Mark Gillespie

You are correct I have not got the 6" coil as of yet. I hate to sink money in a coil that will be no better than the F75, 5" coil

Has there been any updates on using this small coil in a trashy park area? My main concern is a combination of depth and speed. I'm sure the speed is there with the Equinox but depth on this small coil is a question. Being a fact that a 6 1/2" dime is a common occurrence in my area, depth is a must and I'll give an example. Years ago I bought and still have the 5" DD coil for my Fisher F75 LTD. I can easily max out the machine and can only get a slightest peep on my 6 1/2" dime that has been undisturbed for over 10 years and that is in fairly clean ground. I would guess the 6" coil could obtain more depth than a 5" just out of reason. Any experiences with this would be appreciated.

Been thinking a lot about this new machine. Reading the description and comparing it to my TDI SL it seems the machine only has three present advantages, well it was three, now two. The Manta can sample to 7 micro seconds and the White’s TDI can sample at 10. Now that might not sound like much but 7 allows the smaller stuff to be heard before going silent if running at 10 micro seconds. The other market advantage was to be the water proof feature, but since White’s released a water proof version of the Sl that advantage is gone. Now we’re back to only two market advantages for the Manta, well unless 1st Texas is holding a trump card of a feature. Or when White’s released the water proof version they, 1st Texas decided to add another feature to excel the competition which might explain the official delay of this new machine. The other advantage will be in the weight/balance advantage and everyone knows 1st Texas makes some very ergonomic machines. The manta coming in from 1.6 – 1.8 kg which amounts to somewhere between 3.5 and 4 lbs. Verses the SL at 5.2 lbs which now offers an option to detach the control box and hip mount the unit which greatly reduces the weight issue. Now in comparison of price, the TDI at $1300 and the Manta at $2100 I wonder, just how many will spend the additional $800 for the Manta. And I might add, after watching the Manta video on You Tube, where the machine could silence iron yet still see the gold, my SL can do the very same thing. I think the release of this machine has taken way to long and their procrastination will cost them on this machine. But, that’s just my thoughts, time will tell.

I might add one thing Dan. I've had the Equinox for 14 months and have attempted to justify using the single frequency over the multi option. I've purposely hunted the hard, masked and deeper targets just to compare the single frequency to the multi option. Wanting to see if the audio or ID was better and can say the multi-frequency has never been trumped by any of the single frequency options. I've never had a machine that has satisfied me for long periods of time, until the Equinox. Several years ago I had the Etrac and Explorer and they did very well where I live but dang it, they were just to heavy. To finalize, I presently prefer the Equinox on every outing, it's light, extremely fast in recovering between targets and has the most accurate ID of any machine I've had in the past 20+ years.☺️

Dan, my machine will do the same thing. I tried park 1 and field 1 and I get the same results. Discriminated out -9 to 18, no audio in multi-frequency but good repeatable audio in 5 Khz . with ID's anywhere from 22 to 28 and that is on a 6 1/2" nickel. Not bad but strange to say the least. I might reset the detector to the original firmware and see what happens.

What firmware version is on the machine?

I want to get this straight in my mind. You get a good repeatable signal and dig the target. Once the target is out of the hole you do a simple air test with the target and the machine is silent?

The White's model is a good choice. It won't pick up the small bits and pieces of metal trash. Of course you looking for the large, deep targets. Keep us posted on your adventures.

If this is true 10. Price. It will cost approximately 2100-2500 US dollars. New technologies cost money, yes, but they also bring an advantage over all other metal detectors. I won't bite, my TDI is more than sufficient at the moment. Water proof is good but my Equinox will do for water hunting. TDI for super bad ground Equinox everything else

At times I miss my Tejon

Fantastic hunt in my book. You did very good. It's nice to hear others state how solid the audio is with the Equinox on good targets. ?

Worn but very nice?

You have a very good point. Back in the day, I had a Vaquero and a Tejon. Both had fantastic audio capabilities. In fact, I did find a lot more gold rings than I tend to find now. But now, with all the high tech visual ID screens I find myself relying more on what it indicates, rather than a pure audio response and for sure I've walked right over rings thinking they might be junk. The Compadre is another fine machine for hunting for lost gold items in playgrounds. Partly contributed by the small coil and the unique audio.

Awesome, I love to see silver in the hole. ?

I sold the V3 to a guy to hunt his hunting arrows, of all things. Funny thing to want a detector for but he said the arrows were very expensive.

I might try my hand and measuring the specific gravity of the metal too. \ https://www.mgsrefining.com/blog/2018/02/07/specific-gravity-testing-for-precious-metals-gems

C SCALE

ID is 12

Small update: Hardness on the Rockwell C scale is 33. Not likely to be silver now. I'll check the ID again and post later today.

Awesome find. You must have very mild dirt, where I live that penny would have been badly corroded. That coin didn't see much circulation, look at the Liberty, very plain.

Mine had the 11" DD coil and it was extremely fast in the trash.

I had one of the first released Eurotek Pro's. Mine was an exceptional detector for the price. Wish I'd kept it, but a guy kept on and on until I sold it to him.

I've got two updates: It is non-ferrous and the chief machinist where I work is going to check the metal with a hardness analyzer, what ever that is. Once I have a hardness value I'll be able to compare that to known metal hardness values. Just another bit of information. He has a complete machine shop at his home where he makes knives from steel. I'll update tomorrow.

No clue what it could be. The weight is almost the same as a silver dollar. No pattern to recognize what it might be. To start with I thought it might be lead but it can't be cut by either a sharp knife or a razor. ?????????????????????