SDC2300 Amplifiers/EMI? Please Help Me Out.

Hi,

Do I need an amplifier on my SDC2300?

I feel its over kill and not needed it does take in too much input and can cause the SDC to mask actual target signals. My threshold was on 4.

I need to know.

I was up detecting up Maryborough way today it was terrible emi and my threshold was very chattery.

Do you have any solutions?

I did run an amplifier on it was worse still using the external headphones too (as in an another brand from Minelab).

Please help me out.

I have never used a amplifier, on tough days and noisy ground i found headphones and dropping sensitivity back to 3 or even 2 settled it down , the threshold lights i always have it on about 2 solid lights and one flickering.

Do a tune on the patch your working and then pump the coil with green button held in until it settles can take upto a minute, a few more pumps after letting green button off helps to.
The sdc never likes morning winds or wind changes it will squark before you feel the wind , calm afternoons and night time is sdc time, any high emi areas i save them till after dark.

Ok thanks when you press the threshold lights do you press it up to 4 lights or 3 whats best

Well said Ozzie farmer erfect:

I need to know whats best. Seriously!
Mackka

yellowmellow said:

Ok thanks when you press the threshold lights do you press it up to 4 lights or 3 whats best

Click to expand...

Depends on the ground/emi/weather only you will know what your happy to deal with at the time. Once your happy try it for a while and if you want to change it up a notch do it. If it stays settled keep going if not knock it back and go again. Every location has its variables on any given day for one reason or another you just have to adjust sometimes but not always :beer:

On the phasetechnical.com.au blog section Nenad has a 'how to get the best from the sdc2300' write up, give it a read, very handy. but some days emi is over the top, I had my 2300 squawking at a storm front 80km away.

G'day

Here is some information about a method I use to ground balance and tune the Sdc2300 , we found this works better than tuning it with the coil in the air like you do the standard way, try it and see how you go, works for me.

Tune and Ground Balance Procedure Sdc2300

1. Pre set the sensitivity switch to 2
2. Switch the detector on and let it go through the start up phase
3. Set the threshold to 3rd or 4th position from the right
4. Set the sensitivity knob to 5
5. Place the search coil flat on the ground and hold it steady, then press the noise cancel button, be sure to hold the detector steady and the search coil flat on the ground until its finished.
6. Do a quick ground balance using the green quick track button.

If the detector is still a bit ratty you might have to move to another nearby spot and do it again, on a bad EMI day you may have to do it a few times to get the machine quiet, also you can turn the sensitivity down a position or two if necessary.

You can alter the tone by keeping the threshold button depressed during the start up phase to a lower tone that might better suit your hearing level, as it it will automatically set to the high tone by default if you dont hold the button in, experiment with these tone levels to see which one best suits your level of hearing.

If you are using a signal booster as well, or even headphones then threshold level can be set a little lower, I have found that the more stable you can get the detector running while still using a higher sensitivity level the better the results, but it has to be running as stable as possible to hear iffy target signals, so lowering the sensitivity might be the only way some days to do that.

cheers

stayyerAU

Thing with EMI, turn down sensitivity to 3 or 2 or even 1. When on one the signal may be very quiet, this is where the SP01 comes into it's own as you boost the audio signal to whatever you are comfortable with.

StayyerAU said:

If the detector is still a bit ratty you might have to move to another nearby spot and do it again, on a bad EMI day you may have to do it a few times to get the machine quiet, also you can turn the sensitivity down a position or two if necessary.

cheers

stayyerAU

Click to expand...

Perfect advice. There were some places that were just almost impossible on the day to tune out, even after 8, 9, 10 goes. If you can work out the direction of the source I found it helped greatly to face into it for noise cancel and turn my back to it (180 degrees) while detecting, although some signals would bounce off the mullock bases and tree bases giving a bit of emi falsing.

You can still try in 5 in bad emi, just wait for the repeatable target signals, often with headphones on and allowing my ears to "tune out" emi, the target signals would often still be enough to squeak through after about 20 mins of hearing/mental adjustment, but it can drive you a bit insane after a couple of hours.

Even in good days (across 3 machines ) the sdc seems to burble, fart and fizz, but the gold always seemed to have a pretty reliable tone even when it just starts as a whisper. Anything over .5 in coil range bangs pretty hard, its the deep or smaller ones that you got to work for.

G'day

Hey yellowmellow, did you give those setting for the Sdc a try? feedback?

The Sdc is a great little detector and very versatile but like all other detectors has its strengths and weaknesses, I use a B&Z booster with mine as I have the booster set up on my harness so that I can run the 4500 through it also, the booster helps a lot with hearing the really feint targets more particularly on a windy day as you have the option of increasing the volume just that bit more as needed, I use headphones mainly but can also use a shoulder mounted external speaker if I want to as well.

cheers

stayyerAU