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You have basically four books on the Equinox metal detector to choose from. 1) The Minelab Equinox 600 800 Metal Detector Hand book by Andy Sabisch $23.95 - 176 pages 2) Minelab The Equinox Series from Beginner to Advanced by Clive Clynik $19.95 - 111 pages 3) The Minelab Equinox: “an Advanced Guide by Clive Clynik $22.95 - 101 pages 4) Skill Building with The Minelab Equinox by Clive Clynik $21.95 - 119 pages There may be more, but these are the ones I actually purchased. I have no relationship with either author other than some email questions. I also run two very technical book review web sites on college level books and above. Andy’s book is well edited, with slick photographs and a large easy to read format with some general information on the Equinox detector. However, in my opinion it is padded with photos and testimonials that really don’t add much to the Equinox knowledge. Clive’s books are more expensive if you buy all three of them. Smaller format and yes, there are some spelling mistakes Clive did not catch. But, for the amount of pure Equinox knowledge (especially for the 800), these books are packed from cover to cover with very useful Equinox information. I find myself highlighting quite a bit in each of Clive’s books. I have many years of metal detecting experience with various metal detectors under my belt. Nothing prepared me for the 800. My previous detector was the very good Garrett AT Pro. Prior to the Equinox, I feel the AT Pro was the best mid-range metal detector available. That all changed in the Spring of 2018 when detectorists started buying the 800. Most people at that time could not or refused to believe the 800 was as good as Minelab and a few others were saying. Big caveat here, this was not your father’s detector. It is a very powerful and complex mid-ranged metal detector. Until you tame it, you will be frustrated unless you learn to just use it as the Minelab engineers designed it and that is to use the standard modes until you have at least 50 hours on the 800 or 600. And that brings me to Clive’s three books. They will show you how to get the most out of your equinox. If you are content with hunting in the standard modes maybe buying just Clive’s first book. Bottom line, I kept all three of Clive’s books and sold Andy’s book. But the safe choice would be to purchase all four books.

I have been prospecting in an area with a lot of old gold mines in North Queensland using a Nox 800. Generally the area is benign, being on gold 1 and sensitivity of around 20.in an area of about 3x3 km. I was Detecting in one area when the nox went into high level chatter. One next to Creek and one in the creek. Both areas were about 4x4 m, once I moved the detector away from the area every thing became normal with chatter normal. I noticed some black sands in the area. Could a concentration of this be causing the chatter.

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.

have been prospecting in an area with a lot of old gold mines in North Queensland using a Nox 800. Generally the area is benign, being on gold 1 and sensitivity of around 20.in an area of about 3x3 km. I was Detecting in one area when the nox went into high level chatter. One next to Creek and one in the creek. Both areas were about 4x4 m, once I moved the detector away from the area every thing became normal with chatter normal. I noticed some black sands in this area. Could a concentration of this be causing the chatter.

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!

Interesting test. Results were not what I would expect.

Can anyone weigh-in on the following? I am new to the Equinox 800 and am learning the machine. So far, finding silver and/or copper type coins does not appear to be a problem. Generally, I get a response that clearly tells me that it is a good coin target. However, on the newer Canadian coins that are made of steel, the detector simply does not find them well at all. We have set up rows of these newer Canadian coins on top of the soil and the detector hardly even "sees" them. Numbers are all over the place and basically meaningless. Even pinpointing is difficult. Clad US coins are easy to find because of the copper content. So i am hoping that folks with a better handle on this machine can pass on along a little wisdom on this topic. And maybe someone can even shed a little light on what the meaningfulness of the numbers are on the Equinox display. (So far, I rely almost exclusively on audio signal). Thanks all. PS - the sign-a-graph and vdi numbers on my Whites DFX actually meant something and were very helpful for targeting decisions.

Hey all. So I've had my 600 for a few days now and have gotten out 3 times. I've made some great finds so far in my yard which I previously hunted numerous times. I've noticed that this machine is very noisy and chatters a lot. The machines I've used before were a lot older Whites machines and were nowhere near this noisy. I noise cancelled my machine, have the tracking ground balance on and even turned the sensitivity down to about 15 and this thing is very chattery still. I was mainly searching in Park 1 mode but switched to some other modes to see if it was the same... and it was. When I get over a good target, I know it. It's just very noisy otherwise. Not sure if this is something I just need to get used to or if I'm just doing something wrong. Does anyone else have any input with how noisy their machine has been or what they have been seeing/hearing? Thanks guys!

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 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.

Ive read hundreds of posts about ground balance but what I want to get clarification on from Steve or somebody is this. When you say you mostly manual ground balance do you mean you just start at zero setting and just raise the number up till its stable? Am I understanding that correctly? Also, Am I right in thinking zero is the best depth in general an the more you have to raise it the less depth you theoretically get?

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.

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.

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!!😁

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.

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.

Buy yourself a metal detecting flashlight holder $5, and a power bank with built in flashlight $5-$20. I personally prefer the larger waterproof solar power bank with dual LEDs. Great for night time surf hunts All available on eBay.

I have been wanting to do a little video like this for quite awhile but videos are definitely not my thing. Anyway, I have a contact in the storage unit auction business that lets me know when they win auctions with prospecting equipment. They recently won a unit that they are still going through that had two brand new Minelab Vanquish 540s, a basically new Tesoro Cibola and a brand new Garrett AT Pro. I bought three of them to do some testing and sell later or keep if I liked them. I sold the 540 already since I know what it can do. This short 4 minute attempt at a video is for target ID accuracy and up averaging of IDs in mineralized dirt. This test video is of four 14kHz or higher mid level detectors on a surface US nickel, 4" nickel and 6" nickel under the gray cap, which has been buried for several years. Also there is a surface US quarter and a 6" quarter under the red cap. The detectors in order are the XP Deus, Tesoro Cibola, Garrett AT Pro and the Minelab Equinox 800. The XP Deus is ground balanced at 87 and uses stock Coin Fast at 17.5 kHz with the 9" X35 coil, 90 sensitivity. Please pay close attention to the small vertical mineralization bar on the far right side of the display which stays half to over 2/3s full. The Cibola with the 9X8 elliptical concentric, sensitivity on 8, is set up to just notch out US nickels and hit everything higher. The headphone volume is not very loud, sorry. Notice how the Cibola deeper nickel targets are no longer notched out.......if you can hear the audio and how the Cibola can barely hit the 6" quarter which has been buried for several years. The Garrett AT Pro, 8.5"X11" DD coil is in Pro Zero with discrimination set at 35, no other notching, sensitivity on the next highest setting and ground balanced at 93. The Minelab Equinox 800 is in Park 2. It ground balanced at 2 and the EMI is so bad that sensitivity is set at 14 of 25. I left it in my custom 5 tone very harmonious setting and also did a noise cancel. Otherwise no other adjustments were made. To further handicap the Nox 800 besides using 5 tones (50 tones are more accurate) and sensitivity on 14, I also put the 6" DD coil on the 800. Watch all the way to the end if you can when I do a slightly different test with the NOX! Again, 3 US nickel targets and 2 US quarters with the deepest targets at 6". Thanks for watching and my apologies for this poor attempt at a test video. Turn you volume up and because I am dumb, rewind to the very beginning since it starts about 20 seconds in if you don't. My bad. Jeff

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.

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.

This field checked previously using Fisher F75 multiple places. Ground reads 2 or 3 bars in spots checks.

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.

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.