Chase Goldman

19 hours ago, Lacky said:

I suspect it will be a cheaper simpler version of the equinox.

Not sure it can get much simpler than the 600, but I guess it can get cheaper, but that would be some really borderline build quality.

12 hours ago, Trev (NZ) said:

But what are we going to nickname it. 

The “Meh”. ?

Wake me if it turns out to be something more sophisticated than the Equinox.

22 hours ago, garikfox said:

I found some more information about Vanquish, doesn't look like it will beat a GPX-4500....

Yeah, it’s been pretty much already established as an entry level detector.  Not even the same universe as any PI detector like the 4500  nor even mid to high end VLFs.  There will be a huge market tho.  ML knows what they are doing from a marketing perspective.

19 hours ago, BeachHunter said:

Sorry to dredge up an older post but I just had a far more productive day swinging the Deus on the dry and wet sand than the two previous sessions with my 600 and 800 equinox detectors.

The Deus handled the trash much better than the Nox. I went by the tones only using the HF Elliptical Coil. Go figure?

The only thing that surprises me about the above is the wet salt sand part.  Deus chatters like two gossips at a church picnic in the wet sand for me and the Equinox blows it away there because I have to turn sense down so far on the Deus.  But everywhere else, Deus can go toe to toe with the Equinox with the edge to Deus in thick iron.  I go with the hot hand relic hunting.  If I feel either is not cutting the mustard, I have no qualms switching off.  Lately, Deus has had the upper hand relic hunting.  Next time it could be Equinox.  Who knows. They’re both great machines.

Hey we're making some progress, but still have questions...

9 hours ago, 2Valen said:

Have you tried any other locations.  I have also gone to a local beach and used Beach 1 auto with sensitivity set on 11 and I did find 6 pennies and 2 lead anchors. Everything was only about 2 inches from the top of the sand. I have yet to try my neighbors field that had an old church on it about 100 years ago. I do want to learn this and will do almost anything to so.

I reckon the beach you went to was fresh water?  If so, just keep the detector in Park 1, because the Beach modes are designed to cancel out false signals due to salt, so should primarily be used at salt beaches or in alkaline soils.   Beach will still work in fresh water, but you may unnecessarily lose your ability to recover deeper targets as a result of the programming used to compensate for salt.

But my main question is why did you keep sensitivity dialed down to 11 at the beach?  Was the detector noisy at the default sensitivity setting of 20?  Generally, beach mode is the most stable mode and can be run at relatively high sensitivity settings.  The combo of beach mode and the super low sensitivity setting of 11 could explain why you were only recovering shallow targets.

Also, were you hearing hundreds of targets at the beach?  Did you try test targets at the beach?

9 hours ago, 2Valen said:

What exactly did you set “manually”. I set the noise cancel, then manual ground balance, and target to 5. I tried to copy some settings from a youtube video that I had watched.

Not sure what you mean by target to 5.  Do you mean 5 tones?  Park 1 defaults to 5 tones.  Try to refrain ftom using you tube settings until you learn the machine and understand what the settings do. You should be able to get away with Park 1 at all the default settings save for doing a noise cancel and auto ground balance and the only adjustment being sensitivity to reduce chatter as necessary and should be good for 99% of the detecting situations you will routinely encounter.  Use beach mode at a salt beach if you go to one (will work better than Park 1 unless you just stay in the dry sand).

Also, when you were unable to recover targets in your yard (dug down and nothing was there), how did you pinpoint the target location?  Do you have a handheld pinpointer? 

How did you pinpoint and recover targets at the beach?

At this point, my suggestion is for you to find out if there is a nearby detecting club or metal detecting dealer that can introduce you to some experienced local detectorists to show you the ropes.  If I lived closer, heck I would road trip your way and do it myself as I have done a lot of instruction on detecting basics and courses focused on specific detector models.

9 hours ago, 2Valen said:

When I first got my Equinox 800 I watched several videos to find out the best way to use it, and found that every time it gave a strong signal I dug down. When I stated that I have 100+ holes/targets that it showed something there I meant it.

First of all, thanks for taking the time to fill in some of these details.  Unless your machine is broken (unlikely, but still a possibility at this point), I think we can help you but we will still need some more info.

I gather from your response regarding your  brief Bounty Hunter pipe locating experience that you have very little general experience metal detecting for discrete, small in-ground targets.  Lack of basic metal detecting skills can be somewhat at play here.  That can affect your expectations and I think that may be also affecting how you are setting up the Equinox and interpreting the Equinox signals and can be causing difficulties in communicating the issues you are experiencing.  

I also don’t doubt your local conditions are contributing to your issues. So I will have to ask you some more questions to attempt to figure out what is going on.

For example, need some more clarity from the above quote  - dug down and what?  Were you able to recover any targets?  If so, what were they? Were the strong signals two ways (I.e., equally strong when swinging right to left and as well as left to right?). 

9 hours ago, 2Valen said:

First I did a full reset on the unit and proceeded to set it manually.

Full reset was a good first step.  What mode/settings did you PRIMARILY use after you reset the machine? What exactly did you set “manually”.  I usually advise not making any manual settings adjustments on the Equinox when starting out (other than auto noise cancel and ground balance if needed), and use Park 1 at the default settings and learn the machine with that mode exclusively.  

The reason is that each mode (Park 1, Park 2, Field 1, Field 2, Beach 1/2, Gold) behaves differently and if you are new to Equinox and especially metal detecting, you can become quickly overwhelmed switching modes because it can be like you are learning 3 or 4 new machines at once, not one.  And believe me, you don’t want to be learning more than one machine while also learning how to metal detect.  

You can take it one step further and just hunt in single frequency (10 or 15 kHz) as Steve suggested to take even more complexity out of the equation until Equinox starts to click for you.

If you have adjusted settings away from the defaults, suggest you factory reset and start again with a clean slate and use my suggestions above on the mode and frequency settings.

Make sure you are using the default discrimination settings to filter out iron and ground noise.

9 hours ago, 2Valen said:

The only way that I was able to hit a target with this 800 was to lay a penny, dime, Nichol, quarter, and my wedding ring on top of the grass and then I was able to find them once the sense was turned down.

Mode?  What did the display numbers read for each target?

9 hours ago, 2Valen said:

As of today I have had the Equinox 800 for 1 full week and have tried using it 4 times with the same results.

Have you tried any other locations.  Local parks or other large farm fields?  BTW, veteran metal detectorists typically need 100 hours swinging a machine in the field before they feel comfortable about what the machine is telling them about buried trash and keeper targets.

9 hours ago, 2Valen said:

I have not found any nails, pull tabs, bottle caps, or trash like that.

What have you found?  You should sample  some trash test targets in addition to coins to help you differentiate trash and keepers and so you can see how they display and sound.

9 hours ago, 2Valen said:

About the only thing that I can think of is that there is an awful amount of bricks in the ground, but the soil is good black dirt. 

Doubt brick pieces would cause your issues.  What makes you think bricks are in the ground?  Have you dug any bricks?  Did you run the coil over recovered bricks to see if the detector responds to them?

9 hours ago, 2Valen said:

Since I live out in the country so far we have no cell phones because they don't work here. I was about 250 feet away from the house and even turned off the wifi units in the house.

Any Overhead power lines in the area, electric fences, invisible dog fences, noisy power transformer?

9 hours ago, 2Valen said:

What is VDI as I am new to this term, I really want to learn everything I can so it will help me find relics and maybe someday gold.

Yes, sorry for using the acronym.  VDI stands for visual display indication.  What numbers were being displayed when these 100’s of signals were being heard? You may also hear the similar term TID which stands for target ID.  Every target gives a fairly unique ID number.  Knowing what ID numbers are displaying on your 100’s of target signals in your yard can help us decipher what those might be.

High conductors like copper, silver, and clad coins will ring up in the 20’s and 30’s.  Some larger aluminum objects like beer cans can ring up here, too.  Mid conductors like nickels, small aluminum, brass, and gold jewelry will ring up in the low teens or single digits. And iron targets (unless large targets like pipes and horseshoes) will ring up as negative numbers.

From what you are describing, your problem sounds different than Bethany’s soil issues which are primarily affecting detectable target depth, but they could be related.

See if you can fill in the above gaps and hopefully we can get this machine clicking for you.

5 hours ago, Horst said:

once I run it flat ( I will use it until it switches off) I will clean the contacts and use the other cable and let you know the outcome. Thank's for your replies!

Also, you should avoid intentionally running your detector flat.  Lithium batteries do not like to be repeatedly run to minimum voltage as this reduces overall lifetime.  Although the Equinox likely has protection circuits to switch off the battery output before it gets into the detrimental low voltage region, you should avoid doing this if you can (sometimes it is obviously unavoidable for marathon field detecting sessions).  Ideally, you should simply recharge after each use unless you are going to keep the detector in standby idle storage for a significant period of time several weeks, in which case, storage at 60 to 75% capacity is ideal.

Thanks!  I know I put it sonewhere but can't locate it.  Thought I put it on a clud drive, but no luck.

First of all, welcome to the Forum!

You can really help us help you by giving us a little more information and context to try to figure out what is going on with these 100's of signals and false tones when you turn on the detector as to whether they are EMI (electromagnetic interference) caused noise, ground noise, or trash target noise, ferrous falsing, or a detector problem that requires repair.  What are the VDI's?  Have you tried to recover any of the target signals and what did you find?

How much experience do you have detecting and using different types of machine besides your Bounty Hunter (model?)  People are always going to be uncomfortable at first with a machine that behaves differently than the machine they are used to using.  Detectorists hate change.

What are you doing in your back yard - looking for random natural targets or do you have a test garden?

Have you tried test targets on the surface and buried in the ground to see if you have gotten the expected target response?  To see if you get reasonable depth?

What is your soil like in your yard, is it clay, is it mineralized?  What is the ferrous and non-ferrous trash density in your yard?

What modes are you using?  Do they all behave the same way?  Do you fundamentally understand the different modes, how they behave, and when they should be used?

Did you noise cancel?

What type of ground balance did you do - Manual, Auto?  Did you try tracking?

Did you try single frequency to see if that helps before taking sensitivity all the way down to 11?

Are there significant nearby Electromagnetic noise sources such as power lines, Wi Fi transmitters, cell towers etc.

Do you have your cell phone located near the control head while you are swinging the detector?

Filling in some of these blanks will help us help you diagnose what is going on.

Also, it is doubtful just because you are in central Illinois your issue stems necessarily from the same unusual soil issues the OP was having so I suggest you reply by starting a new dedicated thread but that you new post contain some of the answers to the above questions.

Hope we can help.

Solved! (I think).

After some playing around with Equinox I think I figured this one out.  If you noise cancel, you will see the "progress" bar graph make its way around the VDI/Disc Pattern circle as it tests all channels.  If you attempt to move on to a new setting or go back to detect mode while the bar graph is present, then you will have to hit the button again.  However, if you wait a second or two for the bar graph to disappear, then only one button press is needed to switch back to detect mode or move on to the next setting menu item (ground balance).  I tested this out and I can make it do either repeatedly depending on whether or not I wait for the bar graph to disappear.  It is a little quirky behavior, but if you know what is going on, it is really a non-issue.  Bottom line, give it a second or two after completion of the noise cancel before you press any buttons and you won't have to press that button twice.  Problem solved.  Let me know if you are seeing the same thing I am.  Would like to put this to bed for Deep1 so he can get some detecting in with his Equinox and be spending less time with ML repair and the post office.

I usually press the detect mode button vice the detect/pinpoint button to exit out of the settings menu.  The manual states you can use either.  I have never seen the double press issue when doing it either way, but most of my experience is using the detect mode push button.  Don’t know if that has something to do with it.  Since pinpoint is probably the most used button on the panel, I will take advantage of any opportunity to avoid pressing it if I don’t have to (by using an alternate button press method).  Those control panel membrane switches are probably the weak link from a long term wear perspective.

I use 1.5.0 with the small coil (it seems to be less hot and helps with small coil "falsing") and 1.7.5 for everything else.  I have a backup machine for salt water use, so have the luxury of being able to have two machines with different firmwares available.

I am doing the above because I can, not because I have done exhaustive testing to characterize the actual performance diffrences between the two versions.  So far, in actual use I have seen very little to differentiate the two versions.  Therefore, unless testing (if I ever get around to it) reveals a significant performance difference (unlikely), I plan to eventually single up on 1.7.5 because I know that addresses the known User Profile inadvertent reset bug.

HTH

"I'm gonna try and drown mine as I'm getting close to the end of my warranty 

strick"

Warranty is three years, so unless you have a time machine, no need to rush...lol.  But you might as well find out.  ?

If it were easy, there would be a hell of lot more people out there detecting.

The other key is knowing where to detect to improve your chances.  Read up here and elsewhere to get those clues and how to read the beach or parks or wherever you are trying to find them for the most likely locations.  Whole books have been written on that topic alone.

Unfortunately, it can happen, though rare.  The good news is you will get a brand new unit.

Some key 3030 features such as pitch hold and 2-D discrimination patterns I would like see in a future, higher-end Multi IQ based detector.

These APTX-LL transmitters work too:

TaoTronics 65ft Bluetooth Transmitter/Receive https://www.amazon.com/dp/B076BMT9BY

TROND Bluetooth V5.0 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01B4W40VC/

I like the geotech site, but a completely different audience, for sure.  I have an engineering degree yet feel grossly under educated visiting there.  Lol.

The coil will also fold back flat against the shaft.  This gives a more compact profile but you add the distance between the shaft attachment point to the BOTTOM edged of the coil in overall length (a few more inches).  Plus the coil and lower shaft can be easily slid off the main stem and oriented however you want for packing.  It is all pretty compact.  I have fit the whole thing into a carry on for flight no problem with out disassembly other than sliding the lower shaft and coil off the stem so I can pack each separately in my bag as convenient.  In the field, I externally strap it onto my day pack until I reach my destination.

Which coil?

On 7/4/2019 at 11:08 AM, Tom Slick said:

You can adjust both the volume and the frequency of the tone. Factory default is set at 25 for both. I use volume set at 24 but frequency for the highest tone set at 25 hz. 

Caveat - you can make those adjustments IF you have an Equinox 800 but not if you have an Equinox 600.  Just to be clear for the Equinox 600 users.

If you are constantly having to rebalance the machine to restore detection depth or eliminate ground noise then tracking makes sense.  Simply listen to what the machine is telling you.  If it is becoming unstable then it is either EMI (noise cancel/reduce sensitivity) or ground noise.  If the latter, rebalance or shift to tracking.  I have found tracking works well whenever there is enough mineralization in the ground to cause variations in ground phase and there is no appreciable downside.  The tracking is not so overly responsive to in ground targets that it will distort the settings or null out targets (however, see below regarding gold prospecting and tracking). 

Otherwise just do an initial auto or manual GB for each mode you are using at a site and swing away.  Low mineralized sites or dry white sand or sandy soil, you can get away with the default of 0 but make sure GB is actually set to 0 because Equinox will retain the last used GB setting.

Thing is, you won't know what the ground phase is unless you have been there before or attempt a GB in the first place so I just auto pump GB and swing away as a matter of routine regardless of the site.  Shift to tracking as necessary based on how the machine is behaving.  Prospectors tend to keep tracking off even in gold mode because they say it can null out micro gold.  I have no experience to refute that claim as the smallest targets I recover are percussion caps and button shanks.

The essence of what detecting is all about, all that matters is whether the find (and the story behind it) is special to you.  Thanks for sharing it with us.

I have a pair of on the ear "backphone" style that are water/sweat resistant they need a beta firmware update that you can get here and can read more about them in that Equinox forum thread.  A link to the Amazon page is here.  I would wear them in the rain but probably not the ocean.

They work pretty well but are a little on the pricey side. 

Quest makes a wireless headset that supports BT APTX LL based on the specs though I have not yet confirmed this as I do not own them.  They are also water resistant and can be used in the rain and since they have protective o-rings, I would be comfortable taking them into the ocean for the occasional splash  Here is a link to the Quest page. 

Again these are a little more pricey but none of the other "generic" BT APTX LL headphones available that I know of have any weather or water resistance whatsoever.

Agree both methods appear to work very well, obviously. 

I think it is highly unlikely you will encounter a random coil issue in the first place but in that unlikely event, the advantage of using the modified cover is that it can simply be left off the coil upon return if there is a warranty issue and if the coil appears to not be outwardly physically damaged, then minelab would probably not bat an eye as the cover itself is considered a sacrificial wear item.  It has no bearing on the warranty postion, unless you physically damaged a "naked" coil in a manner in which it would have otherwise been protected  had the cover been in place. 

With the drain hole method, users have to spring for a replacement cover to be used on land, if so desired.  Whereas with the coated coil, the existing cover can be used.

Once epoxy is applied to the coil itself, however, minelab can claim an unauthorized coil modification voiding the warranty whether or not the epoxy had anything to do with the failure and then you are into a back and forth dispute situation in which you may or may not prevail, so why take that chance under warranty vs. waiting until the coil warranty has expired to mod the coil itself. Again, unlikely, but folks can decide for themselves whether it is worth it to roll the dice.

Bottom line, I agree with you, Dave, that unlike say an Excal which is truly ocean ready, Equinox users have to invest significant time and money (coil/coil cover mods, 3rd party shafts, and waterproof phones, etc.) to get Equinox into shape for frequent salt beach duty.

Appreciate the smiley Dave.

Just telling it like it was.  Multiple folks vigorously defending drain holes based on positive personal experiences and you were single handedly taking them all on with direct applied coating.  Somehow I got pegged as a naysayer in the "debate" on drain holes when you didn't respond to my questioning all the positive press against your claim that sand would get trapped and cause chatter.  Seems like both methods work but if something goes wrong with a coated coil (not necessarily due to directly applying coating which would be unlikely to cause damage  - but for some other reason) then warranty repair might be an issue.  Epoxying the coil cover to the coil was another, less popular, option due to the effort involved and the consequences of not getting it completely sealed right.  IMO it should not have been a debate but a sharing of ideas (i.e., no one was right or wrong) with the readers deciding for themselves what was the best option for them.