Chase Goldman

20 minutes ago, Dubious said:

Minelab's statement means little. Software tweaks are not particularly "complex" for the programmers who have been working with the Nox all along; but I'm sure that for some of the identified bugs there are tradeoffs involved in the fixes. ML probably is on top of the situation to a degree, cataloging bugs and deciding whether it wants to change the code in machines still being built; but whether that means existing users ever see firmware updates is another question. The Nox is apparently selling well as is, and ML does not have a great reputation in that department.

Hate to say it, but if I were betting on what ML is actually going to do, this probably comes close to what I think the reality will be.  Track record is a big indicator, and ML's track record on updating SW is not the greatest compared to the competition, like XP and Nokta/Makro.  Though, I am not aware of any US companies that even support online firmware upgrades.

The big question mark is whether ML will actually even make the effort to roll out updated software in factory units, and more importantly, inform the public that they have done so.  Since the Equinox does not display a firmware version on boot up that I am aware of, not sure how we could even know except for folks identifying the disappearance of obvious bugs such as the user profile issue.  

I am not expecting anything from ML regarding updates until they actually post an update utility in advance of any release, otherwise, it's vaporware for the time being.

Hoping I am completely wrong and Sinclair was getting at least some accurate info from ML.

Glad they are replacing it for you.  Would really like to know what actually crapped out on it (battery or charge electronics) but I doubt they will actually know until they send it back to the factory for analysis, days or weeks from now.

I am selling a lot of older machines in the wake of my experience with the Equinox.  Hanging on to my F75 though.  It is the only machine I have left that can accommodate a concentric coil.

You can easily cancel out any interference from a pinpointer by doing a noise cancel with the Equinox with the pinpointer turned on.  That being said, I have not encountered any interference problems using three different model pinpointers.  None of them being the ML Pro 35.  Not only is your dealer's statement questionable regarding interference from the other PPs,  but there is nothing I am aware of that guarantees the ML Pro 35 won't cause interference either.   I would seriously question the motives of your dealer and whether he has your best interests as a detectorist at the top of his list.  At the very least, giving him the benefit of the doubt ethically, you might want to consider shopping around for a more technically knowledgeable dealer whose recommendations you can trust.

I have heard mixed reviews of the Pro 35 and have not used one, so cannot make a recommendation on it, so suggest you do some research on it and decide if it is right for you.

1 hour ago, relicmeister said:

Thanks for your thoughts about this. 

    I am using a Belkin F8J052

    2.1 amp  power adapter  single USB port

Input 100-240V AC 0.5A 50-60 HZ.  

Output D.C. 5V  2.1A

I used the detector today for 3 hours at a farm site with no problems. Still 2 bars on battery. Tried to charge again but no dice. No reply from Minelab yet

via email or phone 

Yeah, the charger you are using  is just fine.  While you are waiting for ML to get back to you, you might try a different usb charge adapter or backup battery phone charger other than the Belkin just to make sure it is not the Belkin (even though it charged the WM08, not sure the WM08 draws the same amount of current as the detector battery when charging).  Grasping here, but you never know.  You've done just about everything else you can.  Again, hope you get it resolved quickly.  Let us know how it goes with ML customer service.

The battery is a standard 3rd party 26550 LiIon 3.8V cell. ML did not design a custom battery, so if the battery suffers a premature failure (through no fault of your own or Minelabs'), which they sometimes do, that is a tough break but not something ML can do anything about other than honor their warranty to you.  If It has something to do with the electonic charge circuit, however, then that is something ML should look into to ensure there is not a design or component reliability issue on their end unless they also "borrowed" an existing design charge circuit.

Hard to tell the root cause at this point but it looks like you appropriately  ruled out everything external to the detector as the cause although it would be interesting to know what you were using as the ultimate charging power source (wall wart or high capacity battery including maximum charge current rating).

Get ML to do the right thing, hopefully quickly.

PS, Ft. Bedford (the official US ML legacy detector repair facility) is not servicing Equinox detectors at this point.  They are being sent back to the US ML distribution center in Illinois  for repair/replacement to hasten turnaround time using their on-hand stock of spare replacement units and to proved a centralized clearinghouse to consolidate documentation of Equinox failures.

Good luck. Hope it gets resolved soonest so you can get back to detecting and thanks for letting us know about it.  Something to watch out for.

2 hours ago, phrunt said:

I'll bang it on the day it comes out, why have faith in the original firmware but not an updated improved one? It's very rare with firmware you can't flash back to a previous version if absolutely necessary.

 

Agree IF they roll out the infrastructure to enable roll backs which they should (my phone company does NOT do that and if I don't like how the upgrade changed things I am stuck with it unless I want to use hacked firmware and command line interfaces and risk bricking my phone).   But if they were really thinking thst SW updates would be a regular thing  I would have thought there would be a site already set up with the original firmware and a process for reflashing.  I am not sure ML has that all figured out the like way XP and Makro/Nokta do things.  But obviously, they did something to roll out updates to the original testers but Steve has been mum on how all that worked, likely due to his NDA.  It would be enlightening to see how firmware updates were handled in the testing phases.  When I hear "its complex" then that says to me greater likelihood of unintended consequences.  So flashing back to square one IS a must have.  

SDMiner - grew up in El Cajon.  Still have friends back there though I have been living back east for many years.  Might look you up if I make it back to SD again for a visit to get some pointers on where to detect.  (Did not detect when I lived there because metal detectors hadn't been invented yet, lol.)

Jack did you keep Field 1 in 2-tone or shift it up to 5 or 50-tone?  Also, did you run tracking GB, default, or manual/auto pump GB.

I have noticed that Segment 1 (ferrous) discrimination has little to no effect on non-ferrous target depth unlike the discrimination circuit in other machines such as the Deus.  It almost behaves like an audio notch vs. a disc circuit in terms of its transparency to the non-ferrous target segments.

Thanks for the info.  But until I hear an actual release date, I am assuming ML is not actually working on anything.  I too am afraid that fixing one thing (that can be worked around, though annoying) may indeed break something else.  I don't heavily customize tone breaks so when I do manage to blunder may way into the user profile bug, I haven't lost much in terms of saved settings.  But I know a lot of users do, so I am not saying ML's most apparent true Equinox bug should not eventually be addressed.  But frankly, fearing some sort of unintended consequence, will definitely wait until the dust settles to see how the first SW update goes before I even think of downloading it.

The Equinox is not going to out gun a pulse induction detector,  especially in high mineralization.  The only advantage the Equinox can give you over the PI is discrimination from iron, but the PI will always be deeper and will pay off if you are willing to dig it all.  I will say that in fresh water, in high mineralization, gold mode might be the ticket for depth especially if you are going for mid-conductive targets like gold.  The PI will win out though, regardless.

Nice tip.  Don't fret too much if you lost it, though.  Just periodically flush the cavity to keep it clean and corrosion free.

Yep, sounds like you are getting locked-in with it.  Congrats.

Andy is working on an update, but it will probably occur after the V5 release because he wants to include it in the next edition.

Welcome Bob'ke and post back with your finds and any questions.  Happy Hunting with your new detector.  I think you are going to enjoy its performance and versatility.  What type of hunting do you like to do most?

Cufflink perhaps?  I tried looking online, Connecticut Charter Oak, etc. and could not find anything similar, but it sure looks Colonial.

3 hours ago, Andy2640 said:

Yes indeed, the ring-pulls have exactly that! an "elongated" tone.  Cheers - Now i know i'm not imagining it.

Yes,  I have noticed that lighter trash type metals like aluminum or non-coin objects have a longer tone and/or a distorted tone (if bent or asymmetric) and also have softer rising and falling tone "edges".  They have less "ping" than coin targets.  This helped me to differentiate between molten aluminum slag (which I still dug some "examples" until I got the tone down) from a tractor fire and the CW cartridge box breast plate I dug in the same field, pictured below.

1 hour ago, Buzzard said:

I have to agree, it is all I need . I now pick up the Equnox and my MXT and MX Sport just sit..going to sell them

Good luck.  I'm out there too, but there are a lot of similar decent used detectors suddenly out on the classifieds now.  Wonder what is causing that...?  

It's all about the audio and TID stability.  [i.e., you pretty much nailed it, Mark G.]

That button is amazing.  Is it a one piece?

Be careful with the compressed air though, there are o-ring seals behind the jack.  Don't want to damage those.

Yeah, that is weird.  And you have the adapter cable screwed down tight onto that detector port so it is making contact all the way, right?  That is a stumper.  The headphone port on the detector head is wired a little different than the  WM08 because the detector headphone port needs  the ring and sleeve parts of the stereo plug to be at the same potential in order to shut off the detector speaker - that is not the case with the WM08, so maybe the detector head is shorting out the headphones.  Doubtful, though because you have the headphone switch to enable mono or stereo.  So ????.  

Sinclair meant did you try any other headphones besides your detecting phones that have 1/4" connectors to see if what you have is a bad adapter cable.  Also, are you sure you have the adapter cable screwed all the way into the port on the detector?  I assume you were using the adapter cable to adapt your detecting phones' connectors to be compatible with the WM08.  If that is the case, that would rule out a bad adapter cable AND any issue regarding headphone compatibility with the adapter cable.  We are guessing here with incomplete info, so you need to be specific about what has worked and what hasn't worked so we can rule out the adapter cable/your headphones/or something wrong with the detector port.  From what I can tell, the adapter cable works with the headphones when plugged into the wm08 and the detector headphone port works with the stock headphones and sony headphones with small plugs.  That would seem to rule out the your detecting headphones, the adapter cable, and the detector headphone port.  So the only thing I can think of is that you don't have that plug screwed in all the way into the detector headphone port.  Which seems unlikely since you got it to work on the WM08 which has the same port.

What cord is not working?  Are you using the Minelab adapter cable?

Also, try tracking GB and let the machine figure it out on the fly.