Tmox

Beautiful ring!! This will work with patience, I use this on shipwreck silver coins. Go to the store and get s gallon of distilled water, put the ring on the window sill in a little jar and cover it with distilled water. Every week you can top it off and rinse it with a little detergent. The black will dissolve and become a little slimy. If you can get some lab grade 18 megohm water it works even better. I've used my mineralized tap water and it works well. Cheers, Tim

I believe at 2 per week you are beating the AQ production line!!

The swollen battery is probably my fault. This is the situation that led up to the swollen battery: When I got off the beach and in to my truck I plugged the spare battery in to the charger running off an inverter. Later in the day I hooked the charger up to the battery was still on the detector while still in the truck. Even later that day I had to drive up north to take care of some issues, the detector was still hooked up to the charger. Yesterday's detecting session I detected until the battery died- it ran the normal time about 3 hours. when I swapped batteries I saw the one I took off was swollen. Some facts you may not know: The batteries don't get much more than lukewarm when I charge them I notice that once charged if you cycle the power on the charger on and off that the battery will charge 10 to 30 more minutes. My charger is electronically noisy, if I use it next to a fm radio tuned to a weak station it will inject a lot of static noise in to the radio audio. The other battery is just fine. This is what I think happened to my battery: The battery could well have gotten hot charging in the truck, sometimes its sunny here. the battery went through multiple charging cycles that day because every time I started the truck the power cycled to the charger and the battery charged just a little bit more. I think in this scenario that I abused the battery, it got hot and the case deformed. My takeaways are that I will not charge in the truck anymore and I will not let the power to the charger cycle when I am charging batteries. I have not opened the battery up to look inside in the event First Texas wants to take a look at this thing. I'm dying to open it up and look inside, If I do I will post the pictures for all you inquiring minds. One last comment; I am extremely happy with the detector and this very unusual way the detector ended up getting released. It is amazing that we are able to interact with the inventor and his design team, and the chief engineer for the whole company. This just doesn't happen in the real world and we are very lucky to be in this situation. I appreciate it very much. Thanks Rick, Alexandre, Willy, Le Jag and Geotech Carl. Cheers, Tim

This could happen to you!! Long slow romantic walk on the beach this morning. Almost 3 hours in it's time to change the battery. I take the battery off the detector to make the swap and look at it and holy cow the thing is bulbous! I suspect this is what happens when you don't practice safe charging. I was just thinking about the recent threads on the beautiful batteries OBN is making and thinking I don't need to get one, I've got two perfectly good batteries. I'm going to rethink that. HELP OBN! Tim

This is my "field expedient" really low budget Connector Protector. My original plan was to simple add a piece of 3/4" pvc to the end of the shaft to protect that frail looking little connector in case a fall. That done I thought if I add a 90* elbow and a "tee" them it sorta kinda protects the battery also. If you decide to try this, the only little trick is the 3/4" pvc doesn't quite fit over the end of the detector shaft. You need to make sure the black end cap that has the connector is flush (may require a tiny bit of sanding). you need to heat your piece of 3/4" pvc with a heat gun and when it is soft slip it over the end and let it cool. It will be a very tight slip fit. You are good to go. Up next my pregnant battery. Tim

WILLY, RICK, ALEXANDRE, I can report the exact same results and identical settings as used by Carolina. My beach is in northern California, very steep beach, very fast water. Extremely stable for me. Tim

I just learned the secret handshake to get in the club, and now the club closed down!

Great job as usual Mitchel, I'm way north of you and use the 15" almost all summer long on the beach. I switch back and forth with the 11" to keep myself honest. Wintertime my beach gets much more mineralization and the 15 just wears me out with all the signals. When I switch back to the 11" I feel naked without the 15! I have a small patch of beach (100'x100') that has produced gold. I pound it relentlessly with the 11 and continue to find little bits. I come back with the 15 and pound it again and find even more little bits and deep coins the 11 misses. It's a great tool to have in the Arsenal. I do use a counter weight with the 15. Tim

Mr Phrunt, I can give you a little info. I bought one of the two Vallons that Rick had. Carl Morelands Geotech forum has about all the information you can digest. Currently the Vallon thread is up to 77 pages. I use the Vallon on the beach in addition to the Equinox. I use the Equinox probably 95% of the time. I often carry the Vallon on my back to use when I hit that certain situation on my particular beach where the mineralization cripples the equinox. I am waiting for my Impulse and expect the Vallon will get retired. The Vallon is an awesome piece of kit for the price. you can update the software yourself or send it in and have it done. Before I bought mine RIck sent it in and had it cleaned up and pressure tested plus updated it with civilian software. Vallon is funny about the software and them doing the upgrade. In the US they will update it but not for export for fear it will get used to hunt mines again. The main reason is that the US civilian software will allow you to remove the confidence click that lets the operator know the detector is working every minute. For civilian use it is a pain in the ass. The software does turn on a lot of features. The Vallon comes with a piezio earpiece (only one ear) and is a pain to use. To use a headset like we use, you need to add a impedance matching transformer. My solution was to get a bluetooth transmitter and go wireless. I just had to buy the transmitter, a plug to match the Vallon plug. If you get the Vallon I can turn you on to all the particulars. All the information is buried in the Geotech forum. From what I have read the Vallon is not the hot ticket for small gold. There is a fellow from down in your neck of the woods that posted on Geotech Forum a good bit about using his Vallon in the field. Its a cool machine, built like a tank. Waterproof, only issue is the membrane switches on the pod start to depress on their own after the pod is couple of feet deep but it wont flood! Thomas who posts as "Carolina" on this site has a Vallon and has used his on the beach far more than me. He is a wealth of information. Cheers, Tim

Since Steve went with the Tau Tronics i went with the Trond, see if there is any differences. To look at the thing it appears identical to the Tau. I mated it to a plug I had for my Vallon VMH3 and it works like a champion, I like it a lot. I see a few practical problems for use on the beach. -Clearly it isnt wàter tight so no wading. -In the picture the blue ring is the switch, A grain of sand can get in there and I'm sure will mess it up. -The charging port is also uncovered, in short order the salty beach mist and fog will do it in. I have been using a bit electricians tape to cover the openings while I used it on the beach but I dont think it will be practical on the beach with the Impulse AQ. I will be using it for sure with my other land maçhines, the low latency works fine! Tim

Good reviews: you have both mentioned lanyards for your machines. Last year I decided I wanted to try one on the beach and saw the old paddle leash i had on my kayak. I tried it and I use it always now. It's just a woven nylon tube with 3/8 sick cord inside. Loop on one end and Velcro on the other. It's nominally 48" long at rest. Here is a picture from Amazon. This one is $13 on Amazon and a similar one at my local sports store was twice that. One of my concerns was being able to get out of the thing if i got knocked downin the surf. In an emergency I can slip this. Search for kayak paddle leash. Tim

I represent that comment.😊

Freaking Awesome reporting, music to my ears. Godspeed to you tomorrow. Tim

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the stainless vs titanium? Thanks Tim

That was cool while it lasted, the page was populating as I was clicking. Now it's gone.

To be a fly on the wall in El Paso,

Thanks Steve, I have not pulled the trigger yet. One of my pet peaves is USB mini and micro charging plugs. The tiniest piece of debris get in either end of the plug and the charging gets wonky. Really like the newer USB C plug, much easier to clean the debris out. You know the situation, the plug doesn't mate up perfectly, so you have to hold your mouth just right then balance the cable position just perfect and hope nothing moves. The offending fly speck never just blows out our comes out with a few taps. You have to find a very thin wire the size of frogs hair to dislodge the speck. I'll let you all know if I find one with USB C port! Tim

With eager anticipation I assume many of the early adopters are currently using the Equinox and as such are addicted to wireless headphones. Recent posts on Bluetooth transmitters by Chase and others have tried the Trond and Tautronics and seem to have more success with the Trond. Which direction are you guys headed on Bluetooth transmitters for the Impulse? Tim

to to add to what Steve said you can't go wrong with either the Excalibur or the CZ 21 one nice thing about the cz-21 is Fisher / First Texas is still repairing and upgrading those machines so you can send that thing in and they'll make it brand new. I sent my cz-21 in 2 years ago to have a potentiometer replaced for $60 and they did a total upgrade to the machine for no additonal cost. Both the CZ and the Excalibur are armored tanks that are good to as deep as you'll ever go diving on air. Tim

Luke, like you I am in far northern California. Here is a good confidence builder and learning drill. When you make that swing and get that iron sound and the high sound all at once do the following: start moving your iron bias incrementally higher and note any changes, then decrease it and note any changes. Dig it up and see what's going on. Soon enough you'll get the feel for what is comfortable for you. You can do the same thing with the sensitivity, start moving it down, you may be amazed at how how low you can go and still have a nice signal. If you are getting sensory overload turn the sensitivity down or detect for awhile with the horseshoe engaged. Cheers! Tim

BTS PRO Update: I bought a second pair of the BTS pro's. I used the file that SDBirder has listed above and got a failure message. I remembered the issue with the original BTS charging cable not working and got a verizon cable I had and the program ran and updated the phones. The new phones connected the to the Equinox and they have the + symbol. While I was waiting for good old UPS to deliver the new BTS Pro's I contacted 66 Audio product support about the file to update the firmware to allow aptx low latencey. Karol from product support contacted me and said that the file is available to enable low latencey but I have yet to recieve it. When I do recieve it, I will check to see if it is a different version than the original SD Birder file. If it is different I will check it out and post it here. In any event the "old file" still works. Cheers, Tim

My take is a little different. I have thousands of hours on the beach with both the cz21 and the Equinox. I use them on a beach near the Oregon border that has lots of mineralization. I love both machines but they are not equals in the wet sand by any stretch. Again, my situation is lots of mineralization. The Equinox performs noticeably better on both low and high conductors, small and large. The differences is more pronounced the more mineralized it gets. The other big thing is how much faster the Equinox is and its ability to separate targets. I should mention my CZ21 has the 8 inch coil. The other thing is the convenience of wireless headphones. There are 3 things I really like about the CZ21. First thing is it sounds wonderful, it is so easy to tell the depth, size of an object, it's just so smooth. It is so much more pleasant to use and easy to learn. The second thing I like is chest mounting it. The handle and coil are weightless. Third thing is the confidence that it feels indestructible. If you are actually going to dive then it's the serous choice. That's my dos escudos. Tim

I love this forum, I think it's cool as hell I can hear from the HMFIC and the designer.

Thanks for digging the file out. I could not find mine on the computer. I hope you guys can get this file to work for you. I will say that on occasion I have had trouble getting these to pair but its worth it when it works. mini review: I lost my original minelabs so I tried quite a few low latency units and the BTS PRO is my favorite. They are pretty comfortable to wear, they have excellent volume. Its so nice to be able to wear these with a brimmed hat, they will also fit under a knit watch cap. The bass volume is excellent so you can really hear those nails and bits of wire on the beach. Additionally you can download an app from them and boost the bass as well as adjust the frequency curve, a mini equalizer. They float! I got knocked down in the surf and they floated away. I thought for sure the salt water was going to kill them, I shook the water off and kept detecting. They still work months later. They are not guaranteed for ocean immersion but they work. The USB C port is a godsend compared to the mini USB from the stand point that they are much more tolerant of little bits of lint and stuff getting in the port and keeping the charging plug from making connection, much easier to clean when you inevitably do get a piece of crud in the port. They sound bright, clear and clean from high to low. They don't block out all the ambient noise which is nice in a dangerous environment. I used them for months with out the LL update and they work just fine. I move fast on the beach and you can definitely tell the target sound is lagging the coil but when you hear a target and slow your swing down the coil and sound sync up. You can still hear the separation in real mineralized conditions and multiple targets. The Issues: Twice the ear cushions have torn. Easy repair with super glue and they have lasted longer than the originals. I did contact customer support and they sent a new set of cushions for free but it took awhile. I admit they lead a rough life with me. I wish you could turn the flashing LED on the earpiece off. I don't like being out at night festooned with flashing lights. Its not that big a deal since its usually so chilly on the beach I have a watch cap and hood on but still. These are my go to phones. I have the LL earbuds which are super comfortable with the various silicon ear pieces but I have found all of them have a subdued bass response and volume. I hope you new guys get them working, I like them so much I am thinking of getting some spares. Tim

Thanks Rick, your opinions on gold coins on the beach? Will it depend on the size of the coin?. It's the excitement before Christmas!