Cal_Cobra

Hoping to get this coil on the Legend. 

Dilek we NEED this 10″x5.5″ (GK26C) coil in DD format for the Legend:

Congrats on the gold (and silver)!! 

That's a beautiful area, I've beach detected a couple of times around that area with no success.

We should develop a defacto standard for testing and rating the various categories.  All-in-one, relic, gold, beach, coin, etc.  Beginner?

Kind of like the Consumer Reports of metal detecting haha

9 hours ago, phrunt said:

They may be words you regret ? If the Equinox 1000 Pro Ultra Premium Edition comes out at some point soon we'll all want it, lets face it and I highly doubt we'll be disappointed ?  The Equinox is 4 years old now, that's a dinosaur in technology terms and it's still right there with the best of 'em, if not in the lead, the others are playing catch up to a detector that's due for replacement, a dinosaur! a 4 year old computer can't even run the latest Windows, Microsoft deemed it not suitable for Windows 11, killed them all off.

Maybe I'm getting that naming scheme confused with First Texas.  Either way, if the Equinox 1000 comes out I doubt it'll be a flop and won't shake up the market once again, Minelab don't settle for a paint job, although I think we all agree build quality needs to improve.  I think their bottom line with warranty claims may have pointed that out to them, at least I hope so.  It's not wise to offer a three year warranty which is now becoming standard or even more with XP and their 5 year warranty on a detector that's lucky to last three years without some form of fault resulting in a warranty repair.... coil ears, water ingress, wobbly shaft, button failures and the list goes on. 

I just think it's great we have detectors from a range of manufacturers now that are competitive either by offering a lot for your money or performance in different areas excelling over others, not to mention the multi purpose detectors meaning one detector really can do it all and do it well, a good time for detector users and the future looks bright.

Minelab, XP, Garrett and Nokta are doing well at the moment, I look forward to seeing what they all do in the future, not to mention the European brands like Rutus that really need more recognition than they get, hopefully they expand into the worldwide market.

Oh I agree, and if we thought this latest round of product release and/or subsequent "conversation" was an event ?  Heads will blow when the next gen EQX is announced, it'll be insane haha ?

I would add the Legend to that list, certainly before I'd put a D1 if there's already a D2 on the list. ?

What about the Equinox 1000 Pro?

2 hours ago, Mike_Hillis said:

Regards F75...Tom Dankowski reported almost an 1/8 of an inch depth reduction between non-DST vs DST units in his mineral free test bed dirt which equates to the difference between 12" or 11-7/8" on a dime.   No effect on a nickel on my experience.    The confusion really came from what setting really turned DST on.  Was it 91 or 90?   Was the operating manual right or wrong?  Only reason I have a F75LTD is because of DST as I couldn't use it otherwise.  

The issue with not having a control available means you have to own other detectors that do have the feature/control when you run into the situations that require the feature.   But then again, if you don't know what you don't know, then you don't care.   Until the moment that you do care and realize your model doesn't have it.  

Hey Carl....any chance you know those passwords and key strokes to unlock the VX3?     

HH
Mike 

 

BINGO!  Mike your spot on!  There was a huge debacle about the manual having the setting backwards, and many folks felt it was more quite, and performed better with the setting the manual described as "off" so they assumed it was incorrect and that was actually the "on" setting.  I don't think FTP did a very good job of clarifying it as I recall so everyone was left wondering which setting was what.

Of course I don't doubt Tom Dankowski, he's one of the most knowledgeable folks I've ever met when it comes to deep dive detector testing, but I've also learned that inert Florida soil is similar to me taking a WiFi device into a RF chamber (large Faraday cage basically) to test radio performance in an optimal RF environment.  Put differently, those tests didn't translate well into real world west coast dirt results.

1 minute ago, phrunt said:

I have a 2007 I think it is model T2 and one of the new T2 Green that appears to have DST built in, and it can't be disabled on that model being a cheaper entry level T2 without their funky new boost mode.   The reason I think the Green has DST is its far better in EMI, far better.

The original is very wild to use, EMI is terrible on it which encouraged me to do my own EMI mods to it with more shielding paint and copper tape, it did feel like it improved it a bit but nowhere near the DST models EMI stability.

I think the new models better overall, the old model does seem a bit deeper but it could be in my head, on small gold tests I did I felt it did better than the new one.  I always use my T2's in All metal or with very low disc.  If I had to choose I'd take the newer DST one, I do wish I bought the one with boost mode though as it has a way to disable DST, I'd like to turn it off sometimes in low EMI.  With my Green T2 being their entry level T2 perhaps they thought they'd keep control to a minimum to not intrude on the higher priced T2 more so than they thought turning DST off would be dangerous to turn off for the user.

Another thing that resolved a lot of my EMI problems was ditching the useless stock coil and putting on a Mars Tiger.  Big EMI difference on both models.  Same with obviously putting the little 5" on it but the Tiger is bigger.

I had a T2 LTD w/DST for a while, and to be honest it was probably a better detector than the F75 for my type of hunting (relic sites mainly) but I was so heavily invested in my F75 (tons of coils) I ended up selling the T2 and keeping the F75 as I felt they were so similar, that it was redundant to have both.   It was pretty quite with DST.  

1 hour ago, GB_Amateur said:

Although I missed the controversy as it occurred before I got back into detecting, wasn't there a rather no-win situation with the Fisher F75 in the first few years after its rollout?  If I recall (from stories I've read) it was noisy, possibly due to EMI, but maybe it was more than that.  So First Texas released an upgraded version with something they called Digital Shielding Technology (D.S.T.) to take care of that noise issue.  Problem solved, right?  Well, not to those who claimed this 'improvement' cost performance.  My unit (built in 2017) allows you to turn off D.S.T.  OK, surely now the problem is solved.  But I remember reading that some people claimed this retro fix still didn't take the detector back to its original performance level.  A typical case of "damned if you do; damned if you don't."  (I may have inaccurate details here.  Possibly the D.S.T. on/off capability occurred with the initial solution rather than in a subsequent step.)

I'd be curious to know if turning off the D.S.T. in the newer models really did take things back to the original.  We all learn after being here a while that just because someone claims something is true or false, and no matter how loudly, repeatedly, or authoritatively they make that claim, there's still sometimes a reasonable chance that they are fooling themselves and effectively trying to fool us in the process.

The F75 was the "hot" detector for years.  I swung a F75LTD (later upgraded to LTD2 w/DST) for the better part of ten years.  It was definitely a noisy detector, and EMI could be pretty bad on it.  After upgrading it to the LTD2 (they had an upgrade program) it was a fair bit more quite.  I don't know that I would agree that the detector lost performance, that wasn't my experience.  I recall digging a bust half dollar at 10" deep at a small site that we'd all pounded to death after the LTD2 upgrade. 

Personally I think DST technology is a good direction as long as you have the ability to disable it if need be.

I've read several accounts during site research from the gold rush and subsequent projects (rail road workers for example) that claimed they made between $2.50-$5.00 per day depending on race and role, and this was mid 1800's. 

6 hours ago, phrunt said:

The iron bias setting on the Nox is well hidden, it's actually easier to find on the Vanquish, their beginners detector where you can have it on low/high.  Minelab thought it was not such an advanced feature when they applied it to the Vanquish.

To be fair, they have a 50/50 chance they'll get it right ?  It reduces the variables the operator can fine tune to the point where it's not longer an advanced user setting.

7 hours ago, Geotech said:

 ...many of those complaints came from dealers who were so uncomfortable with the detector they often wouldn't try to sell it*.

You know I'm guessing a lot of the dealers were old school and this was bleeding edge to them?  Let's be honest, it really was bleeding edge if you got into the advanced settings and the COLOR analytic displays and SMF, wireless headphones eons before it was a thing. 

The VX3 had a good solution that was never carried through. It is hardware-identical to a V3i but features were pared way back. But it actually has 3 more skill "levels" that can be activated with passwords, which incrementally add more features until it becomes a full-blown V3i. The idea was to sell these as e.g. $99 upgrades people would buy when they were ready. It was never offered.

So Carl, ah, I assume this password[s] still exist, somewhere, is there godmode on these things?

But it does beg the question: If you could buy, say, an Equinox 600 today for $700 and later upgrade it to an 800 for an add'l $300 would you find that to be a distasteful business practice?

This is already highly done in the industry I work in, where additional features and/or services are enabled, typically (but not always) as a subscription.  Need IPS, sandboxing, DNS security, DLP, no problem.  SASE/SD-WAN is done this way by leading edge vendors (even bandwidth can be easily upgraded by just applying an upgrade license, no need to roll a truck or waste your valuable time stuck in a phone maze.  Super common, come on over to the 21st century buddy ?

6 hours ago, phrunt said:

I'm confident adjusting my iron bias to F2-0 over the default FE setting is giving me my desired result when gold prospecting, I would not like to be stuck in the Legends default setting when looking for small nuggets.

I'm confident that the Iron Bias update and subsequent setting of Iron bias to F2-0 resulted in me finding a rare date U.S. $1 gold coin at a site we've been hunting for ten years and for sure over that exact little swath of ground multiple times with multiple metal detectors.  That little area has been highly rewarding not only in rare low mintage silver (and now gold) coins, but also a killer assortment of relics from the 1700's to c.1900, doesn't get much better that that where I live.

On 3/5/2022 at 1:16 PM, Steve Herschbach said:

On Equinox, a newbie can’t even get to the Iron Bias control, without knowing exactly where it is hidden. No such control actually is visible on the detector.

 

Nokta did the Salt Sensitivity setting like that in the Legend, which I'd consider an advanced user setting.  Go to the Recovery setting, push the PinPoint button and it goes into the setting, adjustable from 1-5.  I'm sure the Iron Bias control will be similarly accessible to advanced users wanting the most out of the detector, or that may have adverse conditions the default modes would do better at if adjusted to meet whatever challenges one faces. So while there was some kicking and screaming involved from a multitude of angles, the good news is that it is getting implemented.  Not only that, but far quicker then it took Minelab to improve/fix their Iron Bias settings update (which I applaud them for!).

Great hunt!! 

On the D2, are observation on anything it's doing that is new/improved/different than you other machines?

4 hours ago, Badger-NH said:

Nice old relics.  The brass fork thing looks like the inner part to a shoe buckle.

 

Agreed,  Is that a a watch winder in the bottom right?

12 hours ago, Tom_in_CA said:

we thought about getting an FB site domain name, or a website, or some such link.  So that we could refer persons to a link.  That would be populated with show & tell pix of lead, and links to the horror that lead causes to the environment.

 

But .... is probably overkill.  No one is doubting, or asking for links anyhow.   haha

It's actually VERY easy to do.  Spend ten minutes a day less on all the detecting forums and you can be a FB group admin expert in a week!! 

For a small fee, I can show you how to set it up the next time I see you....it'll only cost you one gold coin, hey you have 16, it's not like you're going to miss ONE ?

On 2/20/2022 at 3:35 PM, burlguy said:

Why the heck there is not an EMI receive coil built into the controller to cancel out EMI leaves my mind boggled. Sure the detector may lose some depth or targets occasionally but it would silence most of this flute insanity.

 

It's certainly possible to implement a spectrum analyzer into a detector circuit, with real-time air space analysis and automate channel selection based on the cleanest channels available. 

I'm not really sure what kind of intelligence is built into the manual noise cancel on say the Equinox and Legend, but I'd assume some rudimentary spectrum analysis.

Nice digs, I like the button!! 

If you dip a Q-tips in lemon juice and clean the button with it, it may well clean up very nicely with more gold gilt than may be obvious. 

7 hours ago, Tom_in_CA said:

And a funny "aha moment" occurred the other day when Brian (cal cobra) and I were on the beach :   I normally don't chit-chat with passerbys.   If you get the "what are you finding ?" question, I just say "a few pennies" and ignore them.  And I would assume that the only reason to point to the hat, is if someone is griping for some reason.

 

HOWEVER :  Our two friends Aaron and Mark (who were wearing the hats this day) would gleefully point to their hats, and show a few sinkers from their aprons.   And I figured that any passerby would "see right through that" and know that we're joking.  BUT SURPRISINGLY people never questioned it.   They were praising us.  At first I thought "oh they're just joking around too".  But then it became apparent that this noble cause was not doubted in the slightest.

 

It was an eye-opener as to how good these hats could potentially be.

The hat with an orange construction safety vest, and nobodies going to bother you ?

3 hours ago, Tom_in_CA said:

HHhhmmm, let me look into this when I get back to my work 'puter tomorrow.  I didn't know "in-boxes" could be "full".  I'll get back to you.   Thanx ! 

When you enter your forum email look at the top right hand side:

Nice digs there, you're slaying the silver!

On 2/9/2022 at 7:57 PM, Geotech said:

I can probably tell you why. The chip shortage is crazy and chip prices are doubling, tripling, and quadrupling. When you can get any chips at all. At FTP we are scrambling to sub parts just to keep things in production and the prices are eye-popping.

Same issue[s] we're experiencing, although we're starting to see things ease up a little bit.  I know the folks in charge of sourcing parts have been earning their keep lately.  One of our competitors raised their prices three times over the past year an average of 8% each increase (that's almost 30% compounded). 

With the demand we're seeing, we cannot ship product fast enough.

We need that new $100B Intel manufacturing plant like yesterday.

7 minutes ago, cjc said:

Has anyone figured out how to do a factory reset on this machine?

 

cjc

Great question as I am also going to do one, and this is what I found and it's noted under the warning message section on page 27 in their manual:

System Error (SE)
Turn the device back on if the device shuts down
after this warning. If the problem persists, reset the
device by pressing and holding the Power & Settings
Button for 30 seconds. If the problem still exists,
contact technical service.

2 minutes ago, NCtoad said:

I’ve been watching quite a few of paystreak’s videos.  I like him!  He’s definitely unfiltered.  Lol.  His vids look to be unedited and whatever happens, happens.  It’s just him detecting and he knows his machines well.  I get a kick out of the contrast between Paystreak and Gary Blackwell.  It’s like 3 cups of coffee verses smoking a joint.  Lol!   

Hmm...please do tell, inquiring minds want to know ?

38 minutes ago, mudwhale said:

If you think his soil is unique, come to CT. I have spots where the GB value is 92-97. CT runs from 64-97 in different spots.

That sounds like some dirt that we have out west, probably full 4-5 bar F75 mineralization meter dirt.   TomCA and I have one site in the desert that has such heavy alkali soil that the Impact couldn't ground balance in auto, had to do a manual GB and even then it was in the teens. It's an odd site, one side of the creek is fine, the other super heavy alkali soil. 

I like Jeremy's videos (I want some of whatever he's on, the guys like a detecting robot!!), just want folks to know that his soil is a bit unique, but if a machine excels in his soil then it should translate into good overall performance everywhere else.  When I was new to detecting I followed an advanced detectorists in Florida, and although his data is accurate I learned the hard way that what works great in his inert Florida soil doesn't translate to working well in the mineralized soils out west, so I always try to hone in on users that are hunting the same kind of dirt and types of sites that we like to detect, and that has panned out pretty well (that was how I learned of the original Makro Racer from Monte, and he was spot on).