Vanquish 540 - understanding the low iron bias control

Setting the 540 to low bias, pressing and holding the horseshoe for at least 2 seconds, lowers the discrimination to iron is the simplest way I can think of to describe it. When set high, larger iron like rusted nails are rejected or treated as iron and can mask coins near the iron. When set to low, it lowers the discrimination to iron making coins that might be near the iron more visible to the signal.

This is how I interpret the iron bias in a very simple to understand form. Everyone understands what discrimination does so I use it to describe the results. If anyone has a better description go for it.

Thanks Detector, I think I get it a bit better now.

With full iron bias (single push of horseshoe button and all segments below 0 are on to detect all iron) it goes all out to detect iron and anything else.

With soft bias (button held for 2 seconds and the little nail icon showing) it discriminates against the iron a bit but does not totally block it.

Is that correct?
Cheers

Hilux said:

Thanks Detector, I think I get it a bit better now.

With full iron bias (single push of horseshoe button and all segments below 0 are on to detect all iron) it goes all out to detect iron and anything else.

With soft bias (button held for 2 seconds and the little nail icon showing) it discriminates against the iron a bit but does not totally block it.

Is that correct?
Cheers

Click to expand...

Kind of.

Read this, it should help: https://www.detectorprospector.com/forums/topic/13796-iron-bias-fe-versus-fe2/

mh9162013 said:

Kind of.

Read this, it should help: https://www.detectorprospector.com/forums/topic/13796-iron-bias-fe-versus-fe2/

Click to expand...

Thanks mh9162013, as soon as I get some work free time I'll have a read of that. It looks like it should explain everything.

Hilux said:

I've had my Vanquish 540 for a week or two.

I'm trying to understand how to use the low iron bias function.

I've lounge-room detected my different test targets and don't understand how it works and what the benefit is.

I understand pressing the Horseshoe iron button enables all metals so it will detect <0 IDs - ie iron.

Hopefully someone can explain the low iron bias setting in simple terms for me!

Click to expand...

The Vanquish uses Multi IQ simultaneous multi frequency technology as opposed to single frequency technology. Multi IQ processes the ferrous (I) responses and the non-ferrous (Q) responses differently than single frequency and some other multi frequency detectors. Multi IQ ignores most of the ferrous responses from the ground and from iron/mixed steel alloy targets and just concentrates on processing the multiple non-ferrous responses for determining the identification of a detectable target. Single frequency detectors use the ratio of the iron/non-iron responses to determine the detectable target's ID.

So the Vanquish 540 iron bias low/high setting lets the user have a bit of control over how much of the ferrous (I) response is ignored. Iron bias is never OFF by the way when using the Vanquish or Equinox detectors.

With the Vanquish 540 horseshoe button engaged all detectable ferrous and non-ferrous target responses are accepted. With iron bias set on low, ferrous and mixed ferrous steel alloy targets will more likely give mixed ferrous responses with some low tone iron grunts and some mid tone and high tone responses too which are termed "falsing" by the metal detecting community since iron should sound like iron and not a non-ferrous target. Borderline non-ferrous targets which are either deeper, really small or close to ferrous targets will more likely be processed as non-ferrous targets also. Disengaging the horseshoe button turns off iron responses and can cause the iron and steel targets to be silenced or have slightly broken up mid and high tone (false) responses only.

With iron bias on high when using the horseshoe button engaged iron/steel targets will be much more likely to be processed as iron and will have stronger iron responses and less mid and high tone falsing. Borderline non-ferrous targets can also more likely be processed with some iron responses. With the horseshoe button disengaged, iron/steel targets may give no responses or very broken up, inconsistent mid and high tone non-ferrous false responses. Borderline non-ferrous responses may also have broken up mid and high tone responses.

Thanks Jmaclen - so much to learn!

I'm going to print some of this stuff out and read... re-read!