiting for a return phone call from Whites to speak with a technician. I will try and make good notes so I can accurately share them here on the forum. Looking back onto various DFX documentation there is continuing reference to removing the battery while the detector is on as opposed to taking the battery out after the unit is turned off. Jimmy (Sierra) Normandi refers to this as a cold boot. To clarify my question, does this procedure have an effect on the V3 as well.

Jack

[Leon]

Ok, Guys I'm going to a site I've tried working a couple of times this Thurs. I've made a couple of adjustments to the V3 ...........I will report back on friday.........A pic of the site.

[Leon]

If the Adjustments work well I will give out the program adjustments

[CyberSage]

Thanks Leon! Good luck with the hunt.

Jack

[RickO]

Leon, is that a cellar hole? Good luck... RickO

[Lope_along]

Cybersage,

Thanks for the clarification. I hope we have a definitive soon on your problem and that it is not major.
In the meanwhile, thanks for all your helpful contributions - they are appreciated.

Lope_along