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So, my beach season hunting has officially started. I was going to shoot for two days hunting but a wash out on Thursday made me change some plans. I had reserved Thursday for the GPX 6000 and the 14” DD coil, but had to settle for trying the 6000, 5000 and Equinox on Friday. I changed beach locations too and ended up at the less EMI beach for the day. Started out using the GPX 5000 for clearing out some of the recently deposited junk in an area that has produced silver before. I thought the storms that ripped through the previous day would remove some sand, but it was just the opposite…. sand deposited along 3/4 of the beach (top to bottom). Also, high tide reach to the highest point of the beach, so I could only hunt where the waves did not constantly reach up top. The 5000 did well considering the beach was really sanded in and gave me my first silver of the season – a 1955 Washington quarter. The rest was clad, but for 2 copper pennies. Some junk jewelry, and maybe some iron shot or just a ball bearing, - it measured .75 caliber. The big spoon was found at 20” and I thought I was going to get a beer can or some big iron, so that was a nice surprise. Hunted with the 5000 for 6 hours and decided I cleared enough to try the 6000 in that spot. The EMI was a bit more than usual but not really bad. I’m still not sold on that 14” coil. I tried both ground settings, as well as both Salt mode and EMI mode. I tried auto, auto +, manual (full) and manual (setting 1) and some in between. I just could not get the 6000 to not false on the sand. It was partially damp, as high tide receded a while ago, but with a sensitivity of 1, I would have expected a smooth clean machine. IDK maybe the coil is not good. I did not bring the 11” mono as I really wanted to see if the salt mode would work on the 14” DD. Being a bit disappointed, and after trying all combinations of settings, I called it after around 10 minutes. So, the tide was getting as low as it was going to be, so I hunted for 3 hours with the Equinox and traded my spade for my scoop. I didn’t use the Nox much last season as the 5000 was killing the silver, so the Nox sat idle. But I wanted to see if the heavy waves dropped anything on the beach along with all that sand. There weren’t many targets, so I dug everything to get a feel for all the numbers. The hairpins and tiny wire all read a steady -2, -3. The Nox did well for the short time I used it and if I wasn’t beat from the hunt, I would have stayed in the area that was producing some coins. It was the best machine for the day to give me a chance at some gold. It felt really, really good to get out and just walk the beach. Next week all 3 machines will be at the crazy EMI beach. I will have the mono coin and the DD to see if this beach (dry sand) will be ok for the 14” coil. Can’t wait!!!

I was wondering what you folks think about the coil ear breakage issue that continues to plague Minelab with coils for the Equinox. I have several friends who have had the ears break on the 15" coil and have seen other users suffer this same problem with the stock coil. This past Sunday I had the opportunity to use the 15" coil at the beach and I loved it. However, the coil ear problem has me a bit leery. Even the aftermarket coil stiffeners don't seem to help and for all I know they may actually contribute to the problem. From what I have seen breakage occurs in two spots: 1. The top of the "loop" where the coil nut and bolt are attached and 2. At the base. I also wonder if since these ears are thin that coil bolt over or under-tightening could be the culprit, It seems that there is a defect in this coil ear design that Minelab should be addressing either by an exchange program with a redesigned coil or an extension of the warranty on the coil. Thoughts? Bill (S. CA)

Official Minelab instructional video

Hello all, I'm new to digging and have bought an Equinox 800. On my first dig I dug up enough iron to start my own scrap metal yard. On my second dig i altered my FE number and I dug less rubbish. the more experienced members seem to dig less but find more. There must be an indication as to whether the VDI is potentially worth digging or not. I've read the 64 page user manual and been out with a club a couple of times but have some basic questions that the manual does not seem to help with: 1) Can I set the accept/reject so that I never dig lead or ring pulls ? 2) Would the same target eg a silver sixpence give different VDI numbers at different depths ? 3) Will lead always be the same VDI number or does it depend on size and depth ? I know its not an exact science and experience will help but I need to know what I'm learning.

Who among you has experienced a coil ear breakage? Among those who have experienced a coil ear breakage, how many use or have used the coil/machine under water? I ask because I’m wondering if the added pressure of resistance under the water is the primary cause of breakage (aside from obvious design flaw). I use mine under water occasionally but haven’t had a breakage yet, and trying to avoid one until I buy a coil ear stiffener. Being aware of this issue I try not to over tighten too.

Well, after over 3 yrs my 11" coil broke an ear. Here are pics of my attempt to make it stronger than new.🙂 Put the fiber glass on with super glue then a layer of epoxy over that. I'm not sure it needed the epoxy but it smoothed it out. Little black paint coming.

First. The title of this topic has been changed to APEX vs Equinox. That was not my title and I don’t agree with it. I did not start this topic as one versus the other. These two detectors are not equal in technology or price. I just wanted to show what they can do on the same test. If you want to make it a versus comparison that is your choice. I performed these Monte's (outstanding member of this forum) nail board tests using the Garrett ACE APEX with the stock Viper coil and the Equinox 800 using its 6" coil so at least coil widths are similar. I do not have any other APEX coils to test presently. If the Mercury dime is heard during both left and right swings that equals 2 points. If it is only heard in one swing direction that equals 1 point. If it is not heard, that equals 0 points. A perfect score is 16 points. I did not make these videos in order to make one detector look bad and another look good, etc. I think they both performed at about their respective price points. By the way, my Deus in Pitch mode with the 9" HF coil consistently scores 15 on this test with a USA Indian Head penny, Mercury dime and Half dime. The APEX and Equinox scores in these videos are also consistent with my off camera testing on those coins. I made them to show first of all that relic hunting/coin shooting in iron trash should not be done in any of the APEX preset modes other than Zero. However, in my soil conditions, using Zero adds too much ground noise to the audio even with a good ground balance. I use a Custom mode very similar to Monte's suggestions with discrimination set from +20 to +99. This allows silver and copper coins to be detected audibly. At least with the circa late 1800s square nails I am using, the iron plus Mercury dime VDIs sometimes end up in the low to mid 30s. Garrett's preset Relic mode starts at +35 and Jewelry starts at +40. Using either mode may unintentionally silence non-ferrous targets in thick iron trash. Also, the Viper coil has to be exquisitely swung at just the right coil height during this video in order to get the best results. That coil height is different for each of the four swing directions. I struggled to get it right while holding my camera.........but the results are consistent with off camera testing for my/Monte's Custom mode and the default Jewelry mode. There is a bit of EMI and the APEX does have a bit of iron falsing on some of the nail heads. This APEX has the latest 1.28.1 software update installed. I also made them to dispel opinions or rumors that the Equinox 600 and 800 are not very good in iron trash. Personally, they do well for me........as well as a Deus, of course not. Better than any simultaneous multi frequency detector on the market today........if set up optimally, yes. I used Park 2 with a similar amount of the iron range accepted compared to the APEX Custom mode and Field 2 with the entire iron range rejected similar to the APEX Jewelry mode. The Equinox down averaged the Mercury dime also due to all of the iron targets. However, those VDIs stayed well within the mid conductor non-ferrous area. The Equinox also had some iron falsing on some of the nail heads. Thanks for watching. Turn up your volume. Sorry about my very poor video skills. Both videos are around 5 minutes each in length.. ACE APEX EQUINOX 800

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.

I got out for a while last Thursday morning to the farmhouse. Dug this bracelet, it is iron and brass, maybe some gold plate. It has hand engraving on it, and "Japan" stamped into the back. I estimate it at around the 1970s. I've been a little concerned that using iron balance at F2=3 (max on the 600) might be a bit extreme, so I re-buried the bracelet at about 4" and tried every IB setting. Got some interesting results: Iron/brass/gold plated bracelet 4" deep with 90 degree swing to check FE=0 19/20 no iron tone Fe=1 19/20 short iron tone Fe=2 -1/-2 sometimes 18-20 mostly iron Fe=3 -3 to -5 solid iron tone F2=0. 19/20 no iron tone F2=1 19/20. No iron tone F2=2 19/20 no iron tone F2=3 19/20 iron tone Park 1 5 tones all metal sensitivity 23 Since this object is both iron and brass, I would expect the results I get at FE=1 and F2=3. I was a bit surprised by FE=2 and 3. If I don't use F2=3, I get a lot of this due to false tones: I dug all these at FE=2, after going over an area I feel I have pretty much wiped out. This is all I found there. Interested in input. 🙂

This morning I woke up to much less heat and humidity. So not having to much luck at a few sites I decided to have a little fun and decided to just dig The dreaded Zincoln's. I was inspired by a fellow forum member who absolutely LOVES the Zincolns, I won't mention his name (GB amateur) Like I said I won't mention his name (GB amateur). I know that all of you will say, that is not fun. I look at it this way, It will always be rewarding. It will always give you a signal and it will hone your pinpointing and digging skills. (also give you a bad back). So off I went to start the Zincoln project. After a 4 hour run I was rewarded with 53 zincolns, 2 dimes (had to dig for my sanity) and 1 Quarter (also for my mental health). Not sure if I dug any key dates or mints (mostly were corroded). I hope our fellow forum member, Who I still won't mention (GB amateur) will now have a renewed sense of how rewarding it is digging these once pristine and beloved coins, But sometime cleaning out a park of these magical coins makes you feel bad for fellow detectors, Who will never have the chance to find such a wonderful coin. So in parting, don't be greedy leave at least a few so others can bask and revel in one of the greatest coins ever made. HAPPY HUNTING MY FRIENDS!!!!!

I am needing an explanation why it is that my Nox doesn't hit on the target after I have popped the plug while all of my previous and less sophisticated detectors can and do without fault. Before asking the answer is yes. I have done all of the necessary start up procedures AND ran this through ALL levels of sensitivity and subsequent adjustments and parameters. I look forward to any viable answer that can be got or being directed to wherever this lies in a previous forum. Thx

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".

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.

Hello all, I am new to the forum but I have been reading for a couple years. I live in the heart of central Illinois in some of the HOTTEST soils on earth... We have that glacial till high mineral black sandy,salty,clay,rock,coal,coke stuff that makes corn and beans grow to yields not seen anyplace else. I have over 120 hours on the nox 800 and I understand what the settings do ect. My ground balance numbers are in the 74-90 range with an occasional 50ish. I cant find anything. I had an old BH3300 and I found 182 silvers last year in just my small town. I have maprika so you can overlay a map from whenever over current maps and know where things were. I have made all my finds by research. I never knew my soil was hot. I got about 6 inches on the 3300 and come to find out thats about as deep as anything ends up due to rock ans clayish layer 6-8 inch down. If someone knows anything about my soil I need some recommendations. I am not going to say where I live but one other area in central Il has the exact same dirt. Paxton Illinois in ford county Illinois. I came here due to me watching all tnsharpshooter and calabashdiggers(spelling) you tube videos.The best results I get is in beach 1 recovery 8 iron bias 2 and sens 16. If I use anything else I get perfect repeatable tones on something that makes me dig and dig and its never there. I shook a china mans hand one day i dug so deep!! Whats wierd about the soil is I can make a test garden and hit a penny at 14 inches in park 1 and 10 inches in beach 1...

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.

These tips are based on my personal use of the Minelab Equinox 800 at a few locations in Nevada and California. That means you have to take this with a grain of salt for other locations as far as exact settings but the basic process is the same. I will probably update this in the future as I learn more, including hopefully any observations and tips people may provide on this thread. The Gold Mode is only available on the Equinox 800 and features a VCO boosted audio that is quite different than the other Equinox modes. It is very powerful, especially in Multi frequency, and will detect very tiny pieces of gold. The downside is that in highly mineralized ground you will encounter hot rocks and even the ground itself that wants to react and create signals. The basic secret of nugget detecting with a VLF detector is in tuning the detector for the best performance possible, while accepting that air test type results are not possible in bad ground. A balance must be obtained between sheer power (sensitivity) and the false signals generated in difficult ground. The key default settings for Gold Mode 1 are: Frequency: Multi Ground Balance: Tracking Sensitivity: 20 Recovery Speed: 6 Iron Bias: 6 Accept/Reject: -9 through 0 rejected, 1 through 40 accepted When I hit new ground when nugget detecting I want my detector to be running with manual adjustments. Initially knowing how the ground responds is very important and I want to make any settings that affect anything myself. Therefore, the first thing I do is turn off the ground tracking and use the Auto (pump coil over ground) method of ground balancing instead. Ground tracking can also track out faint nugget signals, so my preference is to run with it off if possible. Frankly, I have not experimented with Iron Bias much. In theory at least reducing this setting will reduce the possibility of tiny gold being misidentified as ferrous. Since I am mistrustful of filters I have been running the Iron Bias at 0. Starting out however people may want to leave it alone since adjusting too many things at once may not be productive for beginners. Recovery Speed is highly misunderstood. People latch onto one out of context statement "lower recovery speed equals more depth" and too many people therefore are immediately going to lower settings. Higher recovery speeds allow the detector to better separate trash targets from good and minimises any masking effects. "Masking" is where bad targets overwhelm and hide good targets. Mineralized "hot rocks" are really nothing more than a large target that can mask (hide) nuggets not just under but next to them. Reducing the recovery speed will often add no depth due to ground conditions, and mask nuggets next to hot rocks. Higher recovery speeds will reveal those nuggets, and so you are often getting more "relative depth" with higher recovery speed settings. I basically stick with the default setting of 6 and will not go lower unless the ground is relatively low mineral and free of hot rocks. Most importantly, in some ground you will find that the coil will tend to give false signals when bumped. This is directly affected by Recovery Speed. Going to lower recovery speeds will generate more false signals due to bumping on rocks. With all that said however, reducing the Recovery Speed can add extra sensitivity to very deep or very small targets. A setting of 4 is easily manageable in low mineral ground and can work for the Equinox in higher mineral ground with a skilled operator. It is possible to go even lower though the detector will typically become less stable at the slower recovery speed settings. Sensitivity is one of those “set it as high as you can without making the detector too unstable” type settings. My settings normally range from 18 to 25 but could go lower in bad ground. Now, the extremely important Accept/Reject settings. Weak gold signals in highly mineralized ground will definitely run into the ferrous range. Starting out, I am going to toggle the Horseshoe button to remove all rejected settings so that the detector reacts to everything. My starting point for Gold Mode 1: Frequency: Multi Ground Balance: Auto (pump method) Sensitivity: 20 Recovery Speed: 6 Iron Bias: 0 Accept/Reject: -9 through 40 accepted The first thing I want to do is see how the ground responds with these settings. Find a place hopefully free of trash, and run the coil over the ground and observe what happens. In most gold locations you should see lots of target responses at -9 and -8 plus possibly -7. These are ground responses and are giving you direct feedback on your settings. The first thing I want to try and do is reduce those ground responses as much as possible by employing a mix of ground balance, sensitivity, and recovery speed. Simply ground balancing should cause those signals to alleviate somewhat. You will want to note hot rock readings especially. The ground will balance out (ground noise reduce) at one ground balance setting, but it may make some hot rocks worse. Sometimes you can manually tweak the ground balance to also reduce the hot rock response while not really making the ground itself worse by trying intermediate settings. You can only do this when not in tracking since tracking decides for you where the settings will be. I always will stay in manual until forced to use tracking for this reason alone. Reducing sensitivity is also a good thing to do in many cases, yet people are very resistant to doing so for fear of losing depth. The thing is, unless you can get the detector to settle down and run relatively smoothly you will struggle with hot rocks and false signals. Reducing sensitivity will reduce hot rock signals faster than it will reduce metal signals in most cases, so back it down as needed to get stable performance. If the ground is mild enough you should be able to find settings that reduce or eliminate the readings in the -9, -8, and -7 ground range, plus hopefully alleviating any hot rocks that are present. However, in very bad ground you may still have a lot of signals in that region. If so, try a couple things. First, go ahead and try out the tracking. Tracking has an advantage in that it will typically tune out a hot rock in a single swing or two, while being extremely resistant to tuning out metal objects. If you can get smoother performance over the ground than with any reasonable manual settings, it may be the way to go. In the worst ground and hot rocks the magic ability to switch frequencies can be a serious aid. I have found that Multi is very powerful... more powerful than any single frequency. That does mean that by simply going to 20 khz a lot of ground and hot rocks that are noisy in Multi settle down and become manageable. One of these options may allow you to go detecting without rejecting any target id numbers. That would be ideal. However, do not be surprised if residual signals remain in the -9, -8, and -7 region. If they are still too prevalent, then hit the Horseshoe button again to engage the Accept/Reject function, but go in and open up everything except the offending signals. That for me commonly means blocking -9, -8, and -7 but accepting -6 and higher. Or maybe you need to block -6 also. You have to listen to what the detector is telling you and adjust accordingly. If you do end up blocking out some low negative numbers you may find you can also bump the sensitivity back up a point or two as long as everything stays quiet. Again, the goal is to try and shut down ground and hot rock responses to the greatest degree possible while retaining as much detecting power as possible. It's a balancing act. Tiny nuggets will often read as solid hits at target id 1 and 2. The larger the gold, the higher the target id reading. Gold can appear anywhere on the meter all the way up into the 30's if the nugget is large enough. I have not had it happen yet but be very suspicious of 0 and -1 readings as also being possible gold readings.* This is just an example of where I end up at on my ground a lot so far: Gold Mode 1 Frequency: Multi Ground Balance: Auto (Ground pump method) Sensitivity: 18 - 23 Recovery Speed: 4 - 6 Iron Bias: 0 Accept/Reject: -9 through -7 rejected, -6 through 40 accepted Note: the following works as well on both Equinox 600 and Equinox 800. Since Gold Mode lacks target tones, going to Park 2 and using the solutions above plus the additional possibility of tones is another alternative. Instead of using Gold Mode and blocking the lowest target id numbers they can be left open to signal as ferrous or mixed ferrous targets. And you now have 5, 10, and 15 kHz options that Gold Mode lacks. Park 2 set up properly is quite close to Gold Mode performance and a perfectly acceptable nugget detecting alternative, and actually superior for some situations. You may also use Field 2 as a starting point. Be very careful however because the default rejection pattern for Field 2 rejects target id 1 and 2. This will reject most small gold nugget readings and reduce signal strength on larger gold by blocking part of the signal. I therefore recommend Park 2 to avoid this possibly fatal error. For Park Mode 2: Frequency: Multi Ground Balance: Auto (Ground pump method with manual tweaking) Sensitivity: 16 – 25 Recovery Speed 800: 4 - 6 (default is 6) Recovery Speed 600: 2 - 3 (default is 3) Iron Bias: 0 Accept/Reject: Everything accepted, rely on tones (alternative reject -9, -8, and -7 if too much ground feedback) In closing, I want to say that gold nugget detecting demands far more expertise from the operator than most detecting. People who rely on canned settings provided by others will never be expert unless they really understand what the settings are doing. It is imperative that you be able to observe ground responses as I have noted above, and know how to best alleviate them while losing as little depth on gold as possible. It is a very fine balancing point done correctly and can only be done properly by a person who genuinely understands how the detector operates. The only way I know to become proficient is lots of experimenting in the field with different settings on test targets and hot rocks. The settings above are less important than the methodology, and if you want to truly become a proficient nugget hunter you do need to work at it. I hope that helps somebody out - best of luck to you! Updated Nugget Detecting Tips 9/2018 *This article recommends keeping as many negative numbers set to accept as is possible. It has been confirmed that as I suspected that nuggets range well into the negative numbers. First gold nuggets found with Minelab Equinox from Jonathan Porter report...

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