How Many Combinations Of Eqx 800 Settings Are There?

[GB_Amateur]

As users know, there are a lot of setting options for the Minelab Equinox 800 (ditto for the 600, although not as many).  But how many affect the detector's performance and how many fall in the category of ergonomics?

I'm going to divide the settings categories into three groups:  those whose adjustment is standard fare, those whose adjustment procedure isn't obvious but can clearly affect the performance, and those which are more/less ergonomically oriented.  This is just my simple classification.  You can redo my calculations if you feel that one or more features belong in a different category, or if practically you can ignore a range of settings.  So here goes:

1) 'Standard fare' adjustments:

      a) Noise Cancel,

      b) Ground Balance.

2) Performance affecting options:

      a) Detect modes,

      b) Operating frequencies,

      c) Sensitivity (Gain),

      d) Recovery Speed,

      e) Iron Bias.

3) Ergonomic settings:

      a) Overall Volume,

       b) Threshold Level,

       c) Threshold Pitch (audio frequency),

       d) # of Target Tones,

       e) TID breaks,

       f) Target region tone pitch (audio frequencies),

       g) Target region tone volumes.

Let's start with category 2 above and include all possible settings.  The first two combine because not every frequency option is available in every Detect Mode.  By mode:

i) --> iv) Park 1, Park 2, Field 1, Field 2:  6 + 6 + 6 + 6.

v) --> vi) Beach 1, Beach 2: 1 + 1.

vii) --> viii) Gold 1, Gold 2:  3 + 3.

So total mode and frequency options is the sum of all these = 32.  Next is gain, of which there are 25 possible settings.  Then recovery speed = 8 settings.  Finally Iron Bias = 10 settings.  Thus we now can mulpultiply these:

32 modeXfrequency * 25 gains * 8 recoveries * 10 IB's = 64,000 possible setting combinations!  Can we simplify?  I think somewhat, yes.  Although there are 25 gains settings, probably the lowest 10 can be left off for 99% of search locations.  So replace 25 with 16 and were down to 41,000 (rounded).  Now I feel better.  😁

Correction:  Chase Goldman (response later in this thread) points out that Iron Bias setting only applies to Multi-frequency, not to the single frequency selections.  The 64,000 number above (assuming 25 gain settings) is actually 20,800 and the ~41,000 (assuming 16 gain adjustments) decreases to ~13,300.

There are a lot of ways to play around with this number.  Some will say that gain is simply a 'standard fare' adjustment since you set it to the highest level that background noise will bear.  But that is oversimplified in a trashy environment since targets (particularly ferrous vs. non-ferrous) are affected differently.  The flipside is that ground balance sometimes isn't optimally set (at the neutral point) and forget.  Native gold detectorists sometimes find better performance when adjusting a few ticks off neutral.  Number of target tones (and also target pitch and volume) can play into performance in a practical sense since the human brain can take advantage of (or be adversely affected by) these.

You can think of (and set) the Equinox 800 as a simple detector.  Just choose your favorite mode and then go with the defaults.  This isn't new, the same can be done with the White's V3i (although if that's your plan with the V3i then save a few buck and get the VX3).  But to get optimal performance you need to adjust the detector to the conditions, particularly site.  There's a lot of space to cover and it's not surprising that 1 1/2 years after its release people are still finding settings that beat (in certain environments) the canned (manual suggested or otherwise determined) settings.

[Chase Goldman]

Interesting take. 

Note that IB disappears and cannot be adjusted when in single frequency mode so it can't be directly multiplied the number of settable frequencies so that chages the total number of combinations by an order of magnitude.  In fact, I have previously argued that when you go to single frequency in any of the Park or Field modes you are essentially setting the detector up in a single mode as without Multi IQ you basically take away the "personality" of those modes.

Another "special case exception" - Note that with gold mode, threshold is true threshold (unlike the other modes) and it's setting is key to performance for weak signals.  Similarly, 50 tones obviates non-ferrous tone bin breakpoint settings.    Finally, black sand/mineralization overload transmit power reduction in the Beach modes can affect performance.

But point taken on the shear number of settings combinations. 

[GB_Amateur]

19 hours ago, Chase Goldman said:

Note also that IB disappears and cannot be adjusted when in single frequency mode....

Oops. That's a big one, something like a factor of 8 (correction, 3).  Good catch.  (Note:  calculations have been corrected in original post to reflect this.)  Is recovery speed adjustable in single frequency?

 

 

[Chase Goldman]

1 minute ago, GB_Amateur said:

Oops. That's a big one, something like a factor of 8.  (So down to ~5000?)  Good catch.  Is recovery speed adjustable in single 

Yes.

[Jeff McClendon]

Hi Chase,

I agree with you that the threshold is different in the Gold modes and does effect performance. At least from my experience prospecting it continues to null on any discriminated numerical target IDs rejected and it will get a bit unstable when running in ground grab/manual ground balance while encountering changing ground conditions. I have yet to notice any effect on weak signals since the Nox threshold tone and the actual target tone are separate and can even be set on different pitches which is actually a really good feature. For this important reason, the gold modes on the Nox are definitely a type of Mixed Mode.

 

Jeff

[GB_Amateur]

Realistically you don't need to search thousands of settings to find the optimum one.  (I was really thinking about testing -- when you don't know what the site will be so you try and anticipate or even cover all possibilities.)  In practice at a site you set one feature and then move on to the next, sequentially.  (You could and maybe should backtrack in some cases, such as sensitivity and noise cancel as those two can be intertwined.)  I thought of an analogy: 

Suppose your sight is limited (e.g. in a fog) and you are tasked with reaching the top of a mountain peak.  You have a compass and an altimiter.  Follow an N-S path until you max out the altimeter (when it's starts reversing you backtrack to its max).  Then change to an E-W direction and do the same.  If the mountain is simple (single peak, no valleys) you will find the top after these two steps.  With a detector, each setting is analagous to the N-S / E-W path so you can have more than two (more than two independent dimensions).

In reality, mountains aren't always so simple -- they have multiple peaks, saddles, valleys, etc.  A metal detector isn't a simple mountain, either, but you can do pretty well most of the time if you assume it is.

 

[Lacky]

Just gonna add for anyone you guys have freaked out with this discussion you can also just turn the thing on, noise cancel, adjust the sensitivity and go hunt. Other than playing around a little bit with modes I haven't changed anything and it works really well. I've spent 90% of my time in park 1, no changes, and been very pleased with the results. I plan on experimenting with some of that someday, but it isn't necessary to have a very effective detector.  I know you guys know that, but someone just learning about the equinox reading this may get the wrong idea.

[GB_Amateur]

20 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

You can think of (and set) the Equinox 800 as a simple detector.  Just choose your favorite mode and then go with the defaults.

 

5 hours ago, Lacky said:

Just gonna add for anyone you guys have freaked out with this discussion you can also just turn the thing on, noise cancel, adjust the sensitivity and go hunt.

 

[Lacky]

True, you did say that, but the rest of the thread was pretty intimidating to my simple beginner mind. No offense was meant by my stressing the obvious in case anyone needed it. 😀

[GB_Amateur]

18 minutes ago, Lacky said:

No offense was meant by my stressing the obvious in case anyone needed it. 😀

And no offense was taken.  I could have started out with a disclaimer instead of waiting until the end.  Often, though, it seems like beginning with a defensive statement taints the rest of the post.  If people only read the beginning and then exit they miss that last part.  In this case I trusted that wouldn't happen.  From the 'early voting' 😁 it appears others agreed with the need to explicitly state the simplicity aspects of the detector as you did.  So you provided a valuable service.