OK, so what am I doing wrong?

[Shorty Buckshot]

Just got an Ace 250 and after watching the instruction video and reading the manual, I took it out in the yard to practice. Within 5 minutes I found a nickel and a dime...things went downhill from there. I set it on all metal and found junk so I then set it on jewelry and notched out everything but the coins...I then set it to custom and again notched out iron, foil and pulltabs....I had the sensitivity set at 4 bars and a fully charged battery. So I get a signal and make my best attempt to use the pinpoint feature...I then dig where I believe the signal came from and find nothing. So I sweep again with the Ace and now get no signal at all. I move a little further, go back and once again get a signal in the spot I just dug....seems to me I am getting alot of false signals...this happened multiple times....get a signal and find nothing or signal disappears where I just dug from the previous signal.

Am I doing something wrong here? I realize I am new to MD'ing and this detector, but after all the praise I have heard about this model I am a little disappointed and a little frustrated as well....any ideas, tips, suggestions etc would be greatly appreciated...Thanks...Shorty

 

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[Treasure_Hunter]

First off there is a learning curve to metal detecting..... next if target is large and deep it will tell you it is shallow... Detectors are tuned for coin size objects, larger objets will throw off all detectors...

My suggestion is I would go back take out and turn off the filtering and notching you did and learn the detector first,learn how it responds to different targets then move to the more advanced features........

 

[sonofadigger]

make sure your getting a good repeatable signal on every swing if your only getting a signal in one direction and not the other its probably junk big flat pieces of iron will give a coin sound even with iron notched out hope that helps next time you get a signal walk a circle around the hole and make sure you getting a signal all the way round good luck

 

[cactusrat]

Hunt in all metal with the sensitivity turned down (2 or 3 bars). The first 50 hours or so, dig every thing. You will have a good understanding on how the Ace works by then.

Don’t rely on the icons. The detector is just guessing at what the target might be. The depth scale is also just a guess. Size of target and soil type also play a part. How far you will hold your coil above the ground also plays into the game.

Only way to work it all out is to spend time digging everything.

The Ace will pin point dead on, but a pin pointer is still a must in my book. The Ace will pin point a shotgun pellet, but finding something not much bigger than the head of a pin (sewing type) will be very hard to see/find in some soils. Are worst yet, a 1/16 inch piece of thin rusty wire can test your temper.

 

[Bart@Big Boys Hobbies]

All great advice here. I would try to find the most non trashy area to hunt. Trashy areas are next to impossible to learn a machine on.

 

[Tejaas]

All great advice here. I would try to find the most non trashy area to hunt. Trashy areas are next to impossible to learn a machine on.

AMEN!

Thanks again for the great deal on the AT PRO, pro pointer, and lesche, Bart!

I'm diggin em!

 

[kayden]

Tape coil wire to shaft...sometimes if loose ...coil will pick up wire...This will cause you to go in sane with falsing.Also make sure coil is bolted tight on shaft sometimes if loose ...this will also cause falsing...GL hunting!

 

[Viddy]

My suggestion is:
#1 take the batteries out and reset the detector.
#2 get some different coins, tabs, cans, nails, foil, etc etc etc and put the detector on a table (away from interference) and air test it with all those different types of targets. Try the all metal mode. Then try the coins mode and see how it ignores the tabs. See how the ACE reacts and the speed and depth to the targets...
#3 find a non-trashy area like, like Bart said, and bury some coins and see how it reacts to them.... or like someone else said, run all metal mode and dig everything to get used to the detector.
#4 have patience for the learning curve. I just hopped over from the Standard Mode on the AT Pro to the Pro-Mode/0 disc/iron audio on and at first was like 'how in the heck do people run it like this?!?!'... but after a while and testing and trying it in the fields, I will never go back!. learning curve!

before you determine it's a 'bad-out-of-box' detector.... try my 4 steps!