Chase Goldman

Norm, get back out there and get some treasure. You can swing one on each arm! Seriously, glad you got quick turnaround on the 800. Hope you don't have to deal with that again.

Did you send in the coil and get the same one back?

Yep the Equinox is amazingly deep at the beach on mid-conductors but it can't keep the beach from being sanded in. Lol. Like I've said before, it isn't necessarily what you found (keepers) but what you are finding (deep mid-conductive "trash") that tells the tale of what may lie ahead in terms of the capability to pull some deep keepers if you can get the coil over them. Good luck and happy hunting.

Sounds like they probably swapped out the entire control pod.

Ebay does though. https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F132535473533

I also noticed the Quick Start guide pamphlet "recommends" charging the Equinox for 4 hours before first use.

Actually GB is mentioned right there in the note on the quick start guide on p. 12 of the users manual stating: "If excessive ground noise is heard after performing the Quick Start steps, carry out the Ground Balance procedure (page 40). If excessive noise is still being experienced try adjusting the Sensitivity to a lower level to reduce noise (page 34)." Though admittedly not mentioned on the separately provided in-box corresponding quick start guide.

Just a note. Avoid taking the battery down to the level where the machine shuts down. Draining LiIon and LiPos down to nothing on even an infrequent basis reduces overall lifetime such that it will need replacement sooner. The internal Equinox battery protection circuitry may preclude actually discharging the battery to extremely low levels where lifetime degradation occurs, but I avoid going there anyway, if I can. Also store it with at least 30 to 50% charge if you are not going to use it for awhile. Do not store it discharged as it can self discharge to the point were lifetime degradation occurs. Also, avoid charging under extreme cold or warm temperatures (i.e., outside 32F to 113F (0 to 45C)). Again, the built-in charge protection circuitry should preclude this, but good to know.

You beat me to it. You are really cutting it close if you have less than 5 hours from when you get your machine delivered until you have to start swinging your detector. Good luck. You can also charge it using any power bank or USB power source >1A which means you can easily charge it in the vehicle on the way to the hunt site and, as mentioned before, while hunting if you can find a way to secure the power bank to the shaft assembly you can charge it in the field while using it. You are also going to have to find your own AC plug with USB output (typical phone or tablet charger) because that is not supplied in the box. Really suggest grabbing a rechargeable 10000 maH or greater power bank if you dont already have one (about $20 -30) so you can charge Equinox up while on the go (in car, in field) and not near an AC outlet. You can then just recharge the power bank as necessary from an AC to USB power source in your house (or car if it has USB or a USB cigarette lighter plug for your phone).

Those look REALLY nice.

Well it is wireless in the sense that you are untethered from the detector and that is convenient because it lets you move around and use both hands on the shovel if need be (because you can set the detector down) and saves on wear and tear on both the detector jack and the headphone cable/plug stress points if you have to move away from the detector without constantly having to take your headphones on and off. Not a necessity, but I have found the both the BT and WM08 wireless solutions to be very convenient in this regard and allows for a variety of headphone types (stock BT and weather resistant wired) phones to be used untetheted depending on the circumstances. I have even extended the APTX LL tech to my GPX by plugging in a tiny $20 APTX LL transmitter into the headphone jack and now I can use the supplied ML BT headphones with either detector. I am "all in" on the wireless.

I have not noticed any depth impact with tracking...but only used it under very mineralized conditions which enable it to periodically and reliably grab a ground reading and also because the ground balance point changes significantly over short distances. Leaving tracking off under these conditions could definitely affect depth if I was not frequently auto or manually rebalancing. If tracking is giving you the right GB number, I do not understand how it can impact depth. Under very mild conditions such as in sugar sand, then the tracking algorithm may not work reliably at all and I can see that you would not want to run it for fear of getting an off-the-wall GB point. But in that case, Auto GB pumping would also likely be as unreliable, so it would probably be best to leave GB at 0 under those circumstances.

Just confirming your close up says "Hosa" brand. Stereo to Stereo? Stereo to Mono? Mono to Mono? Mono to Stereo? Pretty sure a number of adapters with right angle plugs will not work with the recessed jacks on the WM08/control pod, so would rather not waste time and money picking the wrong one. Thx.

Do a search on Pinpoint on this forum and you can get an idea of the spectrum of issues regarding pinpoint volume. As Steve has said, some of it may be "real" as in an actual "volume" bug (that seems to happen while going into or out of pinpoint) and some of it may be imagined, because people are not used to how the pinpoint works on this detector where the volume appears to have to "lock on" to the target before it gets louder. It is something ML is probably looking into for refinement because it does appear to be a little quirky.

Awesome and a beaut!

You need to change your screen name to tinkermeister. I am surprised you bought the Equinox in the first place and didn't fashion your own out of a beach umbrella pole, duct tape, wire, a frisbee, and a digital multimeter. Bendy shaft, detector stand, WM08 integrated headphones, and your own home brew screen protector. You are a DIY master. Lol. ?

Good idea in the water. You don't/can't look at VDI and only care if it's ferrous or nonferrous (if you are going to dig all nonferrous anyway) so 2 tones is the way to go. You just won't have a clue until you get it out of your scoop or onto the floating sifter.

True but there is another possible, related factor that can come into play, see below. In addition to the swing speed issue noted by parkgt above (where a quickly swung coil tends to "bracket" the target when subject to latency based delay) the higher recovery speed can also enable closely spaced targets to sound off in staccato fashion. If the time delta between staccato hits approximates the latency delay, then the effect is similar to quickly scanning a single target above which will tend to show the entire group of targets as shifted right or left depending on the direction of the coil swing. So in this respect, for either case (fast swing speed, or multiple, closely spaced targets) which are enabled by higher recovery speed, the latency effect becomes perceived as a lateral shift in target location with respect to the coil vs. actual position. That being said, I think the single target bracketing due to high sweep speed will be the most noticeable to the detectorist.

Couldn't agree with you more, Dew. The good thing is you can experiment a little with settings but there is not so much you can mess with that you totally bollocks up the machine. And since complex programming is not required, if you get really lost, there is no real problem with giving any particular program mode a reset to default settings or with executing a complete factory reset of the machine and starting over.

This weekend I was really longing for a 6" coil. Not because I needed the laser pointer separation, but I was detecting in very restricted scrub and woods. Really bushwacking it. The site was a civil war era shooting range that was part of a winter encampment and swinging an 11" coil would have really restricted my ability to probe around old tree stumps that had the telltale minie ball holes in them. I had no doubt Equinox could have delivered the goods based on surface finds I had made outside the woods, but really needed the ability to have some side to side coil swing to get the job done. Deus was giving me borderline signals at depth in the nasty dirt so I ended up using a 10x5 elliptical on a GPX instead and grabbed 30 projectiles and fragments and an iron buckle in a single morning's worth of effort. Now we will not know how the Equinox could have done until the next opportunity (the last time we had access to this site was three years ago and there is no guarantee we can ever go back again). ML is really stubbing their toe on this delay, unfortunately.

$50 is just a tad over my threshold of pain to take the route of getting the home brew CTX adapter above (or elsewhere) and a pair of CTX waterproof cans which are in stock now. I would really need to see ML's MAP on headphones and/or their own adapter (yes, I know it is not 100% waterproof, just a data point) to be able to decide. Definitely a cottage industry for DIYers that can put together these adapters and sell them at a little volume while ML is unable to get their accessories out as they continue to dedicate production to the Equinox detectors to meet worldwide demand. ML really has no choice because they are damned if they do and damned if they don't meet the detector demand signal. In the mean time they are going to lose out on a significant percentage of accessory sales customers while third parties fill the void. Regardless of ML's inability to get accessories manufactured at this point, I do not understand why MAPs are not available for the already announced accessories.

I have a different question. Why don't you just use the APTX LL headphones with both detectors? The supplied headphones can pair with up to 2 devices at a time so you wouldn't even have to re-pair them each time you wanted to use them with either machine.

It should last around 3+ years, actually.

I nominate Dan(NM).

Now I'm confused. What?