Help Needed After First Trip Out

[Walter S. Fowler]

Took my Equinox 800 out for first trip ever since I bought it and went to an older local park. Wish I could stay it was great, but had a very frustrating day and only found 10 coins for $.41 in 3 1/2 hours. I have used a Whites XLT for 14 years , so, I guess the learning curve will be greater than I thought with the Equinox even though I'm obviously not new to metal detecting.  Even though I tried all the modes, thoroughly read the manual numerous times, did noise cancel in each mode, ground balance in each mode, used different recovery speeds, and iron bias I still had problems with bad signals, bad target Id, pin pointing, lots of noise./chatter.   I tried turning down the sensitivity way down to 14-15 but didn't help much.  After digging some deep holes I discovered this park did have a quite extensive old  metal sprinkler system with pipes and heads about 9-12 inches deep that I would guess was maybe largely responsible for my difficulties.   The depth system with the shovels is not all that accurate.  Some of my targets on the surface were reading 6-8 inches deep. After reading all about the Equinox on various sites I know it is better than it was today.  I realize if there's no coins at a location even the very very best detector isn't going to find anything.  I did not experience any of these problems in my test garden in the back yard, so, Im assuming this park had some type of issues I couldn't overcome at  least with my limited knowledge of the Equinox.  This is not meant as a criticism of the Equinox .  Just trying to do better next time.  Any thoughts or ideas? Thanks. 

[Bill (S. CA)]

Walter,

I think you overdosed on way too much tweaking.  For a park you should have started out in Park 1 with no adjustments and just hunted.  As many have pointed out, the presets on the Equinox are quite good.  Do a factory reset with the detector and then don't screw with anything in terms of adjustments.  Turn the detector on, select Park 1, noise cancel and then hunt.  There should be no need to ground balance, change modes or mess with any adjustments.  If the park is really trashy, just start out digging good targets like quarters and dimes and leave the low conductors alone for the moment. 

The detector is very easy to use.  No need to over think it.

Hope this helps.  Others here have a lot more hours than I do on my 800 so I'm sure they will pitch in with advice as well.

Good luck, you'll get it!

Bill

[Walter S. Fowler]

14 minutes ago, Bill (S. CA) said:

Walter,

I think you overdosed on way too much tweaking.  For a park you should have started out in Park 1 with no adjustments and just hunted.  As many have pointed out, the presets on the Equinox are quite good.  Do a factory reset with the detector and then don't screw with anything in terms of adjustments.  Turn the detector on, select Park 1, noise cancel and then hunt.  There should be no need to ground balance, change modes or mess with any adjustments.  If the park is really trashy, just start out digging good targets like quarters and dimes and leave the low conductors alone for the moment. 

The detector is very easy to use.  No need to over think it.

Hope this helps.  Others here have a lot more hours than I do on my 800 so I'm sure they will pitch in with advice as well.

Good luck, you'll get it!

Bill

I had all the modes still on the factory pre-sets. I started with Park 1, then Park 2, then Field 1, and then Field 2. I didn't tweak any of the settings for these modes. I was getting very few good signals.  Didn't get any quarters at all when I have averaged 20-30 coins at this park in a 2 hour period with my Whites XLT. Thanks for thew reply. 

[Steve Herschbach]

Lots of noise / chatter. If noise cancel is not getting rid of this reduce your sensitivity. I have had to go to 18 in some places to deal with EMI.

Earlier thread with getting started tips

[Chase Goldman]

Walter -

First of all, hang in there.  It is going to be a frustrating journey because you are being forced out of your 14-year XLT comfort zone.  It is not going to be love at first sight.  You apparently picked a tough site situation and without experience on the machine did not have enough familiarity with the machine to be able to tweak it to compensate for a tough situation (sprinkler pipe and few targets).  The XLT and the Equinox are very different in their speed and range of target sensitivity so you can easily get overloaded by what the Equinox is telling you.  I was coming from a Deus which is similar to Equinox in terms of speed and tonality (i.e., target dig decisions are based primarily off tonal cues rather than off visual target IDs), yet still am climbing somewhat of a learning curve.  So despite your years of detecting experience, there will be some getting used to a different beast and that may take a few outings to get both your comfort level with the machine up and your confidence in the machine up.  This will come with time and certain things will click.

Couple of friendly suggestions.  First - see if you can track down Steve H. and follow behind him.  Lol.  But seriously, grab some popcorn and try the following:

Site Selection - Try taking the machine to a site you are familiar with, that produced at one point and preferably is still producing.  Do not challenge the machine or yourself the first few times out.  If you have no choice but to go to a hunted out spot, at least try to find a site that is free of other issues like plentiful ferrous and non-ferrous trash, nearby interference (power lines), and other similar difficulties that are normally fun to overcome when you are on top of your game but that you don't need to deal with when learning a new machine.  Since you are not familiar with the machine, at least go to site you know like the back of your hand.

Mode Selection - Pick the mode appropriate for the site and stick with that mode regardless of the results.  By appropriate for the site I mean appropriate for the targets you want to find and that you are most likely to find at that site, not just the landscape.  If you are coin shooting - go with Park 1 or Field 1 as those are geared towards hitting harder on high conductive targets.  If you are going after primarily mid-conductive targets (gold, brass or lead relics, small jewelry, nickels) then you can go with Park 2 or Field 2 which are geared towards those targets.  Note, however, the "2" modes are hotter and will hit hard on aluminum trash and small trashy objects which can be overwhelming.  That is why I recommend Park 1 or the oft ignored Field 1 (because it is a two-tone ferrous/non ferrous beep mode) as the best "training ground" modes for newcomers to the Equinox and to fast detectors in general.  Beach modes are also great learning modes (esp. Beach 1) if you are at a salt beach, especially.  But since this is likely not the case in Reno.  I would stick with Park or Field 1.  Don't bother with Gold modes for now because they are a different animal with respect to tones (VCO-based) and you only need to learn one detector at this point.  I am not kidding by the way about learning one detector.  Each of the modes behave so differently, it is literally like you are taking out a different detector every time you switch modes.  Folks have advised to not over tweak the settings.  But I am advising you to not over select the modes.  Pick a mode and stick with it. Learn it.  Love it.  It is a multifrequency machine after all, so even if you stick with one mode you will not be stuck finding only one type of target.  So don't be afraid to use your "go to" mode at multiple different sites even if you are looking for different target types.  Once you gain confidence, feel free to shift around and learn what the other modes can do.  But if you shift modes every half hour out of frustration, it will be like running to grab a new machine every half hour.  So avoid the temptation to do "Mode Hopping".

Settings - Once you have settled on a mode.  Your goal is to set your machine up to run as quiet as possible.  Do NOT get into a reactive mode and start tweaking settings because you are not hitting targets.  Adjust settings, if necessary, because the noise is keeping you from hearing the targets.  Equinox is set up for success when you have maximized signal to noise ratio not when you have maximized signal gain.   Here is what you do - Auto Noise Cancel - keep the coil in the air when you do this.  If you have relatively mild soil - you do not have to ground balance because the machine is pretty forgiving if GB is not set precisely to match the actual ground phase, but I go ahead and do an auto GB (hold the accept/reject button and pump) regardless and let the machine zero in on the right GB reading, especially if I know the soil has some mineralization.  Do not adjust recovery speed or Iron Bias from their defaults.  Once you come out of the settings menu if the machine is still chatty, then dial down sensitivity as necessary to get rid of the chattiness.  Don't be afraid to go low because the machine is pretty sensitive at the default and will still go deep - you need it to quiet down, though.  Take Steve's advice.  Once you think you have the machine running quiet then start swinging.  If you are using a mode that uses 50-tones (Park 2, Field 2), you might want to adjust that mode back to 5-tones to keep from getting overloaded.  The "1" modes default to 5 tones (Park 1) or 2 Tones (Field 1) which makes them a good starting point.  50 tones really gives you a feel for tonal nuances on targets so you may eventually want to go there but if you find it overwhelming, no problem just going with 5 tones or even 2 tones.

Swing technique and Target ID - Use your test garden to gage the best swing speed for the recovery speed setting you are using.  This may take a little getting used to.  The faster recovery speed of the Equinox will tend to force you to swing perhaps a little faster than you are used to in order to get a good target signal response.  You can, of course, overswing and also not get a good response but you should practice and listen to what good targets sound like and get to the point that you can just wiggle the center of the coil over them to get the response you need.  Listen to the good tones and bad tones.  Dig probable junk to verify your suspicions.  This will build your aural muscle memory and get you use to the tones.  Rely on target ID to back up your tonal ID and look for target ID bounce indicating likely junk.  Also, make liberal use of the All Metal Horseshoe button to interrogate a target and listen for iron tones which may indicate that the tone you are hearing is iron falsing.  Now I will say the depth meter has been reported to be a little wonky - I don't use a depth meter anyway so I am not missing it on this machine, but there does seem to be a love-hate relationship with it amongst Equinox users and the pinpointing feature is also a little quirky, but I have gotten used to it and like it not because it helps me pinpoint the target better (I use the wiggle off method primarily) but because it is a non-motion mode that gives you some good audible information on the target to help determine relative size and depth.

As you gain confidence in your abilities with the Equinox you can start tweaking other settings, but don't do it without a purpose (remember - the key is getting rid of unnecessary noise or falsing, but it is always a balancing act against losing target depth or inadvertently missing a target due to overfiltering - e.g., overuse of iron bias).  The default settings are good for 80 to 90% of your detecting situations.  Also, you may gain some insight based on what you wrote above.  In one post you said you went through all the modes, you tweaked recovery speed and iron bias, you dialed down on sensitivity.  In the next post you said all you did was switch modes and left the settings at their defaults.  So there may be a little new machine confusion going on.  To ensure you are starting at the default settings for your next outing, you may want to take Bill's advice and do a factory reset.

Again, Walter, hang in there and stick with the machine for awhile.  It will grow on you after a bit, you just need to snag a few keepers to gain confidence in the machine.  Once you get on a roll, you will steadily climb that learning curve.  But the best thing you can do is minimize the variables that force you to take backward steps.  Good Luck and Happy Hunting, sir.

[Norm S]

Chase I agree 100% with you. I had good luck my 1st two outings so I wanted better luck. Well I started to try all sorts of settings and thinking gold rings and deep silver was going to jump out of the ground. All I had was a mess and I went and sat down and did a factory reset. All I did was adjust the sensitivity and boom the clad was almost jumping out of the ground. 

I probably have 60 hours on the Equinox now and other than screwing up on beach settings the 1st time out I am a firm believer that if I sweep over it I will find it.

I have very little emi and I don't need to ground balance. I am happy finding 90% of what's there because the next guy will miss it too. 

[Steve Herschbach]

Terrific post Chase!

[goldrat]

Great info Chase ,

will use your info in Central Goldfields Victoria .

Possibly nursing a hernia so may be quiet for awhile .

Thanks and Cheers

gold rat 

[NSC]

Dont be too disheartened its gunna take a little while to learn a new tecta

I went from an Etrac & CTX3030 and find the Nox very very different

I dug everything for the first 2 hunts to learn the basics

Try and find a quiet spot away from any EMI and enjoy the fresh air and the hunt 

[Randy Dee]

Excellent advice there Chase, like the old saying learn to walk before you run.