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Equinox 600 On Play Grounds


Edwardakis

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On 8/21/2019 at 12:39 PM, Jeff McClendon said:

I don't know where you live but here in Colorado the wood chip playgrounds have 6" to 1' of wood chips with a thick fabric weed barrier below that. The weed barrier is stapled into the ground along seams where the fabric overlaps. The staples are targets as are many targets below the weed barrier. I always turn my sensitivity down to 10 or less in these wood chip playgrounds, watch the depth meter carefully and only dig shallow, 6" or less, two way repeatable targets.

etc..

This was very informative and makes a lot of sense. Thank you for that. I will make sure to turn sensitivity way down next time and try again but in park 1.

 

Thank you!!

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On 8/21/2019 at 7:50 PM, Noah (FL) said:

Best advice is to place some common targets you want to detect near the poles and play with the settings until you can find them. Varying the distance from the poles and sensitivity of the detector will teach you what to listen for. 

Awesome advice, thank you. Good idea!

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 8/21/2019 at 12:39 PM, Jeff McClendon said:

I don't know where you live but here in Colorado the wood chip playgrounds have 6" to 1' of wood chips with a thick fabric weed barrier below that. The weed barrier is stapled into the ground along seams where the fabric overlaps. The staples are targets as are many targets below the weed barrier. I always turn my sensitivity down to 10 or less in these wood chip playgrounds, watch the depth meter carefully and only dig shallow, 6" or less, two way repeatable targets. I always hunt these tot lots in Park 1 because of the tiny pieces of aluminum foil that will come in from 2 to 12 on the Nox depending on size. Park 1 is definitely less sensitive to these tiny foil pieces but will still hit on small gold targets, no problem. Sensitivity at 10 or less will also let you get closer to play structures with your DD coil. Try to always swing into play structure poles and concrete curbing with the sides of your DD coil and not with the front tip. It will double beep easily on the poles or rebar and fool you. If you use the side of the coil to approach play structure poles, sidewalks and curbs you should only get one long beep. If not, you may have a target. Wood chips do not create much resistance for the transmit and receive signal so you can really turn down the sensitivity even to 5 and still do well around play structures, sidewalk edges and curbing.  Running your Nox at 16 will hit every larger target within 1' of your coil including the barrier staples, rebar, and other buried supports for the play structures. Toggle your horseshoe button to check for negative numbers and low tones in Park 1 or Park 2. You can also just use 5 tones to simplify things. 50 tones can be a bit much over aluminum targets, rebar and around play structure supports that have multiple alloys.

Park 2 in sand, gravel or wood chips over gravel and sand will pick up tiny foil, aluminum can shards and even tiny naturally occurring iron particles which can all give signals in the 2 to 14 range. Park 2 is much more sensitive to these smaller targets by design.

 

Jeff

I often get frustrated with the overload of signals from my 800, and this post got me thinking. Has anyone tried setting sensitivity to 1 and clearing an area, then switching to 2, then 3, etc. until they figure out what the difference in depth is between each setting? I’d go try it, but it’s 4 a.m. 

I started at sensitivity 20 when I got the machine and have slowly backed down to 15-17 to ease my sanity but now I’m thinking it may have been much more enjoyable learning the 800 in my trashy areas by doing the opposite. 

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You really don't want to be running the nox below 10.  I would run it in the low teens if you are looking for a lost surface target or are "sifting" through thick iron for shallow non-ferrous keepers.  The sensitivity setting is likely non-linear, so usable depth would likely drop off precipitously beliw 10 or so.  In dry sand. I have seen a 3 to 6" depth loss just going from 20 to 15.  So if you want to try that approach (most detectorists are't that patient), I would start at 10, minimum.

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Thanks for the reply Chase. I will start at 10 next time I hit the local park and see if that makes the experience more positive. In my area, I run into LOTS of rusty iron, old barbed wire, parts of old farm equipment, bolts, washers, the worst is rotten tin roof pieces. I have gotten better at avoiding some junk by lowering the sensitivity and getting a more accurate tid, so I’m wondering if the tid will continue to get more stable as I lower the sensitivity, or if I just lose depth from here on down. One way to find out I guess. Off to an old yard. 

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Hi Idanox.

I have done similar testing as Chase in the past in sand and recently in pea gravel. Both times I noticed a fairly steady .25 inch difference in each sensitivity increment in default Park 1 except for sensitivity 25, with the stock 11" coil on a clad dime, maximum depth was 11.5". So the difference between 25 and 21 was 1 inch. 21 to 17 was also 1". Same with 17 to 13, etc. So from sensitivity setting of 1 to 25 was about 6" difference.......... I do have a lot of EMI in my area and very mineralized soil.

Jeff

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1 hour ago, Jeff McClendon said:

Hi Idanox.

I have done similar testing as Chase in the past in sand and recently in pea gravel. Both times I noticed a fairly steady .25 inch difference in each sensitivity increment in default Park 1 except for sensitivity 25, with the stock 11" coil on a clad dime, maximum depth was 11.5". So the difference between 25 and 21 was 1 inch. 21 to 17 was also 1". Same with 17 to 13, etc. So from sensitivity setting of 1 to 25 was about 6" difference.......... I do have a lot of EMI in my area and very mineralized soil.

Jeff

Great info, thanks for sharing. I started doing some testing but got bored quickly and just started hunting. Best day yet with a 1955D wheat penny and a 1943S nickel. My first silver! Don’t mean to hijack the thread though. 

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I may be wrong but I thought I have heard (many years ago) some playgrounds use ground up or chipped up recycled tires under or mixed with wood chips, some being steal belted?

Where did I hear this, don’t know so I have no backing on this.

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11 minutes ago, Joe L said:

I may be wrong but I thought I have heard (many years ago) some playgrounds use ground up or chipped up recycled tires under or mixed with wood chips, some being steal belted?

Where did I hear this, don’t know so I have no backing on this.

You are not not imagining things.  Rubber tire mulch in playgrounds is a thing and is controversial from a health perspective.  That being said, the steel wire belt material is supposed to be removed from the rubber used for playground mulch, but the process appears to be only 99.9% effective at removing the metal.  This means that in tire rubber mulch playgrounds you may encounter some random bits of wire.

Here is an article on the topic:

https://www.playgroundprofessionals.com/surfaces/rubber/rubber-tire-mulch-hazard-or-harmless203

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7 hours ago, Chase Goldman said:

Rubber tire mulch in playgrounds is a thing and is controversial from a health perspective. 

Chase,

Last year our village council remove our playground and all the brand new rubber mulch because a child got a piece of wire and rubber stuck in his knee. It went in about an inch and had to be removed. Our new playground now has a river gravel about a 1/4 inch round and about 8 inches thick.

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