Minelab, What The Heck Did You Do To My Equinox?????

[dogodog]

3 hours ago, Jeff McClendon said:

I had my 900 setup for 5 tone operation with tone breaks set at -19 to 0 for iron, 1 to 23 for low conductor aluminum foil, small can slaw and small gold jewelry, a small US nickel bin from 24 to 27, all sorts of pull-tabs and aluminum trash and zinc pennies from 28 to 69, and the rest of the US high conductor coins and silver jewelry bin from 70 to 99. I also double checked many of the clad dimes and copper pennies before digging using the AT full tones audio setting.

Jeff, I had the same feelings about the 900 as you in the beginning. I could not for the life of me, to break pennies out of the clad /silver dime range. After a week of fooling with different breaks I ended up with this. T1 - 0,  T2 - 58,  T3 - 77,  T4 - 92.  This allowed the penny tones to stay below the good stuff (silver). The T3 setting is the most important number for me. My soil is iron rich shale/clay so I'm used to bouncy ID's. The key for me is tone, I only use ID's as a reference as they are not generally  accurate. For some reason tones just do not lie on the Equinox machines. Try the T3 77 break and see if your machine improves. And check your clad dimes and pennies in Park 1, Not in full tones, It can make a difference. I will say the 800 is way more stable but the 900 works really well once you get past some of the strange setting adjustments. In my experience the 900 just does not work well with 5 recovery speed, for me it likes 3. Also it seems to respond to single frequency much better. Once I got the, it's an 800 out of my head is when I started to set up the 900 differently. Don't give up yet, You will get it ironed out. 

[Jeff McClendon]

19 minutes ago, dogodog said:

Jeff, I had the same feelings about the 900 as you in the beginning. I could not for the life of me, to break pennies out of the clad /silver dime range. After a week of fooling with different breaks I ended up with this. T1 - 0,  T2 - 58,  T3 - 77,  T4 - 92.  This allowed the penny tones to stay below the good stuff (silver). The T3 setting is the most important number for me. My soil is iron rich shale/clay so I'm used to bouncy ID's. The key for me is tone, I only use ID's as a reference as they are not generally  accurate. For some reason tones just do not lie on the Equinox machines. Try the T3 77 break and see if your machine improves. And check your clad dimes and pennies in Park 1, Not in full tones, It can make a difference. I will say the 800 is way more stable but the 900 works really well once you get past some of the strange setting adjustments. In my experience the 900 just does not work well with 5 recovery speed, for me it likes 3. Also it seems to respond to single frequency much better. Once I got the, it's an 800 out of my head is when I started to set up the 900 differently. Don't give up yet, You will get it ironed out. 

First, I can’t use single frequency here where I detect whether it’s on the 900, 800, Legend or Deus 2. That just makes the target ID instability much worse. I have to have accurate target IDs and tones or the detector is worthless to me. Absolutely impossible to dig it all where I detect most often for coins and jewerly.

Setting upper tone breaks where you suggest will not change the fact that clad dimes and copper pennies are reading from 68 to 98 on the 900 depending on what direction the coil approaches them and if they are 3” or deeper. Equinox 800 on those same targets at that depth- clad dimes are a consistent 24 to 26 and copper pennies are 26 to 30 at worse using Park 1 Multi no matter where I set tone breaks or recovery speed.

I don’t want the Equinox 900 to detect the same as an 800. I want it to be BETTER than the 800 when it comes to actual detecting.

[Steve Herschbach]

Great reporting Jeff, thanks.

I have always and to this day still think the Equinox was the machine that made the clear and undeniable jump beyond what came before. My expectations for anything since have been minimal, and everything I’ve seen has told me I was not wrong in that.

[phrunt]

If they keep the 800 alive and kicking after stock runs out they may build it into the 900 body and provide the new model 11" tougher ears coil with it, if they do that I'd seriously consider buying a new 800, especially if it remains cheaper than the 900.

[UT Dave]

Not too different, with high conductors, so far, for me, with the Manticore.  But, maybe not quite as bad as you are seeing in your dirt Mr. McClendon.  I'm only about 50/50 calling copper Memorials from clad dimes and 75/25 calling clad quarters from pennies or dimes so far with the Manticore (but I think I'm improving).  But, I'm digging all those anyway.  So, it hasn't bothered me much.

Low conductors though, different story for me with the Manticore vs. what you are seeing with your 900.  For me, my parks and beach, the Manticore calls nickels quite noticeably easier than I do with the Nox 800.  And I think the 800 calls them pretty well.  They only occasionally smear across three digits, but usually only two and often only one.  The actual digits vary slightly by dirt and EMI.  But the high end of the worst case three digit smear is below where almost all the square tabs I've dug bounce into. 

Lead bullets, same thing, pretty tight, solid VDIs.  Lead .22LR slugs are common on the beach I go to and they are usually only covering two or three digits even at 8" deep in heavy salt.  

The only gold ring I've found so far with the Manticore was as solid a VDI as I have got with the machine, a non quavering 25 from two directions.

And, for that matter, square tabs hold a pretty solid VDI, just higher than nickels 😁.

Mid conductors don't seem too bad either, in between low and high as far as VDI stability goes.  Jacketed pistol bullets are a common target in the 40's and they are usually pretty tight on the VDI.

But copper pennies and up, I can't call as accurately yet with the Manticore as I can with the Nox 800.  Worth mentioning, I never did get super accurate calling copper pennies from clad dimes with the 800 either, but a bit better than I'm doing so far with the Manticore.  But same as you are seeing, anything between 70 and 90 is kind of a crap shoot as to copper penny, clad dime, clad quarter or silver coin or .925. 

I do feel like the high conductors, sloppy VDI's notwithstanding, "jump out" of aluminum trash stronger with the Manticore too though.  Not that it really locks on hard to a high conductor comingled with square tabs, but it's easy to repeat the signal and narrow it down - the speed of the machine showing itself I suppose.  End result being, with only about 25 hours of park hunting with the Manticore, I do feel that if I'm wanting to cherry pick, the trash ratio is certainly no worse, and probably slightly better than I do with the 800.  I'm just less sure of what the non-trash will be before I dig it.

None of which contradicts what you are seeing with the 900 on high conductors!  And I'm definitely not trying to tell you how to run your machine.  Just trying to share how I'm adapting to similar behavior with the Manticore.  And, 

- Dave

[Jeff McClendon]

I realize that many detector users do not have to worry too much about target ID accuracy or tone bin accuracy. Sometimes I don't have to worry about it either, like when I'm gold prospecting or at the beach. As long as I get a hit or can get a hit with enough information for a ferrous vs non-ferrous determination, I'm good to go.

If you have that kind of freedom to dig just about everything that beeps, the Equinox 900 will be just fine.

At least 75% of my hunts do not have that kind of freedom. Instead I am trying to pick my way through thousands of modern aluminum and steel alloy trash targets in public areas with high iron mineralization in order to find at least some modern USA coins, maybe some older USA coins and some silver and gold jewelry too.

USA zinc pennies can be a challenge on any of these newer high gain SMF detectors like the Equinox models, Manticore, Legend and Deus 2. I fully expect some major weirdness on zinc Lincolns. I don't expect weird target ID related stuff on US modern nickels, modern clad dimes, 95% copper Lincoln Memorial pennies, modern clad quarters or older copper and silver USA coins and I also don't expect any weird stuff on most regularly occurring aluminum and steel trash.  I don't get any from the Equinox 600/800, Legend and Deus 2. Their target ID responses and tones on those US coin targets and common occurring trash are consistent and very predictable even in close quarters with aluminum trash if those coin targets are well within the depth of detection.

That is simply not the case with my Equinox 900 which is really too bad. I did not buy it as a specialty detector to only be used for certain types of dig it all hunting. I bought it to replace my Equinox 800 and to do most of the heavy lifting between it, my Deus 2 with 9" coil and my Legend. 

A few months ago I posted a comparison that included a question that went something like "Between the Equinox 800/900, Deus 2 and Legend, which one has to go and which ones get to stay?" At the time I thought for sure the one to go would be Deus 2. That has totally flipped. Deus 2 isn't going anywhere and neither is my Legend. I already sold one of my 800s to buy the 900. My remaining 800 isn't going anywhere either after experiencing this 100 hour test with the 900. Unless the 900 gets a well needed target ID stability software update soon.......it's going bye, bye.

[phrunt]

There was a rumour for the Manticore at least a software update is coming to calm the stability of ID's down,  I hope it happens as my intention was to stop using my 800 and migrate onto the Manticore.  If they can do it for the Manticore you would think they could for the Nox 900.

I guess we wait and see, I'm all good though, I'm very happy with my Manticore other than the ID stability being a backwards step from the Nox 800.  In every other way so far I'd prefer it over the Nox 800.  Tiny gold is not yet determined without the smaller coil.

At the moment my best method of having more stable ID's with the Manticore is lowering the sensitivity right down, and it does work, in lower sensitivity it's far more stable with ID's, a little worse than the Nox but not too bad at all, and still maintains the depth very well, I have no fear running sensitivity of 16 out of 35 that I will miss deep silvers, I'm not sure if the Nox 900 works the same way on the sensitivity scale where lower sensitivities are so powerful by comparison to the Nox 800 where if I tried lower sensitivities like that I'd loose the deep coins quickly.   Beach mode in a field situation also improves ID stability for some reason and again, still hits the deep stuff fine but can be run at higher sensitivity levels without going unstable on the ID's.

[Jeff McClendon]

4 minutes ago, phrunt said:

There was a rumour for the Manticore at least a software update is coming to calm the stability of ID's down,  I hope it happens as my intention was to stop using my 800 and migrate onto the Manticore.  If they can do it for the Manticore you would think they could for the Nox 900.

I guess we wait and see, I'm all good though, I'm very happy with my Manticore other than the ID stability being a backwards step from the Nox 800.  In every other way so far I'd prefer it over the Nox 800.  Tiny gold is not yet determined without the smaller coil.

At the moment my best method of having more stable ID's with the Manticore is lowering the sensitivity right down, and it does work, in lower sensitivity it's far more stable with ID's, a little worse than the Nox but not too bad at all, and still maintains the depth very well, I have no fear running sensitivity of 16 out of 35 that I will miss deep silvers, I'm not sure if the Nox 900 works the same way on the sensitivity scale where lower sensitivities are so powerful by comparison to the Nox 800 where if I tried lower sensitivities like that I'd loose the deep coins quickly.   Beach mode in a field situation also improves ID stability for some reason and again, still hits the deep stuff fine but can be run at higher sensitivity levels without going unstable on the ID's.

A joint Manticore and Equinox 700/900 ID stability update would be great.

I have not experimented with running the Equinox 900 below 18 versus up to 25 in order to determine depth loss versus stability since the ground only fully thawed out here about 2 weeks ago. I will look into that. However, that is not a permanent solution.

I have heard many users recommend running Beach mode to help ID stability on some targets.

There is so much magnetite in the soil where I detect that running Equinox, Legend or Deus 2 Beach in their Wet Sand modes causes too much automated lowering of sensitivity to be a realistic option.

[palzynski]

2 hours ago, Jeff McClendon said:

... A few months ago I posted a comparison that included a question that went something like "Between the Equinox 800/900, Deus 2 and Legend, which one has to go and which ones get to stay?" At the time I thought for sure the one to go would be Deus 2. That has totally flipped. Deus 2 isn't going anywhere and neither is my Legend.

I dont have a 900 but I did notice in the past that it sometimes needs several months and even more than a year to correctly assess a detector .  Drawing conclusions after only 10 or 20 hours is risky even if tempting as there is a strong demand for tests and reports when a new detector is released ... I often made this error in the past ,  I am much more careful now ... 🙂

100 hours testing like you did is the right way to do the job , and there are very few people to do that.  Thanks for your report ... 

[phrunt]

I have confidence they will fix it, especially on the 900, it's just a blinged up 800 and includes extra Target ID's with the same software tweaked a bit, it's instability should only be jumping around an extra three or four numbers over what you'd expect with the 800 with it's larger ID range.  Something more is going on by the sounds of it, the Manticore with less ID's should be even more stable than the 900 but it doesn't sound like it is.

I'm sure all these detectors share a lot of the code and hardware with each other.

If anyone recalls I was constantly commenting how stable the Nox 800 and Vanquish are in my soils, to the point I cherry picked almost constantly and was rarely wrong with my prediction of which coin it was going to be that popped up.  I can't do that with the Manticore, I can't have that confidence.  Some may say I need to learn the Manticore, I didn't need to learn the Nox or Vanquish, I turned them on and found coins with great success based off the target ID's alone.   I don't need 100 hours to see that a coin in mild soils with no junk is not as easy to find accurately as it once was, I've done side by sides with the Nox 800 and Vanquish on targets against the Manticore, I know which works best at identification in my conditions, in saying that I've had a lot more than 100 hours now but I knew long before 100 hours, in 10 hours perhaps.

I hope they can improve it, but I fear with detecting there seems to be a bit of give and take, they gave other improvements maybe at the detriment of Target ID's.  The thing that bothers me the most about this is they were and are still marketing the Manticore as having improved Target ID's over the Nox 600/800... and that to me in my conditions which for most detectors are the easiest conditions around is simply not true.

I would not trust accepting and rejecting targets with such unstable Id's.

I could do it down to the notch on the Nox.

If they can just fix this the Manticore is near perfection for me, it's the only gripe I have with it although a rather big one, if they fix it I'll be happy as can be.  Everything else about it is fantastic, they just weren't capable of hitting a home run on this one and the original Equinox is the detector that was the real game changer.  I believe the Manticore is very overpriced considering its shortfall.  Please fix it Minelab, at least acknowledge it and say you're working on a firmware update to resolve it, give your customers some indication that you care.  At the moment those singing loudly with disappointment are damaging your sales far more than saying we didn't quite get it right and we are working on a firmware update to fix it.