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My Tips On Nugget Detecting With The Minelab Equinox


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My experience is that knock sensitivity occurs if the manual or auto GB reading is high.  I first noticed then when I started using the Equinox in highly mineralized ground that forced the GB number high (you can't necessarily make a direct correlation to the GB number and the level of mineralization, but in this case, I knew that the ground was mineralized).  Anyway, I noticed coil bump sensitivity whenever I hit a corn stalk.  In fact, I could just shake the coil in the air and get noise due to the coil vibration.  I thought I had a coil problem, but when I switched to a mode that had GB at the 0 default setting the bump sensitivity went away.  I lowered the GB setting manually on the mode I was using (I believe it was Field 2) and the bump sensitivity went away.  I subsequently noticed that the "2" modes (Park 2/Field 2) and Gold mode were most sensitive to this phenomenon, which makes sense because these are the "hottest" (most powerful) modes, also. 

So, similar to what phrunt was driving at, see if lowering the GB setting makes a difference.  Unfortunately, if you need to keep GB set where it is for optimal GB you may be stuck, but perhaps you can try running at default GB (in Multi IQ)  of 0 or at least a manually set lower GB setting and see what happens because the Equinox in Multi IQ is pretty good at compensating for a less than ideal ground balance.

HTH

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6 hours ago, phrunt said:

Have you done a ground balance? I sometimes get knock sensitivity in some rare locations if I don't manually ground balance. In my experience knock sensitivity doesn't hurt the performance but can cause you fatigue 🙂

I am sure you've tried lowering the gain.

Yep, auto ground balanced and tracking on in gold mode, auto ground balanced in park mode. Sensitivity has little effect. I've lowered it to under 10 and the knocking didn't go away. I assumed dealing with the knocking was the better choice.

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3 hours ago, Chase Goldman said:

My experience is that knock sensitivity occurs if the manual or auto GB reading is high.  I first noticed then when I started using the Equinox in highly mineralized ground that forced the GB number high (you can't necessarily make a direct correlation to the GB number and the level of mineralization, but in this case, I knew that the ground was mineralized).  Anyway, I noticed coil bump sensitivity whenever I hit a corn stalk.  In fact, I could just shake the coil in the air and get noise due to the coil vibration.  I thought I had a coil problem, but when I switched to a mode that had GB at the 0 default setting the bump sensitivity went away.  I lowered the GB setting manually on the mode I was using (I believe it was Field 2) and the bump sensitivity went away.  I subsequently noticed that the "2" modes (Park 2/Field 2) and Gold mode were most sensitive to this phenomenon, which makes sense because these are the "hottest" (most powerful) modes, also. 

So, similar to what phrunt was driving at, see if lowering the GB setting makes a difference.  Unfortunately, if you need to keep GB set where it is for optimal GB you may be stuck, but perhaps you can try running at default GB (in Multi IQ)  of 0 or at least a manually set lower GB setting and see what happens because the Equinox in Multi IQ is pretty good at compensating for a less than ideal ground balance.

HTH

Interesting,  I hadn't considered un-ground balancing it. I assumed that would make hitting the ground worse. I'll definitely play around with that idea.  Thanks!

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While I'm asking, how much does going to the 6" coil reduce the knocking? I imagine I'll go that route by next year.

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5 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

A lot. I don’t have any way to quantify that, it’s just been my experience using the smaller coil.

A lot is good! 

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My experience with Coil Knocking on the EQ-800 is this.  The detector coil knocks much easier than most other detectors I have used.  But at the same time, it also finds more too.  The large 15" coil is by far the worst and when I use it to hunt in the gold fields I am running a SENS around 17.  With the stock coil the bump knock is not as bad and I run my SENS usually around 19.  As Steve mentioned, the small 6" coil is much more stable with not as much bump knock and I can run higher SENS. 

Now a couple of my Field Staff run as close to 25 SENS and just deal with the bump knock.  We all find gold so not sure who is doing it best or right wrong.

I'll try Chase's knowledge of the Ground Balance and see what happens for me at my sites.

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Ive had the 800 for about 2 weeks now and have been nugget hunting once.  Ive found that runing in gold 2, sensitivity 18-22 that the coil bump noise is pretty bad while in multi freq.   Switching to 20 or 40 makes it much more resistant.  Havent tried any other modes yet. Im running the 6" coil.  

Does this sound similar to others experiences?

The depth on small stuff in multi freq and all metal is amazing in my ground. The falsing doesn't bug me much  I just slow it down and put up with the noise. 

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4 hours ago, phrunt said:

Here is a nugget I found yesterday, I was taking a dig it all approach as I know I have to, I blocked out -9,-8 and later in the day also 12 and 13 as the hot rocks in this location came up those numbers but you'll see how this gold nugget even though a decent size came up clearly as ferrous.

JW's GPZ even struggled to see this nugget, virtually had to touch the coil.   The nugget is paper thin.

This isn't a one off, it happens often although usually with much smaller nuggets.

This was after I found it obviously, just dropped it back on the ground to show it's ID's.

I tried FE2 at default 6, virtually made no difference to the ID's over the default settings on Gold 1.  Waving the coil over the ground without the nugget there had no target's.

Nice golden gem there Phrunt.  I have dug a few nuggets that read negative most of the time, but on occasion I get the 0 or 1.  When I see the occasional 0 and 1, sometimes a #2...but most are mixed in with negative numbers, I check it out and especially in a known small gold area.  On a side note, did you happen to swing over the same spot as you pulled the little gold nugget in the video, to see if there was another target around it.  We have found hot rocks and cold stones to throw the VDI #'s off, if near, below, next to and or on top of a nugget.  I'll share a nice one I found with my EQ-800 in the next week probably.  It's a dandy for sure.  Thanks for sharing.

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I have plenty of pickers that have came up with minus figures, but saying that a lot of them have iron oxides coted on them. All of hunting is done in streams on bedrock, and as a result the bedrock can mask the target and result in lower minus VDI's. In fact I have found pickers that came up at -9. When I get a -9 VDI, I check the target in pinpoint, if I get a positive pinpoint I will dig and 9 times out of 10 it will be a picker.  if I get a "null" in pinpoint, with experience I leave it be.

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