First Nox 900 Gold *updated*

[Daniel Tn]

No rain between Sunday and today...the rain actually hit while I was finishing up my last line today.  I had to kick the feet in gear and hoof it the 3/4 mile trip back to the truck and thus got soaked by rain blowing in sideways haha.  

 

Nox settings.  I played around with those a bit, especially swapping the modes.  Iron Bias, I got a little aggressive on and set it to 4 just because this place has deep iron and all the things lost swimming are shallow.  Recovery speed was also 4 to 5.  When I would hear the chatter from the ground changing, I would do a manual GB.  That is one thing I took note of as being unusual...the GB number itself.  It was single digits and would vary between 5 and 8.  I've not saw GB numbers that low before.  On the D2, the GB numbers were in the mid 80s.

[midalake]

25 minutes ago, Daniel Tn said:

Iron Bias, I got a little aggressive on and set it to 4 just because this place has deep iron and all the things lost swimming are shallow.  Recovery speed was also 4 to 5.  When I would hear the chatter from the ground changing, I would do a manual GB.  That is one thing I took note of as being unusual...the GB number itself. 

Humm OK

If you get the Equinox back out......

Since your mineral content is so high[black sand? iron?] I would treat it like saltwater hunting and use Beach 2. 

Especially if your ground changes go to tracking GB [this is a must] D2 as well......and if you think you are in a spot where the GB changes>slow down.

I actually think you are not running IB and recovery enough. Sensitivity RULES with the Equinox. Your sensitivity would be unacceptable to me. You can gain sensitivity by running IB and recovery at 6 both. [I run the FE version of IB]. 

Do you run the horseshoe on or off?  I would try horseshoe on>this really separates the sounds for the ferrous and nonferrous bins.  

Noise cancel with coil in the air holding very still. 

The NOX might feel like a new detector on these settings? 

[Daniel Tn]

I wouldn't think sensitivity would matter much for targets less than 4 inches deep. I recovered most targets by simply swiping the sand with my boot a couple of times.  One thing here locally...over driving the sensitivity will drive you crazy with falsing signals. Aka...high beams in heavy fog.  There never has been a clear definition of horseshoe on/off.  I always have ran the Nox to where I can hear everything, all the iron grunts. Whether that's on or off: I don't know what to call it.  When I hunted the beach the other day I couldn't settle on which mode was the best. This beach is relatively small.  I just Google Earth measured it and it's approx 85 yards long by 20 yards wide.  Fairly easy to cover. I spent 4 hours there with the Nox and about 2 hrs with the D2.  I would get a signal on the Nox and cycle through the programs to see if any particular one hit better...then dig to see what it was.  I dig everything with positive numbers. I drag my little shovel behind me as I hunt to give me reference lines as to where I've been.  Which made the D2 hunt even more puzzling, as everything I found was within my previous drag marks and boot prints. Here's a picture of the D2 finds.  Note the bottom row of nickels too.  The big ring is just tungsten carbide but is heavy. It was the deepest target.  I bit the bullet and ordered a 9 inch coil for the D2. I may go back Saturday with both machines and re-hunt it, and check signals with both machines. Keep in mind too...remember the original post where I said there were already other people hunting the beach when I first got there. Meaning it had already been hunted before I even got to it and there was still that much stuff missed.  I had to hurry on my D2 hunt because I knew there were storms due to arrive. As noted...I got drenched. 

[John77]

6 hours ago, Daniel Tn said:

Here's the update.  I hope Steve doesn't mind this.  

I went back to this beach/lake today but I brought the Deus 2 with me instead.  I just wanted to see if I had left something behind from my Nox hunt.  I hunted in Sensitive FT mode and didn't adjust anything other than volume. The wind was blowing 30 mph and was loud. Anyway, I balanced the machine and started right where I had been the other day. Literally my first signal was a ring. I couldn't believe it.  Had to be a fluke. Except it wasn't.  I have hunted this beach a lot and always have trouble with falsing from the ground and iron in the ground too.  The Nox wasn't immune to that as noted, I had to run the sensitivity down quite a bit.  All I had to do with the D2 was ground balance it.  I've never ran a machine as stable as it was...totally blown away and that first ring wasn't a fluke.  Stuff just kept coming up loud and clear.  I ended up with 4 ear rings, 2 necklace charms, 2 rings, and I couldn't tell you how many nickels and coins.  This was literally the same ground I hunted this weekend.  I got caught in a torrential rain storm and got soaked from head to toe. My finds bag is a glob of mud and sand with all the finds in the bottom...I've not sorted everything yet.  I think I found my freshwater beach machine....now to try and figure out WHY that much stuff was missed by me.  Nothing was deep...the deepest was one of the rings and it was just approx 4 inches. I think the signals just got lost in the ground noise and or masked.  

That's kinda depressing that the 900 missed all those great targets. My 900 will be here in a few days, I just found out about the XP Daus 2 WS6 Master Detector for $899, a few days after ordering the 900. If I would have known you could get a D2 for under a grand, I would have been all over it. Of the 900 missed all those targets, hopefully Minelab will put out a update, to address this issue. 

[palzynski]

On 1/4/2023 at 4:46 AM, Daniel Tn said:

.... All I had to do with the D2 was ground balance it.  I've never ran a machine as stable as it was...totally blown away and that first ring wasn't a fluke.  Stuff just kept coming up loud and clear.  I ended up with 4 ear rings, 2 necklace charms, 2 rings, and I couldn't tell you how many nickels and coins.  This was literally the same ground I hunted this weekend.  ...

Very good detector statistical ( and mathematical ) comparison : 2 outings in the same area , then comparing the finds/time at the end . This is the method that I prefer to compare detectors . Just the finds and nothing else ...

A little summary from your posts and pics if you dont mind :

- Eq 900 , 4 hours :    23 coins , 2 rings , 6 pulltabs 

- Deus2  , 2 hours :    20 coins , 2 rings , 6 pulltabs 

Which means a coin every 6mn for the D2 , and every 10mn for the Eq.

I am not really surprised by this , during my own comparison testings ( inland testing on a plowed field with a D1 and an Eq 800 ) I found the same ratio , twice more finds with the D1 than the 800 ( inland testing on a plowed field ) ... 

Now why such a difference ? Probably because your beach is infested with irons and the Deus has excellent separation and reactivity on targets .. Just my opinion ...  

Best Wishes for the New Year btw ... 🙂

[Rick N. MI]

That's impressive. What did the tiny jewelry tone sound like with the D2?

[ECris]

Congrats. Great spot to hunt and you will likely find more. I just got my 900 and will look to do work since it is warmer on the east coast. 

[midalake]

8 hours ago, Daniel Tn said:

I wouldn't think sensitivity would matter much for targets less than 4 inches deep.

If you have a mineral rich environment>>>>>Sensitivity is EVERYTHING if you can improve on it. 

In my experience [no matter the detector]  High mineral dirt cuts detection depth and the ability to identify targets by TID correctly. 

Detector settings are even MORE critical. Punching through high mineral dirt is the only way to improve on deep or fringe targets. Ever notice in high mineral dirt how there are "very few" fringe targets? {I do}  That is because the detector just plain cannot see them. 

The settings I recommended above come from more than 2 decades of water detecting in a moderate Black sand environment. 

[Daniel Tn]

I would agree, except for at this beach.  It's a man made freshwater beach that they import the sand to.  You have about 3 to 4 inches of sand. Underneath the sand is a thin layer of mud, not even a half inch deep and then you hit bedrock/shoal.  Everything hits the bedrock and stops. Nothing is deep.  In fact, the little 10k ring found with the Nox was one of the deepest targets found so I know it was getting down to the stuff. I know when I had a CTX3030, the screen would show you the recommended sensitivity settings and at this beach, the threshold was a continuous null and recommended sensitivity was never above 8...single digit 8.  It does have a lot of iron...before it was a lake, it was a timber logging site and camp.  I'm thinking that's probably the root of the issue...masking.  As noted, once things hit that bedrock, it stops. So you have a whole mixture of stuff sitting at about the same depth....logging chain pieces, spikes, etc.  That's exactly why I opted for the 5x10 coil in the first place. I knew nothing was deep and wanted something to hunt in the iron better.  BUT...seems like the D2 with 11" coil would have been at the disadvantage for that.  That's also why I opted for the program that I used on it...it was based on the Fast program with full tone audio.  I'll hit it again hopefully this weekend and bring both machines this time. 

[Steve Herschbach]

The Deus 2 does exceptionally well on beaches with high magnetite content, holding an accurate id about 15% deeper in my experience over an Equinox. Both hit the targets to the same depth, but the id shifts to ferrous on the Equinox sooner than Deus 2 by a substantial, not hair splitting margin. I've seen it, and looks like you just saw it also Daniel. Topic moved though since it's morphed into this versus that. Some irony here as I just posted this regarding the D2 and I......