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Credit to Gigmaster for his latest video identifying a good bet for the source of the control pod leaks. Very interesting. While I'm at it, Gigmaster recently did a video on how he is repairing and reinforcing the Nox coil ears. I had both coil ears fail last year and had the coil replaced under warranty. Now that my warranty expired in Feb. I figured I'd give Gig's ABS plastic reinforcing mod a try. I used 1/8” ABS (I wouldn't recommend anything thicker) and Gorilla Weld 2 part epoxy like Gig used. It went very well and is rock solid.

Yesterday was HOT, But I decided to hit a shady spot that has produced some good stuff. I decided to bring the line trimmer and mow down an area around some tree's that I found a nice barber on. So after an hour of trimming I was happy I could detect under the 3 foot tall grass. My first good signal was a nickle (buffie) next was a wheatie, Not bad for my efforts. The spot is next to a willow tree by an old pond/swimming hole. After collecting a few more nickles and pennies (not looking closely to what I dug) I found what I think might be a carpenter's compass (Total Guess), It's made of copper and was around 10'' deep. Next was a thimble and a kerosene lamp burner. One more signal and out comes a lead button. Well I was hotter than hot and called it a day. When I got home to look at my rather mundane finds I realized I tripped up on Two liberty head nickles (1912 and 1895), a 1907 indian head penny, and two wheatie's 1920 and a no date. , And two no date buffies. This place has yielded stuff from colonial to the 19th century and I'm going to bring the trimmer back to clean up some more spots on the property, Not only for me but to pay back the owner for the permission. Anyone who can help with the ID on the my best guess carpenter compass I welcome the help.

Got in the water today for about 3 hours, did okay with a couple of James Avery medallion and a fancy silver ring. I was wading chest deep, so the Nox may have went down 4' max. Got home and unloaded everything and noticed my screen was foggy, upon closer inspection I could see water behind the screen. I bought this machine because my first 800's warranty expired, this one is a little over a year old. This makes #4 that I've had problems with, 1st was a power button problem, 2nd was a battery(charging issue), 3rd machine took on water and now another leaker. I'm headed for a vacation this coming week and will be staying on the water for a few days. I'm glad I bought a Simplex as a backup, looks like I'm gonna need it. I'll run it til it dies and then contact Minelab

I used my Equinox a lot in longer grass, and also in very rocky areas. The spoked design coils are never my preference but that's all the Equinox has. I couldn't believe it when the Coiltek 10x5" came out as an open design and I asked if they intended to make a solid coil cover for it, they told me no they don't. It would be very funny if Nugget Finder started making solid skid plates for the Coiltek Nox coils, In fact I hope they do. I noticed they have them for the Equinox 11" coil, so I just had to have one. I hope they continue this trend and make them for 6" coil too. Seems well built, fits well... is solid, what more could I ask for? Now I just hope they make more sizes for the other coils, especially the Coiltek 10x5" and ML 6".

I have been dying to find a trime for quite a while and seriously loosing sleep on thinking about it. So it's July 5th and after a ton of weekend rain I called my buddy to see if he wanted to take a go somewhere. He wanted to take me to an old colonial cellar hole site that he and another friend hunted a lot. I did not have high hopes of a great hunt but it was better than sitting at home. This place was crazy weird with random broken/disappearing signals, which I soon found out was caused by some very strange sandstone that my detector and pointer would pick up on. So after 3 hours of crap signals and misc. doo-dads, I decided to change locations. I walked down range about 150 meters and proceeded to hit some new ground. Low and behold it was quite chatter free and insect free. I was hunting near a small blown over tree and saw a dig hole,so I drifted about 5 feet away and got THE first solid tone of the day a unwavering 19 on the 800. Well jeez louis, I don't care what it is. Expecting a copper button or such, I proceeded with the dig. The plug was a 0 but the hole was coming up hot. I scraped away 4 inches of dirt and the hole went blank. The pointer nailed it and out popped a what I thought was an aluminium snap button. I snatched it up gave it a rub and Holy S**T I found a Trime!!!! I consider myself a pretty tough guy, But I have to admit I shed a little tear. This is a coin I have been chasing for a long time. Well my poor close up vision and my death grip on the coin clouded my brain. I called my buddy over to look at my trime and he proceeded to tell me I did NOT repeat NOT find a Trime but a 1857 seated 1/2 dime. Well being in love with the trimes I was highly disappointed. I Have this seated coin on my bucket list but a little lower on the scale. My buddy thought I was nuts, maybe I am? Another hour and a half yielded a 1864 and 1865 indian head and some other cool doo dads for me, And my buddy rolled out with a beautiful 1874 shield nickle and 2 1864 indian heads. Happy yes, But I can't get the trime thing out of my head.

My machine's ears on my coil broke plus it had some fog in the control box even though it still worked fine.I got my machine on Aug 1 2018 so I needed to send it in fast since I thought I only had about a month to go on the warranty.I actually had until October .I brought it to the post office on Sat at 2:30 pm and it was at my door at about 9:00 am on Thursday.They gave me a new coil with a cover plus a new control pod with a new rod for it.My machine went only from N. Y. to Penn. but this is much faster then the time I thought I would get it back.Thank you Minelab for your great service.I had to use my Infinium in the water while my Nox was sitting on the sideline and despite not using it since July 2018 I got 4 gold on 1 day and 7 overall with this 2002 machine in 5 hunts. My Nox has 3 gold in 4 outings.

Morning y'all, I know we are all at least mildly interested in seeing what new functions or upgrades the folks at Minelab might be cooking up for the Nox line; any idea if we can expect a fourth summer update, or do we think 3.0 was the final? If we get a fourth, what do you think might change? Interested to hear everyone's thoughts as many of you are much smarter than I am when it comes to what is possible or probable in this field.

Just returned from Rye Patch where I attended training with Gerry to learn my EQ800 better. The timing was fortuitous because the new ML6000 was there to be picked up and used by another student. So whenever a potential target was found we all got to observe and watch all the detectors as well as our own to compare response before digging the target. It was REALLY instructive to see what an EQ800, SDC2300, GPZ7000 and the new GPX6000 would do in comparison to depth of target size and density of target etc.! What was NOT fortuitous were the extreme temps...oh well! Several conclusions: the EQ800 blew most of the other detectors away on very small gold..the GPZ and 6000 sometimes wouldn't even signal but the EQ would have a loud robust "zip zip"! That said, the 6000 and 7000 could pick up 10 inch deep targets of moderately small size that the EQ wouldn't "hear" until some inches were scraped off top of target. The 6000 in my opinion was better all around than the 7000 as well as WAAAAY lighter, better balanced, more ergonomic(folds up to a really small size). The 7000 probably is still "the king of depth" ..a former student stopped by to show his results with pics of large gold found OVER the length of a 3 foot pick handle ..really impressive! I as well as all but one person found multiple nuggets with the EQ800...the person skunked was NOT using an EQ! Sure is tempting to go for a 6000 but for now I'll continue to improve with the EQ.

As many of you know, we have been having some good tide swings for the Summer Solstice full moon! Also called a "strawberry moon" here! I went out to one of the renurishment beaches to look for some good sand loss! This particular beach has a limestone shore that "they" feel the need to cover with unnatural "beach" sand, for the "skin roasting" tourist traffic! The ironic thing is, most tourists come to explore the craggy limestone beach!🤯 Luckily for everybody, the sand mostly disappears fast on the lower beach! That, coupled with the extra low tides, makes for fun for most everyone! It's always a tough choice to pick one or two spots to hunt in such a limited timespan! I was hoping to get some old silver, or jewelry from this area with my limited time! But forgot my all important screwdriver, for prying out the older targets from the limestone cracks! I improvised with what I had, but it increased my recovery time, as i was having to pry most of my targets free with a piece of aluminum junk I found! I did not find any silver or jewelry this time, but I did find a nice bronze spike, stuck under a ledge, that had to be worked out of it's sand and shell wedged cubby hole! And some more modern coins that were practically grown into the cracks! Sorta reminds me of how some of you all recover nuggets in a river or stream area! Gotta have the right tools, or it's near impossible! Anyway, if fishing lead were gold nuggets, I'd be doing a seriously silly happy dance! But as is reality, I'll just add the 15-20 ounces to my lead bucket for other uses! Some had been lodged in the rocks a long time! My best find was that spike! As I've never found one in that area! Also a few small pieces of copper sheathing! So the source may someday give up something more precious!👍👍 ***Note to self,😵 and others: Never use your scoop as a prying tool, or a hammer!🤬 I broke the handle, although not fully; so I was very careful for the rest of the hunt! If I didn't already have a replacement at home, I would get one of Steve G's carbon fiber ones! Well; next one!!😁

I came across this bullet the other day, about 10'' down in an old farm pasture. I'm kinda sure this is not civil war but its not something I've ever seen. Here's the spec's (rough) It has 4 Lands and 4 grooves. It mic's at .457 + and - The length is around an 1 1/4'' Weight is 480.5 grains or 31.14 grams I thought it was a.50-70 round, but I think the bullet is to long for the case. Leaning on the side of muzzle loader. Any help would be great.

Anyone out there that can give me a base line VDI for a Trime? I'll take an air test number or if anyone records their VDI's in the dirt that would be great. Also if you have numbers at depth that would also be awesome. Always searching for my bucket lister's. Hope some of you can point me in the right direction.

On the 6th of June at the end of the day after a hunt that yielded a big 0, I ran across the street to my go to spot for a quick hour hunt before dinner. I hit a few clad coins and I told myself one more good tone and that is it. Well 5 min. later I got a 33-34 and after digging to 8 inches out popped a large copper (coin)? Little back story this place has yielded some nice colonial coins and other 19th century coins over the years and they are usually retrieved at an average depth of 7'' to 8''. After half ass field cleaning and sweat burning my eyes, I decided to go home and see what it is. Here is my dilemma, it looks like an early copper, feels like an early copper, BUT it has not a scant detail to say it's a certain type coin. The weird thing is that the rim is pretty defined an crisp, but the surface is smooth as silk. I always find some small detail on a coin. After weighing (12.33 grams) and measuring (31 mm) I went about trying to see what coins fit. The closest I found was a 1799 1/2 penny measuring (31 mm) and weighing (12.66 grams). I started to wonder why in such good shape that there was no detail front or back. Could it be an early planchet yet to be stamped? Or possibly counterfeit blank?? I need a little feedback on what you all think. This one has me guessing.

Well I decided to hit a new spot this morning, a 1770's farm house and barn turned industrial building. This will soon be torn down for another housing development. My buddy was hunting a small maybe 50' x 40' back yard that has overgrown flower beds, while I was hunting the perimeter of the house with cut lawn. After two hours of only a clad dime and a quarter, I decided to see how he was making out. I asked what he got 2 early wheaties was his reply. while talking I swung the 800 on the edge of a flower bed not expecting to get a signal. But I did a jumpy 21 22 23, Jokingly I said how did you miss that. He responded I didn't get there yet. Thinking I was digging a wheat penny, I proceeded to pop the plug. I checked it with the coil, Not in the plug. But now I was getting a jumpy 29 30 31 32 in the hole. Thinking big silver or copper, After digging to around 10'' out pops a very thin copper which I thought was a KG. My buddy (which I hope he still is, seemed a little flustered) came over to look at it with younger eyes, And told me I just dug a 1788 Vermont copper. Well now I started to feel a little sick for swinging in his spot, It was not how I wanted to find a bucket list coin. I offered it to him but he said no, He was glad I found it. Still I didn't feel OK, but knowing we hunt together a lot and we trade good and bad days made me realize how much you would rather your friend find something than yourself. So now I have 3 of the 4 state coppers, all with the equinox after years of detecting with other machines. Luck maybe but I'm leaning towards how you trade info on your machine and technique's used with your detecting buddy.

Greeting all, I have a Minelap Equinox-800 device with eror (Er 41). I changed the cable but still the same problem, I'm try to restarting but there is no responding. please can anyone help me with this problem because I live far from the company and can't send it to warranty.

It's been a while since I last posted and I have been busy with work and the yard. Not that I have not been out a few times, But today was something I had to take the time to share with everyone. I had the day off and wanted to go out early and see what the day would bring me. 5:00 am I decided to get dressed for the day and found a new T shirt that the wife had bought me, It said life is good. It had a dog holding an american flag in its mouth. I thought to myself this might bring me some good luck. Well I think it did. My first three hours were at a spot I hunted a few times. Its loaded with clad and I decided to hunt for quarters and dimes. After a few dollars in clad, I hit a 1945 Washington, (good start) A few more Quarters and I changed spots, Hunting an old horseshoe pit. No luck so I moved a few hundred feet and got a 24-25 on the 800. Out pops a ring that was pretty neat looking but seemed odd and silver plated, But it turned out to be sterling stamped ring made by Unca Co. in the mid 1900's. This morning is turning out pretty good. More clad and I decided to go back to the washington find and go a little slower. With in a minute I got a bouncy on edge tone that produced a very worn Denver mint standing liberty with no date. Sadly I had to go mow the lawn, But being greedy I needed to go back out to another spot. I called my buddy and we went to an old farm house that we hit once a month ago. The last trip yielded a capped bust, large cent, silver broach, pocket watch and an really early buckle. Today I had lower expectations. Well that didn't quite turn out that way. It started out a little slow but ended in a great way. My first good hit was a 1918 merc. Followed by a bunch of wheaties, 9 I think. My buddy hit a large cent and I followed up with a really nice 1914 barber quarter and a KG 3. He ended his day with a nice 1915 barber quarter. LIFE IS GOOD !!!!!!!

The 24k was relatively short lived by comparison of other US made detectors that seem to hang about on the market for 10 to 25 years, being a US detector it was a bit difficult for me to ever get my hands on one and I guess I was just too slow at making the move on one. So I'm considering an alternative. I like my Gold Monster but it is a bit simplified and I prefer more options so I just use it as a pinpointer, at the moment my primary prospecting VLF is the Equinox, I rarely use anything else. I have a Gold Bug 2 but find it a bit primitive especially with features and I'd prefer a detector with Target ID's and the tiny gold improvement over the Nox I find is very minimal, the Nox has a great range of features and does a pretty good job but I'm wondering If I'd get a bit more out of a dedicated prospecting VLF with a higher frequency. Am I losing much not using a 24k and sticking with my Equinox? The Nokta Gold Kruzer seems a viable choice, it's extremely cheap and sitting in stock at my local dealer, it has Nel coil support which I absolutely think is a major bonus, the Nel snake coil is made for it, and to me this seems the ultimate prospecting coil. I have it for my Fisher Gold Bug Pro but that detector just doesn't cut it for depth on small gold for me as I live in a place with a majority of the gold being very small. I need a the best VLF for hot rocks possible. Why is it that Nokta detectors just aren't as popular, they seem to make a great range. The Gold Kruzer and Gold Racer are what people have wanted in VLF prospecting detectors, aftermarket coil support, features dripping off them, quality builds and water proof and so on yet you don't see them as detectors people are using. Why is this? Steve H had a Gold Kruzer, Gold Monster etc, etc.... yet ended up settling on the 24k instead. Is the 24k that much better than the Nokta? What made the 24k the keeper and the Nokta the one to go. Would I be better off waiting to see what Garrett come out with, with any luck Nel will make coils for Garrett's version of a 24k. I've never owned a Notka, I am a bit puzzled why they make such feature packed and on paper great looking detectors yet people aren't using them.

Some folk believe that their prayers are rewarded, others claim that if you ask the Universe for anything it’ll respond.. But when you need a new battery for your Foxy Noxy, these methods don't work anywhere near as good as keeping an eye out on Ebay.. Since that awful day last month when the battery on my Nox 800 stopped charging I’ve considered many options, including an external power-pack (expensive), soldering the plug-in cable to other lithium batteries (deadly), and to keep on swapping with the battery from my Nox 600 (pain in ass).. This afternoon I searched on Ebay and scored two new Equinox batteries for just $50 (plus $10 postage).. That’s a new battery for Foxy Noxy and a spare for the unlikely event I ever need another one! Gotta love them win/win days..

I spoke with Martha at Minelab this morning. The reason I called is, my machine is out of warranty and has been replaced three times since I bought it. I wanted to know how much it was going to cost to replace the pod and if the replacement was going to have a warranty. She told me it would cost $350 for a new replacement, or $225 for a refurbished unit. What she meant by refurbished, if someone returned a whole detector because of a faulty coil, shaft etc, they would send out that control pod if there are any available. I am still waiting to hear back from her on the amount of warranty that will come with the replacement pod. She wanted to double check on the amount of time before she gave me an answer. I have her permission to share this information on the internet forums.

I stumbled across this video of the F75 finding a silver coin deeper than the Equinox, and then he goes on to show the F75 performing better finding a coin between iron. What are your thoughts on this one? I never did bother buying a F75 even though a SE edition came up for sale extraordinary cheap nearby to me, my experience with my T2 had me thinking my Nox was better in almost all situations, was I wrong? I'm a bit puzzled by this video and I guess it could be soil conditions or something but I've found my Nox far better on deep silver than my T2 and I sure have experimented a lot on untouched in ground silvers.

I saw some waves last night and thought I'd get in a wet beach detect today before I drive to a one day desert hunt in the Southern California mountains. I didn't know what to expect and I didn't find very much of interest but I did find this pendant. Does anyone know anything about it and what the symbols and writings mean? I'll do an image search and post what I find.

Today I was walking along the wet sand just looking for any targets and not finding many. Then I found a Jesus ring. Thank you Jesus! I gridded the area near the ring and found an Italian chain marked CU SU so I guess that means it is only gold ionized or something like that. It is pretty. It was time to get off the wet sand on the mile plus walk back to the car. I walked around the area where I had found my Franklin 50 Cent piece and nothing new. I went through the area nearby where I had found some recent silver and then followed my pattern back to the car. It was a warm day and I had to keep myself slowed down at about the 3 hour mark to keep in the game. Then I got the 35 on the Equinox and it turned out to be only my second silver 50 cent piece. I don't think I've held one of these since I was a kid. In the same general area was the 1944 Quarter and a couple of silver dimes. That makes for a pretty good day. These are the best of the finds with two wheat pennies. Just after I found the ring which is unmarked I got a 5 on the 800. When I dug it I could see the chain hanging out of the scoop. Then you feel it and know the weight is not quite right even tho the color is good. Then later I saw the markings and now it is stylish but not solid gold. I gridded the area and kept telling myself that chains don't sound like coins. Then about half an hour later I did get a coin sound and what a nice coin it is. This has not been touched as far as cleaning. It is one of those substantial coins that when you hold it it feels good. So you settle down and get to work looking for more. It was not long after and I had the quarter and a couple of dimes and the wheats. This was the way it all looked when I dumped it in the containers after the hunt. The saw blade was quite odd. I'll go back to that area one day at the beginning of my hunt rather than at the end. Mitchel

My Equinox 800 no longer charges, the green light flicks on and off as if its doing its job but the battery is not holding a charge.. as soon as i turn it on i get the 'battery flat' sign.. I'm one of those pedantic bastards who always runs their battery flat and then fully recharges it, for fear that otherwise it'll create a 'memory' half full.. Is there anything I can do about this? or is my poor old Foxy Noxy a write off? Any advice will be much appreciated.. even slaughtering a black chicken at midnight during a full moon, if it works I'll be a very happy man!

I have an 800 that I use at the beach. Sometimes it drops and this causes the plastic stand to break. I glue it but it has happened about 3 times and soon I won't be able to glue it. It is time to get a new cuff/stand. I'm really not interested in new shafts but ... I use the 15" more than any coil if that makes a difference. Mitchel

Last weekend I made the drive from Anchorage up to the Taylor Highway and past Chicken to the Jack Wade public gold panning area. Look up Steve’s excellent posts on the area for more descriptions and pictures of nuggets, no gold on my trip. It’s still pretty early so Chicken wasn’t even open yet and some ice shelfs were still along sections of the creek. Got great weather, just some passing downpours but in a T-shirt with no mosquitos most of the time. I did take waders to cross the creek,as it was running a little high with snowmelt. This was the first trip I dedicated a lot of time as a serious search for gold and was just as much about learning the detector. Mostly I have worked beaches, campsites, a few roadsides, so I know it can find the tiniest bits of melted aluminum can, bullets and coins. As expected I dug a lot of trash, but I did find some interesting nuggets that are definitely not gold. Most are iron based, magnetic, but a couple look very noduly, and one is not magnetic. The others are probably just rusted bits of iron. There were some sparkles I thought might be pyrite but I think is just dust from the surrounding shist as even the nails and bits of wire sparkle under the right light. Take a look at the pics and see what you think, maybe just welding or torch cutting remnants. They were all in the same area. The area has been heavily worked by detectorists with lots of dig holes around. Equally lots of unexplored tailings but many so overgrown that swinging a detector is impossible. I put in about 16 hours of exploring and detecting on the tailings. Covered a wide variety of terrain and tailings, new, old, tall, short, and along some bedrock sections. On to the Equinox: I tried both Park 2 and the Gold 1 settings. Obviously, my ear is not tuned to the Gold 1 program, it was providing way more chatter than I could process, even with sensitivity turned down to 15 or so. I would have turned it down more but I could run in Park 2 at 20-22 sensitivity and thought I may miss more in Gold 1. I was using the 11” stock coil. Is it normal to have to run at a much lower sensitivity in the gold modes? Most of the time I ended up running in Park 2 with -7,-8,-9 turned off, which may have been a mistake. With how worked the area is, the best chance is probably digging all the iron and hoping for a nugget that might be masked by the trash. In one area I did have some trouble with hot rocks, they would sound as a fairly small but round 12 with iron nearby but after digging out would end up as a -6 hot rock. Was curious why it read so high. All in all a great trip. No gold, and not much wildlife but got a nice shot of a Short-eared Owl on the drive out the Taylor Hwy. Photos of finds, handful of magnetic nuggets, close up of the non magnetic nugget (maybe lead or silver?)

Hello from Texas! Just purchased a used Nox 800 as a back up machine and for my wife to try. She love swinging but hates digging 🙂 . The software was confirmed as updated to 3.1.3. Each time I start it up it chatters uncontrollably and has the code "AU" showing on the screen (see attached photo) Anyone know how to solve this? I have tried everything and can't find anything on the net to quiet it down. I made sure all connections are clean and secure, removed and cleaned coil/cover, tried each detecting mode (all chatters the same), factory reset, have tried noise canceling, ground balancing, lowering sensitivity, and keeping it away from EMI (does this at home and at the beach) and turned off my mobile phone...no fix. Hope this can be easily fixed by a setting or perhaps maybe re-installing the 3.0 update. If not, maybe it is the coil. FYI, also have an Equinox 800 as my primary machine and NEVER experience this issue. Any advice is greatly appreciated!