My Tips On Nugget Detecting With The Minelab Equinox

[Gerry in Idaho]

My experience with Coil Knocking on the EQ-800 is this.  The detector coil knocks much easier than most other detectors I have used.  But at the same time, it also finds more too.  The large 15" coil is by far the worst and when I use it to hunt in the gold fields I am running a SENS around 17.  With the stock coil the bump knock is not as bad and I run my SENS usually around 19.  As Steve mentioned, the small 6" coil is much more stable with not as much bump knock and I can run higher SENS. 

Now a couple of my Field Staff run as close to 25 SENS and just deal with the bump knock.  We all find gold so not sure who is doing it best or right wrong.

I'll try Chase's knowledge of the Ground Balance and see what happens for me at my sites.

[Nugglorious]

Ive had the 800 for about 2 weeks now and have been nugget hunting once.  Ive found that runing in gold 2, sensitivity 18-22 that the coil bump noise is pretty bad while in multi freq.   Switching to 20 or 40 makes it much more resistant.  Havent tried any other modes yet. Im running the 6" coil.  

Does this sound similar to others experiences?

The depth on small stuff in multi freq and all metal is amazing in my ground. The falsing doesn't bug me much  I just slow it down and put up with the noise. 

[Gerry in Idaho]

4 hours ago, phrunt said:

Here is a nugget I found yesterday, I was taking a dig it all approach as I know I have to, I blocked out -9,-8 and later in the day also 12 and 13 as the hot rocks in this location came up those numbers but you'll see how this gold nugget even though a decent size came up clearly as ferrous.

JW's GPZ even struggled to see this nugget, virtually had to touch the coil.   The nugget is paper thin.

This isn't a one off, it happens often although usually with much smaller nuggets.

This was after I found it obviously, just dropped it back on the ground to show it's ID's.

I tried FE2 at default 6, virtually made no difference to the ID's over the default settings on Gold 1.  Waving the coil over the ground without the nugget there had no target's.

Nice golden gem there Phrunt.  I have dug a few nuggets that read negative most of the time, but on occasion I get the 0 or 1.  When I see the occasional 0 and 1, sometimes a #2...but most are mixed in with negative numbers, I check it out and especially in a known small gold area.  On a side note, did you happen to swing over the same spot as you pulled the little gold nugget in the video, to see if there was another target around it.  We have found hot rocks and cold stones to throw the VDI #'s off, if near, below, next to and or on top of a nugget.  I'll share a nice one I found with my EQ-800 in the next week probably.  It's a dandy for sure.  Thanks for sharing.

[Ringmoney]

I have plenty of pickers that have came up with minus figures, but saying that a lot of them have iron oxides coted on them. All of hunting is done in streams on bedrock, and as a result the bedrock can mask the target and result in lower minus VDI's. In fact I have found pickers that came up at -9. When I get a -9 VDI, I check the target in pinpoint, if I get a positive pinpoint I will dig and 9 times out of 10 it will be a picker.  if I get a "null" in pinpoint, with experience I leave it be.

[Optix]

What is this "Coil Knock" you guys are talking about?

[Tom Slick]

It's a false signal you get when the coil bumps into something. Could be a rock, the ground or even vegetation and crop stubble. 

One issue many newbie  Nugget hunters do is leaving the coil cable too loosely wrapped on the lower shaft. The movement of the cable while swinging can cause false signals as the detector's coil will "see" the moving cable as a target. 

[Allen M]

I have a equinox 800 I purchased 4 months ago. I have been out with it for about 100 hours now. I have not found gold I do not know if I have settings off or just found something wrong. 
I am using gold mode 2 and have had like 30 targets of 12-13 in that mode. But I have not been able to find the targets or the disappear. 
I made a video today with the settings I use and what happened. Any help or advise would be greatly appreciated. 
 

 

thanks 

Allen M

[Steve Herschbach]

1 hour ago, Allen M said:

Nice, 

I have had issues with my equinox 800 I think. I made a video of it today. I have been coming across 12-13 in gold mode 2 and have not been able to find target. Do you have a video made showing your settings. I am not sure about your iron bias. I am new with the equinox had used it about 100 hours but still have not found gold. I have gone to several locations and recently uploaded the version 3 to the Equinox. 
if you have any suggestions I would be in debt. I had about 30 spots today that was 12-13 on my equinox. 

Hi,

Are you detecting in a location where gold nuggets have been found regularly by yourself or others?

As I explain in the original post, I do not have “settings”, but instead have a methodology for arriving at the proper settings. The setting will vary with the location, ground minerals, trash levels, type of gold, and coil used. My iron bias normally resides at 0 unless I am forced to use more to deal with problematic ferrous items. The settings are laid out in the post and shooting a video of my control panel set to them adds nothing.

12-13 hits with nothing there are hot rocks/ground signals. There are multiple ways to go about dealing with them... modifying the ground balance, lowering the sensitivity, different single frequency options, modes other than Gold Mode, or even notching them out. The Equinox can overwhelm due to the large number of possible settings.

Nugget detecting is the most difficult type of detecting you can aspire to, and if gold is lacking, then better locations are usually the answer. If you are not in a proven location then that may be the issue more than your settings.

 

[GB_Amateur]

I spun my wheels (and spent plenty of travel $) until I decided to get professional, in-person instruction.  Building confidence in my detector and my ability to use it, for me, was step #1.  Turns out that is the easy part!  Learning how and where to find gold is the graduate level course, and from what I can tell, you only get to the final exam when your days on earth are over.

Through my life I've learned to appreciate the paradox:  "Every rule has its exceptions."  I've come to realize this is never more applicable than in finding naturally occurring gold.