bklein

Here I adjusted the ATS and Reject controls in Mute mode to reject tent stakes. It also rejects everything but the nickel and gold ring.

Ahhhhh. Brain fade on my part - I was thinking the Reject had no function in Tone mode. I’m getting stupider. Due to age I suppose. Does yours do the slow rise or drop in tone when held over the steel plate or similar?

Here’s a video AQ Impulse Tone Mode. Starts out ATS 5 and adjust up until low tone on the tent stake. Big silver ring is low tone too so you wouldn’t dig it. The steel plate is interesting. The default 8 setting or so kind of nulls it out. More or less setting results in a slow tone sweep if you hover over it.

Is it really worth messing with though if you will think some good targets are iron? It doesn’t register fresh tent stakes as iron either.

A dime.

I set a bunch of different targets out in a small area in my backyard to test with my AQ. Things don’t seem right. I don’t notice any difference if I vary sample delay. The ATS seems to determine the low/hi tone transition in Tone or Mute modes. Perhaps you have a simple test for ATS, sample delay, and Reject control behaviors?

What do you guys set the Volume Gain to? Maybe that would explain it - I think I ran that pretty high in the early days. Just checked and its at 19 so that’s pretty low. I might have been doing tests at home and turned it down because of EMI, and then forgot.

I hunt Southern California beaches with my CTX. Have been for probably almost ten years. When I first started, I was experimenting with Sensitivity. I’d try Auto or Auto +3 and the next week or two try Manual. When running Manual I’d have to back off of 30 due to too much random noise. Over time though my brain got to ignore the noise and I could run at 30 most of the time. Now, I run at 30 all the time and am wishing it could go higher. Not because of my brain - because the detector’s quiet. In this forum I see guys saying they are running at 23. The CTX misses stuff at 23. I have a collection of 5 CTX’s I’ve bought needing repair and fixed them. I usually stick to my original machine on hunts but I have run bench depth tests on all of them and they all run the same. So what the heck? Anyone else notice the difference over the years? Maybe the tx coil has integrity issues - I’ve seen this is junk older coils I took apart.

Although careful testing may show an advantage with the 17” coil, I just think it may find more due to coverage on a swing. My experience doesn’t show a noticeable increase in depth or targets. I can swing the 11” a lot faster and manipulate it a lot faster. Locate targets faster and at deep enough depths that I don’t need deeper. I don’t think I ever have found a gold ring at the depths I find aluminum can slaw. When the CTX was more popular probably a majority of serious hunters were using the 17”. But that combo damaged my right arm and I went back to 11”. Years later, arm still hurting sometimes, I tried the 17” again. Nope just too heavy. A light bigfoot would be awesome though.

Yeah I didn’t have a magnet with me in Oregon but I made assumptions because it was in the area where there is that beached iron ship and the sand was black around it. But a hard drive magnet showed it wasn’t very ferrous.

I was at Corona Del Mar last weekend and my CTX would not see a pull tab dropped in a little 5-6” hole in the black sand there. Take it out and wave above the coil and it sings loudly. I thought at first that was really shocking and I did a hard reset later and that seemed to improve behavior. I went back a couple days ago and could not repeat the failure. So I guess it was a setup issue. The sand was not as black heavy so I didn’t bring any back. My first trip to the water tower area (north of dog beach?) was just three weeks or ago and I got skunked using the AQ. I’ve seen a certain guy’s videos showing how the black sand there hides coins from his then eq800. He still hunts there and finds nice rings though…. I went on a trip up to Oregon and Washington and got some black sand from the Columbia river outlet area. Turns out yeah it was black but no it wasn’t ferrous! I want to run some tests comparing the DF, AQ, Excal, EQ600, and CTX.

I occasionally come across intensive black sand conditions in my Orange County beaches and I’d like to set up such conditions at home to test different detectors. Any tips on purchasing such sand or ferrous concentrations for such tests?

To help others with interest in this, check my discussion at Geotech as well. I ended up adjusting the damping resistor to about 380 ohms which leaves an overshoot artifact - not a smooth decay. Then I sampled at 6.8 us! This resulted in a side of coil sensitivity of about 3” and it can sense a 1/2” square of foil 3” from coil center. Way better than before. If yours can’t do this you may want to play with damping resistor value and sample delay adjustment. As the resistor was 360 ohms it may be ok as is.

I discovered there was a resistor already across the coil. That explains the trouble I was having.

My DF has always been a disappointment but maybe it’s my fault - not knowing enough about the calibration process. I’m hoping one of you has some experience you can share. Is there supposed to be a damping resistor on the pcb? I had one tacked across the coil input at 390 ohms but just discovered it kills the outer coil. With a typical damping resistor jig the duration of saturation lengthens as you tweak it. From 10uS and up. And this would not be a 10uS coil… You don’t see the typical random pulses if no resistor - which makes me wonder if it in the coil already. I ended up on settling on 600 ohms. But the coil will not see a foil 1/2” square. It runs pretty noisy if knobs set to see a target. Both coils sensitive to nearby nickel or gold ring - I would expect a quieter machine and more depth. My pi pro outperforms it in depth and user experience. Photo shows how I have it set now.

Check recent Detectormods YouTube videos as he has been really active lately and identifying components of some machines. Send him an email.

What is the goop material you cover the piezo with? Do you just set the piezo on the earpiece, or attach it somehow first? I’ve got a set I’m rebuilding as the piezo’s were compromised and the black wire in the wiring totally corroded. Is anyone making the rubber headband attach thingies yet with a 3D printer? Should be able to get away with plastic instead of rubber(?).

was asking what the PN for the cable connector is but I found it...

It’s called the TDI Razorback Beach Hog. I have it on a GP Extreme now. It should work on the AQ - really fun how it can skim the water as you run.

I just make shims out of 1 gallon milk containers. I also make my own replacement U channels out of pvc pipe when the originals break. Even one I made broke.... It’s from side pressure when I accidentally use it as a support when I’m digging the target hole.

Like you guys mentioned, it apparently misses coins. I went out to a beach with a friend and AQ owner - we had just compared AQ depth in air tests at a park. I think the EMI there was too bad to make good determinations but his probably has more than an inch more depth. Anyway he used a Manticore at the beach and got way more stuff - including a lot of trash. He got more coins but I don’t think either of us got gold - just not there or we just didn’t hit on it. Someone had completely gridded the whole damn Montage beach! Crazy! He even found coins I missed on a hole. So I guess I’d trade a few less coins for missing all that trash - if that is really what occurred. I worry though that it could be missing more than just coins. I think I need to change my hunt time to early or late in the day. If you watch youtube you see groups of guys hunting while I’m still asleep. i have yet to try my bigfoot type coil on the AQ. I think I’ll be very happy with that if it works ok. Its nice to hunt with such a light detector. I usually hunt with my CTX but I can’t stand hunting with the 17” coil - just tried it after 3 years or so. Even with the 11” I use the ML harness and probably scare some people... Bring on the CTX replacement!!

Yes I’ve been reading such content with google. I don’t understand what protection there really is and haven’t come across anyone using it. I guess no one takes a chance with it - and sellers can get scammed too.

Sure but I want to know if the ads are legit or not - if OfferUp is legit or not. I have other interests besides detecting and buy stuff like camera lenses and music instruments from people.such ads if bogus do not exist on eBay long. They stay on OfferUp for months.

Very low pricing on equinox detectors on offer up. Are they all scam ads? Is there buyer protection? Anyone bought one at such low prices?

Don’t forget the Bigfoot coil!