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My new T2 arrived this week so I decided I'd take it out for a test run today, I haven't bothered detecting football fields before, it never really crossed my mind to do so especially small town football fields that barely ever get used. I think the last time I even saw people on this thing was about a year ago and they were riding a horse 🙂 I guess back in time it was probably a popular place and my results today show this. This is going to be more of a picture story as the pictures tell 1000 words! I started using the T2 with Mars Tiger coil and within two minutes of arriving I had my first coin, then another, then another..... it was nuts, coins everywhere and very little junk, I was finding nice old coins, possibly one of my oldest in a while too Silver 🙂 1938 British Penny The T2 was getting good depth, easily hitting on coins with good ID's, another silver! 1948 Penny - Now NZ currency, not British like the older Pennies, we used some British currency until 1967. Prior to 1933 United Kingdom currency was the official legal tender of New Zealand, although Australian coins and notes were also generally accepted. The first New Zealand penny was minted in 1940. The penny ran until 1965, when New Zealand stopped minting pre-decimal coins in preparation for decimilisation in 1967. I have no idea what this thing is This is the football field I was detecting, under the goal posts and along the end of the field had a good collection of coins, I guess from all the diving with the ball and coins in the players pockets, I don't know much about football, probably the only NZ male who has no clue about the game 🙂 My oldest find of the day, a British 1912 One Penny It was quite deep down but the T2 banged on it real hard with a solid ID. At this point I decided I'd go home and gear up better as this place obviously has a lot of good old coins. I was only using my T2 with Carrot and Lesche digging tool which was hard work with all the coins being so deep. I wanted a bigger coil to cover more ground but there was no way I was going to strap on the 15" Teknetics coil to continue using the T2 as it weighs a tonne. I opted for the Equinox with it's 15" coil and almost straight away after turning it on, another coin 1950 NZ One Penny. I left the bit of dirt on the coil up the top it came out of, I love when you get the impression of the coin in the soil. Another silver, 1934 Shilling This is the hole it came from, I always recheck my holes and I'm glad I did, another target in the hole, then another... this was crazy 3 Silvers in the hole so far, 1934 Shilling, 1934 Shilling and a 1946 Sixpence, I was sure this was it but I did another check and off to the side of the hole, ANOTHER SILVER Another 1934 Shilling, 4 silvers in one hole, incredible! Someone had a bad day. 1964 Sixpence... the coins just kept coming, all old ones. No longer are they made of silver in 1964... Nice and deep though +++++ My first modern coin, a $2 But look how deep it was, it was deeper than a lot of far older coins.... weird! Another two in one hole, just one cent coins from back when NZ had one cent coins. Another coin leaving a cool impression of itself in the soil, just a one cent I think It sure a lot of ground to cover, I'll be at this place for weeks... plenty more coins to find I'm sure. Time to head back to the car, with my coil to the soil. Another for the road 🙂 Double sided impression on the soil with this one. I couldn't possibly put up a photo of every coin find as there were just too many, all in about 3 hours detecting. The good stuff The bad stuff... not a bad ratio, good stuff far outweighed bad stuff, unusual for me.... I'll be back there tomorrow.... and the next day.... and the next day 🙂

Hello all. I found this picture: Does anyone have more info?

I have a very early Equinox, after buying the 15x12" coil mine rapidly developed the dreaded shaft wobble, the bottom cam lock just wouldn't tighten enough to stop the shaft wobbling and swinging the big coil really made it obvious, then going back to the little 6" and the problem went away. I contacted Minelab about it and they were great and sent me out a new shaft pronto which was nice. They used international express from OZ so it arrived within a few days. I then started paying attention to the aftermarket shafts and saw a few people were enjoying using various carbon fiber shafts so I thought i'd try one out. I went with a Detect-ED shaft, the Classic 3k Twill It arrived today, the local courier was kind and delivered it on a Saturday for me seeing I know her, saved me waiting for Monday when it would normally arrive. I also purchased some of the Coil saver washers he's selling. The washers are interesting, two sizes that you mix and match to get your coil so you don't need to over tighten the bolt to help keep the coil in place nicely. They seem to do as described, one red and one black on each side of my shaft seemed to do the trick, I can have my bolt just slightly turned and my coil is nice and tight but still moves when I want it to with ease like when I put my detector down. 4 Red's (thicker) and 4 blacks to mix and match with. The shaft is lighter, it's more noticeable with the big coil as anything to take a bit of weight off when swinging that thing is nice You'll see I have a ferrite choke on my coil cable, not sure if it does anything but I've got plenty of them so why not 🙂 It took about 5 minutes to put the Nox on the shaft and it came with the tool required to remove the control pod off the old shaft. The clip that lets you shrink/expand the shaft is nice quality, it's quick and easy to reduce the size of my Nox for transport now. So far I really like it, I can't see any negatives to the upgrade and my Nox now feels much higher quality, I really felt the stock shaft made the Nox feel cheap. I think it's far too good of a detector to run off that basic cheap junky shaft. I now just want to source a better quality arm cuff.

Today I visited my second playground Since getting the NOX 600. I’m getting comfortable with the machine. After reading quite a bit of the Minelab Essentials gaining new knowledge about the machine I was excited to jump back out today. I decided to hit a playground with the 1 hour that I had. This is the second play ground I have hit as of recently, both were similar, had the wood chips everywhere. The first time, it was extremely difficult! This second time has been just as difficult even after all the new tips I’ve learned. What happened is there were so many weak and choppy signals, practically every where. I assume this is due to trash being littered everywhere since you know, kids are there a lot and kids tend to litter more often. It was strange that I checked half of the playground in an hour and I got not 1 good signal though. I was on Park 2 since assuming it’s more dense with trash and I wanted to be stronger for gold jewelry, Sensitivity had to be at about 16 due to bad EMI. I made sure to auto balance and ground balance. Is there anything else I should have done to help myself? The signals I would get would be extremely weak or it sounded as if there were targets everywhere so when I’d find one that I thought was decent I would try to pinpoint the target however when I was in pinpoint mode, it would give me 100% strong signals on an half of a sweep like 2 feet long. This made pin pointing very difficult so I wasn’t sure if it was falsing or if this is just the nature of wood chipped playgrounds. This happened in my first playground a couple weeks ago as well. I just chalked it up as a very trashy area. also I would lose signals after finding them. A 13 4” down would pop up for a moment then I am no longer finding that signal and instead am finding a 26 2” deep, nearby, and then that would be gone and nothing appears which was a bit confusing. This is an example of what has happened non stop with different target IDs and depths fairly consistently. i assume this is what it’s like to run into a difficult spot for newbs such as myself so I wanted to ask, is this a common occurrence for a playground? Are they more difficult due to extremely tough signals? Are there any tips for detecting in playgrounds that I may find useful and others that are having the same trouble? Also I’m extremely sorry if there is another topic that covers the information that I’m asking for.

I think it would be a good idea to have a thread just for after maket Bluetooth headphones for the Equinox as there must be many many different ones out there if people could give their views on what they have bought and what improvement they have over the ML80's. I have bought these https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01A0EAYDI/ref=pe_3187911_189395841_TE_dp_1 advantage over ML80's much better low tones (no boom sound) better overall tones (tighter) they are super comfortable and have much larger ear muffs the head band fit is great if you have a larger head they are slightly lower in volume but not by much than the ML80's.

I replaced the end plug on my Nox and thought others might like the idea. I don't know if anyone else has done this before but I replaced the plug with a bicycle handle bar plug. This was done purely for cosmetic purposes as the plastic end plug it had did its job just fine. These are the ones I went with https://www.amazon.com/PRO-Bicycle-Handlebar-Plugs-Black/dp/B00JATNUGS/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=pro+bar+end+plugs&qid=1567359452&s=gateway&sr=8-4 . Just a simple plastic compression plug with a nice aluminum cap. They came with black coated steel screws though so I'll replace them with stainless ones when I get the chance. There are other brands, styles, and colors of these types of plugs but just make sure to get the right dimensions to fit inside the shaft and not interfere with the arm cuff screw. Many of the listings don't specify the dimensions of the plug. The ones I got have an OD of 23.5mm (the smallest I could find) and my shaft OD is 22.2mm so there's a tiny bit of overhang but my arm cuff is all the way to the rear so it didn't bother me. The only thing I had to do to make them fit was trim about 1/2 in. off the end of the screw to keep it from hitting the arm cuff inside the shaft and I also used some blue loctite to ensure the screw doesn't back out.

On the advice of others on this forum, I called Minelab today to inquire about the play I've had in the shaft on my Equinox since day one. When I called back in 2018, they wanted me to send the whole detector in to get looked at. This time they said they would send the three pieces my way, and I just need to send the originals back to them. Has that been your experience for those in the same situation?

Gold Nugget Detecting with the Minelab Equinox Metal detecting for gold nuggets is one of the most difficult detecting tasks, and learning to run a VLF detector in highly mineralized ground will challenge even the best detectorists. There is more to this subject then can be covered in a brief article but I will try and offer some tips to get people started with the Minelab EQUINOX for gold nugget detecting. Minelab Equinox with new 6" coil at work gold nugget detecting The Equinox can find very small gold nuggets! The EQUINOX 800 has two modes that are not available on the EQUINOX 600 – Gold Mode 1 and Gold Mode 2. The two Gold Modes are identical except for the default settings. Gold Mode 1 is set up with a default Recovery Speed of 6 and Gold Mode 2 is set up with a default Recovery Speed of 4. These modes employ a boosted audio that increases both in volume and pitch as a target is detected. This in turn accentuates the signal on tiny gold nuggets. The threshold is also different than the “reference threshold” employed in the other modes and is more responsive to ground changes, providing important audio feedback about changing ground conditions. The Gold Modes are similar to the threshold based all metal modes available on most VLF nugget detectors with a major difference. A target id number is displayed for strong targets and each target id number can be independently set to accept or reject. In this regard the Gold Modes are a hybrid mode with more discrimination capability than is available in normal threshold based all metal modes. Normal VLF nugget detecting relies on the operator having their ear very tuned into the threshold sound of the detector. Slight variations in the threshold tone can indicate potential targets. The threshold tone is also very sensitive to changes in the ground mineralization. This includes the so-called “hot rocks” which have mineralization different than the ground they reside in which makes the detector react to them as targets. The challenge is to get the detector to operate with a relatively smooth threshold as the coil is swept over the ground so that desired targets will stand out. If hot rocks are signaling with every sweep of the coil, then progress will be extremely slow if not impossible. Tuning a VLF detector to hunt nuggets starts with the theoretical most powerful settings, and then reduces those settings until the detector becomes stable. Every setting is a trade off, because making a detector more sensitive to gold also makes the detector more sensitive to mineralized ground and hot rocks. The key settings for the EQUINOX 800 in Gold Mode are: Frequency. Multi frequency is the default and the most powerful frequency setting, with 40 kHz and 20 kHz single frequency options. Multi is the most sensitive to gold, but also reacts the most to bad ground and hot rocks. The goal is to get the EQUINOX to run well in Multi but if bad ground or hot rocks make that impossible, going first to 40 kHz and then to 20 kHz will make the EQUINOX progressively less reactive to the ground and the hot rocks. Ground Balance. The default is ground tracking on. Tracking attempts to keep up with and smooth out the variations in the ground. In doing so it has a filtering effect and can possibly tune out the slight audio variations that come not just from the ground but from very small or very deep gold. Tracking off is therefore the most sensitive setting, with adjustments made via the Auto (pump) method or manually. Sensitivity. The range is 1 – 25 with a default of 20. Increasing sensitivity increases the audio response from all targets, plus the responses from things like electrical interference. Most importantly, too much sensitivity makes the ground itself into one giant target, and so if the detector refuses to ground balance properly then reducing sensitivity until a proper ground balance can be obtained is critical. The default of 20 can easily be too high for the worst ground, and settings in the mid to low teens may be necessary. Recovery Speed. The range on the EQUINOX 800 is from 1 – 8. The defaults are 6 for Gold Mode 1 and 4 for Gold Mode 2. Recovery speed as regards nugget detecting can be viewed as a smoothing filter. Higher settings act to smooth out audio responses from the ground and hot rocks. Lower settings enhance audio responses from weak gold signals, but also make hot rocks and bad ground stand out more. False signals from the coil bumping a rock also increase at lower settings. In general the EQUINOX will be easier to handle at higher Recovery Speed settings, with more careful coil control required at lower settings. Iron Bias. The range is 0 – 9 with a default of 6 in both Gold Modes. Lower settings reduce the chance of gold being identified as ferrous, while higher settings reduce the chance of ferrous items being misidentified as gold. Accept/Reject. The default is -9 through 0 rejected, 1 through 40 accepted. The discrimination range on the EQUINOX runs all the way into the ground signal, with ground signals in highly mineralized ground normally coming in at -9, -8, and possibly -7 though it depends strictly on the ground itself. Hot rocks can read almost anywhere, even in the positive number range in the mid-teens or elsewhere. Electrical interference is also likely to exhibit in the low negative number range. Any offending numbers including trash targets can be blocked directly, but the more numbers that are blocked or rejected come at a cost of slightly less signal strength on desired targets. Threshold. The range is 1 – 25 with a default of 12. This is normally set to be just loud enough to hear, but no more. Just a barely discernible tone. However, the threshold can also act as a backend filter. Once all other tuning has been completed, the threshold can be set lower until it is silent, or set higher than normal. Running silent can suppress small variations in the ground signal but also the weakest gold signals. Running the threshold higher than normal can smooth out weak variations, again with a subsequent loss on the faintest gold signals. My starting point (initial settings) for either Gold Mode are: Frequency: Multi Ground Balance: Auto (pump method) with manual tweaking Sensitivity: 20 Recovery Speed: 6 Iron Bias: 0 Accept/Reject: -9 through 40 accepted (either through the settings or by hitting the “Horseshoe button”) The main thing I am going to try and do is operate the EQUINOX in Gold Mode without blocking out or rejecting any target id numbers. The goal is to find settings that reduce and smooth out ground responses while reducing the signal from gold as little as possible. These two things fight each other and there are no perfect settings, but simply the best compromise possible. For some people that will mean making the machine very stable, while others may prefer hotter settings that require more audio interpretation from the operator. The first step is to find an area clear of trash, and walk a bit waving the coil over the ground. Chances are you will get lots of ground noise. Go into the settings and adjust the ground balance. This normally means pumping the coil over the ground while holding the accept/reject button (see the manual) until the ground response evens out. If the ground is highly variable with mixed hot rocks, waving the coil from side to side may work better than pumping the coil. With any luck the machine will settle right down. However, in bad ground it will not, and the solution normally will be to lower the sensitivity setting. Basically this just takes some experimentation, lowering the sensitivity and adjusting the ground balance until the detector reacts very little or not at all to being waved over the ground. If you can get the EQUINOX set to where no target id numbers are popping up at all as the coil passes over the ground but where you can still hear faint variations in the ground, you are there. Then it is simply a matter of going detecting, and digging every target that stands out above the faint ground variations present in the threshold tone. Gold can read anywhere from negative numbers all the way up into the 30’s so typical nugget detecting involves digging everything. However, most nuggets weighing under 1/10th gram will give a target id number of 1 or 2, nuggets under a gram in the single digits, and several gram nuggets reading in the teens and higher. The smallest or the deepest large nuggets will produce no target id number at all, just a variation in the threshold. In real bad ground you may have to not only reduce the sensitivity setting, but possibly even increase the recovery speed setting to 7 or 8. In ground that refuses to behave, switching to first 40 kHz and then 20 kHz will progressively detune the EQUINOX , making it easier to get a stable ground balance. Engaging ground tracking may also help smooth out the worst ground – you have to experiment. In severe ground all this may not work, with ground signals still coming in around the low negative numbers and possibly higher. Some hot rocks may read as positive numbers. This is where the EQUINOX can go to the next level. Go into the settings and reject or “notch out” the worst offending target id numbers. This will usually be -9, -8, and -7 but may include even higher numbers, including positive numbers. Block as few numbers as you can. Simply rejecting the bottom three negative numbers will usually settle the machine down a lot, especially if there is any residual electrical interference being encountered. Rejecting target id numbers does come at a cost in reduced signal strength on desired targets, but you may find now that the sensitivity level can be increased from one to several points, reclaiming that lost sensitivity. In theory if you can get the EQUINOX running stable with no target id numbers rejected you have the ideal situation. However, EQUINOX allowing some offending signals to be rejected with an attendant increase in the sensitivity setting may be the better way to go. It just depends on the situation. So far we have been trying to deal with bad ground by using various detuning methods. In low mineral ground you can go the other direction. If the detector ground balances immediately with a sensitivity setting of 20, then try higher settings. You can also try reducing the recovery speed setting from 6 to 5 or 4 or even lower. Each reduction of the recovery speed setting is fairly dramatic and you will find it suddenly very hard to get and hold a decent ground balance if you go too low with the setting. In mild ground however it can add substantially to the signal strength of the weakest targets. Finally, for the worst ground and for EQUINOX 600 owners we have other alternatives. There is no reason at all why the other modes cannot be used to nugget hunt. Park 2 and Field 2 are both very hot on small targets and offer the ability to use tones while nugget hunting. Prospectors who encounter salt lakes/salt flat situations would do well to remember the Beach modes as possible last ditch settings. Either Park 2 or Field 2 can make for very good nugget hunting modes. I prefer to use Park 2 as a base because by default Field 2 blocks out or rejects the key target id numbers 1 and 2. Small gold nuggets read there, so using Park 2 makes sure somebody will not accidently reject nuggets in that range. You can use Field 2, but beware those blocked numbers and adjust accordingly. For Park Mode 2: Frequency: Multi Ground Balance: Auto (Ground pump method with manual tweaking) Sensitivity: 16 – 25 Recovery Speed: 4 - 6 (default is 6) Iron Bias: 0 Accept/Reject: Everything accepted, rely on tones (alternative reject -9, -8, and -7 if too much ground feedback) I have suggested accepting everything, and then using the two tone mode to hunt by ear. If trash is minimal then set the tone break lower than normal, so that 0 and several negative numbers read as non-ferrous. This way you can have ground signals reading as low tones (and possibly at a lower volume) and signals from gold as higher tones. Again, this works well with both EQUINOX models. To sum up, I suggest trying to use the EQUINOX 800 in the Gold Modes with no target id numbers rejected. Tune up just like any normal nugget hunting detector, and dig all decent audio signals. Some nuggets may deliver a negative number response or no number at all. A secondary method for more difficult ground is to reject or block out offending ground and hot rock signals. And a third method for both EQUINOX 800 and 600 owners involves using the Park 2 mode as a nugget hunting mode. That should give people plenty to experiment with. Nugget detecting can be very challenging, but learning to do so means you will learn how to wring every bit of performance possible out of your EQUINOX , and that can benefit you in other areas of detecting as well. Good luck! Steve Herschbach DetectorProspector.com Earlier post on same subject Gold found in Alaska by Steve with Minelab Equinox Gold found in California and Nevada with Minelab Equinox

What is going on???? Just have had to get one replaced...now the external speaker isn't working right...muffled sounding.. one guy made a post about this exact issue.. and said minelab burped his machine..

My speaker was messed up after yesterday's dive . I went down to around 7 1/2 feet...here is the how to video...

As said I like both the Sport and the Nox face . The great thing about them as you hunt you can really look at the face of each and know what you have notched out . What makes the Nox even better over the Sport is you can notch out one number at a time . Oh I know the Nox has so many fine qualities over the Sport it will never have but like the Nox it has a pretty face . I don’t know why but a pretty face always tugs at my heart strings and a detector is no different. Chuck White's MX Sport Display and Controls Minelab Equinox Display & Controls

Hi! Help determine whether it is worth buying this metal detector? It is difficult to determine because it is not cheap. Previously, I wanted to buy an XP Deus 22 or another new cool metal detector Makro Multi Kruzer. Found on the Internet comparison Minelab Equinox 800 vs Makro Multi Kruzer. Now I do not know which of the three detectors to choose :) Does someone already have experience of using them?

I was wondering what a replacement of the control pod will cost if out of warranty. Does anyone know the cost of a 600 and 800 control pod if you buy them outright from Minelab?

My buddies kid went water hunting with me. His 600 flooded within 15 minutes....

Published on Jul 22, 2019 by Bill Southern. “I am kind of liking the Minelab Equinox 800 for gold nugget hunting as I use it more. It has some abilities the other VLF detectors out there do not have and man will it hear tiny targets as well as large. I am using stock settings for GOLD 1 in this video and will go into more later on various tweaks. I recommend the 6 inch coil when out for gold nuggets as it is much more sensitive and the smaller size helps with the highly mineralized soils of the Southwestern goldfields. In this video I am using STOCK Gold 1 settings with auto track and sensitivity at around 19. So let's go see if we can score a nugget....”

I went back to the place we've been hunting all year with the Nox to try some different settings at a spot that we hit several times before. I hit it with the CTX using the 11" and 6" coil and the Nox using the 11" and 6" coil earlier this year. Today I ran the 800 with the 11" coil with these settings: Park 1 Recovery speed 3, used recovery speed 6 the last times. Iron bias 0, have always ran 0 Manual GB this time instead of factory preset of 0 Sensitivity of 23 2 Tones No disc, dug everything from +9 and up All the mini balls and buttons were deep, 8+ inches and gave a repeatable tone. I used a much slower and deliberate sweep this time compared to a faster swing in the beginning. All in all, I was very pleased with the outcome, my plan is to go back and come at it from a different direction next time.

This past weekend i was running the GPX 4800, and my buddy was using my equinox 800. I will say that i could not be within 30 to 40 feet of the equinox, it gave the GPX fits, and if you got closer than 10 feet the GPX was just screaming like it had a beer can under the coil. I found this interesting since its usually the other way around with the GPX giving the VLF detectors fits. Guess it has something to do with the Multi IQ that the equinox is running. Has anyone else experienced this?

Except as part of a repair situation. Right now that means under warranty repair. Later it may mean as part of a paid service repair down the road. But you can't just buy a pod/handle as a regular purchase. That has been confirmed by multiple sources on this thread.

Rather than wait for the official waterproof Headphone Adaptor Cable 3.5mm (1/8-inch) to 6.35mm (1/4-inch) lead i made my own with a 1/8" Male To 1/4" Female Headphone Lead and the WM08 blanking screw that comes with the unit i just drilled the blanking screw out and glued the 3.5 (1/8) end in then used a silicone washer for a watertight seal easy.

This post is mainly directed to UK field detecting where we have had social open air gatherings since Medieval times and on fields littered with coke. I used these settings yesterday and I was hopeful of finding at least one gold necklace / chain but alas none, better luck next time. As most of us know it is almost impossible to find a fine gold chain with any metal detector and as it is a long story why but mainly due to Eddy Currents and the metal detector rejecting coke which fits into the same frequency range as thin and fine gold and as here in the UK we find our permission fields littered with coke which mostly emanates from the days of steam engines powering farm equipment and the spreading of night soil as a crop fertilizer and which was collected from house middens and where the ashes from the household coal fires was used to cover the stinking human excrement, these ashes contained large cinders which survive for donkeys years in the soil and give off wonderful signals for metal detectors. This information on how to adjust the Tone Breaks to enhance the chances of finding gold chains during field detecting is only applicable to the Minelab Equinox 800 as it has the advanced settings capability. To alter the "Tone Breaks" it involves making changes to three "Target Tone Dependencies" which are "Number Of Target Tones", "Target Pitch" & "Target Volume". Here is my effort to change the settings to cover the frequency conductive range to give off a signal from thin gold chains in the discrimination zones, at present the default Discrimination zone is -9 to +2 and it is the Zero to +2 segment where gold chains show. So first of all select either "Field 1 or 2" your choice. Then go to "Target Tone" choose 5 tones. Then go to "Tone Breaks" and set the 5 tones as thus T1 = -9 to 0, T2 = 1 to 2, T3 = 3 to 28, T4 = 29 to 38, T5 = 39 to 40. Then go back to "Tone Volume" and set tone segments to T1 = 1, T2 = 15, T3 = 25, T4 = 25, T5 = 15. Then go to "Tone Pitch" and set the tone segments to T1 = 1, T2 = 15, T3 = 25, T4 = 20, T5 = 16. To move from from one tone segment to the next segment use the "Accept / Reject" button ( \//x ). These settings are working for me but then again they may not be every-bodies cup of tea.

I have taken my Equinox 800 out several times and no matter what the tones and the VID shows all I come up with is junk. A few times I have found some pennies but mostly trash. Today I started searching an old church (1852) when I came across a tone that didn't sound like anything that I had heard before. This item was showing a solid 2 in all directions, but it said it was deep. I started digging and then about 22 inches deep I found what appeared to be a piece of glass, but it had a rusted ring around it and a disk that shows gold on it. I have no idea how much gold it is or if it is just gold leaf. Where the gold is at it is not magnetic at all. That was the only thing that I was able to find good enough to bring home except an odd looking spike. The spike is only about 6 inches long, 1/2 inch thick, with a head of about 1 inch. Have no idea what it was used for, but I thought it was cool looking. This church that I was at gave me so many tones in every part of the ground ranging form 1 to 28, and I just didn't have time to dig more than 5 holes before I had to go. So if someone would be able to help learn this new toy I would be grateful for all the help. I just want to know what I am doing wrong or is there a problem with my unit.

With the kids away at school once again, I had the itch to go out. I went to the ball diamond where I have found a silver ring and a class ring. My Garrett carrot was sounding off when I turned it in, so I decided to go back home and get my backup. (Turns out the battery was toast even though I just changed it the last time I was out.) I had sensitivity turned down to about 15 and was running in Park 1 using 50 tones. Recovery speed was at 7 and the horseshoe was engaged. After 5 digs, I got a very consistent 15. It sounded different from the countless other 15's I have dug that were pulltabs. Perhaps fuller in sound would be a way to explain it. Anyway, about 2 inches down was my ticket for the excuse train to be done sweating for the night. I left 10 minutes after starting knowing that this was going to be hard to top before dark. The side stones are diamonds according to my tester. The middle stones have a more purple hue to them when light is passed through. Any ideas on the stones would be appreciated. It looks like it would be very heavy ring, but the portion that holds the stones is hollowed out quite well. I invited my brother-in-law, but he was busy. I made sure to send a few picks so he will want to go out next time.

Is there anyone that for any reason still prefers the older version 1.5.0 software over the newer 1.7.5? If so, why? Just curious. Equinox - How To Check Version Or Rollback To Older Version Thread asking same question a year ago

Recently I have purchased the equinox 600 which I am very happy with. I did lots of research on different machines around the $500 mark and with Reddit’s help I went for the NOX 600. Again happy I did. When I did some research on the differences between 600 and 800 the only biggest difference was the gold prospecting mode which didn’t seem like a huge desire for me, and some additional features like custom user profile on the 800 as well as different screen brightness adjustments plus a few other things that I didn’t feel like were a big deal compared to the cost. One thing I am upset about though that wasn’t really brought up or it was what I would say a subtle difference in reviews, is the recovery rate between both machines. The 600 has 1, 2, and 3 recovery speeds where as the 800 goes from 1-8. It seems like being able to go higher than a 3 recovery rate in my opinion might be worth going with the 800. I could be wrong but being able to go to a recovery of 4, 5, or 6 with the 800 takes the cake in trashier areas. It may be common sense or it may not be much of a big deal but after going through some dense areas with the 600, I find myself wishing I could run through the areas with a higher recovery than a 3. What are your thoughts on this, is 3 enough when the next machine just about $200 more can over double the recovery rate? My recent discovery of this is causing me to feel like I want the 800 over the 600 now. also in the manual I have noticed that when it talks about recovery rate it shows the 800 on a scale of 1-8 and the 600 shows 1-3 however 1 is under 2, 2 is under 4, and 3 is under 6 of the 800 scale. Does that by chance mean a 3 on the 600 is as powerful as the 6 on the 800?

I've been metal detecting with my Minelab Equinox 800 all summer sine getting it in April 2018, but just finding the usual coins and nothing exciting to post. The last several days outside Reno I made it out to a new site and found a cache of 75 square(actually rectangle) cut nails and some other interesting items. One item appears to be the end of an old spoon. Using Field 1 pretty much factory settings, but when in town and hunting parks I lower recovery speed down to 3 and slow speed rate speed way down . ( I find gets better depth) . Also, switch target zones to 5 to get more different sounds on the various targets. For the first 1 and 1/2 years of using the Equinox I used Park 1 all the time, but after getting more experienced with it, help from this forum, and reading a couple of books on the NOX( Clive James Clynick and Andy Sabisch books) I feel comfortable enough using some other modes and changing the factory settings. After using a Whites XLT for 15 years it definitely was a learning curve with he NOX , but well worth the learning process. Now, up to 1061 coins and $71.16 for 2019 including the water/sand finds with another detector. (including 9 wheat cents). The forum does great job of speeding up the learning process. Great day in the field.