Jump to content

Clive Cylick Third Equinox Book - Skill Building With The Minelab Equinox Series Metal Detectors


Recommended Posts

Review of Clive Cylick third Equinox book – “Skill-Building with the Minelab Equinox Series Metal Detectors

I think this is the best book in his Equinox series. It is written for a large group of new Equinox users. It is not written for very experienced users of other Minelab products or the Equinox experts and there are a few of those experts around. It is written for and I think most helpful for the newbie who bought the Equinox 600 or 800 and experienced detectorists coming from other non-Minelab machines. The total newbies to metal detecting should buy a good beginners metal detecting book and all three of Clive’s Equinox books.

The book is packed with information that for me told me two major things: 1) why I was not getting the performance out of my Equinox that others were reporting and 2) how to make the Equinox do what I need it to do to perform at a level it was design to perform. I am not going into a lot of detail because that would be like quoting everything in the book. I will tell you I learned what my biggest problem was with me and my 800. By playing around with all of the features without not truly understanding the physics behind most of the settings I was operating with a detector that was often greatly de-tuned or not balanced. A balanced Equinox means selecting the proper modes for your type of hunting and small settings adjustments to make the 800 a little more balanced.

The Equinox engineers made the different modes for park, field, beach and gold very balanced. In most cases just using the default mode best for your type of hunting will serve you will. Only until you truly understand the settings and how to effectively use them you should leave them alone. This is why just copying other detectorist’s settings will get you into trouble. Their settings are for their environment, not yours. Keeping in mind that sensitivity (gain), recovery speed, and iron bias all affect each other. So, you really need to make small adjustments of all in a manner that none or many of these adjustments cause an unbalanced detector.

Sounds complicated? Yes it is. But it becomes a lot less complicated after reading Clive’s third Equinox book carefully. The book is packed full of information on the above topics. I was surprised to learn that even the detector’s volume level affects your ability to hear deep targets and not buy turning up the volume which is what most of us would think to do. I recommend all three of Clive’s books for the novice as well as a good metal detecting beginners book. For the more experienced detectorists who have never use a Minelab detector the third book will probably be enough to get you over the Equinox learning curve hump.

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites


Nice review!

I think you hit on a phenomena that I've certainly noticed.   People seem to have this desire to muck around with all the settings on their Equinox to turn it into something it's not, or as you noted, effectively detuning it.  I've now seen an "E-Trac" and "CTX" program out there, as well as a multitude of other recommended "programs' to turn the Equinox into something else.  Why?  It's an Equinox, not an Etrac, CTX or whatever you were previously used to using.  If you can't get past that previous detector, you should stick with it!

I've had great success with my EQ800 by using the stock programs.  Thus far the only things I've tweaked are the audio pitch to max (gives those deep silver coins a sound all of their own), I always use 50 tones, and I did recently upgrade to the latest firmware to leverage their new FE2 mode for hunting iron ridden sites.  

So far, my EQ800 has paid for itself 10 fold!  Right out of the gate I dig a beautiful 18K ring loaded with rubies, sapphires and emeralds thinking I was digging a nickle.  I've dug dozens of seated half dimes, dimes and quarters with it, including a few that collectively book at 4x the cost of the detector, and recently dug a rare $1 U.S.  It's done well both with extreme depth as well as hunting at relic sites, and between it and my Multi Kruzer, there's pretty much nothing I cannot tackle.  

 

 

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Clive hit on that pphenomena first by many questions from Equinox users sent to him. I just happened to stumble across it a couple of weeks ago when in frustration I did a factory reset and just hunted in field1 and started producing results in the same area.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 3/5/2020 at 1:53 PM, Bill (S. CA) said:

Some of you may recall when the Equinox came out Steve's advice was to use the stock programs which he said were quite good.

 

I wish I had listened to him. Instead I wasted time messing around with all the features and the results were on many hunts I had a  de-tuned Eq 800 not working well for me. I have learned my lesson.

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

You will know when you have it set correctly for your hunt.  It will pick up the smallest and deepest signals.  On the beach I dig these signals.  On fields I cycle through the frequencies to determine if to dig or not. The tiny can slaw is the worst. 

Sometimes when people ask me how deep it detects I answer "Too deep". 😉

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is an interesting subject and I'd like to hear from others on this.

Do you think T Dankowski's settings detunes the Nox?

I run his slow recovery, high sens, 0 IB settings, etc, etc

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...