Chase Goldman

IMO - This one really comes down to personal experience, recovering targets and reinforcing in your brain's muscle memory what the detector was telling you.  I can't imagine just learning this by seeing pics of finds next to some sound signature or audio file.  Clive Clynick does a good job of trying to provide some general sketches of tone forms for various target types in his Equinox guides, but it is basically generalized.  The variability in environmental factors makes approaches to learning tones of limited value.

Congrats Dan - what a great site.

Saw this on Amazon

Zlobrik Minelab Equinox Carbon Fiber Shaft https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PBZCF53/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_zlTbDbVJ94YSE

Generally, they should be repeatable but at depth in very dry soil + nearby targets (esp ferrous), a lot of variability.  Helps if you specify mode and any settings different than the default.

You can try the mini sampson by Lesche

I personally like Wilcox long handled trowels:

Hope that helps.

Did you cycle the horseshoe (AM) button?  If that doesn't work, simply do a factory reset by turning off the detector and then hold the power on button for 8 seconds.  FP will display and your settings should be back to normal.

In the water no reason really to go multi tone, especially if your objective is gold jewelry.  Frankly, I think the VCO audio of Gold mode is best and is more similar to the Excal, but since it is not a tone option for the other modes, including beach,  can't be used in salt water.  I really wish ML would enable gold mode audio as an option on the other modes.

That's basically how Field 1 is set up tone-wise and I have used it at beaches (dry/damp sand) known primarily for coin, high conductor deposits from off-shore wrecks following storms.

2 hours ago, Lacky said:

Yeah the noise cancel takes care of the air chatter, the rest was targets in the ground. LOTS of targets in the ground. If I really had my heart set on searching my yard I would notch out 8-15 to maintain sanity. Or at least quiet down that zone. I can see why you guys talk about can slaw so much now. I'm sure not going to dig all that up!

LOL - I hear ya, but that also is one of nature's cruel jokes on detectectorists - 8 - 15 is where the best gold jewelry also resides.  OOF.

EMI will manifest as chatter with the coil in the air, if you don't hear anything then no need to lower sensitivity.  As far as ground targets are concerned, the machine gun chatter due to targets you are experiencing is due to the super fast recovery speed you will have to get used to.  Good luck.

You didn't say, but I presume that before you reduced sensitivity, you did a noise cancel to try to knock the chatter down first.  If you only have to reduce the sensitivity down a few clicks from the default of 20, then that is not too bad, much more than that then you might have to consider other remedies like making sure your cell phone is not in the vicinity of yhe control head, switching modes or going to single frequency.  But if you are simply trying to learn the machine, I would advise going to a site that has low EMI so you can focus on learning using a single mode (most commonly Park 1 or Beach 1 if learning at the beach) at the default settings so that you can understand the "language" and response of the machine to different target types, including trash.  Once that feels relatively comfortable, then consider minor settings tweaks to see how they affect target response, etc.  Enjoy and post back if you have specific questions.  Use Steve's Essential Information consolidation thread at the top of the Equinox forum to click on specific topics including numerous tips to getting started with Equinox.  Good luck.

Check out Detecting Doodads.  He makes 3D printed accessories including a sturdy Deus charging clip.  Not inexpensive though.

Nothing ML has put out supports a CTX refresh this year, but ML did announce the Vanquish which appears to be a lower end land/water, multi frequency detector priced between the GO FIND and the Equinox 600.

Jeff's 

On 6/9/2019 at 6:50 PM, Jeff McClendon said:

In either of the coin modes make sure to put discrimination on 0 if you can in order to make sure to get those low conductors even though their depth will definitely effect numerical target ID upwards.  

Can't argue with Jeff's settings and success, but just wanted to offer a counterpoint to this statement. 

I used to be a big "0 disc" guy on the Deus but have changed my tune, especially in thick iron.  The Deus and Orx both offer iron volume.  This allows you to cut in disc yet still hear the disc'd targets while allowing the disc circuit to do its thing and keep the iron from down averaging non-ferrous targets.  In mineralized soil, deeper lower conductors like lead may get pushed into the ferrous region or even wrapped around high.  But the Orx also provides an "Iron probability" display.  That along with iron volume allows you to hear and see targets that fall in the disc range and gives you that extra tone breakpoint so you can decide if you want to dig what is most likely a ferrous target but could also be a minie ball.

Bottom line, I would experiment with both 0 and default disc in the coin modes and see which works out better.  Jeff and I agree that if you need that extra umph for deeper targets in mineralized soil, you can use the gold modes and that is what I go to if I want to run effectively all metal.

Jeff - I welcome your thoughts on this, especially if you think I am overlooking something.

2 hours ago, midalake said:

My main complaint is: the complete loss of a target when moving water is going by the coil. I had 100's of targets that I found, but when the wave wash was either coming up the beach or down it would not register, not even a tick until the water drained off. I found even 1 inch of moving water was enough to not allow the Nox to sound off on a target that was there, present, verified, and eventually dug out.

I will be working harder when I find these conditions again to see if there is a series of settings that will cut through this. However I will be not back on the machine until July.

One has to understand how frustrating it is to have a target but you have a 15 second to 1minute window to center it dig it and remove it before the next wave is coming at you. Also you could be waiting for minutes just to see wet sand with no water.

Dave - no black sand and you weren't getting the overload symbol right?  In beach 2 the transmit power is lowered and lowered even further in the presence of black sand, but that doesn't seem to be the issue here and your settings seem sound. Hope you can figure it out with some tweaking.

Dew - you might be on to something there.  Can't find documentation definatively that Equinox is doing a SET salt balance rather than adjusting the fly (like tracking GB) but it certainly cannot be manually overriden.  I also noticed something in the user guide I had not noticed previously - "Beach Mode specifically identifies any residual salt response and assigns a ferrous  Target ID - indicating that it's an unwanted target – so that desirable low conductive targets (such as gold chains) can readily be detected with minimal interference from the salt water."  This could explain why Equinox has trouble dealing with high salt concentrations (as evidenced by more chatter reported by users such as Dave) and target depth in deeper water and why Equinox recommends reduced transmit power Beach 2 while wading or shallow diving.

1 hour ago, NCtoad said:

Thanks guys!  I like the price and had seen the LS Pelso phones on Kellyco's site, but wasn't sure if these were the same or someone just copying them.  Looks like they're $95 shipped with 3 day shipping from Hungary.  I won't be diving, but only creek wading and submersing my nox control pod in the deeper areas.  

They should work great then.  Didn't realize they were being shipped from overseas.

On 6/6/2019 at 4:25 PM, DeltaDigger said:

Does anyone use the X35 coil on the ORX? Any opinion on it compared to the HF coils? I got smoked today by a friend. He was using the 11 inch legacy coil (with the Deus) while I was using the 9 inch elliptical coil with the ORX. I realize coil size was a factor but he was getting tones on objects that I couldn't even pick up. We were running the same frequency, reactivity, etc,  just to compare. Any thoughts?

My thoughts:

There are a LOT of subtle and not-so-subtle factors in play here that could contribute to the difference in signal performance.

First, you pointed out the obvious - the different coil size.  Remember the 9.5" elliptical is actually a 5 inch wide coil, so depth will be significantly limited compared to the 11".  Basic rule of thumb - 5 inches max depth for the elliptical (the 9" length only really helps with coverage and does not appreciably increase depth vs.say a 5" round coil) and 11" depth for the 11" coil.  BUT that is in neutral ground.  Now I own the 9.5" elliptical coil and I know under ideal conditions it can go deeper than 5" depending on the target, but head-to-head, under the same soil conditions and target type,  the 11" will have a greater depth by at least a few inches.  So this, by far, would have the most significant impact.

Second, because the coils have different frequency ranges and setpoints, you cannot both run at exactly the same frequency.  The legacy coil runs at base frequencies of 4, 8, 12, and 18 khz.  Whereas, he HF elliptical runs at 14, 28, and 80.  I presume you were running at 12 and 14 khz, respectively.  Even though we are talking a small difference, there is a difference nevertheless, and if the target of interest happens to resonate at 12 then the same target may have a much weaker signal at 14 khz, especially at depth.  You still should have very similar frequency-based performance however for most targets at 12 and 14, and the coil size discrepancy would have a much greater effect, but it is a factor to be considered.

Third, there are limitations on some parameters on the ORX that can have a significant effect on how well you hear the target signal including the fact that you cannot adjust the underlying silencer filter setting on the ORX vs. the Deus (on the ORX and the Deus the silencer automatically adjusts with reactivity setting in Coin Fast, but is turned off in Coin Deep, but on the Deus you can also just turn the silence off regardless of reactivity and program setting).  Audio Response is also fixed on the ORX, but adjustable on the Deus, though I DO like the ORX fixed default audio response setting.  Finally, there is a significant difference in the signal processing filters of Coin Fast and Coin Deep.  Coin Fast uses "normal" Version 5 Deus software signal processing filters, which are quieter than the Version 2 Deuss software filters used in Coin Deep.  However, Coin Deep tends to sound off better on deeper targets despite being chattier than Coin Fast.

Finally, not a big fan of the limit of 3 tones on the ORX with fixed breakpoints.  I personally prefer pitch or 5 -tones and like the ability to adjust the breakpoints on the Deus.  It is still usable, but is pretty limiting IMO.

Pro tip.  Even if you are coin shooting or relic hunting.  You might want to give the gold modes a go.  It is a pitch-based tone, so there is no tone ID, only visual ID, but you might be surprised at the sensitivity that VCO audio gives you (volume and pitch increase based on how close the coil is to the target, similar to pinpoint).  Gold mode is really like hunting in all metal, though you can apply some ferrous target audio rejection, it is not the same as the coin modes, but very sensitive.  Give it a shot, especially on those borderline targets that your buddy was hearing clearly.

Without knowing the specific target types, target depths, or site conditions, hard to say exactly what was going on, but I think the coil size discrepancy may have played a large part.

Regarding the X35 coils - I have an 11" and I like it if I am going after depth with either the Deus or ORX.  Great coil, with a great range of operating frequencies.  The addition of the 25 khz over the legacy 11" coil is awesome, and a sweet spot frequency for me when hunting CW relics (buttons, brass, and minie's) which tend to light up at that frequency.  I think picking yourself up a 9" or 11" X35 coil would be a great compliment to your HF elliptical.

However, by far, my favorite general purpose Deus/ORX coil is the 9" HF round.  Good depth, light weight, and just a great all around coil for relic hunting, coin shooting, or dry beach jewelry hunting.

HTH HH

I bet if they knocked $550 off a 5 to 40 khz selectable single frequency version of the Equinox 800, they could make a killing.  They would be more than half way there by simply not including the wireless accessories (going by what ML charges for them as standalone accessories) and it would still challenge most other selectable single frequency detectors on the street not to mention pure single freakers. But yeah, I don't think they are going to single frequency with Vanquish.

Yes. I own them and they have great, loud audio. They are not for diving or continuous under water work though since they use traditional vice piezo diaphragms.  They can be fully submerged repeatedly though, so you don't have to worry about them taking a dunking if you are working the surf or are shoulder deep.  Shipping seems a little steep for that particular listing but not a bad price overall.  They are $129 new but out of stock at Kellyco who seems to be the only one carrying them new.

10 hours ago, midalake said:

The epoxy and shoe goo is lighter than the coil cover. Everyone is missing the main point!  It is to completely stop sand/black sand from packing under the coil cover. Nothing enters the coil I have.  I fear holes/slots only let stuff in and may not "drain" well.

Thanks for explaining it.  So you are saying, everyone who is using drain holes in covers are setting themselves up for a performance degradation in the water.  That's not good!  I wonder why so many do it that way, then?  

Thanks, Dave. ?

I wouldn’t do anything else different, then.

What depth do they typically turn up and what TID do they ring up as?  What other types of targets are you finding that have similar target IDs.  Mode really isn’t going to be the issue for targets that large, so Park 1 or Field 1 should suffice.?  If you want to focus solely on recovering them, setting up a selective discrimination pattern will be the key.

Actually, it was only one target, but a nice one.  Congrats NC.