White's Spectra VX3 Owner'S Manual Download

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White’s Electronics, Inc.

Sweet Home, Oregon USA

Building the World’s Finest

metal detectors for over 60 years.

Summary of Contents for Spectra VX3

Page 1: ...White s Electronics Inc Sweet Home Oregon USA Building the World s Finest metal detectors for over 60 years...

Page 2: ...ams devel oped and refined by experts leaving you ready to find what oth ers have left behind This instruction manual covers the features of VX3 and intro duces the detecting basics you need to get st...

Page 3: ...Color backlit Weight 4 3 lbs Length 45 52 5 inches adjustable Search coil Eclipse 950 9 5 concentric Batteries 8 AA alkaline Battery life 8 10 hours typical1 Warranty 2 years transferrable Customer S...

Page 4: ...Balance 2 3 Electromagnetic Interference EMI 2 4 Menus Controls 2 4 Live Control Bar 2 5 Main Menu 2 5 Controls 2 6 VX3 Displays 2 6 Search mode 2 6 Pinpoint mode 2 7 VX3 Audio 2 8 Metal Detecting Bas...

Page 5: ...4 7 Discrimination Audio 4 10 Mixed Mode Audio 4 12 Pinpoint Mode 4 13 Discrimination 4 14 Speaker and Headphones 4 15 Preset Icon Tables 4 16 5 Display Screens Search screen 5 1 VDI 5 2 Icons 5 3 De...

Page 6: ...tra VX3 User s Guide 7 Programs VX3 Memory Structure 7 1 Saving Programs 7 2 Restoring Programs 7 2 Rearranging Programs 7 3 8 Wireless Headphones 9 Troubleshooting 10 Shortcuts Back Cover Warranty Co...

Page 7: ...ty for the novice user and advanced features to satisfy the experienced user VX3 is a metal detector for everyone This manual is organized to provide progressive informa tion a format that attempts to...

Page 8: ...Caps to distinguish keypad buttons and menu selections For example press ENTER means to press the Enter key on the keypad and select Enable might mean to select the Enable menu option probably by usi...

Page 9: ...lect MENU Audio Search Audio Discrimina tion Modulation This means to drill down through the stated menu path Finally there is a trigger switch under the pod It has a nor mal center position a forward...

Page 10: ...ew operational pieces of information and the Live Control Bar provides quick on the fly access to operating modes and adjustment parameters All of these will be covered in detail in subsequent chapter...

Page 11: ...parts are present 2 Insert the 2 rubber washers b into the recesses of the lower rod clevis and use the fiber bolt and thumb nut to secure the search loop to the lower rod 3 Insert the lower rod into...

Page 12: ...dhesive black foam pads are included they can be placed on the insides of the arm cup 7 Adjust the Velcro arm strap so that you can easily slip your arm in and out The strap provides extra leverage an...

Page 13: ...f the keypad or the trigger switch The Basics of VLF Operation VX3 is a multi frequency MF induction balance IB very low frequency VLF transmit receive TR metal detector In order to understand what al...

Page 14: ...sponse scales White s has chosen to normalize them all to a standard VDI scale VDI stands for Visual Discrimination Indicator and is simply a consistent numerical value assigned to targets regardless...

Page 15: ...be very close for the entire area Some locations have significant variations and you should occasionally re ground balance as you hunt or use automatic ground tracking Many locations have enough mine...

Page 16: ...wnfall of the old TR dis criminator designs Fortunately since the VDI response for ground is usually far away from the response of desirable tar gets there are ways to deal with it In a modern VLF mot...

Page 17: ...rks for most soils with two caveats Besides normal ground mineralization some areas con tain rocks or small pockets consisting of material with slightly different mineralization than the surrounding g...

Page 18: ...ctive targets Low frequencies also do a better job penetrating ground mineralization including salt High frequencies tend to gener ate stronger ground and salt signals which can limit the ability to d...

Page 19: ...ting 1 Press ON OFF VX3 briefly displays a start up screen and after 2 or 3 seconds goes straight to the search screen 2 At the bottom of the screen is the Live Control Bar which gives you direct acce...

Page 20: ...alt Beach Coin Jewelry using salt subtraction mode Relic Mixed mode no Tone ID no VCO Prospecting All metal mode optimized for nugget hunting Deep Silver Optimized for deep silver Hi pro Advanced Coin...

Page 21: ...manual ground balance Squeeze hold the Trigger then press hold ENTER Pump the search coil over the ground 1 12 inches until the background hum becomes steady usually 4 to 6 times Make sure you do this...

Page 22: ...find the one for best stability Menus Controls VX3 has a number of configuration settings with 2 ways to access them Live Control Bar Live search settings Menus All settings suspends operation When t...

Page 23: ...operation For many of the Live Control items you can press the VIEW button to access menus with additional settings and controls Accessing these menus suspends the search operation of VX3 Main Menu W...

Page 24: ...n of the trigger switch Trigger neutral Normal Search Trigger forward All metal pinpoint no SAT applied Trigger pulled All metal pinpoint no SAT applied This section briefly describes the modes and th...

Page 25: ...dis played and is occasionally overwritten by the ground tracking status At the bottom of the Search screen is the Live Control Bar which gives instant access to the most common settings while VX3 is...

Page 26: ...aspects of the hobby Ask your dealer to recom mend a good introductory book We will however touch on a few important topics Where to hunt The basic rule of location is the older the better Old homes...

Page 27: ...don t hunt these areas without their permis sion Public lands have mixed access National Parks are abso lutely OFF LIMITS to metal detecting and Park Rangers can confiscate your detector and even you...

Page 28: ...ve the coil off to the side of the target location pull the trigger switch to enable pinpoint mode then move the coil back over the target and use the all metal audio response to determine exact locat...

Page 29: ...the item of interest and pressing ENTER All programs are set up with the same Live Control Bar layout for consistency Programs Backlight Audio Sensitivity Disc Frequency Tracking Filters Each Live Co...

Page 30: ...is the collection of buttons across the bottom of the screen Each button is called a Live Con trol Item Each item consists of one or more settings Press VIEW for any Live Control Item to access a Menu...

Page 31: ...ns a program has not been modified whereas a symbol indicates changes have been made At any time you can easily restore a program to its factory settings this is covered in Chapter 7 Note that changin...

Page 32: ...find the detector is noisy and falses a lot you probably need to turn it down There are three primary sensitivity settings Rx Gain All Metal and Disc Rx Gain Rx Gain sometimes called preamp gain sets...

Page 33: ...as the Rx Gain must be reduced to prevent overload All Metal Sensitivity All Metal Sensitivity sometimes called DC sensitivity determines the responsiveness of the all metal channel All tar get signa...

Page 34: ...e absence of a target Both target threshold volumes are applied to all the audio outputs speaker wired headphones or wireless headphones If for example you set the volume while using the speaker then...

Page 35: ...RF and for minimizing interference from other detectors In general adjust the offset up or down to find the quietest setting The Live Control Bar makes finding the quietest offset easy With the loop...

Page 36: ...s should be minimal and steady Release the trigger and you re set Ground Tracking AutoTrac and LockTrac select between automatic and manual ground balance AutoTrac is the default in most programs Grou...

Page 37: ...ound response Fil ters are also used to minimize EMI noise The best filter to use depends on the strength of ground mineralization plus other fac tors VX3 offers two filters to choose from a 5Hz filte...

Page 38: ...r While many settings are quickly available on the Live Con trol Bar some of the mode settings require leaving the search screen and accessing the menus Each item on the Live Control Bar has its own m...

Page 39: ...frequencies resulting in better ground penetration in highly mineralized areas Three Frequency The default frequency mode for most programs is standard Three Frequency In this mode VX3 simultaneously...

Page 40: ...sabled Some V users have reported situations where the salt compensate mode helps reduce EMI noise Single Frequency With any multiple frequency detector the total transmit power must be divided among...

Page 41: ...he selected frequency ies and is use ful to minimize EMI especially when hunting near other detec torists In general adjust the offset up or down to find the quietest setting One source of EMI that is...

Page 42: ...oTrac or LockTrac it s important to know how to check if VX3 is properly ground balanced As you are hunting test the ground balance occasionally using these steps lift the loop a foot off the ground p...

Page 43: ...anced for one type of ground As the ground varies there will be errors in the balance point so there may be some compromise in depth or target ID But LockTrac may allow hunting an area where AutoTrac...

Page 44: ...standard speaker a pair of plug in headphones or wireless headphones Note that the various settings apply only to one or the other processing channels audio modes It s important to remember which set...

Page 45: ...t it also increases the amount of audio noise and can make VX3 more chattery This is especially true when EMI is present All metal audio can be presented in one of two ways VCO and non VCO This select...

Page 46: ...assed over a target the all metal audio will begin at a low tone and progressively rise in pitch as the target signal gets stronger The highest pitch is achieved when the search coil is directly over...

Page 47: ...ationship between the thresh old level and the detection signal Only detection signals that exceed the threshold level shaded in gray will become audible target signals Otherwise you will only hear th...

Page 48: ...vely deeper targets have a progres sively weaker audio response the beep A shallow target pro duces a loud response and a deep target produces a soft response If modulation is disabled then VX3 attemp...

Page 49: ...on t want the complete tone ID system If the Audio Search Audio Tone ID selection is unchecked then all accepted targets will respond with a single tone If it is checked then the target response will...

Page 50: ...l metal threshold plus the all metal response of rejected targets When an accepted target is detected the discrimination audio will take over and you will hear the discrimination tone for the target f...

Page 51: ...ectors since the 1970 s has been discrimination VX3 is no different Discrimi nation of course allows us to accept or ignore certain targets based on their phase or VDI response In analog detectors thi...

Page 52: ...adphones VX3 provides three ways to listen to audio Speaker Plug in headphones Wireless headphones When you plug in a set of headphones the speaker is disabled When wireless headphones are enabled and...

Page 53: ...26 to 21 0 to 12 0 to 17 20 to 1 13 to 16 18 to 23 0 to 16 17 to 24 24 to 37 17 to 24 25 to 50 38 to 40 25 to 50 51 to 54 41 to 44 51 to 57 55 to 57 45 to 55 58 to 75 58 to 68 56 to 60 76 to 80 69 to...

Page 54: ...of the screen is the SpectraGraph which plots the target response in terms of signal strength versus VDI In the screen shown there are three of these responses one for each frequency The top region s...

Page 55: ...For that reason you may occasionally notice that the VDI number does not exactly match the Spectra Graph response especially for a weak frequency In single fre quency mode the VDI is obviously taken o...

Page 56: ...thermore the depth displayed in search mode is a live depth reading where the signal has passed through several stages of filters Live depth can vary with sweep speed typi cally reading deeper as you...

Page 57: ...points wide In some cases a target response will exhibit a VDI response that exceeds 7 points and the SpectraGraph will show this as more than one bar This can be seen in the example above for the 2...

Page 58: ...by digging lots of targets but there are a few tricks we can discuss Smearing A well behaved target will have a response that closely follows a constant VDI as the loop is swept over it The vector res...

Page 59: ...the signal response and not just the peak this can result in a smearing effect in the bars as shown here Pay attention to the amount of smearing compared to the depth and the composite VDI number If i...

Page 60: ...sponses Unaligned bars Because VX3 normalizes the VDI responses of each fre quency the SpectraGraph bars tend to be vertically aligned In some cases they are skewed indicating a possible problem with...

Page 61: ...had trouble locking to a particu lar VDI Wrap around Occasionally targets will wrap around between 95 and 95 This can be due to a high conductive target a silver dollar we hope getting shifted upward...

Page 62: ...ngth of the received signal regardless of what causes it In the screen shown there are three of these responses one for each frequency again with the highest frequency on top The top region shows dept...

Page 63: ...s are never below the ground balance point5 But in saltwater hunt ing the ground balance point can be close to a VDI of 0 mean ing that the entire iron range could be below the balance point If you ar...

Page 64: ...f the Live Control Bar though the order is different The only item in the Main Menu not found in any Live Control menu is the ability to restore programs which is covered in Chapter 7 Navigate through...

Page 65: ...t than the default value1 Finally from any of the menus Main Menu or Live Con trol menus you can flip the trigger switch forward and VX3 will show pop up help balloons Filters Speed The only features...

Page 66: ...tering The type and amount of filtration will usually affect loop sweep speeds VX3 allows you to choose between two filter settings 5Hz Bandpass Lower mineralization good EMI rejection allows slower s...

Page 67: ...This is illustrated as fol lows The recovery delay determines how long the disc response tone or null lasts A longer delay results in a longer response In trashy sites a long response delay can mask...

Page 68: ...s vary A faster SAT higher number results in a quicker return to threshold which can give targets a sharper all metal response Like a fast recovery delay a drawback to fast SAT is that deep targets ca...

Page 69: ...than 30 40 VX3 will overload at 60 so it s still possible that large shallow targets will cause an overload The Noise number represents the amount of spurious noise that is noise that comes and goes...

Page 70: ...Zero button and press ENTER Ground Probe is now zeroed and you should see the Strength numbers go to 0 and the phase numbers jump around a lot Now you can lower the loop to the ground careful to avoi...

Page 71: ...of limited use in the field however because a buried target also has ground above it so the Ground Probe will give you the total response of the two If the coil is placed on the ground target free ar...

Page 72: ...ly active program The 8 factory programs are stored in the Library region which cannot be modified Copies of the factory programs are also stored in the Copy region This memory region can be modified...

Page 73: ...are automatically saved when you shut down VX3 via the ON OFF key Restoring Programs To restore a program to its original factory settings select MENU Programs Restore Select the program you want to...

Page 74: ...ou want to quickly switch between two programs you probably want them located next to each other It is easy to rearrange the program order in VX3 Select MENU Programs Select and highlight the program...

Page 75: ...l expand to include a number of options Below the menu of options are two buttons for Connect and Exit Connect synchronizes the WHPs with VX3 if you turn on WHPs and the header bar still includes Off...

Page 76: ...her balloon signifying that Once WHPs are properly connected you should see the header bar report Working Also the WHP s report back their battery voltage so you can easily check their status 1 If the...

Page 77: ...u never change channels you should never need to connect just turn them on and go Multiple channels are provided for dealing with noise and interference from other VX3 or V3 V3i users If the WHP audio...

Page 78: ...s a maximum green and minimal red response Finally the WHPs send back a battery voltage status to VX3 and the voltage is reported in the WHP menu If the WHPs begin to act erratic check the voltage if...

Page 79: ...tivity 4 Check your surroundings an electric fence is nearly impossible to eliminate Other EMI sources may also be difficult to deal with VX3 is excessively noisy or chattery when the loop is swept ov...

Page 80: ...ile digging a quick way to do this is to press the MENU key and bring up the Main Menu Pull the trigger to resume hunting The target I dug is not what VX3 suggested it would be The types of targets bu...

Page 81: ...not contact the battery pack contacts VX3 suddenly shuts down 1 The batteries could be dead 2 VX3 automatically shuts down if there is no keypad or trigger activity for 30 minutes VX3 is locked up and...

Page 82: ...using interference This is a common problem with any detector and pinpointer When you lay the detector on the ground keep the loop away from the area you will be probing You can also suspend detec tor...

Page 83: ...lt the Live Controls are displayed as a horizontal menu You can completely hide them to increase the size of the SpectraGraph region or expand them to include the settings eats up more screen Press ZO...

Page 84: ...ction box will pop up allowing you to Restore How to quickly check the battery voltage Press MENU ENTER from the search screen This will bring up the splash screen and the battery voltage appears at t...

Page 85: ...d then press ENTER to apply the same state through the VDI list How to use bookmarks If you have a few settings you like to play with in the Main Menu and want a fast way to get to them without having...

Page 86: ...On On On On Off Pinpoint VCO Off Off Off On On On On Off Discrim Accept 15 to 26 5 to 95 5 to 95 0 to 95 20 to 94 65 to 95 20 to 95 5 to 95 60 to 95 Reject 95 to 14 95 to 6 95 to 6 95 to 1 95 to 21 9...

Page 87: ...out and returned to the factory address by your dealer soon after origi nal purchase for the purpose of recording this information and keeping you up to date regarding White s ongoing research develop...

Page 88: ...all trash and litter found 5 Whenever possible return identifiable property to its rightful owner 6 Never destroy historical or archaeological treasures 7 Appreciate and protect natural resources wild...

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