Equinox And Monty's Nail Board

[Cabin Fever]

I agree Cal Cobra.  You just articulated it better then me. 

[vfp7]

Concerning the manipulations with the Nail Board test
Yes, if the operator knows his detector very well, he can "tweak" the settings and achieve the planned result, both for the better and for the worse.
But just as many of the experienced users of the detectors know at the expense of which particular manipulations this is achieved, and therefore they know what exactly should be shown during the test.
And people in specialized forums will listen to what the experienced users will say and show, and not the "jugglers" conducting tests with manipulations.
For example, on a Nail Board test, the coil should be at a height of not less than 10 cm from the targets, the coin should be small and consist of brass (VDI = 45, out of 90), nails should not be rusty, discrimination should be completely disabled, if the detector has a display, then necessarily show it (VDI) etc.

[Chase Goldman]

You lost me on the criteria you specified on coil height, coin composition, and nail corrosion.  Can you elaborate on the "whys" behind your specific controls?  Thanks.

[Steve Herschbach]

vfp7 is basically repeating what Monte says in his Setup Sheet for the Nail Board Test. If anyone does not do it exactly as described it would invalidate the test.

Here is my version of the test, includes hot rocks, flat steel, etc....

[Ridge Runner]

It pass that test I’ll take two! What I see is a real world test in the field I’ve had before.

If the Equinox pick the goodies out with the big coil I won’t need the small coil. I’ll just keep my money in my pocket for bigger and better things.

Chuck

[Cal_Cobra]

46 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

vfp7 is basically repeating what Monte says in his Setup Sheet for the Nail Board Test. If anyone does not do it exactly as described it would invalidate the test.

Here is my version of the test, includes hot rocks, flat steel, etc....

That right hand side looks about like what I typically am detecting in ghost towns, stage stops, adobe sites, etc., lots of small (and large sometimes) iron to contend with.  Right now my go to iron sifter is the Makro Racer2 or Nokta Impact, both excel at picking the goods out of iron infested sites. 

Luckily I've never really had to deal much with hot rocks, but I suppose that could change if I start doing some prospecting with the EQ800?

[Steve Herschbach]

Nails are not much problem for me. I hate flat tin type steel - old rusted cans, flattened cans, round ends of cans, can fragments, parts of old steel roofing, etc. Some of that stuff sounds great on most any detector. BBS does well on rejecting it and FBS also to a lesser extent but at the cost of serious masking. Equinox opens it back up as far as the masking goes but then flat steel becomes more an issue again. There is quite the balancing act trying to reject ferrous while not masking everything. I wish I could say Equinox magically shuts it all up while masking nothing, but I don’t think that’s possible. It’s still a balancing act.

[Cal_Cobra]

On 1/22/2018 at 9:05 AM, Steve Herschbach said:

Nails are not much problem for me. I hate flat tin type steel - old rusted cans, flattened cans, round ends of cans, can fragments, parts of old steel roofing, etc. Some of that stuff sounds great on most any detector. BBS does well on rejecting it and FBS also to a lesser extent but at the cost of serious masking. Equinox opens it back up as far as the masking goes but then flat steel becomes more an issue again. There is quite the balancing act trying to reject ferrous while not masking everything. I wish I could say Equinox magically shuts it all up while masking nothing, but I don’t think that’s possible. It’s still a balancing act.

Oh yes that dang flat steel / tin that they used for roofing, siding, you name it, is a major PITA.  Actually I don't mind nails either, a good iron sifting machine will pick the goods out, just have to be plugged into detecting that environment and have a good machine for that. 

Steve it seems like your saying that the Equinox doesn't have any advantage with that pesky flat iron/tin that's littered in a lot of these old ghost town sites, but how would you say it compares in these environs compared to something like a Racer2 or Impact?   I'll take any advantage I can get for these kind of sites.

[Steve Herschbach]

Well I did not say it has no advantage, just that compared to BBS and FBS Equinox seems to struggle more with flat steel. Unfortunately I can't make any better comparison than that because of last minute tweaks (Iron Bias) and my lack of any real time using the Equinox directly compared to the units in question under conditions that would allow me to comment with confidence. I was confident enough that the final version Equinox was going to be at least as good if not better than the competition that I went all in with it personally, selling my Impact and even my CTX. I have a lot of respect for the NokMak detectors however and know they can get the job done in the right hands. One area it would appear NokMak has the edge for the foreseeable future is coil selection, and that more than the detector itself can provide the edge needed in dense trash. I know it's not fair to compare an Equinox with 11" round DD coil to an Impact with a small concentric coil but I have never been one to play fair with detectors.

I have two ghost towns on my hit list as soon as I can make the time for it - hopefully soon. The thing is at this point I am no longer testing Equinox against other detectors, as I did enough of that already to be able to decide which direction I wanted to go. From here on out I am just taking Equinox detecting and doing the best I can, but how it fares against other detectors is now in the hands of others to sort out. I am recusing myself from all that both due to my direct involvement with Equinox plus an actual lack of interest on my part. Once I make a decision I am not one to second guess myself and so while how Equinox compares to other detectors is of burning interest to others for obvious reasons, it is not on my radar. All I honestly want like everyone else is for the thing to wrap up and ship!