Chase Goldman

Probably longer than the 3-year warranty will last. There is little to no self discharge with lithium batteries if stored with at least 50 to 75% charge and at roughly room temperature conditions (see the user guide for the storage temperature range (p. 65 )). I would avoid the extremes at either end and charging a lithium battery at less than the listed min. charging temperature of 32F will likely damage it. For longest service life, if you are planning long term storage (i.e., weeks or months), try not to store it completely topped off or fully drained. Shoot for around 75 - 85%. If you are using it regularly every several weeks or so, don't sweat the percentages other than not leaving it sitting around mostly or fully drained, therefore, I do recommend just topping it off after the last hunt if significantly drained or the night before the next hunt if greater than 50%. Lots of other Equinox essential info in the aptly named Equinox Essential Information thread here and specific battery topics here and here. HTH. BTW - Welcome back to the hobby. You are going to enjoy that Nox.

Yes. See this thread and this thread, and more recently this thread.

I want the Impact or at least the Anfibio features in a Simplex light weight package/form factor. I can live without the internal cable routing if it saves on weight. Great writeup on a detector that is kind of getting lost in the shuffle with the subsequent Kruzer/Anfibio/Simplex launches.

Ugh, that is the pits. Maybe Nokta can come through with some sort of direct sale arrangement in exchange for some additional experienced user exposure by you, Simon, on this forum and in NZ ...hint, hint. (Hey, it was worth a shot, lol).

Interesting concept but generally flawed in implementation. All iterations of this concept primarily rely on bluetooth data transmission and as a result are seriously flawed because of the associated processing delays. Audio is about the only thing that can be transmitted and perceived by the operator in near real time and even that can suffer from noticeable delays while swinging the coil on target. The cell phone is great but trying to turn it into an everything machine invariably results in disappointment. I have used my cell phone to run a telescope, remotely control a camera when not using it as a camera, as a gps, as a home smart device controller, audio sound system, video projector, remote PC desktop, etc. These things it can do, but generally, it does not do them all well usually because of everything else running on the limited processing power and memory available. Not to mention the beating your phone would take in the field if it was being used by a serious detectorist and the potential EMI issues. Best to stick with dedicated devices that are integrated and engineered for the task. XP has done an amazing thing with their Deus system and attempts to emulate that with a cell phone other than using the phone as an auxiliary device to run companion apps is going to just be second rate IMO because of the complexity of trying to adapt a universal standard to a very specific and time sensitive process. We'll see how this project turns out, it has been in the works for some time via kick starter, but the engineering challenges are daunting to bring it to fruition and of sufficient performance for what seems like a deceptively straight forward concept. Besides, these kick starter usually flame out unless they have wide appeal or unless these folks get picked up by an existing manufacturer with the required manufacturing infrastructure. Just my opinion.

Your practical nature and superior will power is laudible, if not entirely humorous. You don't sound pathologically obsessive enough for this hobby or at least for this thread. Maybe Ridge Runner can help you see the light.

For people who have impulse control issues, it is really disconcerting that the CAPABLE Simplex+ is priced near the impulse buy threshold. I have detectors that can do everything as well as the Simplex, but I am intrigued by the simplicity and VCO audio option in AM that I wish my Equinox had. This could prove interesting in mineralized dirt and may just be the design that finally compels me to get my first full fledged Nokta detector (if it had a higher single frequency selection option, e.g., 24 - 28 khz, it would be a virtual no-brainer). In fact, I am forced to think up weird rationalizations like if I get the Simplex+ with wireless HP, that would give me an excuse to pick up the wireless Nokta PulseDive pinpointer because I would then have a compatible Nokta detector to use it with. I want Simplex and I need help...

The T2 is not compatible with any concentric coils and has different "front end" electronics and discrimination circuits than the F75 which makes it electrically incompatible with even the F75 DD coils. The F75 was an "offshoot design" from the T2 designed to be compatible with concentrics to accommodate coinshooters vs. the relic and gold hunters that the T2 was primarily designed for. In addition to Steve's excellent article on the T2, here is a good summary article on the difference between the two detectors with quotes from the Dave Johnson who designed both machines: https://www.hollandsbrook.com/blog/fisher-f75-vs-f75-ltd-vs-teknetics-t2-vs-t2-ltd/

Great illustration, Dan. Coil coverage, not detector performance or site conditions, is what I believe keeps a majority of the targets buried in the sand or dirt. Coil coverage falls in the detectorist skill category. Anyone can hear beeps or read numbers, tweaking a machine can only help so much, but if you can't read the beach or site clues (eroded cuts, low spots, areas of likely commerce, where do folks take off their flip-flops and drop stuff?, where is the towel line and low tide line?, where would someone build a house (high ground)?, where would they gather for social activities, water, or meals?), keep your coil low and level when swinging, and adequately cover the beach with a logical coverage scheme, then it really does come down to chance. Folks are usually not patient enough to cover every inch of ground in a disciplined manner (me included) and often over-estimate the ground they have actually covered with their coils. Analogous to the golf saying "Never up, never in" , you can't detect or recover the target you don't get your coil over. That is why I just shake my head when folks say they keep the 6" coil on "all the time" or use it in fields and beaches. Sure you can do that, and it makes sense if all you detect is cellar holes, bed o' nails sites, or other constrained situations. But if you want to ensure overlapping swing coverage that means you are tiptoeing along at most at 1/2 the speed you would use to search with the 11" coil and with about 1ft less sweep width. That translate to a lot less ground that can be covered in a given period of time. Time = targets and the more time you waste having to cover ground or interrogating targets means (rather than just digging those iffy signals) is that much less time for recovering targets or leaving more to chance if you decide to forego coil coverage for speed.

That is pretty much where things are settling out for me, too. The big test will be central VA nasty soil week long relic hunt planned for Nov. I will pretty much run it through it's paces there.

Can't wait.

https://www.treasureproducts.com/vibraphone.html Unfortunately it is a discontinued product.

Thanks. You seem to really get where I am coming from on this. Yes, either that or heads up display glasses that can "paint" the site and tell you where you have already swept the coil (to ID bare spots where you actually did not sweep the coil), the mineralization profile, or where you have gotten target hits as well has being able to display real time target information. Imagine looking down while you are sweeping the coil and seeing a virtual "X" where the target is. The detection technology is not going to change much but how the detector target information is conveyed to the operator can evolve. Imagine wireless wearable displays where you can take the control module OFF the stick, hide the battery, and make it literally just a better balanced coil on a stick with a handle and nothing is hanging on your chest or belt (but your pouch, PP, and digger). You are just wearing sophisticated sunglasses. I agree plus they tend to be better plugged into and "in tune" with the user base than anyone else including ML and XP. More to the point, I get the impression that NM is putting out product that detectorists are clamoring for, rather that what THEY want you use. In other words, NM is providing product that detectorists want to PULL from them, while others tend to PUSH their product to the users. ML Equinox seemed like a PULL product but Vanquish seems more like a PUSH.

Dew, The 1.75 update fixed a bug related to the the user profile button an inadvertent resets of settings. It also appeared to improve Equinox response to high conductive coins on edge. The drawback, real or imagined, was that this hotter response on small profile high conductive targets also increased the propensity of falsing when using the small coil with sensitivity cranked. As a result, I kept my primary machine updated to the latest software but kept my backup 800 on the original software and would use that machine in situations that called for the small coil. Since the introduction of version 2.0, I think the addition of the F2 iron bias setting, I think that any falsing associated with the small coil can likely be overcome with the proper setting of the F2 iron bias setting without as much risk to non-ferrous masking. In other words, the mid-level settings of F2 are very effective at reducing falsing of mixed ferrous without having to overdrive the bias curve to the extent that you start masking non-ferrous targets in the proximity of ferrous, though you can certainly do so by cranking F2 to 6 or higher. As a result, I no longer see any reason to keep version 1.5 around on ANY machine so I have upgraded both my 800's now to version 2.0. Hope that makes sense.

C'mon Steve, tell us how you really feel.