Chase Goldman

18 hours ago, Jammin1 said:

This would be great right about now as l cannot get me 800 even started right now.... ?

Welcome to the forum.

Not sure if you are asking where the on/off switch is or if your machine does not turn on once you press it.  A little more information will allow others to help you better without unnecessarily giving you overly basic information you may already know.  Absent that, I will start with the absolute basics (no judgements. ? )

There is an on/off button on the upper left side of the control pod.  Check back here once you've found it and someone can walk you through it after that. 

If your machine is not turning on, you should make sure you have charged the battery first.  If it doesn't charge, then you may have a defective unit and should call Minelab for support.

Also, for basics like turning on and off there is a quick start guide in the box, you shouldn't need the manual. 

If you are able to post to this forum then you can also easily download the user manual pdf to your computer or phone by following the useful links in the first thread on this forum.  The manual is really good about teaching you how to do all the steps to set up the detector settings and even how to actually use a metal detector to find targets if you have never used one before.  Good luck.

Yep, hammered silver typically appears as a mid conductor on detectors.

3 hours ago, staffydog33 said:

.....please someone convince me why i should keep my Equinox, or i'm gonna end up making an angry decision....flog it on ebay and just by a used Xterra 705.

Matt

Uh, nope.  Not speaking for anyone else on the forum, but I am personally not in the business of trying to convince folks to keep a detector I would rather not see someone else swinging next to me on the beach.  I welcome rash overreactions like yours if it keeps Equinoxes off the street.  Don't need the competition. 

Seriously, only you can convince yourself you should keep the machine.  You seem easily swayed by videos, second and third hand accounts, rather than getting out there and getting some swing hours on it yourself.  Words are cheap and finds are king.  If you are not making saves with the machine then bail. 

You should not base it on what others tell you, or by videos, or forum posts.  That may be what you need to hear to make a buy decision, but you have already done that.  The machine is in your hands so go swing it and decide for yourself.  The good news is that you can probably recoup your investment, so why does your head hurt?

If you still need third hand proof, then check out the incredible finds pasted all over this forum.  That should convince you to go out and at least get that new coil dirty.

If your Equinox can't convince you on its own, then no one on this or any other forum is going to be able to either.

HH

I would still call ML and see what they can do.  They are eager to please and get these initial issues taken care of.

If I got an iffy signal like that I would definitely circle it and see if I could hit it one way and dig.  The trick is getting the iffy signal in the first place.

8 hours ago, thelock said:

I have all these problems on mine, very disappointed with Minelab about this. Built quality is far worse than for example on my Garret Ace 250, I expected more. But it makes up for it with functionality.  

You can get it fixed under warranty and have it back within a week.  That's my suggestion.

20 or 40 khz might hit it harder than Multi.

In my opinion, no machine is a better value (performance for the price).  So 800 plus a 600 (dedicated water machine) makes a lot of sense from a price and performance perspective.  Plus you only have to be proficient at one machine vice two.

Agree that a coil like that would be ideal vs. the larger elliptical they plan on releasing.  That would be great for coverage but they really need something between the 6" and 11".

Got it, you quoted Nuke em an

6 minutes ago, Dusty said:

I'm referring to the Equinox. When I mentioned the shaft wobble Jamie said she would replace the middle shaft when it was at Minelab for warranty on the screen defect. After the machine came back with the new control handle and middle rod it was immediately apparent the same issue was happening with the rotating rod and I did the "felt shim" thing again. I suspect it will deteriorate rapidly in the salt water and if the new owner has issues with it then it will be on his time.

Got it.  You quoted Nuke em talking about his Xterra that's why I asked.  Since you have moved on from the Equinox are you just checking back to see if ML has addressed the problem or are you just done with it now because of all the issues you had with it?  Did it also have performance issues for you( when it was working)?

24 minutes ago, Dusty said:

The rod on my original unit as well as it's replacement both had poor gripping action. The fellow I sold it to was off to Galveston about now so I will soon get feedback from him to see how it stood up.

Just to clarify, are you referring to an Equinox of to an Xterra unit?

Just speculation:  One possibility is that they may order the rod stock in bulk from multiple subtiers that manufacture them to a ML spec. The spec may have tolerances due to the machining process involved and one guy may either be making them not to spec, or cheating to the small side, who knows.  ML may have revised the spec to tighten up on the tolerances or as ceased getting them from the guy who was making inferior product. Or it could be an issue with tooling inside of ML's own facility where one line had a machine that was undersizing the rods.  There are a number of possibilities.

I generally scoop most of it anyway, regardless.  Today I got fooled twice by quarters that sounded flutey.  Thought I was scooping bottlecaps both times   They were corroded.  Set expectations low that way the surprises are generally good.  Like the 2 non-bottlecap quarters, the wheatie and a silver turquoise earring I scooped up this morning.

I have also found that the tone "intensity" if you will varies with the mass or thickness of the metal  target. Roundness or target symmetry produces a sweet tone with less distortion but how much metal is present also affects tone "intensity". I have found that very thin circular targets like foil freshness caps tend to have a non-distorted tone but also sound more hollow than thicker round coin targets or round jewelry where more metal is present.  Same goes for some bottle caps.  But crown caps also give the distortions and also the flutey tones based on the ridges on the crown, corrosion and whether or not they are bent in addition to the "hollow" tone which is a giveaway.  .

9 minutes ago, Stephen newell said:

Yes them too.

I have to tell you I rather find old silver I mean 1900 type and other things in that area, then gold rings. I give the rings to my daughter she likes them. Course my son expects the silver stuff. Great news, I get to keep the clad lol lol.

I value my 1858 seated dime more than the any of the beach gold I have found.  But my my most treasured finds are neither silver nor gold but brass and lead.  Such as it is with relic hunting.

24 minutes ago, Stephen newell said:

Thanks chase. I read the nickle tab thread as well. Was hoping someone had a technique to limit the tabs. Looks like I am digging tabs and nicks lol.

And perhaps some gold rings too!

It would matter to me if I had to slow down my swing but haven't had to with the APTXLL phones and the diffrence between APTXLL and WiMax (the 20 mS of the WM08 receiver) is not discernable to me  APTX is borderline.  Anything wireless with more lag than APTX (and even some supposed ATPX phones with excessive lag) does not work for me.

Elf I realize now that you have been using your wired phones since day 1 with the 600 until you finally got the Arc Mage phones.  So your ear may have gotten finely tuned to the Equinox NO LAG wired response.  Would be interested in what you find once you get your 800 and the ML APTX phones AND the WM08 module to see what you thing. Another possiblity is that the lag on the third party APTX phones is on the high end of the spec, but the spec only ranges from 30 to 40 mS.

What I do know is that once I got my wired WP phones for the Equinox (the first time I ever plugged wired phones into the Equinox) that it was not noticeable to me that the wired phones had no latency vs. the APTXLL phones I normally use.

8 minutes ago, SittingElf said:

I think there have been recent studies and tests that indicate that using single freq for hunting has not been shown to be as effective for virtually anything over multi-IQ.

Yep.  4 out of 5 dentists agree.

Oh, wait...wrong study.  Sorry.

Ok - Does it matter what mode you are in if you use single frequency since MultIQ is not being used?.  What would you use single frequency for?  Is that better?

I also thought it worthwhile for folks to know there is more to MultIQ than just multifrequency and what they end up losing if they go to single so they can decide if the trade off  is worth it.  Sometimes you don't have a choice though, like the bad EMI situations.

Interesting comment considering the Asimov quote.  Based on that, I would expect that your brain would be least hurt by the post.  I guess I am who Isaac was complaining about.  Lol

Time to do some serious spring cleaning this weekend so I am unlikely to get out detecting much.  For those shut ins like me here is a discussion point:

We know that MultiIQ is the heart and soul of the Equinox.  It is more than just multifrequency.  It determines the "personality" and behavior of each mode.  Enables Ground Balancing on both mineralized and salt dominated environments.  Is essential to the Iron Bias feature (Iron Bias is disable when in single frequency), and you can't even operate in either Beach mode in single frequency.  So that begs the question, when shifting to single frequency in Park or Field mode (leaving Gold mode out of this discussion because it is a different animal altogether with its VCO audio, dedicated threshold settings, and single freqs limited to 20 and 40) does it really matter what mode you are in at that point?  Does the detector essentially become mode independent at that point because you have lost the MultiIQ personality other than the disc, tone breakpoint, and recovery settings you have specified?  Interestingly, the manual states that you should noise cancel any time you change the frequency setting.  That tells me that the noise cancel process is conducted using single frequency as well as multifrequency  (consistent with the given mode) depending on whether you are in multi or single.  Finally, the manual never explicitly says, but I also wonder whether GB is also conducted in single frequency if you GB while the detector is in single frequency.   That would make more sense than the detector shifting back to multi when you GB but who knows.  What I do know is that you would lose some of the abilities that MultiIQ provides in compensating for a less than ideal GB so it would be prudent to also do a GB if you switch to single.

This is meant to encourage detector nerd like discussion and thoughts because some good information about how to better utilize the detector in single frequency may come of it.  Since a lot of this is speculation, let's keep the emotions and "right vs. wrong" type discussions to a minimum.  Unless you can cite a specific "truth" in the manual or the laws of physics, everyone should get the benefit of the doubt about their thoughts and opinions on the subject.  Talk about how you might best utilize single frequency mode given its known limitations (e.g., we know about junk target interrogation, maximizing depth high conductors using 5 khz (provided noise does not become an issue) or sifting for shallow jewelry mid-conductors at 20/40khz, and as a last ditch effort to counter EMI if all else fails in MultiIQ). 

Have at it.  

HH (to those who ARE getting out)

Seems the "wobbly rod" issue is evolving...in a good way.  A couple of users on TNET have reported that ML is now just asking for the middle rod vice the entire detector to be sent in for repair.  The users report that the replacement rod appears to have a slightly larger diameter and the camlock has better engagement.  Either a design change has been implemented or there are a few different compatible designs that ML was using and now they are centering on a design that works best.  I base that supposition on the fact I and many others have had no issues to date and ML is not opting to do a general recall just a fix as you find them approach.  Sounds less likely that is was a quality control issue unless it was a quality issue with a subtier supplier of rods.  Hard to really tell looking from the outside in, but it does sound like ML is getting a "handle" on it.  {Pun intended).

And that is why I do not obsess over TIDs. ..

The shallow double tone is the target registering on the coil edges as well as the center.  The high coil and detector sensitivity cause this and you can make it go away by lifting your coil.  One of the telltales of a shallow target since the Equinox lacks significant depth related modulation.

Nickels and Tabs.  Occupational hazard.  Not much you can do about it especially if the tabs are intact and not bent.  If the tabs are bent or damage, sometimes that can reveal itself in the tone.  You may hear some edge distortion or hollowness in the tone vs. the nice sharp ping of a coin or ring.  Otherwise, they are just an occupational hazard of the gig and the probabilities are directly proportional to the ratio of pull tabs to nickels at the site.

Not sure about Steve, but round objects be they coins, rings (closed), even pull tab rings have a nice sweet ping tone to them with solid abrupt leading edges, whereas irregular targets sound softer or have a more distorted sounding tone.  Square pull tabs that are not bent are pretty close and very hard to tell from a coin or ring merely by the audio.

Not a geologist, but is it possible there are other minerals embedded in the quartz besides the gold?