Steve Herschbach

Most forums have rules against linking to other forums and so they will not allow their members to link here. Another reason why I started this forum. Forums should be about sharing information and prohibiting relevant links is censoring useful information. On this forum I want people to provide links anytime information elsewhere is mentioned, and no matter if that is another forum or not.

I have only waded once with the 800 so far. I thought it was very easy to swing at wading depths. But I have been swinging an ATX in the water the last few years so am not the best judge on that. I have seen one guy on TreasureNet relentlessly ripping the Equinox as having horrible ergonomics and how Minelab should be embarrassed. I have to say that’s just nuts. I have swung a lot of detectors, and while Equinox is not perfect when it comes to ergonomics it would easily rate in the top few percent of all detectors I have used ever. Sure the thing is a little nose heavy but frankly almost all detectors are, and in the case of Equinox it sure is minimal. In fact it for me is just right as it makes it very easy for me to swing without an arm strap since my elbow stays firmly in the arm cup.

It was announced ages ago it’s a 6” DD coil Chuck so no idea why you thought it might be a concentric. It most surely will not be. After that will be the 15” x 12” DD. There are no announced plans for anything beyond that at this time. I don’t know that a concentric is impossible but I will be pushing hard to make sure a 6” x 10” nugget coil comes after the 15” x 12” DD so your concentric will have to be after that! No more stuff on coils here - there is a 6” coil thread here. Let’s keep this thread on counterweights.

Looks good even if it is rough! I don’t need anything like this for the stock coil but will for the 15” x 12” coil for sure so I will have to get to work on something similar. No rush though as it looks like June for the 6” coil and that probably means even longer for the large coil.

What’s going on is all dealers had a chance at making a “first order”. All detectors in that first order have to be filled before moving on to dealers in the second round of orders. Small dealers only ordered a few detectors on the first order opportunity. Other larger dealers ordered 50 or 100 or 200 etc. The intitial orders seem to have been spread around, filling many of the small dealers first orders of a few detectors. They sold them all and placed new orders. Problem now is they have to wait until all those first round orders get filled, and that means the companies that went deep with big orders now control the supply until all those initial orders get filled. The big suppliers may in fact have already placed secondary large orders. With the situation being like that a small dealer gets behind pretty quickly in their ability to keep up. And that’s why some of them are now going to be waiting all summer to get more units in stock. I was a dealer back during the GPX 4500 craze and pretty well got shut out of buying new machines all one summer. I don’t think demand is tapering off at all. With many new owners now finally making reports, many of them very good reports, people who were waiting are now placing orders. More likely this will snowball for the 800 and except for oddball units here and there it may be fall before the supply catches up with demand such that people can find 800s just sitting on shelves somewhere. The 600 is in fairly good supply now but that also may change as people find out just how good it is and rather than wait for 800s get the 600 instead.

Some prior threads... Question Regarding Cleaning Equipment After You Find The Coins And Relics Cleaning Old Silver Beach Finds How To Clean & Preserve Your Metal Detecting Finds Cleaning Old Silver, Copper & Bronze Coins & Relics

The difference on most forums is they are still trying to figure out if the Equinox is any good or not. Here we already know it’s good so we can just get on with figuring out how to get the best out of it.

Welcome to the forum. No real rules here except be polite, respect others. You can mention whatever you want and link to whatever you want as long as it is on topic. Looking forward to hearing about your experience with Equinox! Sorry about the title of your post. Something about the quotation marks etc was glitching and when I tried to fix it went off the rails. Think I got it halfway right.

Mine seems to work. I am in bad ground so I always ground balance. Then again, I only expect the meter to tell me shallow or deep. If it’s maxed out and the target is modulating I think “deep coin”. But I don’t worry much about it beyond that. Shallow stuff bangs harder, and really shallow triple signals. Pinpoint seems good at telling me how deep stuff is - it screams on shallow and fades on deeper. Don't know... I mainly just find targets that sound right and dig them.

My main issue with the V3i has always been what I consider to be a poor ground balance system. I could never consider the V3i to be a machine I would want to prospect for gold with because of this. I really wish White’s had done a V3i with a simple MXT interface. Just give me a switch to flip between frequency options, a real ground balance option, and better yet stuff it in the MX Sport box. Oh well. The Equinox is a far better option for prospecting and for the beach and in dense trash. The V3i can coin hunt well but so can Equinox. We’re it not for my Bigfoot coil my V3i would already be gone. Some interesting tidbits from Carl Moreland in this post. Carl was lead engineer at White’s and responsible for getting the V3i out the door. Includes this quote: “The problem with the V3 GB has to do with the fundamentals of the MF design approach. It's a flawed system, and adding a third frequency really shined a light on the flaws. There was nothing more that could be done, short of scrapping the hardware and starting over. That was to be the V4.”

Might as well call it June. Price?

Here is some information on treasure detectors... http://www.detectorprospector.com/forum/topic/3081-how-deep-can-i-detect-coins-relics/?do=findComment&comment=34467 Good luck!

Great finds Randy! You can bet most people on this forum are both jealous and amazed by the age of the finds you make so regularly. My trip to the U.K. the first coin I dug was a 1700s copper, older than any coin I had found before by 150 years. The guy I was with said "a greenie - I just toss them in the ditch!" I did not do that of course but after a couple weeks I understood the sentiment. It's just amazing that 14th and 15th century finds were daily kind of stuff, and B.C. type finds not all that uncommon.

Welcome to the forum! I have used both and it is basically a ground coverage thing, so I am guessing for you the 12" x 10" will suit you better. The 8" gets about the same depth and is great for rocky areas or other locations the larger coil would not maneuver in well. I favored the 8" in Hawaii for this reason. I used the 12" coil up at Tahoe and other more open beach type scenarios. http://www.detectorprospector.com/forum/topic/102-garrett-atx-review-beach-detecting-in-hawaii/ http://www.detectorprospector.com/forum/topic/867-garrett-atx-return-to-hawaii/

That's true but since the Mahindra Roxor is not a road legal vehicle it is legally designated as an off-road recreational vehicle only. It doesn't need registration and the Roxor can be used for recreational purposes on farmlands and on selected trails assigned for off-road vehicle use only. Anywhere it's legal to take other side by side ATVs you can take a Roxor. This is all kind of deja vu for me as a miner I know in Alaska has an old Willys Jeep he uses for his work rig. The thing was so old the floorboards were rusted out for a good view of the ground under my feet. These old designs are pretty simple mechanically and so more easily serviced by a regular Joe with a toolbox, which appeals to people in remote parts of Alaska or other remote locations.

If it makes anyone feel better I do not believe in perfect settings. Both the ground composition and the trash mix are too variable for that. You can in theory get it perfect for this one square foot of dirt, but wander off 20 feet and now things have changed. All you can do is get in the ballpark with the settings and go for it. None of this should be a mystery to Deus owners. Recovery Speed (Detect Speed) is the same as Reactivity on the Deus. The Deus range is from 0 - 5 and I am betting not many Deus owners ever run at 0, 1, or even 2. As far as Iron Bias mine is usually going to be set at 0 because the worst that will happen is I will dig more ferrous junk, and that does not bother me very much. I can tell most ferrous by ear anyway. Iron Bias is the equivalent of the Silencer on the Deus and the trade being made is similar.

Recovery speed and iron bias are two different things getting mixed up in one thread. The instruction manual is just a guide and not the be all and end all when it comes how to run Equinox. Very low recovery speeds will reduce depth in really mineralized ground. Yeah, for moderate to low mineral ground it’s true you can increase depth with lower recovery speeds but in more intense ground it’s just not true. Also, you are going to increase your risk of target masking. If a low recovery speed misses a target at two inches next to trash that a faster recovery speed hits, which is going deeper? I have been fighting this and fighting this. My next Treasure Talk blog addresses the issue it is so important. If there is one thing I wish Minelab would change in the manual it is to offer more detail on that page. Minelab does allude to it: “A lower Recovery Speed, for the same swing rate, will increase detection depth, but may increase noise.” The problem in bad ground is that noise increases faster than depth not only negating the potential for increased depth but in fact making things worse to the point where targets found at higher recovery speeds can be missed. In very bad ground it’s not “may increase noise” but “will increase noise”. Many people are shooting themselves in the foot by immediately going to lower recovery speeds thinking it automatically gets more depth. And if the area has already been amply hunted with BBS and FBS detectors, it is an error if the first order. BBS/FBS users in particular seem to want to immediately try and turn Multi-IQ into BBS/FBS which gives up one of the major improvements over those technologies - speed. The presets are where they are for a reason! Now for Nukem in the U.K. lower recovery speed is obviously helping him. That makes sense on sanded in beaches in the U.K. But hunt with me and no way. The U.K. is not the Western U.S. You have to learn the machine for your own ground. As far as iron bias goes I learned Equinox without it (most people know it was a late addition) and so for now I tend to set it to 0 until I have more time to play around with it. I am not saying that is the right thing to do. Just like recovery speed there are no absolutes and so I have no doubt I am in turn shooting myself in the foot automatically going to zero. The worst case however is I am just dealing with more ferrous falsing than I need to.

Added my latest article on Ground Balancing The Minelab Equinox to the list.

Lots of great commentary here, and I apologize for being late to the game since I was addressed specifically. What we have at work here is something Minelab is never going to discuss in great detail. There really is some magic at work in a Minelab multifrequency detector, and for a very long time almost everyone has been missing what is really going on. The focus is always on frequencies, and more specifically transmitted frequencies. Minelab has catered to all this with their marketing touting the number of frequencies. Good marketing but also misdirection to protect proprietary information. The fact is transmitted frequencies is only a small part of the big picture, and some competitors have called Minelab out on this by pointing out that detectors can transmit all kinds of frequencies. In a poke at Minelab Garrett was quoting the Garrett Infinium as transmitting 96 frequencies, which is sort of true as a PI detector is like a transmitting shotgun. Anyone can scope detectors to determine what they transmit, and if that is all there was to it the Chinese etc. would have ripped Minelab off ages ago. As it is they can only make detectors that look like a Minelab. The real secret is in what frequencies the detector is receiving and even more importantly yet, what sort of signal comparison and algorithms are being applied to the received signals. All the real magic occurs on the receiving end and very specifically in the signal processing. Now for those that don't know it Minelab founder Bruce Candy* actually is an expert in audio processing and holds patents in that field as well as having founded another company, Halcro, that specializes in distortion free audio amplifiers. And that my friends is the Minelab secret. Distortion free audio amplification. Using signal processing technology to eliminate as much unwanted signal (distortion) as possible and then amplifying the desired signal. It is very telling that the Minelab BBS patent expired long ago and yet we have not yet seen a third party BBS machine. Why? Because the patent does not reveal the exact processing methodology and so it is not a matter of just reading the patent and making a BBS detector. So what's going on in there? Single frequency detectors really do treat ground balance as another sort of discrimination method. Ground signals are part of the full target id spread or phase chart (see below). Basically the ground signal is determined by some method, like bouncing the coil over the ground (ground grab), and then this ground signal simply subtracted from all other signals. The best explanation and diagram I have ever seen of this was done by Carl Moreland on pages 1-3 and 1-4 of the V3i Advanced User's Guide. Pretty simple really. The problem is that a single frequency can only set one ground balance point at a time. It can balance to minerals for instance, or it can balance to saltwater. As can be seen in the chart above from the link above, soil and salt normally read in completely different parts of the phase chart. Fisher and Minelab both solved this problem at nearly the same time so I will pass on who was first. The Fisher CZ-6 and Minelab Sovereign both came out in 1991 and both employ multifrequency to solve the ground versus salt problem that foiled single frequency detectors on saltwater beaches up until then. Multiple frequencies can have multiple ground balance points and this is one of the major advantages of multifrequency, and why multifrequency rules in saltwater detecting. For a detailed explanation of how this is done see the three videos below where White's engineer Mark Rowan explains all this - really fabulous stuff. The real meat starts in video 8 at the 4 minute mark but video 7 does have some parts worth seeing. FYI the DFX employed multifrequency technology licensed by White’s from Minelab. My belief is Minelab had already come up with better stuff in BBS and so had no problem licensing a more basic version to White’s. Therefore studying the DFX does have bearing on Minelab’s thought processes regarding multifrequency. What all this means is that Minelab is using frequency comparison and signal analysis to do most of the heavy lifting of ground rejection/ground balance. It just happens automatically as part of the signal processing. This is why when the Minelab Explorer came out there was no ground balance control. In most ground there is no need to ground balance because the processing already removes the ground signal. However, it is not enough for the worst ground. This great article by Nenad Lonic explains the differences of the BBS/FBS detectors on bad ground. Later models added the ability to ground balance for extreme ground conditions. After all that you all should be seeing the picture. Minelab is not discouraging people from ground balancing per se. It's just that in mild to moderate ground there is no need - the signal processing already does the trick. Yet in more mineralized ground you absolutely should be doing at least a ground grab. I always ground balance my Equinox because I am almost always on bad ground it seems. No matter what always ground balance anytime you go to a single frequency mode because you no longer have the advantage of the multifrequency processing. I have made mention several times that every search profile has its own ground balance and so it is critical in bad ground to ground balance each search profile separately. Again, in milder ground just leave it be. How to know when to ground balance? In any mode, hit the horseshoe button and detect over metal free ground. If you get lots of puttering in the -9 and -8 and possibly -7 area that is the ground signal as is shown in the phase chart above. This is another reason why running full tones (no items rejected) can be beneficial as you do hear the ground signal. You might eliminate that signal by dropping the sensitivity a notch or two. But if it is persistent it does indicate you probably should be ground balancing the detector. Even when you notch out this region the ground signal is still there and so trying to get that negative range to settle down is the best bet for most people to help eliminate ground masking effects. For shallower targets you might also ground balance, then jack the sensitivity up and block out the negative numbers. This will make shallow targets like perhaps small gold nuggets pop but does risk deeper items going missed due to ground masking. Ground balance numbers in single frequency detectors are normally related directly to the phase chart above but it is critical that people know that a ground balance number does not tell you how mineralized the ground is. I have written a very detailed article on this subject. The reality there is that the phase chart and ground balance numbers only really equate for a single frequency detector because it should be obvious that if a multifrequency detector is balancing to the ground and to saltwater there are actually two ground balance points. How do you represent that in a meaningful way with one number? This goes back to the fact that Minelab is not really working directly with each frequency but instead with post processed "channels" that represent the information streams from multiple frequencies. The latest Treasure Talk blog on Multi-IQ makes this quite clear. This means that the various search profiles and even the various frequency selections all can produce quite different ground balance numbers on the same square foot of dirt. The numbers are tied more to the underlying signal processing and there is no attempt being made to "normalize" the ground balance numbers. This is why in bad ground you must ground balance each profile separately. The numbers to some degree are an arbitrary construct by Minelab and people trying to compare them as an indication of ground conditions are at a minimum going to have to relate the exact modes/settings in use for any such comparison to have any validity at all. And frankly I don't think even then there is any real point in comparing ground balance numbers. Again, just checking ground feedback with all target id numbers set to accept (all metal horseshoe in effect) will tell you more about ground or salt mineralization than ground balance numbers. For more on detector frequency use see my article on Selectable Frequency And Multiple Frequency * by Bruce Candy:• Co-founder of Minelab.• Pre-Minelab: designed advanced communication electronics (linear HF transmitters, VHF radar transmitters and receivers, ultra fast-frequency hopping etc), ultrasonic cleaners, fast photon counters, light detection.• Designed concepts, analogue electronics and discriminator algorithms of Minelab detector (e.g. GS15000, GT/FT/XT. Eureka Gold series, Musketeer, Sovereign, PI units, Explorer series, Excalibur).• Designed Halcro audio amplifiers.• Holds patents in metal detecting and audio fields.

What Lunk said.

For those thinking of making a skid plate the commentary here is based on a previous thread about the GPZ 19” coil... http://www.detectorprospector.com/forum/topic/4025-most-effective-19-inch-coil-cover/ I am going to do this myself. However, I an not sure yet if I will glue the polycarbonate sheet to the existing scuff cover or direct to the coil bottom. I think I will get another coil and try both, as my goal is to determine which will work best nugget detecting at high gain to alleviate coil knock/falsing issues in Gold Mode at max sensitivity.

The wireless headphones that come with the 800 also come with an accessory cable to plug them direct into the detector. Have you guys tried that? Also, not saying anyone here is doing it, but in at least a couple cases now we have had people trying to use the headphones not realizing they were not paired, and that they were actually listening to the external speaker while wearing the headphones. http://www.detectorprospector.com/forum/topic/5694-when-folks-receive-their-800-units-dont-do-what-this-gent-did/ I have no issue with the audio quality of the ML80 headphones when used wirelessly. Is it as good as my SunRay Pro Gold plugged in direct? No. Not enough difference to me to make me think my finds would be any different using one over the other though. And I do like wireless!

Prior threads on subject... Has Anyone Tried Non Minelab Bluetooth Earphones Yet Apt-x What Are Aptx Low Latency Headphones?

All the Bluetooth is doing on Equinox is piping the audio signal to headphones. For something like that to work I think the detector would have to be designed from the ground up to process a wireless coil signal, as was the case with Deus. Even then, a Deus coil is more of a detector in a coil with much of the work done in the coil itself. The Deus pinpointer is not the same and does not give you tones or target id information. It’s merely a pinpointer like the Garrett that connects wirelessly. To act like a Deus coil XP would literally have to somehow take everything that is in one of those $400 coils and stuff it in the pinpointer. Not only are there technical issues there but price issues also. I think you have a better chance of getting your inline probe for Equinox than a wireless probe that acts like an inline probe. And the only way that’s likely to happen is if you make one yourself. I guess like a lot of people I don’t really see the need anyway. Once I decide to dig I don’t need to know anything else about the target. I just need to find it, and regular pinpointers do a good job at that. Getting the audio piped into the headphones would be nice but I am so accustomed now to using pinpointers in vibrate mode only that it would not actually make my detecting any better. With Garrett now making a wireless Pro-Pointer AT it appears to me that Garrett is well on the way to creating the best thought out system of wireless headphones and pinpointers. Their new Z-Lynk module works well with any detector that does not have built in wireless. The new AT Max integrates the same system and is compatible with the module, as are the new Z-Lynk headphones. All new Garrett detectors will no doubt use the same system. And now their pinpointers will also integrate, and all at quite reasonable prices. Minelab has done a very poor job with wireless so far. The CTX WM10 wireless audio module, GPZ WM12 module, Pro-Sonic system, and now the Equinox WM08 module are all basically incompatible with each other. Garrett is designing an Apple type ecosystem where all the products work well with each other. Minelab every time they do a new detector series it’s like they start fresh and there is no thought for backwards compatibility or even compatibility between existing products.

I see you found Carl over at Toms and got an answer. As a person with a finely tuned nose for what sells there is no market of consequence for inline probes anymore. It was wiped out by the original Garrett pinpointer. They were never as big a seller as people think anyway - I was a Sunray dealer so have an decent idea about that. Making a wireless version is not easy either. The Sunray was just a coil, and employed the detector electronics to do the processing. For a wireless probe to do the heavy lifting it would have to be a complete detector in a coil, just like Deus coils. And even Deus, which is made to work that way, stumbled with their pinpointer.