Cal_Cobra

Good post Steve, I pretty much agree with everything your saying.  I think Nokta/Makro dropped the ball by creating a Gold Kruzer, and not simply incorporating the higher frequency into the Multi Kruzer, but you know it's a damed if you do, damed if you don't scenario.  Although the forte of the Equinox is it's SMF Multi-IQ technology, the Equinox 800 has the capability to run as a single frequency detector up to 40 kHz, that's impressive, and offers a lot of options for those needing them.  You may not always use them, but their nice to have in those cornerstone cases when SMF may not be the best option.   

Steve I feel the same as you, I really don't need another detector, with the Multi Kruzer and all the coils I have for it, and the EQ800, they'll cover anything that I would ever detect, from casual prospecting, salt water beach hunting, deep silver coin hunting and hard core relic hunting.  I still have a Racer 2 with a ton of coils, as well as a F75 LTD2 (admittedly collecting dust), and a Euro Tek Pro for the wifey. Still, as a tech nerd working in Silicon Valley, I enjoy seeing companies innovate, and new technology that could potentially be a game changer putting more keepers into my finds pouch is what I'm hoping will come (both the Makro Racers/Impact/MK and EQ800 have done that). 

16 hours ago, Alluminati said:

I guess it's possible that Fisher has just grown too big to worry specifically about metal detectorists, they seem to be in the business of selling electronics to retailers, which is kinda a different thing if you know what I mean. Would fisher even do better as a company if they did have an Equinox beater? Its a weird way to think of it, but accounting makes for some weird decisions from our point of view I suppose.

Actually I think you hit the nail on the head, profit over passion.  Why make something new and innovative when you can sell truckloads of bounty hunters to the mass consumer market. 

26 minutes ago, Jackpine said:

Other than the Equinox there really is nothing new for competition. FTP could have competed with Garret and their AT series but chose not to for whatever reason.  The market for single freq and selectable frequency waterproof machines is saturated now anyway. 

Cranking out a multitude of new 3 frequency machines on a yearly basis is similar in practice to FTP's updating of their older top end machines and we can now get those at some really good prices.

Since the long awaited CZX was a dead end we will just have to wait longer for that great new thing as we have no other choice.  I'm sure the Equinox wasn't hatched in a day either.

That said, I agree it would be nice to get a tid bit of info from them.

?

 

Nok/Mak released the Impact in 2017, then the waterproof Multi Kruzer earlier this year,  and now the Anfibio which basically equates to a waterproof Impact with some improvements.  So that's only two years, and they said going forward, after the Anfibio they will no longer be releasing selectable frequency machines, they will be SMF detectors.  Can't really compare ten years of F75 churn to two years of Nok/Mak IMO.  

We'll see what happens with FTP, I certainly haven't counted them out yet....White's and Garrett...now that's a different story.

1 minute ago, Jackpine said:

I'm sure they are working on other projects besides buttoning up Andre's Manta. 

The bar got set a couple notches higher with the Nox but I have confidence in the talented people at FTP.

Sure, I doubt they sit around twiddling their thumbs all day, but on the other side of the coin, it's been a long, long time since anything innovative has come out of FTP.  Their selling boatloads of bounty hunters (Costco, Walmart, sporting good stores, etc),  and they've repacked the F75 a hundred different ways to Sunday, and even the T2 to an extent.  They built a new "state of the art" factory.  Heck I even saw a video of someone that did a tour of the new factory, and stated that they "were working on great new things that would be out soon" but even that was last year. We've been hearing for ten+ years their next BIG thing was coming, so as much as we all know their capable of great things, here we sit speculating what these great things may or may not be while some of the competitors are actually walking the walk.   Yes the Manta is interesting, but let's be honest, it's an acquisition, so they really had almost nothing to do with it.  Sure they tidied up the design, and mechanical aspects, but it's not their invention. 

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see them come out with something that blows the Equinox away, but thus far, there's zero evidence to indicate that will ever happen.

Other than the Manta (which I've been following and although it's an interesting acquisition I personally have very little interest in it as I cannot see taking it to a ghost town or stage stop...at least not yet)....  So with FTP being so tight lipped, why are they actually sharing a little bit on the Manta as it's being tested and ushered into production?  Did they finally learn it's better to say something and stir up interest, then say nothing and watch all their competitors have all the fun?  

I hope FTP has something else up their sleeve, and I would enjoy seeing them be more transparent in the future.

Although I personally have no need for a 15" coil, Minelab is sure dragging this out.  I wonder what the big delay is, it's actually kind of odd IMO.   

I was sold on the reports that the tones were coming in more clear and the coins on edge enhancement on firmware rev 1.75 vs 1.5.  At this particular site, there are zero five star signals left, every signal is a deep whisper or masked by iron with a mixed tone ID.  Past trips there with the EQ800 I was able to go slow and low and bring those signals in to a recognizable deep penny/dime flutey tone (like a deep penny/dime signal on an Explorer), but in order to get those deep signals I had to push the sensitivity up (22+).  If I just dropped it to 20, I'd loose some of those signals.  

I'm thinking the next time I go there, perhaps I'll revert back to firmware rev 1.5, hunt and see how it performs,.  If it's back "on" I'll flag a couple of deep whisper signals, and then load firmware rev 1.75 on and see how it does.  Now if it immediately gets blown out on firmware rev 1.5, then there must be a new source of EMI at this site and those old coins will remain there forever. 

7 hours ago, NAGANT said:

I had the same problem after updating along with jumpy ID's and audio. Went back to original 1.5 and the words right again.

I might just toss my laptop in the car next time there, wouldn't be that big of deal to down rev back to 1.5 and see if there's any difference.

7 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

Apparently there was serious broadband interference.  I have no idea what that would be but it kinda sounds like jamming.  Any military base nearby?

No nothing like that.  I'll take my Multi Kruzer and Equinox with me there next time and see how they respond.  I was sure I was going to be digging 10" deep silver and copper again, but it wasn't to be.

23 minutes ago, W.Degenstien said:

Sorry for a basic question but what is the 'gain'?

It's the sensitivity, I interchange sensitivity with gain, although technically they could be different, but only for the sake of less typing I use gain ?

39 minutes ago, GB_Amateur said:

I've had less EMI issues with the 1.75 software.  However, as you say, EMI is variable even for fixed sites (I've returned to three sites where I've had EMI problems with the 1.5 software) so it's not easy to determine what is the cause or what is the solution.  I'm not going on record saying I definitely notice a difference (improvement in my case so far), either.  I've run about 165 hours with the 1.5 version and about 15 hours (not enough) with the 1.75 software.  I definitely need to collect more data.

Also, I've never had EMI problems with 15 kHz nor 20 kHz.  5 kHz, yes, every time I have problems in multi mode I can't run 5 kHz.  Once I couldn't run 40 kHz and a couple times I got EMI noise at 10 kHz.

It was odd, never been blown out like that before.  5 kHz always seems to most susceptible, but for 15 kHz and 20 kHz to be blown out too was a new experience.  And to be honest, if I'm stuck running 15 kHz or 20 kHz, I might as well grab my Multi Kruzer as you've lost the competitive advantage of Multi-IQ when in single frequency mode.     

I did get a lot of low conductor signals with 40 kHz, but I'm not ready to dig them yet (want to strip all the high conductors first).  Maybe when I get ready to strip out the low conductors, I'll just run 40 kHz, and maybe, just maybe, one of them will be a gold coin ?

I was finally able to get out for a little bit of detecting at one of my proving grounds.    It's a site whereas almost all of the older coins are deep, or masked.  I started detecting the site when I had a ML Sovereign, but the CZ70 was the first machine that really unlocked the site, and I found that while the first 6" had been strip mined, if you could punch below that, there was an entire strata of coins that had never been touched.  For years I pulled old coins out of the deeper depths, and would take any new detector acquisition there test it out.  After detecting it for a few years with the F75 LTD/LTD2, it dried up, zero silver for several years and it would take everything you had to eek out one wheatie or IHP.  Fast forward to my introduction to the Makro Red Racer, and the site opened up again, first hunt landed two silver coins, an IHP and a few wheaties, this trend was repeatable at subsequent visits with the Red Racer, then the Racer 2 and so on.  I took the Equinox there this spring and had one of my best days ever, with something like 12 old coins, including a few silver coins.  

Last weekend I upgraded the EQ800 to 1.75, and took it to the site.  I couldn't get the Equinox to run stable, which is odd as I never experienced that before.  I was trying to run Park1 and Park2, noise canceled, ground balanced, drooped the gain, it just wouldn't run stable.  I cycled through the individual frequencies and with the exception of 40, the rest all had audible EMI.  I ran in 40 for a bit, but it felt like it just wasn't performing as needed.  I did notice the last time I was there that I needed the gain as high as possible to punch down to those deeper coins (I was digging silver dimes and wheaties from depths measured at 10" deep.

I'm left wondering if this EMI issue was a one time thing (won't know until I'm able to return), or was the machine made less stable with the new firmware upgrade, or was something else at play.  

I assume the headphones are running on unlicensed 2.4GHz, and that the data stream is not encrypted (wouldn't make a lot of sense to encrypt it), so if those assumptions are correct, you could simply use a wireless sniffer to see what's being xmited between the V3's.  Heck even if it is encrypted, it's so old, that the encryption method was likely cracked years ago. 

Nice digs, that rosie was a squeeker!

Seems like the "Treasure" mode is akin to the Cache (CL) mode on the F75.  Very, very few people found this to be a useful feature, now Boost mode was a different story.   On previous Makro/Nokta models their DEEP mode was locked at 2-tones, whereas on the F75 you could use Boost mode with any tone configuration.  Has this changed on the Anfibio?

Looks like a nice machine, but from what I can tell thus far, not enough to persuade me to "upgrade" from my Multi Kruzer.  Nice that they share the same coils, as they'll be a nice selection of coils right out of the gate on the Anfibio.

1 hour ago, GB_Amateur said:

Better than 12 inches deep!  ?

Seriously, those are the more difficult ones for me both in terms of fooling me and worse, causing me to dig deep.  The modulation, both in the search mode and with the pinpoint mode plus the object size indication in the pinpoint mode usually give away close, large objects.  When in doubt I raise the coil and see how high I must go to lose the signal.

But I do agree that some kind of overload indication (if it doesn't cost performance in other ways) would save quite a bit of wasted hunting time.  Maybe there are other (reliable) tricks that help identify those deep, large objects but I haven't found one.

Agreed the deeper cans are the worst.  I always remember the raising the coil trick after I've dug the offending shallow target ?  

On 9/26/2018 at 1:05 AM, Jackpine said:

A lot of very good points in this discussion that I agree with completely. 

A couple quick questions for those that hunt older sites where numerous types and sizes of iron, steel and rusty tin are the masking culprits. 

Is the lack of an overload indicator on the Nox a positive thing for your hunting style?  In other words would it add or detract from your ability to discern co-located non-ferrous in heavily trashed areas? 

Although I like to hear it all to get those tells we talk about I l need to try hunting with the all metal horse shoe button off in these sites if only to satisfy my curiosity about the difference in audio vs making use of the iron volume control.

Given that it's lack of audio modulation in the first 6" is (to me) a big problem, I wouldn't mind an overload function.  Perhaps not quite as sensitive as the Makro/Nokta machines tend to be (I've been to sites with them that the machine sounded like it was in a Star Wars space battle with constant overloads from sea of nail environments), but it's annoying to get a nice coin signal, only to dig a beer can that's two inches deep. 

12 hours ago, dewcon4414 said:

Daniel..... i think ML changed wrap around.   Iron on many of the machines i used with high sensitivity would come in in the high digits...... now it seems to want to move into the second bin.   I also get that single digit on targets that are deep that arent flat.

IB is interesting if you watched that one video where BBS was like using 7 IB.  Its almost like turning the sensitivity down when running a hot coil on a target.   Those newer bottle caps..... problems like corona and bud light with some copper in them.

I've seen iron wrap-around hit high digits on my EQ800.  Matter of fact, at a very old site (for here) I was getting deep bits of iron wire (bailing wire) and some old hand forged nails that were producing a high tone and TID #.   After digging a few of these disappointing finds,  I got a beautiful signal.  well OK, it actually sounded like the deep iron, and it turned out to be an 1838 seated dime! 

On 9/23/2018 at 6:23 PM, Daniel Tn said:

I think there is a lot of misunderstanding of what the Iron Bias filter setting does vs what people think it does.  I think that is culprit in some people's problem with the iron, bottle caps, etc.

Without getting too deep into it, I will say that you gotta understand that not all FERROUS objects are iron.  Steel is not iron and iron is not steel.  A lot of the ferrous objects we call "iron" and lump into the iron category can actually be an alloy made up with non ferrous materials.  The modern crown cap "bottle cap" found on most beer bottles today are basically a steel alloy version of their older counter parts and contain copper, zinc, and I think nickel too.  What does this have to do with Iron Bias?  Well the higher you set the iron bias, the stronger it tends to filter out the ferrous part of the equation...which is great if an item is pure iron.  Bottlecaps and many other objects are not pure iron, so raising the iron bias on those simply removes the ferrous part of the compound but makes the non ferrous alloy part stand out better....right the opposite of what you want to do.  

Therein lies the problem with old rusty tin, be it from cans, or as the pioneers and miners loved to utilize it, for building roofing and siding.  In some ghost towns and other related sites, this stuff is everywhere in a state of decay, and it tends to sound good on a detector, although I've noticed on the Multi Kruzer that it can (not always) have a rough fuzzy sound, even though it TIDs as a higher conductor.   That said, why not just skip all those targets that don't have that pure non-ferrous sound?  Good relics made of multiple metals can also mimic this sound.  I hope the Equinox has the ability to provide audio and TID clues that can help decipher the good from the bad. 

Nice one!  Had it been a 16D, big $$$$

Interesting that the Anfibio multi is priced at the same MSRP as the Equinox 800.....coincidence?

I detect in California and Nevada and the Chinese were instrumental in building the original CPRR.   I know where there are some Chinese RR camps related to that in the Sierras, but their all on National Forest lands ?

15 hours ago, GlazedTofu said:

Well that is the oldest thing I have found!

thanks for the help 

 

wow, I never thought something that old would show up in the mountains of Washington state!

 

time to research the dynasty 

Was there a railroad nearby?

They tend to show up in areas where the Chinese worked on the railroads, or gold camps.

When I was detecting the Spanish outpost site I previously mentioned with the Multi Kruzer, sure I was digging a lot of flat iron/rusty tin, and there's a fair amount of small arms discarded shell casings there too (mostly all varieties of .22 caliber).  I started not digging those TIDs, then as things started slowing down and I recalled that a U.S. $1 gold coin could easily fall into that range, I started digging them.  Sure most were in fact .22 shells, but I also dug a nice 1700's Spanish mesh ball button, and a really old, likely 1600's given how worn it was, pendant, likely a religions pendent, but it was so worn you could only see there was a figure on it and foreign writing, but too worn to really ID it.  My hunt partner has a lot more experience at these old Spanish era sites and when I showed it to him, he immediately said it was super old, pre-1700's in his opinion.  So it can pay to dig it all, but I agree with Steve, if anyone ever makes a detector that can accurately discern flat iron from non-ferrous targets, these old sites will really light up!!

On 9/22/2018 at 7:41 AM, Daniel Tn said:

I'm running the new version but I haven't really ran into any issues with it as of yet.  The only time I run into deep iron with the Nox is if I have hit a spell where I've not dug anything in a while, and then I start trying to force signals; digging those that I'm pretty sure are bad, but there is just enough of a high tone coming thru every now and again that makes me curious.  It was that way with the first version and the newer one.

 

What I have noticed though is something pretty eye opening when comparing to the Multi Kruzer.  Here lately I've just been using both machines with their respective small coils...6 inch for the Nox and 7 inch for the Kruzer.  In my soil, the Nox still goes deeper, despite the Kruzer having a slightly larger coil.  But that's not what I am getting at.  It has to do with iron.  This Multi Kruzer loves flat iron.  I'm talking it will sing out on it, repeatable and consistent 50 to 80 IDs on flat iron....it depends on the size/thickness of it too in what it will read.  I started noticing this when I would be comparing both machines....as in hunting with one, marking good signals with it, then getting the other machine and comparing those same signals.  I noticed when I would hunt with the Kruzer, I was getting several signals each time that it was giving an unmistakable good signal on...ID higher than the nickel range, and into the coin range....that when checked with the Nox, it would only give single digit numbers or at most, an ID of 10.  Well that's quite a difference....when you have one machine reading into its  higher conductive coin range and the other not even registering as a nickel.  I thought to myself "uh oh...".  That was until I started digging these things.  100% OF THE TIME....not just once...or twice...the target is iron. I have a whole pile of iron now that this is verified on....the Kruzer will read as a mid to high conductive target when it is flat iron.  The Nox will single digit read it AS LONG AS it is in multi freq mode.

If you go to the single freq on the Nox...you will get the same exact thing that the Multi Kruzer is doing over the iron.  It causes it to instantly shoot up into the 20-30 ID range.  

Good post Daniel.  I took the Multi Kruzer on a few trips to my Spanish Outpost site earlier this year, and although it really brought the site back to life, and I made some nice finds, including a super deep 1794 Spanish 2 reale, and a 1844 Cap & Rays Mexican one reale, I was definitely digging a TON of flat iron.  The flat iron was mostly that rusty tin, or rusty tin soldered cans, and that kind of iron.  My buddy went with me on the second trip there and he too was digging a lot of that rusty tin on his Explorer2, so neither detector was impervious to it.  I was really hoping to take the Equinox there in the spring, but ML lagged on getting them out so that didn't happen.  I'm hoping we can do another trip there over the fall, I'm dying to test the Equinox there.  Now in all fairness, this is one site that has very tame ground, VLF machines like the Multi Kruzer do very well there and go very deep, so the EQ800 has it's job cut out for it!