Do you gain anything by reducing a detectors sweep speed ???

[DaveJ]

This has had me thinking in the last few days after seeing a few videos that suggest that if you reduce your swing speed down while detecting it 'could' give it better time to process the information better,in my mind this does make alot of sense.

But in the real world and with electronics so advanced and quicker would this still apply,starting this weekend i plan on trying reducing my swing speed down and take a mental note of if it actually does make any difference,of course a conclusion cannot be made after just a few outings but over a longer time frame and then it will be worth seeing if any advantage can be gained.

Has anyone got any additional thoughts on this one please.

[gc-1023]

i can remember my first motion machine was a whites 6000  and had to be moved quickly ,then i got the toltec 100 and it was like switching to slow motion capture . i think every motion machine has a sweet speed ,but do wonder if even that can vary with the mineralisation  encountered.

[coenwolf]

if i remember correctly the dfx has a adjustable sweep speed section ,i don't think it actually did anything that made any difference though ,generally again from memory the whites worked best on moderate speeds ,new fisher and teknetics require a faster rate ,minelab need a sloooow rate of swing .
   i can remember watching someone at a rally once literally whipping his machine as he walked ,and the coil was only in detection range for a micro second of each sweep .takes all sorts 

[Sven]

Depends upon the detector. Some machines will go a bit deeper if sweep speed is increased and then some will not even see the target if the sweep speed is too fast. I think you'll see more of this is disc and or disc target ID mode than in all metal mode.

[Nigel at Regtons]

It's all relative.

We see fast recovery speed machines like Deus every day being swung like a scythe, many are under the misapprehension that they CAN sweep that fast because it's a fast machine, they are WRONG.

If you have a slow recovery machine and slow your sweep speed down it will help the machine overcome that problem to an extent but it will still not be as fast as a fast recovery speed machine at the same sweep speed.

Everyone should try to slow down, it's not easy as you tend to speed back up again within a short space of time, the old, saying slow & low is very appropriate.

[SuchMuch]

Small signals could be "swallowed" and you will hear almost nothing (even in headphones), if you keep swinging at high rate. Trashy sites are also to be hunted with the lowest rate.

[Guinea3]

Interesting post, which has certainly given me food for thought!

[qiaozhi@geotech1.com]

i can remember watching someone at a rally once literally whipping his machine as he walked ,and the coil was only in detection range for a micro second of each sweep .takes all sorts 

I think I've seen the same bloke, or maybe it was his brother.
He's usually the one that leaves the rally within 2 hours of it starting, F'in and Blindin' that there's nothing there. LOL

Nigel is right ... "slow & low" ... but don't tell everyone.

[Aurelia]

i can remember watching someone at a rally once literally whipping his machine as he walked ,and the coil was only in detection range for a micro second of each sweep .takes all sorts 

Some years ago there was a chap at MMDC digs who used to swing his machine as though he was conducting the Berlin Phil. It went everywhere except near the ground. Never found anything of course and always complaining about that.

[mason]

Isn't their a difference between response speed and recovery speed?

[darren39]

In my experience, slower is nearly always better, but some programs, such as FA on the fisher f75, seem to suit a faster sweep speed.

[qiaozhi@geotech1.com]

In my experience, slower is nearly always better, but some programs, such as FA on the fisher f75, seem to suit a faster sweep speed.

Perhaps that's Fisher's way of telling you to slow down, otherwise that's all you'll find. 

[Redfoot]

The thing is you need to slow down when you are in any area of the field where you are recovering items of interest however if you are in 40 acres of land and you search slow and methodically then you are looking at about 40 days searching

If you can imagine a scythe cutting corn by hand a farm labourer could cut about 1 acre a day, he would cut all the corn in front of him, to cover all the ground in the same methodical way you should be doing about an acre a day, but no all parts of the field are as productive as others so you need to speed up till you find a productive area then slow down till you are happy you have found everything that, that section of the field has to offer, then move on looking for the next productive spot

[redkite]

I love to see the Scythe Swingers on the beaches I frequent detecting fast and furious with the coil about a foot off the surface.
 

[muddy fingers]

i can remember my first motion machine was a whites 6000  and had to be moved quickly ,then i got the toltec 100 and it was like switching to slow motion capture . i think every motion machine has a sweet speed ,but do wonder if even that can vary with the mineralisation  encountered.

   The Toltec 100 is usually fitted with a 10" concentric coil and concentic coils obviously read the target the same, no matter which angle you approach them from. A detector fitted with a DD coil will read the target best when approached from one particular angle, that's why it's often necessary to check targets at 90 degrees ( As Such Much commented in the other thread on this subject). I found with the Toltec that I either got a signal or I didn't and didn't need to check anything again at a slower sweep speed.