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Equinox Software Update 3.0...


GKman

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I didn't see you mention if you performed a factory reset after you upgraded to the new (v3.x) software.

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1 hour ago, GB_Amateur said:

I didn't see you mention if you performed a factory reset after you upgraded to the new (v3.x) software.

Have to say I forgot to reset prior the update, but did it few times after. Updated from 1.7.5.

Rolled back and will go there again.

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A little confused by your subsequent posts.  You've got to remember that there is no way for us to know what your situation or journey is unless you spell it out for us - so try to put yourself into the shoes of the reader and as a reader what you would expect to know or not know about how a stranger operates their machine.

4 hours ago, nordic said:

I always run in same modes and behaviour in my experience has changed

We had no way of knowing this was the way you operate until you told us.  So thanks for letting us know

 

4 hours ago, nordic said:

I usually detect in Park 2 or Field 1/2, multi, speed 3-4. I rarely use Noise Cancel as it is never an issue (I mean, I even run external gain amp without EMI issue), but had to try it few times, it didn't help to reduce EMI even with stock sensitivity 20. 

You need to noise cancel for each mode/frequency separately because Noise cancel is specific to each mode because each mode operates with a different frequency profile, it is not a global setting.  You never said whether you did this for each mode you were using.  Also, manual noise cancel is an option on the 800.  Since you don't use noise cancel on a regular basis, you should probably reconsider doing it as a matter of routine because there is also such a thing as "silent" EMI that can affect sensitivity and it takes all of 5-10 seconds.

 

4 hours ago, nordic said:

Field 1 was always very different to 2 - 1 being a good bit more cleaner/quieter, while Field 2 quite revealing and sparky, especially on rust. However, yesterday they performed pretty much identically - both sparky jumpy sharp.

Your previous description is how I would expect the machine to behave (Field 1 generally running less sparky than 2 because field one is weighted to lower frequencies vs. Field 2).  The later situation is not expected and either means you need to do a reset because the machine has become overly noise sensitive due to some update or settings glitch or the EMI noise field is now stronger where you are detecting.

4 hours ago, nordic said:

I don't use FE or F2 rejection (always 0, somehow I have no problem with iron), however F2 yesterday seemed unusable (way too sparky on every ferrous object and there is a lot of it there), while FE was more or less usual behaviour.

You mention in a subsequent post that you upgraded directly from 1.7.5 - which doesn't have F2 so you may not be very familiar with running with it.  We are learning more about F2 behavior with recent testing by some experienced Equinox users.  The upshot is that F2 seems to be both more effective at making mixed-ferrous signals become ferrous signals than FE (with higher settings, less falsing) and is also a lot less likely to cause adjacent target masking than FE.  This finding coming from Steve who likes to run with iron bias at 0.  The thing that doesn't make sense in your description is that F2 was "way too sparky" - I take it this means it was falsing more than FE?   You might want to consider running with higher F2 settings as there seems to be little downside o doing so, but that is your call.  Based on your later statement that you upgraded directly from 1.7.5, I can't tell if you are saying F2 behavior changed with the update (meaning you must have had some memory of how it behaved if you briefly ran 2.0 software - again, have no way of knowing whether you ran 2.0 at all, a little or a lot - all we know that you did your latest upgrade from 1.7.5) or if you were just comparing it to Fe.  Confused a little on this.

 

4 hours ago, nordic said:

The field with very porous soil (rain worms heaven) that I went to always used to GB to about 1, but it has a lot of coke in it, yesterday it balanced to 68!? Ah yes, the coil bump was very apparent too!

Yes, I have seen that behavior too after a soaking rain on a field that usually runs mild.  That is just a GB phase setting behavior thing due to moisture and probably doesn't have anything to do with the update.

4 hours ago, nordic said:

In my area, 5KHz always picks up lots of EMI, however 4KHz were quiet, nice. I only gave it a short run, the Nox was reacting to coke a lot in 4KHz, so I switched back to multi. I wonder if it didn't update correctly, I didn't expect to get such a different detector.

Yep, you pretty much covered both the upside and downside of running 4khz there.

In general, since the 2.0 update, what I have experienced is that ML is simply adding features (F2 and 4 khz) and pretty much leaving the existing features alone.  I did notice that going from the original software to 1.7.5 there was generally a lot more sparkiness vs. the original software (I think they tried to increase sensitivity for small high conductors in Multi) and falsing with the small coil.  I found that 2.0 alleviated this sparkiness somewhat for me, again anecdotally and it could be my imagination (it certainly did not make it worse).  Same goes for 3.0 vs. 2.0 - no noticeable increase in sparkiness or noise susceptibility in my experience.  So your observation that 3.0 is generally sparkier/noisier than 1.7.5 is surprising to me.  My suggestion is to do that factory reset after update just to set everything back to default and go from there.  Or stay at 1.7.5 if that meets your needs, glad ML gives us the option to upgrade or not based on whatever works best for our individual situations.  If you try it again with similar results after noise cancels and resets, then yeah, I definitely would roll back to a previous version.  Detecting opportunities are too short to put up with the frustration of an unstable machine.  Good luck.

 

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Chase, thanks very much for a detailed answer and time to reply. In regards to settings, I only wanted to say, that after having a lot of hours with the machine, any deviation from usual behaviour is noticeable, to me. I generally prefer to run the machine hot and don't mind a good bit of sparkiness, but this time it was noticeably much more of it that got my mind tired rather quick. By it I mean how Nox reacts when swinging over edges of rusty ferrous stuff, when IDs jump all over the range, but rather without any repeatability or pattern. 

Firmware wise, I went up and down countless times, spending a good bit of time in each. When I mentioned F2, you are right, it was my experience using v2 before going to earlier versions. Curiosity wins and I start juggling firmwares again, but tend to return to familiar 1.7.5. 

Thanks again

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14 minutes ago, nordic said:

Chase, thanks very much for a detailed answer and time to reply. In regards to settings, I only wanted to say, that after having a lot of hours with the machine, any deviation from usual behaviour is noticeable, to me. I generally prefer to run the machine hot and don't mind a good bit of sparkiness, but this time it was noticeably much more of it that got my mind tired rather quick. By it I mean how Nox reacts when swinging over edges of rusty ferrous stuff, when IDs jump all over the range, but rather without any repeatability or pattern. 

Firmware wise, I went up and down countless times, spending a good bit of time in each. When I mentioned F2, you are right, it was my experience using v2 before going to earlier versions. Curiosity wins and I start juggling firmwares again, but tend to return to familiar 1.7.5. 

Thanks again

Definitely go with what works.  All the Equinox firmwares are acceptable, it really is just a matter of some minor tweaks and features.  If any of the firmware versions was seriously flawed, I doubt ML would retain the ability to dial back to it.  Confidence in your machine goes a long way towards success with it, so stick with what works and don't fix what isn't broken.  Good luck and happy hunting.

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So after few days of struggling with the Nox even after rolling the software back, being overly sensitive, unstable, picking unusually a lot of EMI, finally narrowed it down to coil itself. Looks like it picked something odd inside the coil cover and after cleaning it everything returned to normal. I don't think I ever cleaned it or thought it can have any effect. Lesson learned. 

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6 hours ago, nordic said:

So after few days of struggling with the Nox even after rolling the software back, being overly sensitive, unstable, picking unusually a lot of EMI, finally narrowed it down to coil itself. Looks like it picked something odd inside the coil cover and after cleaning it everything returned to normal. I don't think I ever cleaned it or thought it can have any effect. Lesson learned. 

I was going to suggest that next if roll back didn’t help.  Not an uncommon problem.  Good job figuring that out.

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I gave v3 another try today. The Nox was stable, but unfortunately first impressions are not great - this is probably the first time I come back empty handed, and that place always gave something. I even tried digging all iffy signals. The contrast with 1.7.5 is that Nox was unusually quiet over mineralization, very little negative grunt, and I know it is there. Bit better with EMI. I think it falses more around iron. And it made me to dig 2 cast iron pieces, that were giving solid 20-21, this I did not like at all. It used to be 13. On those grounds 20-21 would usually be a coin under the coil. Something to think about.

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Excellent test you did phrunt! That puts a lot of the mystery about EMI and the new update to sleep.

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I'm not convinced that I'm not walking over  US silver coins at 8", 10" or the purported 12" considering the properties I've been on this past year and a half. I'm no novice so to preemptively answer those who will ask, the answer is Yes. In fact I've had the sensitivity set up and down the board and my detector can't see a 12" quarter but barely if I have the 15 inch coil hooked up and still the VDI registers nothing only "--". However that's not the subject I'm writing about, it's the 5khz and its EMI issue. Is it or is it not fair to say perhaps that sketchy 5 khz within the lower portion of the algorithm in Park 1 and Field 1 (in particular) being the thorn in my side? Since there's really no good use for it I'd like the ability to exclude it from these algorithms or from multi-frequency entirely. 

 

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