Equinox 800 (Long) Depth & Discrimination Test With The 15 & 11 Inch Coils!

Hi everyone!
First of all, I apologize for not being active for a couple years. After hunting with my Garrett AT-Pro, then F75ltd (thank you Tom for all the advice), Teknetics G2, then CTX 3030, I sold my machines because I needed the money and I get extremely OCD with detecting (to the point of being unhealthy) and was exhausting myself.
Then, this year, I decided to get back into it and went to my friend Bob at NW detectors. Bob is sick and old with tubes in his nose, refuses to stop smoking, and can barely get up and down, but he’s still an amazing guy and trucking along! Bob offered me a job and long story short I now help him out with anything he needs, including non-detecting things.
So I thought I’d start my return with an informative video of everything I’ve discovered thus far with about 100 hours on the Equinox.
This is a loooong video, so feel free to skip around or don’t watch it at all if you’re impatient. But I did my very best to show the 15” and 11” inch coils on the Nox and used every setting I could possibly think of.
I think you will find there are some very eye opening surprises if you watch this video. I also think it will help others know a little more about how their machine might be better set for their hunting conditions. I learned a TON, and I keep watching it to catch more nuances in the details.
Finally, I am in no way trying to come off like these are “facts”. Obviously the hole in this video did not have any time to age—- that is an important factor, but that does not mean that the details of this video are not important. Also, I in no way want to ever come off like I’m speaking some sort of “truth”. Every hunting condition is different, and will effect and skew the targets in different ways, so I try to always be humble about what to expect, but to use tests like these to help me better with my hunting skills and results.
Here is the video and happy hunting!!!!

[youtu.be]

Well done video. I watched most of it.



Edited 8 time(s). Last edit at 04/22/2020 12:55AM by Badger in NH.

Tom D. always said recovery at 2 or 3 work best for depth. Plus if all possible run your sens to 23-25. Plus I would have liked to seen you use Park 1 in the single freqs with your settings like you did in Park 2. Seems like if Park 2 can hit that 12 inch dime in your dirt Park 1 should have to. Still enjoyed the video.

In my test garden, depth maxes out at Recovery 4.

Mccrorysjewelry2 Wrote:
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> Tom D. always said recovery at 2 or 3 work best for depth.

On all targets under all ground conditions? No. Global application of out of context information.

My dirt is mild like his. If he can hit a freshly buried dime at 12 inches I would say his dirt is mild. I didn’t quit understand why his ground balance was all over the place and so different depending on what program he picked. I can see some difference but, to go from the 50’s to 2 or 3 something not right.

Steve H. You are correct. I should have said based on my ground conditions where I live being mild dirt 2 or 3 recover seems to work best for me.

I don't even bother ground balancing in my ground. I just keep it at 0 all the time.

We can tinker and tune with our test gardens ...... but you have to be able to adjust to the conditions you are given in the real world. I watch videos and a lot of times they KNOW there is a target..... they know what that target is and how deep..... then they adjust to the TARGET and say look .... this works best. The time to do testing is where you are hunting and on buried/found targets not that you cant gain info from a test garden. Most are also pretty sterile as well. I seem to learn more about a detector from found targets...... and sometimes you become a big part of the equation.

Mccrorysjewelry2, I'm so sorry I missed Park 1 with different frequencies! I will do that test for you as soon as I get out again. I always hunt on Rcvy Spd 2 because of what Tom said.

Badger in NH , Thank you for watching! I've heard others tune their GB to 0 as well, how does that effect your machine? Less ground noise? Target ID? I'm curious!


dewcon4414 I totally agree, "knowing" the target is there is a crutch and a bias that's hard to get by... I promise I will do more live tests as soon as I can for you and go through these settings.
As I said earlier, I don't think these results should be taken too seriously, but nor do I think they should be thrown out the window. I think if anybody watches this (insanely) long test, they should be comparing to what they have experienced in the real world and whether there was any crossover at all. Or it made me consider how I might try running my next live hunt.
For instance, the results of the 40kHz blew me away, it was the loudest on both coils, and gave consistently higher, albeit jumpy TID's.

My biggest challenge has been ID'ing deep iron.
In this video I discussed my experience thus far in the field has been:
Deep iron halo's can give a lovely repeatable signal. But that signal-
1: That signal begins to mysteriously break up if not disappear after repeated sweeps. My question is: Is this because as the detector repeatedly radiates a field into the iron object, the iron object becoming more "charged" by this field gives away more information about it's nature and so the detectors processor starts to recognize it more as iron?
2: That signal cannot be pin-pointed. When attempting to pin point, the pin-point signal is very loud--despite the fact that the detector was reporting max depth.
3: The most obvious iron giveaway, that the signal only goes one way and has a long drawn-out 'twang' to it.
4: The TID numbers from the signal jump from the 20's and 30's into the teens or lower. This is by far the one I am tricked by after hundreds of digs, I would say 99% of the time if the signal jumps this way I find a massive piece of iron.

I think the confusing things about this video are:
1: Why was Multi reporting lower than 10 numbers on the dime with both coils? Multi was certainly a bit louder, with the exception of 40 kHz, but it wasn't accurate...
2: Why did the ground balance change so dramatically with each change of settings.

What I love about the Nox is that you can flip so fast through the frequencies with the push of a button, so i promise I will do LIVE dig-tests and go through these same settings.
If anyone has any requests at all for either of the coils I would be more than happy to do them!
Thank you again for watching and giving feedback!

D-Tone Wrote:
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> Badger in NH , Thank you for watching! I've heard
> others tune their GB to 0 as well, how does that e
> ffect your machine? Less ground noise? Target ID?
> I'm curious!


My ground is so mild that it doesn't really matter if I ground balance or not. The machine is always quiet no matter what number it is on, so I just leave it at 0. No reasoning behind it. I do the same thing at the beach. I never need to ground balance.

I've been relic hunting with the Equinox for two years now and I have never used Park Mode, lol.

I'm in Field 1 at 15 kHz most of the time and occasionally Gold 1 in Multi.



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 04/22/2020 05:15PM by Badger in NH.

I appreciate detecting videos especially since I don’t do them. I hope you didn’t take my comments negatively. Keep um coming....especially now we have a lot of time on our hands and it give us lots to talk about

D-Tone Wrote:
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I always hunt on Rcvy Spd 2 because of what Tom said.

So is it your opinion the recovery speed setting serves no function? That Minelab should have left the control off the Equinox? Why did they not just preset the machine at 2 since that is always the best setting no matter what?

Steve, gosh I’m actually scared to have an opinion about anything... I usually end up getting proved wrong. That said, when I first got the Equinox I geeked out by reading advice posted by all of you generous donors who already had put the blood sweat and tears into the machine.
I watched countless hours of videos on rainy days trying to decipher what I could, and then compared that Information to what I was experiencing in my actual detecting learning process (which is still and always happening). As far as this video, which is in no ways a “real” detecting setting, and is only meant to give more information to further help test and compare to real settings; I am still watching it over and trying to notice if the recovery speed even helped in the nail test... recovery 1-3 seemed to work best in the video, but who can say? As was said above, different ground and hunting conditions completely change the game.
I try to find the best depth and discrimination settings for my dirt because so many detectorists (is that a word?) here in Oregon just pound the living heck out of the spots for silver. And here in Oregon, which was only incorporated in the mid 1800’s we just don’t have a lot of old stuff that accumulated so I want to get as much out as I can before it’s gone.... I do take road trips when I can afford it though, and I try to go above and beyond by going to remote locations or places other detectorists wouldn’t go..
I’m curious what has worked best for you and why? Do you have any clue as to why Multi, which seems to be coveted and used as a go-to setting by many of the detectors I have watched, performed with such low numbers vs. the high numbers reported by the other frequencies?
Thank you so much for your feedback and support!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/22/2020 07:15PM by D-Tone.

Hi everyone!! I found a Cache while testing and detecting!!
So I spent 15 hours detecting over a couple of days trying my best to get you some live tests using various settings.

I filmed ridiculous amounts of trash that I didn’t put in this video.

The unmasking was excellent, I found a copper penny with a piece of aluminum pull tab on top, 8 inches deep surrounded by nails. (Not filmed). Recovery speed 4 made the penny sound best!
Then I used Toms advice and went low iron volume, 0 FE, 0 F2, recovery speed 2, and I dug waaayyy less iron than I normally do in this shotgun-fire sounding nail infested site. The 15” coil did fine separating and I was able to differentiate falses better.

MCCrorysjewelry2 I tested in Park 1, I promise I will go back to that other field and do the 12” test too.

I also dabbled with Keith Southerns idea of testing in Prospector (gold) 1 mode.

Just a disclaimer: I’m not making these videos to show a bunch of finds, I’m doing them to help give more information about how this detector performs in real and artificial settings, the cache was just something I couldn’t pass off including

Happy hunting and let me know if there’s any requests!

[youtu.be]



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/27/2020 04:58PM by D-Tone.

That modern cache was pretty exciting. I was thinking it might be a Geocache but those are usually not buried. Too bad that even with all that wrapping, moisture still got inside.

One question I have is, why are you wearing a mask out in the woods when there is not a soul around?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/27/2020 05:43PM by Badger in NH.

Badger, lol sorry that’s confusing isn’t it! So the farm site is close to a lot of walking trails here in Portland, OR. The farm site itself is just a big raised field with a hiking trail running through it and lots of people were out that day. That said, I had wandered off the main field into the surrounding woods so I have no idea why I was still wearing it lol!
The cool thing was, that (modern) cache, it sounded off as a perfect long high tone, and pin-pointed long, so I know what to look for next time I hear that signal! Man, what a heart stopper huh??

Suggestion - You really should make yourself a test garden. It will answer a lot of questions concerning how the settings affect performance.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/27/2020 05:50PM by Badger in NH.

I know Badger, I wish, but unfortunately I live in an apartment complex with no backyard ... Someday I will!

That is a problem. Keep your eyes open. You might find a clean piece of ground somewhere where you can start one. Oregon has a lot of open space.

Nice video there Vigo

Thanks for views everyone!
Here is another video of the Equinox 800 with the 15”-inch coil. This is about 20-25 hours of hunting compiled into a 30-min video. However, I did manage to film some exciting live digs in “real-world” situations.
Ground mineralization and iron effecting depth REALLY surprised me! There are some coins I found in this video that should have sounded And hit MUCH louder with better accuracy but you will see that they were only squeaking through.
I apologize for the muffled voice, I’m wearing a mask.
I hunt in Park 2, 15kHz, 2-tone, 5-tone, and I check targets in Multi. Multi is so insanely noisy that I would miss targets if I hunted in it all the time. Plus in my 12”dime video we all saw how it didn’t hit as accurately (VDI below 5!).
I also check in Park 1, and prospector modes. I experiment with Toms settings a bit (hunting in 50-tone, multi-freq, iron vol ON) and it makes a HUGE difference when hunting in iron.
1) An iron False signal will drift, as you sweep over it it will almost seem to move.
2) An iron False signal will actually break up the more you sweep over it, it will become weaker and weaker— giving itself away.
3) Iron false signals have a distinct ‘twang’ to the tone that coins do not— you will especially notice this subtlety in 2-tone.
These are just observations, not facts, most of you probably already know all of these but I thought I’d share.
Cheers and happy hunting!

[youtu.be]

Hey everyone!
I have a new video out. In this video I find a big silver spill, an eagle button and more! I also do live digs, where I show discrepancies between single and multi frequency on the Equinox 800 with the 15”-inch coil.
Because Multi-frequency is too noisy for me, and I feel like I would lose good targets in the barrage of noise that it reports from the ground, instead I hunt in single frequency (usually 15kHZ) and cross-check targets in multi.
One of the tricks I’ve discovered is that single frequency, despite being much quieter, more stable, and deeper in my hunting conditions, can report small aluminum in target ID ranges in the high 20’s and 30’s. Because the aluminum is usually small the audio makes it sound deeper. However, when cross-checked in multi, it immediately becomes louder and reports target ID ranges below 10!
This turned out to be one of my favorite cross-checking technique.

That said, when I cross-check and multi happens to also report very similar and consistent number ranges as the single-frequency — I know it’s almost 100% a non-trash target.
This same cross-checking technique works great on bottle caps as well, and when cross-checked, multi will bounce the target ID very low to very high and just be all over the place.
Watch my video and you will see examples of this I show in live digs.

There is a catch though. As I have learned from the 12”inch dime video I posted previously, multi frequency reports deep dimes at LOW (below 10) target ID numbers. So when I’m cross-checking for aluminum and bottle caps, the depth meter is everything! If I have a good faint signal in single frequency, cross-check in multi, and i get a faint signal with low numbers and the depth meter is DEEP— I know I have to dig because it could be a deep good target.
So to reiterate, the key cross-checking tools here are:
Single to multi frequency.
Target ID number drops or consistencies.
Sound differentials (faint to loud).
Depth meter differences or consistencies). deep to shallow, or deep to deep).
Here is the video, thanks for watching and happy hunting!!
[youtu.be]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/22/2020 03:11PM by D-Tone.

D-Tone, I didn't watch your videos, but I just read this thread and it seems to me that what you are experiencing in multi mode is electromagnetic interference. And the 15 kHz option that you are using is a frequency that usually handles both EMI and iron well.

My experience, and my biggest complaint about the Nox, is how susceptible it is to EMI in multi. I check the frequencies individually when EMI rears its ugly head, and 5 kHz is the most common culprit.

I think the reason you are finding 15 kHz deeper than multi is because you are able to run it hot without all the EMI noise. There have been many occasions when I can run the Nox at least 5 numbers hotter in 15 kHz than multi. The downside is that target ID accuracy suffers in single frequency compared to multi, and the accuracy differential gets larger as the target gets deeper.

In an area where you can run multi as hot as 15 kHz, I don't think you would see any appreciable depth difference. Unfortunately, in an urban environment, at least for me, that usually doesn't happen.

marcomo Wrote:
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>
> I think the reason you are finding 15 kHz deeper t
> han multi is because you are able to run it hot wi
> thout all the EMI noise. There have been many occa
> sions when I can run the Nox at least 5 numbers ho
> tter in 15 kHz than multi. The downside is that ta
> rget ID accuracy suffers in single frequency compa
> red to multi, and the accuracy differential gets
> larger as the target gets deeper.
>
> In an area where you can run multi as hot as 15 kH
> z, I don't think you would see any appreciable dep
> th difference. Unfortunately, in an urban environm
> ent, at least for me, that usually doesn't happen.


My test garden has very mild ground with zero EMI and I can max out the settings all I want. 15 kHz is deeper than Multi on coin-sized targets.

Each single frequency has a particular target size that it performs best with. Most single frequency machines are set at 12 to 15 kHz because that is the best frequency range for finding coin-sized targets which are what most people are looking for.

Using all the frequencies at once in Multi gets less overall depth than using a single frequency for a specific target size. I often run 15 kHz when coin hunting to get a little extra depth.



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 05/27/2020 09:11AM by Badger in NH.

Not my experience, Badger. As they say, your mileage may vary.

Mccrorysjewelry2,
Here is the requested re-test you asked for with Park 1 in single frequencies. I also made sure to do factory re-sets this time. However, I totally messed up and forgot my tape measurer. I thought the lesche was only 10 inches, and added 2” inches... But found later that the lesche is 12” and so this test is on a 14” inch silver dime...! My deepest apologies.
Settings, nothing notched, 20 sensitivity, 0 iron bias, 5 tones.
I did find some very intriguing things out for myself:
1) Park 1 may have not hit the dime as well in Multi frequency, but the TID was more accurate (Park 2 multi always hits below TID 10)... Otherwise Park 1 didn’t hit it in any single frequency with a TID except 40kHz.
2) My theory about switching to multi frequency to check micro-trash is not accurate. I was relying on the depth meter and volume of the target coinciding with what single frequency was telling me about a deep target. But clearly in this video you can hear the signal becomes audibly louder, and the depth meter is inconsistent when I switch to multi-frequency on the deep target.

Conclusion: I can not rely on switching to multi-frequency to check whether a deep target is tiny surface trash or a dig-worthy deep non-ferrous target.

Marcomo: in these videos there is zero EMI, I’m in a field in the middle of nowhere. No cell phones on me. My experience is also that of Badgers where single frequency is much more stable and quieter in both iron-laden and trashy sites than multi frequency, in every site I hunt, from city to forest. Especially 15kHz for some reason.
That said, I am in no way saying anyone is right or wrong, I never claim those words for anything, there is only levels of effectivity. For each hunting condition there will always be a different setting that will be more or less effective and that will vary around the world so who am I to tell anyone what to do? I’m just making these tests to help inspire others to start experimenting on their own and push their settings this way or that to see if it yields better finds.
I’m very grateful for everyone’s comments and views, happy hunting!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/30/2020 03:21PM by D-Tone.

Badger in NH Wrote:
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> I don't even bother ground balancing in my ground.
> I just keep it at 0 all the time.

Based on the Equinox manual where it states that part of the Multi-IQ technology is that it reads and adjusts for ground conditions, so based on that I rarely ground balance, particularly if I know the dirt is mild where I'm detecting, and I'm still digging 10" deep silver. If I get ground noise, or I'm in areas I know have tough or mineralized dirt, then I will. Seems to be a VERY forgiving machine with ground balancing IMHO.

Cal_cobra, are you the same Cal_cobra from YouTube? If so, I’m a huge fan!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/31/2020 03:15AM by D-Tone.