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Equinox Software Update 3.0...


GKman

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22 hours ago, Smithobx said:

I do not think anyone, other than Minelab, could make that statement as a definitive fact. I say that because on page 100 of the Explorer ll manual titled “Technical Specifications” it states: “Full Band Spectrum. Simultaneous 28 frequency transmission ranging from 1.5 kHz - 100 kHz.”  Unless Minelab is flat out lying (which I doubt) they have had the technology to transmit on up to 28 frequencies SIMULTANEOUSLY for at least 15 years. I don’t think transmitting on 5 or 6 frequencies simultaneously  would be a problem, especially considering Minelab has had an additional 15 years to refine the technology. I think the much maligned cloud illustration means exactly what it implies. This is just my opinion based on the above as I certainly would not wish to confuse opinion with fact.

In fact, Minelab HAS made that statement in reference to the Equinox.  It has been referenced by Steve and myself several times.  Here it is:

“How many simultaneous frequencies?” you may ask, wondering if this is a critical parameter. Minelab has been carrying out detailed investigations into this in recent years. Just as you can colour in a map with many colours, the minimum number to differentiate between adjacent countries is only 4 – a tough problem for mathematicians to prove, over many years. Similar to the map problem, it’s perhaps not the maximum number of frequencies needed to achieve an optimum result, but the minimum number that is more interesting. When it comes to frequencies in a detector, to cover all target types, how the frequencies are combined AND processed is now more important, with the latest detectors, than how many frequencies, for achieving even better results.

Efficient new technology = lower power = lighter weight = higher performance.”

Power efficiency is the driver to minimize the number of simultaneously transmitted frequencies.

Hey, don’t take my word for it.  Why don’t you talk to Carl Moreland (Geotech) about that.  He’s an actual detector design engineer and can explain to you the physics of power and energy required to create an electromagnetic signal or you can simply read his posts sprinkled throughout the forum on the subject and can explain to you the physics behind it.  

The 28 simultaneous frequency thing has also been long subject to debate associated with marketeers stretching technical truth right up to the breaking point.  The key word being “simultaneous”.  In fact, ML sort of alludes to this debate in another Equinox Technology Explained article comparing BBS/FBS to Multi IQ by stating:

“Hence – Multi-IQ is not a derivative or evolution of BBS/FBS. Multi-IQ is a DIFFERENT method of simultaneous multi-frequency metal detection. We could also debate “simultaneous” versus “sequential” semantics; however the really  detection ‘magic’ doesn’t happen with what is transmitted to and received from the coil alone. Remember, in Part 2, we discussed how frequencies are “combined AND processed” as being important for achieving better results?“

Yes, nothing conclusive here.  However, from these excerpts from ML’s own knowledge base articles it is pretty clear they are trying to back away from and downplay the importance of “how many“ and “what” fundamental simultaneously transmitted frequencies are in play with Multi IQ and focus those who are willing to do the deep dive into understanding that the real “magic” occurs in how the target signal is processed.

Or just believe what you want to believe, fine with me. I do not have any hidden agendas here against any entity. I am not here to convince you but you are refuting what I have written, so I feel obliged to at least provide the ML statements that support my position.  I like to seek technical truth to the extent these companies are willing to reveal it, believe detector tech should still follow the laws of physics regardless of how magical they may seem or be portrayed and have enough experience and/or technical credibility to effectively throw the BS flag at the marketeers when that is what I think I am hearing.  Simple as that. I’ve said what I want to say and am  pretty much done with this topic.

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That’s a bit of a hostile response to a fairly benign post. Chase, what happened to open discussion. Sorry if I touched a nerve. I guess no one should question your conclusions. I did not imply you or Steve had any agenda. Where did that come from? As much as I respect your knowledge you are not infallible. I’ve offered my OPINION and foot noted evidence. Done with this “discussion “.

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2 hours ago, Smithobx said:

That’s a bit of a hostile response to a fairly benign post. Chase, what happened to open discussion. Sorry if I touched a nerve. I guess no one should question your conclusions. I did not imply you or Steve had any agenda. Where did that come from? As much as I respect your knowledge you are not infallible. I’ve offered my OPINION and foot noted evidence. Done with this “discussion “.

First of all, it looks like some intervening posts have disappeared, so some of the context is gone.  Anyway...

Yes, I am not infallible, of course.  I make a lot of mistakes.  I am still learning how these things work, but am just interested in getting the facts straight. 

If you want to paint me as some sort of hostile villain, that is your prerogative and I'll own that.  I was offering counterpoint backed up by ML footnotes, also.  In the mean time, I encourage you and anyone else who want to do their own deep dive on the Equinox Multi IQ Treasure Talk Articles, to do so if interested.  I did my own homework and came to my own conclusions  I don't know if it will change anything in your mind, SB, but doing the deep dive and having what Geotech was saying regarding power efficiency finally clicked. But what is more important is what ML is saying about how it processes the target signal. ML has not made it easy to navigate the articles with their website redesign, so it is easiest to start with the 4th article and work backwards from there as that article links back to the remaining 3 articles.  Here is the link:  https://www.minelab.com/community/treasure-talk?f_author[]=301357.  Thanks.

 

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On 7/25/2020 at 9:17 PM, GKman said:

This should be fun to try out this weekend

Thank you for this GKman, I've installed this great update on my Foxy Noxy (600) and it seemed a fair bit stabler on the beach this morning.. i know it might be an odd coincidence but i was also digging deeper than usual.. where did you come across this update? it's not on the Minelab site..

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Crikey! just finished reading all the above reaction to this Equinox update and what Minelab is really up to.. Here's my conspiracy theory:

In this update Minelab didn't change a thing! When you watched your detector getting uploaded with the latest and greatest nothing was happening! Minelab is merely gauging the market to see if this sort of feature is popular, or what other frequencies folks are yapping about.. they do this by monitoring forums like this one.. they are looking for fools like me who say great things about non-existent updates (see above post).. it's all a great big placebo effect! (my Foxy Noxy really did work better, i swear).. with the information Minelab harvests from forums it's better able to judge how to market future detectors, without having to change a single thing on its current models!

Well there's my two bob's worth.. 

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8 hours ago, Erik Oostra said:

In this update Minelab didn't change a thing! When you watched your detector getting uploaded with the latest and greatest nothing was happening! Minelab is merely gauging the market to see if this sort of feature is popular, or what other frequencies folks are yapping about.. they do this by monitoring forums like this one.. they are looking for fools like me who say great things about non-existent updates (see above post).. it's all a great big placebo effect!

I can't tell how tongue-in-cheek your post is.  (It's difficult enough for me to understand you Australians' accents and fancy words.  How the heck can I be expected figure out your facetiousness??!!)

So, an evil psychology exeriment?  You gotta figure with all the dough ML is making on the Eqx and Vanquish (they've already partied away the GPX, GPZ, etc. profits) they can afford to hire a full time psychologist.

The downside to such a ploy is that they get negative responses to the placebo.  But their gamble that the pandemic has everyone desperate for something positive to say paid off.

  And to add further to their ruse, they throw in a 'new' 4 kHz single frequency which is really just a second (identical) 5 kHz channel and see what kind of differences the users report.  Heck, maybe multifrequency itself is just a hoax -- single frequency in disguise!!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Funny, that almost everybody states, that their machine runs less chatty and more stable - I have the exact opposite feeling. I wouldn't call it chatty or unstable, but it seems to be much more sensitive to small stuff and alloys, which results in a lot of one-way signals on some of my trashy beaches, which really makes it hard to distinguish between good and bad whilst coinshooting. Overall I feel like coins and round targets stood out more noticeably and pronounced with V2.x.

On the other hand, it seems to work / separate better on deep targets. I've found quite a lot of surprisingly old and deep coins, or coins on edge with the new version. I also found a lot more copper plated iron cored coins, which matches my first statement. I'll try to run lower sens levels now on the trashy areas, because my observations seem to be somewhat congruent to cranking the sens.

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10 hours ago, Sinclair said:

Funny, that almost everybody states, that their machine runs less chatty and more stable - I have the exact opposite feeling. I wouldn't call it chatty or unstable, but it seems to be much more sensitive to small stuff and alloys, which results in a lot of one-way signals on some of my trashy beaches, which really makes it hard to distinguish between good and bad whilst coinshooting. Overall I feel like coins and round targets stood out more noticeably and pronounced with V2.x.

On the other hand, it seems to work / separate better on deep targets. I've found quite a lot of surprisingly old and deep coins, or coins on edge with the new version. I also found a lot more copper plated iron cored coins, which matches my first statement. I'll try to run lower sens levels now on the trashy areas, because my observations seem to be somewhat congruent to cranking the sens.

Are you referring to Beach modes or do your observations include others (Park, Field, Gold)?

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I'm not sure if I should make a new post or post here but I have a problem with the updating my machine and I'm looking for some advice. I'm not sure what version I have but I know I put the first update on it. Now when I plug the detector into the computer it doesn't recognize it. Does the version of the update utility matter or are they all the same? When I did update before it worked perfect when other people were having problems, unfortunately that updater must have gotten deleted. I'm hoping that the reason it's not seeing it is because the detector is on an older version and the new updater doesn't recognize it.

I'm using a MacBook Pro with the latest version of OSX on it. It had an older version but I updated it because it said it needed to be version x and above and I had an older version on it. I haven't tried it on a Windows computer because I have no immediate access to a computer with Windows on it, I live in a small town in Costa Rica and not too many people have computers with the latest version of Windows unfortunately. I use only Linux (Ubuntu) but my wife has the MacBook. I've written to them to ask why they don't make a version of the updater for Linux, it says it's written in Qt and I would imagine it would be easy to compile for linux, especially since they have the updater for MacOS.

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