Chase Goldman

Unless the Vanquish coils turn out to be compatble with Equinox (which would be great, but unlikely), don't hold your breath on an Equinox compatible alternatuve to the 6" round. After nearly two years, ML has not even hinted at launching additional coils for Equinox and there doesn't appear to be any active effort to do so from third parties either. On the other hand, I have all 3 coils and except for unique situations, I find the 11" stock just makes sense for 95% of my detecting situations from beach, to park, to relic hunting.

Excellent info, Dan. Thanks. F2 4-6 depending on site conditions and objectives does seem to be shaping up as the sweet spot and appears to be consistent with and somewhat supports the ML choice to set the F2 default to 6 for all modes. I think I am leaning towards 5 too for most conditions but need to get more swing time in. Bottom line I too think update 2 is a keeper overall and no longer feel the need to keep 1.5 on my backup Equinox. They are both updated to 2.0 now.

Finally, here is a table of all the new default settings for all parameters for all modes (F2 is the only real change). The updated manual and other great Equinox info can be accessed from Steve's useful "Minelab Equinox Essential Information" thread linked here.

Here is an explanation of global vs. local settings.

Ed, See above explanation only one of the iron bias settings is selected and active at a time. (i.e, only FE or F2, but not both). You select the active one in settings using tge accept/reject button. Note that the settings/default settings for iron bias are different for and need to be set separately for each mode (just like ground balance, noise cancel, tone settings, and recovery speed). The excerpt from the manual pasted below should help explain this further.

You have a choice of using the old FE iron bias settings which should behave about the same as before the update or the new F2 settings which behaves differently on bottlecaps, gives stronger iron tones in all metal at her settings than FE, and seems to have more or less of an effect for a given setting than its FE cousin (i.e. more falsing at low settings than FE and less falsing but more non-ferrous masking of iffy signals at high F2 settings). In other words FE 0 does not equal F2 0 (more like F2 0 is less than FE 0) and F2 9 is much greater than FE 9. F2 4 is roughly equivalent to FE 0. Experimentation seems to be the only way to guide how you should set the filter. Only one of those iron bias settings is active at a time, whichever one you select and adjust last will be the active setting. Note also that you need to set your iron bias settings separately for each mode. HTH.

Glad you were able to get out to the claim. Keep swinging Gfox. Now that you have a preferred detector (e.g., the 800), try focusing on getting to know that one inside and out so that you can start building your muscle memory on the audio and visual indicators for various targets, including gold. Avoid switching off now until you really get to know one of those detectors to avoid resetting your learning curve on your favorite detector and then when you feel confident, break out that GPX and start learning that. It will be a completely different animal but worth it. Good luck.

Looks sturdy, however, on such a short digger, I prefer a nice thick gripped straight handle. I have a mini Sampson and the T handle is more of a hindrance than a help. For park digging this Wilcox trowel or the slightly shorter version fits the bill for me https://wilcoxallpro.com/products/22-long-handled-trowel

Interesting, so the ML update executable was able to recognize the Equinox and upgrade your machine using a virtual windows machine running on a chromebook? Update: I looked into this and running VB within the virtual linux machine now standard with Chrome OS on a Chromebook does not appear to be all that straight forward regardless of whether or not the Chromebook has the storage space. Plus, for total compatibility with the ML update app which requires Win 10 (which requires a separate license) or specific compatibilty mode settings if using a "free" Win 7 VM. Also, there appears to be potential issues with with getting the VM to see the Chromebook USB ports. Finally, if you want to run Windows in VB, the Chrombook needs to not be running an ARM processor. See the Chrome OS Q&A thread on this page for more info. Seems a Chromebook user would be better off just borrowing a friend's Mac or PC or going to the library to get this done, unless 67GTA was successful at actually running the ML update on a Chromebook and not from a dedicated Linux machine running Win 10 in Vbox. There may be limited use Chrome OS or Android apps that could be used to run Win programs natively in the OS but that seems hit or miss and I personally really wouldn't want to be running a science experiment when trying to flash firmware, quite frankly.

It can't be used. Windows or Mac only. No Chrome OS/Linux support.

You can get 1/8" plugs and cords for the GG NDTs. That is what I used for my Tek Delta that had a 1/8" jack and when I was running the Deus Lite setup with just the puck and an audio output adapter so I could use the puck as a visual TID indicator.

Default for iron bias (FE) in field 2 is supposed to be 0, was FE = 3 for Field 1 also or was it 0 (also the default setting)? In any event, I agree that a factory reset should be done be done and then see if you can repeat the results. Bottom line, at the default settings, Field 2 should perform the same pre and post update. GL

OK - I thought you were trying to introduce someone to detecting, All I was saying was for a novice detectorist, 3 tones (like the Ace series) might be more appropriate in Chuck's grandson's case as you have no way of lowering the tones on the 540 without downgrading to the 440. (turns out that was moot for Chuck's adult grandson). Nevertheless, just a simple tweak on the 540 UI (selectable 3 or 5) tones and a novice detectorist could learn AND grow with the Vanquish 540 and have wireless, etc. 5 tones might be a lot for a novice to take on from a learning curve standpoint, so for lack of a simple tweak, most newbies might find the 440 a better fit which is the Ace 400's direct competition. ML perhaps missed an opportunity to sway some newbies to the 540 by simply enabling tones to be simplified as a user setting, that's all like the switchable iron bias setting. Sorry about getting my fruits all mixed up. I'm always struggling to eat healthier.

If you are considering one for your grandson realize that the Vanquish 540 is a pure 5 tone machine, no apparent option to dial it down to 2 or even 3 tones, if that matters. Again, lots of design compromises, and to me, some of the “locked in” settings don’t necessarily make sense to me even for novice detectorists.

Yep, that is true for notch. Remember how you didn’t like that (click here)? That is why it surprised me when you said you were going to run right out and get one (and a simplex), though your Equinox (if you still have it), ORX, and many of your other detectors do all the Vanquish does and more...and do it better. Yes it is a great value as an entry level machine, but there are a lot of design compromises as a result. If you already have a stable of mid to high range detectors for use, backup and borrowing, not sure what these bring to the table even though they are relatively in expensive and simple to use. If you want simplicity, just run Equinox or ORX at the defaults and you will do great.

In the simplest terms it is a tradeoff. F2 appears to behave differently than the existing FE iron bias filter and may be stronger at the highest setting (3 for the 600) than the FE filter. For both, the higher setting you use may reduce falsing off round, mixed ferrous like crown caps and other ferrous targets but you may also mask nearby non-ferrous targets by doing so. Test it out on sample bottlecaps and then with a coin next to or on top of tge cap to see which setting best cancels the bottlecap yet still allows you to hear the coin. Note that the best way to tell if a high tone is a ferrous false signal is to go to all metal using the horseshoe butyon and listen for a strong iron grunt along with the high tone.

Need more info. Did you GB? What are your Iron Bias settings? Do you have FE = 0 (the old default) or F2 = 6 invoked?

Doubtful. As stated earlier in the thread, the number of individual frequencies on the Equinox is unrelated to the number of simultaneous frequencies used in Mult IQ other than the Multi IQ frequency profile range encompasses the the 5 individual frequencies. Since Vanquish does not have a single frequency mode, the coil diagram "clue" really doesn't correlate. But who knows, ML appears to revel in these ambiguous pseudo technical graphic design references. I personally find it lies somewhere between insulting and annoying. Hate the marketing, but love the detectors.

Besides the historic context (e.g., if you dig a minie in the vicinity of Gettysburg, then you know it had to be dropped or fired beteen 1 and 3 July 1863 since there was no CW military action there other than those 3 dates), part of the fun of digging CW era bullets (minie balls) is looking for the many different varieties. There are literally hundreds includin carbines and cleaner varieties. It also means that if you are recovering them, you are likely in the right spot to dig the harder to recover and more interesting brass relics such as buttons and plates.

You also really should have removed all disc (AM) so we could hear the intensity of the iron grunt, that is what really confirms the presence of iron, not absence of falsing. Too many discrepancies/inconistencies/ambiguities here for the audience (e.g., single frequency, non- global F2 setting, and disc applied, plus doing it on a surface with rebar underneath) plus no comparison with FE to really conclude anything from the video regarding the new iron bias filter. Thanks for posting nevertheless, a few useful tidbits there regarding response to different gold targets with the new software. Maybe you can apply some of the feedback you received to post an improved video test.

Yep, I recognize we are not dealing with a true all metal mode machine in Equinox even when "AM" mode is invoked removing discrimination but not raw signal processing and filtering. But the thing that I found surprising is that I never would have realized that FE=0 does not turn off the filter without this update being released. The only time iron bias appears to be "off" is single frequency because I think iron bias filter relies on the multi-frequency input of Multi IQ to function, but even then, that is just as educated guess because ML does not clearly state there is no iron bias filtering in single, all I know is that iron bias "is not available" in single which could be referring to the filter adjustment not the filter. I know this is repetitive and in the weeds, but for perspective, I always thought of iron bias as analogous to the XP Deus silencer filter (which supposedly breaks up or filters out mixed ferrous signals and has an adjustable level that is also tied to the recovery speed setting). That silencer filter has a "0" setting but it also has a "-1" setting which XP describes as "off". I usually set it to "-1" because I do not want to experience inadvertent non-ferrous masking due to the silencer filter. I thought I was doing the same on Equinox by setting FE=0, but apparently not. Again, I am down in the weeds here as I tend to go there due to my engineering and software background. I will end by saying that in a practical sense, the fact than neither the FE nor F2 iron bias filters can be truly "turned off" is really not a big deal because it appears the filtering is "minimal" and has little effect on masking at those low settings, but it is, I think, a fact that advanced detectorists should be aware of because the ML documentation is a little ambiguous in that regard. Again, Steve's graphic visualization of the two filters posted above has been very helpful for me and I really appreciate that info as it will affect how I apply them in different situations.

Discrimination and iron bias are two filters that work in tandem. Applying too much of any filter (disc or iron bias) always impacts performance in some way or another as there are no free lunches. In the case of iron bias, too much and you will negate iron falsing but at the expense of possibly causing nearby non-ferrous to be masked. If you outright try to disc out bottlecaps or aluminum tabs in the mid target ID range (e.g., 12 to 15), then you will most certainly also notch out nickels and gold rings that fall in that target ID region. I like to minimize filtering (disc or otherwise) to the extent my brain does not get overloaded or fatigued by the constant chatter, so that invariably means dialing in some disc or perhaps even iron bias. Since Equinox does not have a true all metal mode (there is always some signal processing going on under the hood) even when all discrimination filtering is removed, even iron bias at 0 (either FE=0 or F2=0) does some level of iron bias filtering, albeit low levels and also note that FE=0 and F2=0 do not "turn off" iron bias filtering and those "0" settings are not equivalent (see this post by Steve). If you want to remove all iron bias filtering, your only alternative is to go to single frequency because the iron bias filter relies on the multi-frequency signal of Multi IQ.

Because the filter enhances the iron signal while minimizing the false signal to give you more certainty it is iron. You can't hear that pronounced telltale iron grunt if it is disc'd out.

Steve, The relationship between FE and F2 is fairly simple based on the above representation (thanks for that diagram), but I was surprised to find that what this is really saying is that some sort of iron bias filtering is ALWAYS applied in multi IQ. I always had the mistaken impression that FE=0 meant the iron bias filter was "off". I guess the only time the iron bias filter is turned off is in single frequency when the multi frequency bias curve cannot be calclulated. So F2 =0 vs. FE=0 for maximum unmasking or for "more" all metal in Multi, I suppose Glad ML is giving us choices, but they could do a little better in the explaining department. Folks should not have to dig deep into DP or Tom's forum to figure this stuff out and the new mods to the user guide, especially with respect to the 600 and setting the 800 F2 defaults to 6 across the board are inconsistent with the above and/or are actually confusing. I suppose, most folks fly by the seat of their pants via real world experience and tweak their settings based off what works for them rather than what the book says, but at least something like the above diagram in the book would help. In any event, I'll take it and glad they are still refining the firmware on Equinox nearly two years in. The other thing this shows is that with Multi IQ, ML is starting the "blur" the line between iron discrimination and notch as disc works in conjunction with Iron Bias to provide some sophisticated iron filtering. It is like stacking or chaining filters together in photoshop or video editing. And it is clear that Iron Bias is a "pre-filter" to discrimination in the Equinox. May be a harbinger for a future Multi IQ detector with some sophisticated discrimination patterning like the FBS2 detectors. I would look forward to that detector release if it is coming in the next couple of years.

Good video though incomplete. I'll explain below. The update may actually matter to you, Simon, in regards to nugget hunting. Specifically, the question remains whether FE = 0 (ostensibly iron bias "off") is the same as F2 = 0. Per some of the other Dankowski forum discussions and Clive Clynick, the bias curves may intersect "0" at different points. Or put another way, some are saying that F2 = 0 is "less" than FE=0 making it more "all metal", so to speak. The above video seems to debunk that as FE seems to give similar performance to F2 on iron at 0, but the key is whether F2 at 0 unmasks nearby non-ferrous better than FE at 0 (i.e., any level of iron bias can negate the positive separation effects of higher recovery speeds, so if FE =0 can still be subject to masking and F2 = 0 is less susceptible, you might want to go with F2 = 0 vice FE=0 when nugget hunting). She does not really test the effect of FE vs. F2 bias effects on nearby targets, plus the fact that she is basically doing an "in-plane" air test. So the jury may still be out. Food for thought, though, even for those of us who primarily like to run with FE = 0.