Happa54

My hand is raised too. Gonna do my first ever beach hunt in 2 weeks.

It is my opinion though that default settings would suffice, which is the way I run the other modes. 

51 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

It would be interesting to get your take on what features that the Equinox 600 lacks prove to be the most valuable for you on the 800. Once you have time to get used to the new machine 

Same here. I'm ready to do my upgrade. Been watching "Dirtfishin" video on the tone breaks, etc. Looks simple as everything else about the Nox is anyway. 

I use Historicaerials A LOT.  I don't know about your area but down here in Los Angeles, the aerial photos date back to the 40's and 50's which means.... Mercs, Rosies and Wheaties. I use it mainly for parks and lots. Use the slider tool to go back and forth to view present and past. It works great!! Good luck !!

Thanks for your time and effort with the video Mark. When I started this thread I didn't mean to rain on anyone's parade but it's just that I have seen a few videos on this subject and my inquisitive nature wanted to investigate further. I've come to the conclusion that I'm going to retrieve good stuff whether "coin on edge" or not or for whatever other reason. With proper MD techniques and the proper settings, it can only get better for me. After all, with approx 60-70 hours on mine, I've scratched off 2 bucket listers, over a dozen silver coins, several dozen wheats, rings, tokens and a ton of clad. Irrespective of some of its early reported faults, ie; arm cuffs, wobbly shafts, etc. I have come to like this machine due to its simplicity and power. Far easier to maneuver around its settings with only the movement of my thumb. And, much lighter and easier handling than my Safari however I have not dug anything deeper than I have with the Safari and that's probably because my coil has not passed over anything deep yet.  My confidence level with the Nox is such that if and when the 800 is plentiful and there is no wait for it, I'm buying it. 

28 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

The issue was originally reported in early February on this thread. There is follow up commentary there.

All detectors miss things. I generally judge my detectors on how well they find things for me compared to how other detectors find things for me. Equinox does a great job finding things for me in areas where other machines have been wanting. Put a coin in a dense trash situation and the Safari will miss the coin and Equinox hit it. Is the Safari defective? No, that's just it's performance characteristics at play.

The "on edge" thing has been an issue for detectors for decades and with Equinox some people are rediscovering the issue or learning about it for the first time. Some machines are better, some worse, and with one machine some coils will be good and others not so much.

Long story short, if detecting coins on edge is your thing, maybe there are better options than an Equinox.

Searchcoil Field Shape

Thanks for putting this into perspective for me. I can live with it when you explain it this way. For me, only 1.5 years into this hobby I read a lot...and I mean a lot...everyday a lot...LOL. The research and testing that everyone does on a particular machine means something, even if just a little and we have to confirm in our respective soils and environments. Nonetheless, I like this machine for it's simplicity and adjustments at my fingertips. I'll find my way with time.... Thank you

5 minutes ago, Mark Gillespie said:

Did you do the test with the Safari at the same location where you tested the Equinox and the dime and quarter on edge?

Did you sweep over the on edge coins both ways?

 

Yes, I did the test with both machines, same slot, same coins, same everything in the soil in my test garden. I'll do further testing if I can think of anything else or based on suggestion on this forum. 

Hey Everyone;

I watched a couple of youtubes on "Equinox coins on edge" which prompted me to do a test on my own.

Honestly, I really don't know what to make of it and I don't have anything to say positive or negative other than, I hope the percentages of coins on edge are low.

Yesterday at the park I laid a silver dime flat on the ground and ran the coil over it in Park 1. The signal was loud and clear.

I then stuck it in the ground on edge so the rim was barely showing. Ran the coil over it and the signal came in scatchy and broken up with VDI's bouncing around between the low and high numbers but nothing above 20.....mostly low single digit numbers. And in many passes, no signal at all. I wouldn't have dug these. 

Did the same with a silver quarter, wheat penny, '40 nickel, and the same scratchy broken signal on all or no signal. 

This morning out to my test garden.... did the same again with the Nox and the same results as of yesterday at the park. 

Cranked up the Safari..... hit them loud and clear whether flat or on edge.

Do I really need to be concerned about this? 

Any words of metal detecting wisdom on this? 

Thank you

I'm guilty of mode hopping. Owning the Nox is like having multiple lollipops in front of you and you want to lick them all. I watch a lot of youtube videos and each time I do I'm anxious to try another setting when I get to the field...ie; one youtuber says Field 1 hits coins deeper than Park 1 & 2. Then another youtuber is pulling deep coins out in Park 1. And then others swear by Park 2. Aye, yai yai !!!!  This is too much toy for me. LOL

1 hour ago, schoolofhardNox said:

Thanks Happa54. A lot of people on different forums have bashed the Equinox as not being much different from Minelab's previous machines, but nothing could be farther from the truth. My CTX never found that much gold and neither did the GPX. This machine hits well enough on shallower small gold and chains, and hits very hard on smaller gold rings, even if the band is cracked. That difference alone is responsible for me finding more gold than ever before.  And the GPX, properly tweaked, can hit those deep silvers even with the clay and black sand. I watch others walk all over the area I was finding most of those silvers, and they never stopped to even dig one hole.  Without those 2 machines I would be in the middle of the pack percentage wise.... maybe 

It is interesting you say this re the Nox. A couple of months ago I was at an old 30's small semi-desert park and the infill was sand and grass on top. I hit some deep high CO signals and after about 8" of digging I covered the holes and walked away thinking deep rusted iron or irrigation pipe. I think I understand now and I may have walked away from some good finds.  Also have the So Cal beaches at my disposal and yet I have never hunted them. I do good on coins but lousy on jewelry. After seeing your wrap up I think I better head to the ocean and at least give it a try. Thanx for sharing. 

Holy Cow!!!!!!  That is a super fantastic wrap up. Not only do you have the "much wanted gold", but you have (more than most can get) a large amount of silver too. You must be up there in the 1%-5% class. Congrats on that impressive haul !!!!!

3 hours ago, Tometusns said:

I checked 13 war nickels. 9 came up solid 13's, 1- 12/13's, 2- 13/14's and 1- 14/15's. No explanation just what they came in at. 

Now this is making me crazy....LOL

And we know for sure the '43-S has a TDI of 20+

Wow... I spoke too soon. High mintage numbers on the '43-S

Good analogy GB and this war nic thing is getting interesting for me because I dug one. Now I'm curious to know how many were minted at this possible 50/50 mix. I'll have to search this one out. Please post if you find the same. Thank you

Great research GB and Steve. Find this hard to believe that "Congress gave the Mint the authority to vary the proportions, or add other metals, in the interest of the public". One would think that mint standards would be the same across the board. Very, very interesting.

On the left, a 1943 S and on the right a 1944 D. The '43-S signal is 23 - 25 on the Nox, but seems to like 24 the most. The '44-D is a solid 13 with no wavering at all. 

Thanx everyone for chiming in on this subject for me.

Thank goodness there are very little changes to the VDI's with the nickels. One bump on the #'s either way is manageable. So, I may have to dig a little more but that's okay. Time will tell. The number of nics I dig will set the bar for me. I don't want to miss that V, Shield or Buff. 

Re the War nics...I remember the first one I dug about a year ago, was a high CO signal. Upon retrieval, I thought to myself, "Oh, a nick in the hole with a dime or maybe some silver". But I couldn't find anything else. So I passed the nic across my coil and there it was...a high CO signal. That was when I realized I had a War nic that I've heard so much about. The other War nics I've recovered were consistent at 14 on my ML Safari. 

A while back, my Etrac buddy asked, "Did you get that high tone or mid tone on those?" Obviously he had the same experience. 

So now with the Nox, where will the VDI be on a high tone War nic? I'm thinking they will be somewhere between zinc and dime.

I guess so my next question in the future will be...."What was the VDI on your high tone War nic with your Nox?" Oh boy!!!!

37 minutes ago, Tometusns said:

Happa54, you will certainly miss some v and/or shield nickels unless you drop it down. 10 to 14 with 11,12,13 being the main numbers. It seems it's always better if there are just two main numbers but that's not always the case. I've got to get a war nickel before the end of the month to do the nickel sweep. Last month I found all but the war nickel in one day. Buff and v from a yard and shield from a park. I was pretty stoked. The Equinox loves nickels!! Good luck!! Tom

Thank you Tom...I'll follow your suggestion and open up 10 - 14. The times I have seen an 11 or 14 mixed in with the 12/13 it has always been a pulltab. But then somewhere I recently read (and I don't remember where) that a deep Buffalo can come in at 11. So, we'll see... I"ll start digging more trash if it means getting more buffs and my bucket lister V nic and if I'm lucky enough I might get a Shield. 

Cool finds. That lead man looks like an umpire...is it?

That's admirable of you and will only send good karma your way.....

Congrats on those nice finds !! It's too bad your beaches close up in the summer months.

Hey Everyone...I hope you all had a great weekend hunt.

At present time, I'm chasing buffs & V nics. I did enough silver and wheats since last year and I want to focus on different things one category at a time.

This morning I was able to spend approx 3 hours at a 3-4 acre 1920's park until they took over the field for soccer. Got 6 nics and other goodies. 

There were just as many quarter signals as there were dimes and pennies signals. Tells me that it isn't getting hunted much, if any... right?

In my quest for nics, I'm blocking out everything except 12/13 and 18+ and I have been doing well with the nics this way. If a silver gets in the way, then it's icing on the cake. 

What prompted me to write is this morning I dug a nic with an erratic signal and it got me wondering. It rang up as a weak 12/13. Threw it in AM and a 16 pops up, then a 14, but then drops back down to 12/13.  Threw it in 10khz and the numbers didn't move much. I decided to dig which I normally would not do if it isn't a steady 12/13. But I did anyways, then out comes a bent, slightly cut Jefferson. There was nothing else in the hole after a 2nd sweep of the coil. This now makes me wonder if I need to open up the numbers a little more... like maybe 11 - 14? I don't want to miss that V or Buff. 

Thanks for stopping in and giving your feedback.

8 hours ago, flakmagnet said:

Steve's quote: "...The horseshoe button makes it easy to set up a pattern with almost every thing blocked. You can flip back and forth between extreme disc settings and wide open and compare signals on targets found in the field before digging..."

The importance of this way of experimenting and double checking cannot be overstated. It is one of the reasons the Equinox is so much fun and works so well. The other thing I like is being able to instantly change frequencies to see how they interact with the target and the ground. That also helps make detecting much more of a learning experience. 

 

I agree. Nox makes it so you can easily and quickly move between modes and settings while working targets. So much easier than ML's other FBS machines. 

Thanks for your comments everyone.

My learning curve is a long one even though from looking at the minimal and simplified options on the Nox dashboard....still, there are options where one outweighs the other depending on the type of hunt and where you are hunting.

I see valuable information in each of your responses and I will work with them on my next outing which this Sunday will be my first "all day" hunt with the Nox. As with my Safari, I like to run my machine to the max in every aspect. I basically operate between AM and iron disc because I like to hear as much as I can under the coil. 

The 600 at recov speed 3 is equal to recov speed 6 on the 800. It also works on the same scale with Iron Bias. So, even at my highest Nox speed setting, it's overwhelming when compared to the other ML FBS machines. 

I hunt off & on with a couple of Etrac and Explorer HOT SHOTS who out-hunt me 5 to 1 on silvers & wheats and pretty much all good finds. They seem to move along at a good pace while I lag behind, (although I have a much faster machine) sifting through all the signals/targets. And this is why I struggle with “to disc or not to disc” with my Nox.

As a side note: The one thing I noticed when in Park 2 is that I pick up itsy bitsy pieces of metal which takes up too much time to look for. Hence, why I use Field 1.

Although it seems that I have some things to complain about at this point, I am also appreciative of my finds thus far given the short time I’ve used the Nox.

A couple of the silvers in the pic were buried under large nails but their target ID and tones were mixed in with the nails. I can’t say I remember digging silver with the Safari under those conditions, but I could be wrong…and I got a good amount of silver last year.

Now SteveH !!!!!  You just threw me into a headspin, and a big smile too. You have guts to hunt with just those nickel signals opened up. I would have been afraid to thinking the Nox wouldn’t perform satisfactorily under that kind of aggressive blocking. Man do I have a lot to learn. If you can remember, what was your deepest nickel that day? Some appear to have come from depth.

Hey everyone...

First off I'd like to say that coming from another popular forum, I find this one to be the most educational, informative and administered. I have followed enough of Steve H's wisdom in this hobby to know that this forum is now at the top of my list for all around metal detecting, no matter which brand. 

This is my 2nd post on this forum so I hope I'm in the right place with this.

My question is with discrimination with the Nox 600. We've mostly been taught that Minelab machines perform at their best when discrimination is at a minimum. Thus, I've been running my Safari with iron only disc'd out. Now with the Nox, I'm reading articles/posts where others say the Nox will handle a significant amount of disc'ing with no notable differences in performance. Do you find this to be true?

I only have approx 30 hours on mine and I've run it in all 3 modes and I have played with the disc settings somewhat. The 2 times I have run with high disc I notice the Nox gets faint on the signals almost as if it's having a slight power failure or is struggling to identify targets. I've seen a couple of youtubers running it with more disc than its default settings and it looks to be running smoothly.

I hunt some of the trashiest parks in Los Angeles and my ears get a serious pounding with zinc, pull tab, and iron signals. Coming from the Safari and into the Nox is like being under machine gun fire with the signals. I've set my machine to disc out iron up to +11 and 14 - 19. Basically I only want to hear nickels and high conductors (only in super trash parks). When I disc out this way, is when I lose all confidence in the machine due to the change in its operation. Maybe I'm backing off too soon and not giving it a chance to work its way through. 

Of the modes given, I like field 1, GB 0, sens 22, 50 tones, multi freq, iron bias 0, speed 3. I toggle back and forth between modes and field 1 thus far seems to work best for me but this could change as I get to know my Nox. 

Anyone have comments or examples to share using high disc is appreciated.

As always HH everyone.  

Sorry for the late response. In case you didn't find the right small coil for your Safari... Try the Detech SEF Bufferfly 6x8... it's awesome at separating in the trash. I use it on my Safari.