AGB in the Discovery Treasure Baron

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Ground tracking by μC? Perhaps the schematic can give clues as to what the algorithm is doing.

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"Several years ago I designed two modules with AGB for the Discovery Treasure Baron. Both designs use microcontrollers. The micro AGB design performs better than the discrete circuit for the Mark I. Both have the iron inhibit feature. This feature reduces the potential of the ground balance setting from tracking off on targets. It works like this: An internal program measures the phase of all targets. Any target whose phase exceeds about -10 degrees (I don’t recall the exact value) will produce an inhibit signal to the AGB program causing it to hold its current ground balance setting. After the target has passed it releases the inhibit and the AGB continues to track the ground. We called it iron inhibit but in reality it inhibits on all targets above a predetermine phase. In this case -10 degrees. All mineralize grounds have a phase less than -10 degrees. Therefore, the program will not inhibit tracking on mineralized ground. Of course if the ground’s phase exceeds -10 degrees this technique would not work. The iron inhibit feature can be turned-off in case the operator runs into some unusual ground condition where the inhibit feature does not operate correctly. Or in case he or she simply prefers it disabled."

-George Payne

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Front panel

[Carl-NC]

AGT is done using the raw X & R signals (Vx & Vr in the base unit). These are sent to the GoldTrax module via pins 20 & 22 of the bus, and digitized by the micro. The micro then sends an altered signal back to the base unit via pin 21 and that is combined with the original Vr, and the result should now be a ground balanced signal. There is no way to determine what the algorithm does from this, but George's description is pretty much the typical way to do AGT.

[dbanner]

AGT is done using the raw X & R signals (Vx & Vr in the base unit). These are sent to the GoldTrax module via pins 20 & 22 of the bus, and digitized by the micro. The micro then sends an altered signal back to the base unit via pin 21 and that is combined with the original Vr, and the result should now be a ground balanced signal. There is no way to determine what the algorithm does from this, but George's description is pretty much the typical way to do AGT.

Yes, I see Vx and Vr sent to the micro. It then returns an altered signal which is combined with original Vr.
The micro also communicates with a DAC which has 4 quadrant multiplying capability.