MontAmmie

3 minutes ago, SittingElf said:

OH... Snowbirds...Gahhhh!  LOL! 

Well...sort of.  There were two summers out of 5 years when we didn't leave Florida at all.  I considered IHB as home since I've spent more time there in the last few years than anywhere else.  PM me and I'll tell you where my favorite hunting spots are around Melbourne, since I won't be back there for a while, if ever.

Wish I could!  We actually left Indian Harbour Beach Sunday and we aren't going back this winter.  I already kinda miss it.

My uncle was a fireman at Elgin AFB for years.  He's retired now.  I've often driven by the old housing units at Patrick AFB and drooled over those untouchables.  Good luck and thank you for your service!

4 minutes ago, Chase Goldman said:

Def worth a quarter and sometimes you get pleasantly surprised by the performance of these things.  Plug it in to the Equinox and see what it can do.  I am very interested in this, frankly, because Steve tried one of those AA power pack thingy's and it did not put out enough juice to the Equinox.  This will at least give us an idea of whether the lower end power banks can be used in a pinch.

I guess I'll have to run my 800 completely out of power to know what, if anything, this little item will do for it?  Hey, anything for the team.   It might be a day or so, since I just charged it up.  Jensen Beach tomorrow, whoohoo!

1 hour ago, Chase Goldman said:

Well not so fast.  The key is making sure it can source enough current to cause the battery charge indicator to light on the Equinox AND power up the detector if you want to continue to use it.  This needs to be done experimentally (i.e., by actually plugging in the power bank to the Equinox), since the paper "specs" on overseas mass produced giveaway promotional items like this tend to exaggerate the numbers.

It SHOULD work to at least partially charge the internal battery of the Equinox since it is rated to source 1A at 5VDC, however, just because the battery is rated at 3.7 VDC, 2200mAH does not mean it will charge up the Equinox 3.7 VDC 5000 mAH internal battery to ~40% because there is a large capacity efficiency hit when charging battery to battery due to losses in battery internal voltage regulator circuitry and internal heating.  Nor does it mean it can source enough current to simultaneously charge and run the Equinox which would be the point of having an emergency power bank. 

To enable this much current headroom to enable simultaneous charging and operation, you would typically want to have a power bank that can source at least 2A.    If you just want to wait for an hour or so for a small partial charge, then you will be OK, but may not be able to run the machine while charging.  If it does light the green charge light and power up the control head, you should be good for maybe 10 to 15% of the rated 12 hour run time of the on board battery, more or less, because you are sending current to run the electronics as well as inefficiently charging the the Equinox internal battery (provided the electronic current output is sufficient).  These small "lipstick" power banks run for about $5 - $7, new and are often given away as promo items in bling bags, charitable contributions, or if you sign up for a new credit card at the store.  If you paid less than $5, you got a good deal.  Test it out when you get a chance before you head out so you know what it really can do for you in a detecting "emergency".

HTH

I'll let ya'll know what happens when I get it charged up and plug it in to my 800.  Thanks for the explanation, Chase.  It was worth that 25 cents if it does nothing but charge my cellphone up a bit when we're in Deliveranceville,  Montana.

44 minutes ago, EL NINO77 said:

Equinox will charge 40% - 4-5 hours of detector work ...

Awesome!  This will be great to just charge up and leave in the backpack for emergency power back up.  Thanks!

43 minutes ago, IdahoPeg said:

Safe travels Ammie! We never did meet up this season. I did get acquainted with Terry S though....super nice guy; and have you been over to see his finds?! Impressive! I found my 1st silver ring up at Canova a few days before he found his gold one recently. I'll be heading back west in a month or so; looking forward to my more familiar nugget hunting. Good luck in Montana ?⛏

I haven't seen Terry's finds, except on youtube.  He's a hoot and I always enjoy talking to him about beach detecting. I wish I'd known you were at Canova and congrats on the ring!  But it was probably one of those days when we were out running and gunning and trying to get everything ready to leave anyway.  I didn't get to hit the beach much the last week we were there.  Good luck to you in Idaho, I hope we both find some big ole nuggets this summer!

So the Supreme Queen Tightwad of The Glorious Cheapskate Empire bestowed her royal presence upon a poor peasant's yard sale yesterday and found this marked a quarter.  Since the hayseed serf in charge wouldn't take 10 cents for it, Her Highness graciously paid full price for it and brought it home.  The paper says it's a 5V with a 1000mh output, whatever that means.  I did a search on my EQ instruction booklet and it just says "power bank".  So do ya'll think this will work?  I'm thinking if it doesn't, it probably won't hurt my 800 anyway?  Thanks ya'll!

Ammie aka Princess Penny-Pincher

Scott, if you have a paypal account I'd like to help you with postage costs.  PM me your email?

Well, it's with a certain wistfulness that I am about to spend my last night in Indian Harbour Beach, FL.  This little island has been the closest thing to a "home" that I've had for the past 5 years.  We towed our "big house" to Georgia a few days ago and got it all tucked in and safe from the Florida hurricanes.  The "little house", our 27 ft toy hauler, is parked in our spot and all ready to go exploring for the season.  There was a minor glitch with the Polaris as it wouldn't start when we took it in for new tires Thursday.  Route 1 Motorsports says it's just the battery and I'm sure they will get it all straightened out for us before we leave Florida in a couple of weeks.

I hunted "my" beach for probably the last time yesterday and had an awesome time with some old friends and some new ones.  None of us found much except clad and lead sinkers, but Terry Shannon did say he found a 10K ring the day before....which Mrs. Shannon promptly confiscated.    We'll be in New Smyrna Beach next winter, if we can get a spot reserved, so it will be fun learning to "read" a whole new set of beautiful Florida beaches.  I've heard that they're not as sand-truck happy up there as they are here, so that will be a big plus.  I do wish I'd had more time on my new Equinox before we left here, but at least I'll get in a couple more weeks of beach hunting at St. Lucie and Daytona before we leave Florida.

Tomorrow I face the "downside" of this RV lifestyle, saying goodbye to some dear friends and knowing it will probably be the last time I'll ever see most of them.  Those of you who also live this nomad life know how it is.  You always say "we'll meet somewhere halfway in between for lunch next winter" and then you never do.  At least with Facebook you can still stay in touch.

So we're off to St Lucie in the morning, so ya'll please say a little prayer for safe travels, if you're so inclined.  It is always greatly appreciated. 

On to the next big adventure!

Ammie

You're not actually talking about getting rid of a detector here are you?  Is that even a thing?  If so, please don't tell my husband.  

Drowned Iphone.  It rang up a solid 32 in every direction about 8 inches down in semi-wet sand.  The whole time I was digging it I had visions of Mr. T-sized sterling silver bling dancing in my head.  Boy, was I disappointed!  

13 hours ago, abenson said:

I also found the Equinox is almost as deep as the Infinium and you avoid all the junk. The TDI pro is still deeper though.  I had the TDI and Equinox  out yesterday comparing deep signals. I  found an old brass key tag and 1915 Barber Quarter the Equinox couldn't get, both were in the 14 to 16 inch range.

On the flip side the Equinox can sure separate the good stuff from the junk. I missed a another brass key tag next to a piece of iron with the TDI that the Equinox locked right onto.

Yeah, I would trade my Infinium in on a TDI Pro in a heartbeat, if I could find a used one at a reasonable price.  I'll probably be using the Equinox for all of my water hunting from now on.  It's just so much easier without that cord connected to a heavy box hanging on your waist.  Our surf is usually too rough to dig anything very deep anyway. If you can't get it in one or two scoops, you're probably not going to. 

Come on MineLab, I need some waterproof headphones please! (After everybody that wants an Equinox gets one).

17 hours ago, sdbirder said:

Very nice! Were you using Beach 1 or 2?

I've only been to the beach once so far with my 800. Coming from a sparky XP Deus Beach 1 was a little too quiet for my liking on dry sand.

Next time I may try Park 1 or 2 on the dry sand and Beach 2 for the water.

11 hours ago, Nuke em said:

Am on the way to the beach now. Which mode do you use ?

I was using Beach 2, I don't care for Beach 1 either.  I left the recovery speed alone and had the sensitivity on 20-21 most of the time.  I did experiment with different settings until I found the ones I liked best.  I think having the all metal mode on made the most difference and I won't be hunting without it again.  After I dug a few bottle caps it wasn't hard to weed them out.  Today I worked on eliminating canslaw.  And there was a ton of it at Canova!  It seems like it's not so much the tone or the VDI number that matters so much, but the stability.  If you get the same solid number in every direction with not even a hint of an iron grunt then most of the time it's either a coin or some little doo-dad like a snap or a button that's not really trash.  It might be my imagination, but the Equinox seems to like roundness in a target and will tell you if something is circular if you learn what it's saying.  Does that make sense?

Well, we finally got some decent beach conditions today so I could really try my 800 out on the sand.  Five hours of pure beach detecting fun!  And I feel like I have to say this, even if I get raked over the coals by my fellow PI Club members.

My Equinox 800 goes practically as deep on the wet and dry sand as my Garrett Infinium. 

There, I said it.  Shocked the hell outta me too.  I say practically because I gave up digging stuff 2 feet down a while ago.  It's almost always a big piece of crap anyway.  That Equinox was locating stuff a foot down easily, with the added benefit of target ID.

I started out digging everything so I could learn, but then found that I could eliminate some can slaw and bottle caps by using all metal mode.  If I got an little iron grunt on the edge of the coil along with varying ID numbers and tones, it was trash every time.  Every single time I got a 19 or 20, it was a rotten zincoln, so I started weeding those out too.  I think when I start to really get to know my Equinox and learn it's quirks I'll be able to weed out lots more of the trash.  The pull tabs are what they are and you just gotta dig 'em.  I think that whoever invented those things should be tied to a chair and forced to watch every single "Oak Island" episode 10 times in a row.

I had forgotten how fun it is to hunt the beach with a VLF!  I just thought it was the price I had to pay to find anything on my barren beaches.  I honestly think my Equinox got every good target that my Infinium would have gotten on depth, plus way more of the smaller shallow stuff the PI would have missed.  I do have to crank the disc up to 2 to get it stable in salt water, so that might be the reason.

Poor Infinium.  I sure hope it finds some gold in Montana that its new sibling doesn't, 'cause Ammie has a new beach machine. 

I got about $2 in change, the "gold" pendant is plated crap, the token and the lighthouse thingy were junk too.  It's always fun digging jewelry though.  The marcasite ring is 925.

I probably don't have enough hours on my 800 yet to be drawing any conclusions.  But so far, I would have to agree with George on the target ID thing.  I don't think the 800 will ever replace my DFX for jewelry hunting in trashy parks (about the only kind of parks we have here).

Hello?  White's?  I've been wanting to upgrade my DFX for years, I just never could quite pull the trigger on something not waterproof.

I got mine from metaldetector.com.  They had them in stock a couple of weeks ago and I even found a coupon code (10JJA) for $10 off.  I really like it, but I did have to adjust the frequency when my 800 complained about it being too close.  Reminded me of my kids in the backseat as pre-teens. I finally had to install a suitcase buckled on end during road trips to serve as the Great Wall of China.

14 minutes ago, strick said:

Love it...never get tired of chains...it's fun trying to pull them out of the turf without breaking them lol...I wish i would hunt water more but my boss wont let me get too far from work...

strick 

Sounds like you need a new boss, Strick.  Priorities, you know. 

I finally un-boxed mine and I like the one-button simplicity of it.  It seems tough, too.  I put the batteries in the wrong way the first time.  Had to whack the bottom a couple of times to get them back out. 

On 3/5/2018 at 4:27 PM, Steve Herschbach said:

Absolutely true if you are detecting in the air or in non-mineralized white Florida sand with exactly one target in the ground.

Sounds like my beach.  Out there, depth really does matter.  I went down there today with the Infinium for 3 hours before low tide.  5 targets total.  2 pennies, 2 rusty fish hooks and one sinker.

Awesome finds!  It's smart not broadcasting to the world where you find the good stuff. 

I can't even tell my momma when I find something awesome, because everybody and their cousin knows which beaches I hunt. I'll just say that my Infinium has paid for itself about 5x already and I've had it since last July. 

It never ceases to amaze me when some guys post multiple pics of 3 ct diamond rings on FB and tell all about the exact spot on the particular beach where they found it yesterday.  I think they are just asking to have 15 different people claim it as theirs and then harass them if they don't hand it over.  My philosophy is simple, and I'll probably get some haters for this, but...I didn't pay thousands of dollars for my equipment just to be a lost-and-found department for careless people.  If you like it enough to want it back if you lose it, then you'd better have your name, or at least your initials on it.  

I'm with you on that depth meter analysis!  I'm used to running a DFX, which is usually spot-on with the depth reading.  I've only had my 800 at the beach so far, so I thought that might be the reason the depth was a bit "off".  Our beaches are sanded in. Again. 

Why is it that the recent Nor'easters are uncovering dang ship wrecks in New England http://wnep.com/2018/03/06/noreaster-uncovers-revolutionary-war-era-shipwreck-in-maine/

And we're getting nothing but tons more sand from them here in Florida?  It just ain't right, I say! 

10 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

As long as you all don’t tear out each other’s throats I’m cool. 

Minelab is watching with nearly as much frustration as you are feeling. Yeah, they set themselves up but the fact is the demand worldwide is off the charts.

I still think that MineLab has more of a communication problem than anything else. 

A simple statement like:

"We are aware that many customers have pre-paid for their Equinox detectors, in some cases months ago. MineLab remains committed to filling these orders as quickly as possible.  Please be aware that all dealers, including the larger retailers, are receiving a pre-determined amount of units, and all of our distributors are free to market these detectors in the way which is most efficient and cost-effective for them.  We apologize for any confusion this may have caused, and would like to thank our valued customers for their continued patience and support during this unprecedented event in metal detecting history."

Would have gone a long way toward diffusing some of the hostility after the Cabela's roll-out.

8 hours ago, Thegoldenone said:

Wish I was near the Treasure Coast right now! I'd love to take this machine down there and crank her up! I think I'd actually have a chance of finding something there with this machine!

 

I just got back from Canova.  It's sanded in bad.  All that dune-fixing sand they dumped last month has been washed down to the water line by the big waves we're having.  Targets are even scarcer than usual.  I gave up after about an hour.