Minelab Equinox tips and questions

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Guys who've had this machine, I've got a question for you.

Lately with my 400i I've been hunting in a way some people would consider silly.

I've been discriminating out everything below "80" for the purpose of finding $1 and $2 and pre decimals.

I realise I could be missing out on gold jewelry etc but that doesn't bother me, any jewelry I'd find I would just sell, it has no value to me. I earn a decent wage and I'm not a very materialistic person so I'm not bothered. Pre decimals on the other hand hold sentimental value to me and I would never sell them. That's what I most want to find by far

Is this type of discrimination possible with the equinox? Keep in mind I get very few bottle tops or pull tabs (a few of the buggers sneak past but they're generally 78 and below) obviously there will be metals that fall into this range too like hunks of brass for example that I can't do anything about but it speeds up my detecting quite abit

I'm tossing up between the Ctx and the box for a future upgrade, at the moment I'm favoring the Ctx as as far as I've seen it has far superior discrimination capability
 
DetectingSA said:
Guys who've had this machine, I've got a question for you.

Lately with my 400i I've been hunting in a way some people would consider silly.

I've been discriminating out everything below "80" for the purpose of finding $1 and $2 and pre decimals.

I realise I could be missing out on gold jewelry etc but that doesn't bother me, any jewelry I'd find I would just sell, it has no value to me. I earn a decent wage and I'm not a very materialistic person so I'm not bothered. Pre decimals on the other hand hold sentimental value to me and I would never sell them. That's what I most want to find by far

Is this type of discrimination possible with the equinox? Keep in mind I get very few bottle tops or pull tabs (a few of the buggers sneak past but they're generally 78 and below) obviously there will be metals that fall into this range too like hunks of brass for example that I can't do anything about but it speeds up my detecting quite abit

I'm tossing up between the Ctx and the box for a future upgrade, at the moment I'm favoring the Ctx as as far as I've seen it has far superior discrimination capability
Click to expand...

With the pre decimals on the Equinox they should ring in after the goldies (21-22), so a discrimination pattern past 20 should pretty much get you all of the pre decimals silver and copper plus you wont miss the 1 and 2 dollar coins (if there laying correctly of course). You will lose most gold jewelery though but as you said it doesn't really matter to you. I had a quick hunt this morning with everything blocked out from 20 and below and picked up a quick 7 dollars for my trouble.

cheers

1520402675_tids-nox.jpg
 
DetectingSA said:
Guys who've had this machine, I've got a question for you.

Lately with my 400i I've been hunting in a way some people would consider silly.

I've been discriminating out everything below "80" for the purpose of finding $1 and $2 and pre decimals.

I realise I could be missing out on gold jewelry etc but that doesn't bother me, any jewelry I'd find I would just sell, it has no value to me. I earn a decent wage and I'm not a very materialistic person so I'm not bothered. Pre decimals on the other hand hold sentimental value to me and I would never sell them. That's what I most want to find by far

Is this type of discrimination possible with the equinox? Keep in mind I get very few bottle tops or pull tabs (a few of the buggers sneak past but they're generally 78 and below) obviously there will be metals that fall into this range too like hunks of brass for example that I can't do anything about but it speeds up my detecting quite abit

I'm tossing up between the Ctx and the box for a future upgrade, at the moment I'm favoring the Ctx as as far as I've seen it has far superior discrimination capability
Click to expand...

The difference you will find between your Ace and some of the more advanced detectors is how to audio reports on various targets, ie they give you more detailed target information to allow you to decide in whether to dig or not vs relying on TID's alone. The audio on the Ace is very "one dimensional", essentially a beep and dig machine, whereas audio on these other more expensive detectors can indicate depth, size and type of target purely via audio. There are quite a few tricks of the trade to pick up on as you become more experienced, and with an appropriate detector for the job at hand. Having 50 tones on the Equinox, multitones on thd FBS detectors, and similarly on the Deus with 99 tones, will provide a wealth of target info vs running with a simple 3/4/5 tone setup.

Things like target sizing are important, especially if your TID reads the same for a coin/alloy can. Run the detector in pinpoint mode to see how large the target is, if it reports as a wider than expected target, it is not likely to be a coin - most coins will report with a small cross section, same for deep iron with high tone falsing.

Be wary that if you are dicriminating out 80 and below on the TID, you may well be knocking out smaller silvers (50% silver) or on edge predecs. Depending on "in ground orientation", nearby iron/junk, and depth to target, TID's can read a lot lower than what you would expect from air testing. As an example, a 50% silver threepence on my detector can read from mid to low 70's, once again depending on orientation in the ground. That's why if using notching for discrimination, you want to leave a reasonably wide berth to capture coins that might fall outside the normal expected range. Run a too limited notch, and you will be leaving coins in the ground.

Essentially what I am saying is don't rely heavily on TID's as gospel, they are just an indication and tool to help identify a target. Audio, especially on deeper predecs will win out everytime over TID's, espeically on the fringe of the detector's capabilities. If you eventually move onto a more expensive detector, you will soon see where the extra cash goes with regards to both discrimination abilities, and the quality of the audio on targets.
 
PhaseTech said:
dirtdiggin said:
PhaseTech said:
Good way of looking at the 600, except us Aussies are very into our Gold :cool:

https://www.findmall.com/read.php?107,2428814

I've got my 600 today, so will give it a run on the beach tomorrow.
Click to expand...

Any Particular reason for not getting the 800? As we all know you love chasing gold.
Click to expand...

Simply because they were available. I've got plenty of high freq units for the goldfields with more appropriate coils, so my main interest with the Equinox is for wet sand and shallow water.

If and when some smaller/solid coils become available for the Equinox I'll be having a closer look at its gold hunting abilities.
Click to expand...

Yeah...I'm still wondering if the NOX800 is going to be better than my Makro Gold Racer, especially when they release a coil to suit the small gold.
So even though I have a high freq VLF already, I am assuming the later technology will be faster and achieve more depth due to running dual freq at the same time on gold mode.

Correct me if my thoughts are wrong.
 
rockdev said:
With the pre decimals on the Equinox they should ring in after the goldies (21-22), so a discrimination pattern past 20 should pretty much get you all of the pre decimals silver and copper plus you wont miss the 1 and 2 dollar coins (if there laying correctly of course). You will lose most gold jewelery though but as you said it doesn't really matter to you. I had a quick hunt this morning with everything blocked out from 20 and below and picked up a quick 7 dollars for my trouble.

cheers

https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/img/member-images/11578/1520402675_tids-nox.jpg
Click to expand...

Found these 2 this afternoon, within 50 m of each other. I've found many pre decs in the same section in the past.

The 1911 sixpence rang in at 25-26 from memory, and was about 3 inches down.

However, the 1957 came up as a different TID number (not surprisingly), 19-20, and was fairly loud - I really thought it was a shallow goldie or a bottle top... I only dug it because it was my last target for the day on the way back to the car. Ended up being 5 inches down (measured).

1520406258_img_20180307_1701284472-2-350x686.jpg
 
Nuggetbuster said:
Found these 2 this afternoon, within 50 m of each other. I've found many pre decs in the same section in the past.

The 1911 sixpence rang in at 25-26 from memory and was about 3 inches down.

However, the 1957 came up as a different TID number (not surprisingly), 19-20, and was fairly loud - I really thought it was a goldie or a bottle top... I only dug it because it was my last target for the day on the way back to the car. Ended up being 5 inches down (measured).

https://www.prospectingaustralia.co...0406258_img_20180307_1701284472-2-350x686.jpg
Click to expand...

Nice got to love the little silver's, might have to sneak mine back to 16-18 when I use the heavy discrim pattern. I have a 1942 sixpence that comes up as (25-26) as well. Also tried a 1863 copper token which comes up at 30 on the nox or 42 on the xterra 705.

cheers
 
rockdev said:
Nice got to love the little silver's, might have to sneak mine back to 16-18 when I use the heavy discrim pattern. I have a 1942 sixpence that comes up as (25-26) as well. Also tried a 1863 copper token which comes up at 30 on the nox or 42 on the xterra 705.

cheers
Click to expand...

Yeah, they may be worth nothing but it's always a thrill when I see one and realise that it's a silver.

Good idea - a 1912 Half Penny I have comes up as 18-19.
 
This thing just keeps surprising me, with a complete open screen full all metal this thing can really nut out the targets. I have raised threshold so I can hear if its nulling but this thing just wont, this is where the CTX struggles. No its not as accurate as the CTX and nor should it be but I am liking it a lot. Minelab are goimg to sell millions of these things.
 
What an excellent post by Steve Herschbach. This is the exact reason why I really want a Nox 800, it is such a different beast to the CTX and it will complement the areas that I have cleaned out with the CTX by allowing me to still find good targets in among the junk clutter areas that the CTX can't handle, of which I have quite a few of these spots, such as my silver honey hole.

I have a few other spots in highly junk cluttered areas locally that are quite historic for various reasons and the clutter is immense, I have found some very nice coins in these spots, though it is difficult, the Nox should allow me to get between the targets masking any potential good targets that are still there.
 
Yes the Nox is very good for the people that hunt by tone, it can clip tones if you try and run the reactivity too high. 50 tones can overload your hearing when you have lots of non ferrous targets under the coil but this is where it kills the CTX. I would just love the CTX colour screen on the Nox.
 
Smoky bandit said:
If you love it so much hurry up and get one and show us all how good you are with it. :D :Y:
Click to expand...

Once I have sold my Makro Gold Racer I will for sure. It is sitting there waiting with my name on it.
 

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