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Are All 800's Created Equal?


Tometusns

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One other consideration...  were all of you swinging over the target in the same direction?  If one coil crosses over the target in one direction and another coil crosses over the target at 90 degrees from the first coil direction you may get different results, much the same as if you “tested” the target from those two different directions with your detector. Think of a coin on edge example.  I'm also assuming all your coils were passing over the ground at the same height.

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Even with identical settings, to be a fair comparison the ground balance and noise cancel settings should be manually set to be the same. Also the same person should swing the different detectors so the swing speed, coil height, etc is more consistent.  

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3 hours ago, ColonelDan said:

I wondered about this awhile back so I tested my two EQX800s in my test garden. 

I set them up exactly the same, noise canceled each and kept them apart so they would not interfere with each other.  The results; they performed exactly the same ...which actually surprised me somewhat.  I expected some small degree of variance but that wasn't the case with my two. 👍

ColonelDan, that's great and that's what you would think/hope should happen. I may just be over thinking it and as many have stated there are so many things coming into play that could make a difference. 

 Thanks for the replies. It's probably nothing to be concerned about. Tom

 

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17 minutes ago, Tometusns said:

ColonelDan, that's great and that's what you would think/hope should happen. I may just be over thinking it and as many have stated there are so many things coming into play that could make a difference. 

 Thanks for the replies. It's probably nothing to be concerned about. Tom

 

There IS A DIFFERENCE in coils in certain conditions. My testing is not complete yet. 

That is why I am running Ads to purchase coils with broken ears to further this testing!  My goal would be to get about 4 coils. That should give me enough info. 

If anyone see's or knows of broken ear coils available, please let me know!    Dave 

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2 hours ago, midalake said:

If anyone see's or knows of broken ear coils available, please let me know!    Dave 

Dave,

    I'm sure the ML repair center has plenty!! I know they have three of mine!!🤣👍👍

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2 hours ago, Joe D. said:

Dave,

    I'm sure the ML repair center has plenty!! I know they have three of mine!!🤣👍👍

Ya, a couple of mine too. I fought tooth and nail to get them to send me my old broken ones back. All they could say is NO.  Even offered to pay extra for shipping. 🤬

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Next time I suggest to completely turn off the other detectors whilst checking the target. I don't know for sure, but I sometimes have the subjective feeling, my machine doesn't perform as usual, when I'm out with a friend (Nox 800, too).

Also I can't imagine noise cancelling 5(!) machines really works all that great. The last one will have the best chance to run stable, and probably messes up the cancelling of the others, because it changes its frequency, which the other machines cancellations relied on. I hope it's understandable, what I'm trying to say 😏

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There could be multiple factors for one hunter with the same detector not being able to hear another hunter’s target, and these factors I will explain below don’t even take into account any hardware differences (i.e. hot machine) we may think those detectors have over the same model detector.

For many years, when I wasn’t hunting solo, I typically would go out on hunts with 1-3 of my “Minelab” buddies.  We would compare numerous deep/iffy targets throughout the day.  Even though most of our Minelab machines were similarly set up, sometimes a single software setting could be the difference of being able to hear the other hunter’s target.

Additionally, there’s some crosstalk when two Minelab noise channel cancelling machines are in close proximity to each other, even though the noise channels are different on each machine.  Also, when you get within a few feet of your buddy’s machine, each coils’ magnetic fields will stifle/interfere with the other.  When all of my buddies were using Sunray inline probes, we would flip the toggle switch on our probes to engage the probe when we would stand within a few ft of each other so our main coils would be deactivated (discharged) and the interference in our headphones would be silent.
 

Lastly, you could have two identical machines with the same settings, and one machine still may not be able to hear the deep/iffy target the other machine can hear because of the swing cadence (speed) at which each hunter is swinging over that target.  I’ve seen this phenomenon countless times...Many times, hunters will swing their coils too slow or too fast and they’ll have a difficult time getting a repeatable signal on the target in question. The proper swing (wiggle) cadence needs to be learned while “scrubbing” the ground with the bottom of your coil (no air space between coil and ground).  It just takes a little practice to figure out how fast/slow to swing (wiggle) your coil over a target (especially when it comes to the “on the fringe of max depth” targets) in order to get a faint, repeatable signal.  Ground conditions from different hunting sites can have some effect on how fast/slow your swing cadence is.  Once you figure this out, hopefully at the beginning of your hunt instead of the end😅, you won’t be missing out on targets other skilled hunters are digging up behind you.

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I have owned and used five different Equinox 800s and 600s. I have tested all of them on my test garden and I keep good records. When setup exactly the same which is possible to do, all five detected the targets in my test garden identically. 

Are all Equinox 800s the same........hopefully.  Are all Equinox 800 (and 600) users the same.....definitely NOT.

So, next time you are out with you friends at least sweep targets in the same mode which has been reset and have the same settings including ground balance, noise cancel, iron bias, recovery speed, sensitivity, number of tones, the same tone breaks, volume levels and discrimination settings. Plus, listen to the targets the same way such as through the external speaker and like someone already mentioned, sweep the targets in the same direction, at the same height, at the same swing speed, with the same swing length and with the same coil and hopefully the same software version.

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