nordic

They look like Binder connectors Binder

Most likely Minelab orders them as a whole connector/cable assembly, just connector may be not available...

Rotating and examining the target is probably the only way to go in difficult areas. To add to this, sometimes pumping coil over the target may give some clue as well. I totally agree with earlier assessment, that Deus and Equinox complement each other and this discussion was not another topic to compare the two. I also want to reiterate, I don't advocate to use any of the firmware version, but rather to use one that works best for you and the ground that you hunt. My aim is to gather information and share my own findings about strengths and weaknesses of each. In my case, I think 1.7.5 did better. By better I mean, it was not day and night, to put it into other words, the 1.7.5 was more optimistic and v2 rather pessimistic about how good targets were in difficult ground. By being optimistic I had to dig some rust, more than I would do on v2. I think v2 is more coin and larger target oriented than collecting shrapnel. But as mentioned earlier, I find coins carry little context and hence are not particularly interesting to me.

Something I recalled from this weekend. My friend had a lot of iffy signals on his Deus, he called me few times to swing over those targets and most of them were a No. And indeed, they were rust or, in fact, deep coke. Nox really shined.

Just to add. Settings were same as last week, Park2 or Field2, FE=0, Recovery 3/4, Sens 23, GB 0 (auto 1), Noise 0 (auto -8), 50 tones, T1=-9 to 2 in both Park2 and Field2 (default). Coke was ID 1, Rust ID was negative/13. Some buttons were coming at unusual ID 5, beer cans solid 22.

So... I feel I had a great day today hitting that field once more, but with 1.7.5

Many would call items on photos junk, but that is what I like digging. 

On one photo you may see a small item that came from 8 inch depth, and to the right bottom of it is a covered hole from last week, I just missed the item beside it. In fairness 1.7.5 saw targets that Garret pin pointer had trouble picking up, so small they were (see pictures)

This is one of those days when I felt md talking to me, rather than making decisions for me. Last week most of things sounded broken and undiggable, but today it was letting me to do the decision. There was subtle shift in feedback from rather negative (last week on v2) to rather positive (1.7.5 today), making me feeling guilty walking away. I have to say I removed some iron too until I could relearn the pattern - rust was coming at ID 13 predictably. All I can say is I felt confident not missing much in the ground. Will stay at 1.7.5.

I didn't want to make the post too long explaining the test I did at home, but if it is of any interest...

I have a wooden floor infested with nails and they ring as iron. I placed a small target and swang few times over it trying to see how each firmware responds to it. Same settings on all versions, FE=0. The 1.5 and 1.7.5 behaved identical, except that on 1.5 iron nails appeared to start giving positive IDs at a certain coil height, but that height was higher on 1.7.5, but not much. Other than that, signal was strong. The v2 in both FE=0 and F2=0 modes was giving a broken signal over the target, so I just left it at that, just preferred the signal of the older version.

Most of the time I hunt in fields that, luckily, are never too trashy and prefer iron bias to be at 0 and judge rather from the way target sounds, from different angles, etc. It only takes to dig few targets to kinda see the pattern and character of the field... As was also mentioned, the pinpoint gives a good idea of the size of the target as well. I know some people complain about the pin pointer being off-center, but I never found that to be the case. The pin-pointer does behave differently from time to time sound wise, but I learned if I turn it on higher off the ground, it works well most of the time.

It actually never occurred to me that my friend with Deus may have been digging coke and found the button with pinpointer as a coincidence! 😂 He doesn't remember TIDs, and I don't know Deus at all...

Myself working in software/hardware industry, things, unfortunately, are not as simple. This is just my personal opinion only, but a healthy dose of caution and skepticism needs to be applied when replacing/upgrading something that serves one well or one learned to live with it. Forums and general research are invaluable resources for this.

Anyway, I did few more tests yesterday at home with 1.5, 1.7.5 and v2 and decided to go with 1.7.5 tomorrow to that field. Will report. I hope to prove myself wrong and all these versions perform same. Most of all I want to see how it reacts to coke and close targets.

In order not to pollute forum, I'll ask here, does anyone use headphones plugged directly into Nox? What are your preference, direct or wireless?

As well known, wifi stream, bluetooth operate in GHz area, but mobile phones operate in the upper MHz /GHz bands as well and do effect the coil noise, does it make sense to go direct perhaps? This always puzzled me a little. Phones transmit with a lot more power, but hey, that Nox wifi module is next to the sensitive unshielded circuitry... 

I also notice direct has somewhat fuller sound, while WM08 module is a little thin and dry using stock iphone ear phones.

To experience the latency using WM08, you may try using a pair of ear bud type headphones, one plugged directly and one into WM08 module simultaneously, one earphone into one ear and another into another ear, you may notice a slight doubling, but it is very subtle.

Very good points, thanks a lot for jumping in.

As you said, a lot is based on perception and differences are subtle enough to be influenced by mood alone. There is no general consensus which version does better or worse, but people do rollback or use older versions to suit their tastes or other reason. I'm sure there are people here who are still on either version...

I think this ability to roll back and forth made me a little too anxious on what to use and what is best, and not just me.. From researching the topic, I lean towards a conclusion, that with firmware updates ML had to address users complaints mostly. Especially in regards to iron, bottle caps and such. And a lot of us do hunt coins and jewelry only, including my friend with Deux. I'm all hands with ML and that they release such updates, but from engineering perspective, I think such updates are very hard to make without sacrificing something else. I still believe v1.5 is probably the firmware that ML engineers came up with to be what they wanted it to be (other than user profile bug) and all other firmware revisions are fixes and making the masses happy. After all, they need to sell this stuff too. From my own experience, since updating to v2, I feel I haven't dug anything deep for a while, and not much beside coins, as if ML made the algorithm a little more weighted or averaged - as in, not seeing small things as it used to, in order to reduce falsing and filter funny shaped objects that respond with inconsistent phase shift as coil moves over them. All this requires a lot more maturity from the detectorist, which I don't think I am sure, but prefer to dig it all and learn that way, than not see objects at all.

I don't use user profile and I prefer v1.5 pinpointer, I feel it is a lot narrower/sharper than on any other firmware. Also, I don't think depth has changed. As long as ground is clear of other objects, equinox sees items them deep, loud and clear, but I feel that in busier ground, it may see less or filter out more, or average more, something amongst these lines. As an example, if I put a coin inside the horse shoe, older software seem to be able to see it better somehow, by a fraction. And nobody seem to run such tests, people either put nails and swing an inch above the target or bury targets deep into clean ground, or worse - do air tests. But real grounds, at least near me, are far from such scenarios. 

I just want to suggest to not to lose sleep over these updates. Find one that works well for you and stay with it, I guess. The only reason it sparked my interest again is this obvious "fall" before the Deus on a certain situation discussed earlier.

Thanks for all replies so far, we are going to try this place once again this weekend, I will report how it feels on v1.5
We may even dig that same test hole once again if we have time.

I have to say, that all nearby fields are very dense with coke, every meter or so, I just didn't realize it may blind the equinox this much. It really likes it, very very strong signal and it is not shallow as I could hear it only once per swing.

After he removed it, we threw it back into the hole, I wanted to see if I could ID it so deep, I could not. Tried all recovery speeds. Deus was picking it up but not on every swing, he then switched it to Deep program and it was ID’ing it with every swing with ease. Not sure what program he used initially...

Wonder if we had a massive void under our feet that GB did not register correctly 😳

8 minutes ago, 67GTA said:

The GB of 1 isn't right. You will get in the 30-40 range on mild soil. 

Indeed. Did it few times on various patches, it was 0-1. Even after switching to tracking and then checking it later it was 0 or 1.

Friend’s Deus GB’ed close to 90, which is default I believe

That field has an unusual soil, very dark and porous, looks very fertile. Anyway, the GB grab was 1, which is also unusual. Typically soils here GB in 50-70 range. Though they say it is not necessary to GB in multi freq? I usually use field 2 mode, which has metal range extended from -9 to 2 by default, I had it set to -9 to 0 manually, but returned to 2 when testing on that difficult target. All it did is silenced the coke, but button did not show up. I have rolled back to v1.5 now and will test that field again. Can’t wait. Thanks a lot

Hi there and thanks.

The ground and area were very quiet, I ran it at sensitivity 22-24.
Over the difficult target with coke, I tried all recovery speeds from 2 to 8, but normally I use 3-4, mostly 4.
I like having iron bias set to 0 in either FE or F2, that day it was in FE=0, but I tried F2=0 too over that target, did not make any difference. All it could see is coke vdi 1, loud and clear.

Hi All,

First post, please do not judge... Question to more experienced EQ 800 users. I have been detecting for over half a year now, got piles of questions I can't seem to find a definitive answers, so decided to register and ask instead. I also want to highlight I'm interested in all relics, not just coins. Thanks in advance.

Long story short, I have 2 things to ask about, these are sitting for quite a while in my head and can't seem to figure it out. First and probably most asked is the firmware version. I have tried all 3 versions (with proper resets before and after) and my suspicions are that the oldest is the most neutral to the other newer ones - most suited to "all" detecting. Newer ones' frequency response is not as flat, but equalized if I can express this way. The newer it gets, more biased towards coins and larger objects it seems to appear. For example, with stock 11" coil, on fw 1.5 I could detect items as small as pistol round lead bullets (16-17 century), around 4-5mm in D, while with the V2 it simply does not see them at all. In fact, with V2 I pull mostly larger coins and not much of anything else. I also own 15" coil and in regards to small objects of say, I see the following unmasking pattern:

Small copper button (10mm D) in top of mineralized soil, same program, sensitivity, GB 0, IF 0, FE 0, recovery 4:
v1.5 - 11" performs better than 15" - can ID easier with with 11 with iron grunt
v1.7.5 - 15" performs better than 11" - can ID easier with 15 with iron grunt
v2.1.12 - neither of coils can see the button (FE 0 and F2 0), not even a chirp, completely blind, just iron grunt

It takes an awful lot of time to test things, I often hunt same fields, therefore my question, what fw do you use for digging everything?

Situation no 2. My friend owns XP Deus lite and we went hunting on 200 year small old field full of coke (VDI 1-2). Soil was excellent, GB was 1! He was pulling various buckles, coins and buttons from a significant depth, while I found only few coins and one other copper thing, he only made 3rd of field when I finished. We frequently tried to scan questionable targets with both detectors to confirm if they are worth digging. What happened next was a bitter surprise. He pulled a button from about 10" hole beside the coke. I asked him to drop this button into the hole to try to ID it again, but Equinox was completely blinded by the coke, all I could see is VDI 1 and no matter what program or setting I tried, and notching it out, different angle and speed, no chance, nothing. The only thing I did not try is to switch to single frequency. Deus had absolutely no problem seeing it. I feel I missed so much in that field. I was running fw V2 and I really want to go back there once more with the old version. Is there anything you think I could try to get past the coke? I'm going to that field again this weekend.

Just to add another oddity. I have done a FP reset on the equinox at some point and that made coke to sound very faint for a half a minute before it returned to full blinding strength.

Sorry for rather long post. Thank you