EQ800 - Small Gold Test BAM!

[CharlesUpstateNY]

I got the machine assembled and performed a few small gold tests in Beach 1 tonight. More tomorrow and pics but the results were exciting!

Settings - factory default settings Beach 1, multi tone, sens 20, recovery 6 produced disappointing results, shocker. On the smaller gold targets barely 1/4 to 1/2 inch in depth. I first bumped the sensitivity up from 20 to 23, stable but really didn't help much. Then I lowered the recovery speed from 6 to 3 and BINGO depth jumped to 1.5 to 2 inches a significant increase. Recovery 1 and 2 seemed a bit squirrely, I'll need to expand the metal free test area and retry tomorrow but recovery 3 is enough for me to hunt for these small gold targets on a saltwater beach.

14k Stone Bezel 4.64mm (.183 inches) - This bezel is tiny and hollow there's very little surface area but its round which helps. Its one of my small gold torture tests, its invisible to an Explorer even if you rub it on the coil. EQ800 depth 1 inch, maybe a touch more.

14k Small Chain Round Clasp 3.8mm (.150 inches) - This is even smaller than the bezel, but the flat piece the clasp attaches to adds a little surface area so a better signal on this than the bezel. The chain is so small its invisible to the detector. 1.5 inches depth on this, with maybe 2 on some swings.

14k Small Chain Lobster Claw Clasp 2.5 x 7.6mm (.100 inch wide x .300 inch long) - This classic lobster claw clasp is pretty small as those clasps go, a bit more meat on the bone than the round clasp though I was getting about 2 inches on this one. Again the chain is invisible to the detector, only the clasp was detected.

14k Post Earring w/Stone - I purchased this to test getting a signal on the setting for diamond stud earrings. Its a challenge, the setting is more a wire structure hollow in the middle, no real flat surface area. But overall the setting with the post was detectable 1-1.5 inches. I'm sounding like a broken record but yes invisible to the Explorer.

14k Thin gold ring 2.62mm wide (.103 inches) vertical ON EDGE - Here's one of the two exciting tests results. This gold band which is similar in size to what you would find for a diamond solitaire wedding ring, straight up on edge its undetectable by an Explorer. The EQ800 was HAMMERING IT dang like 6-7 inches, strong signal. More promising was when swept from the narrow angle it produced a distinct double tone, beep then another beep with maybe 2 inches of coil travel between the two beeps. Target behavior in the tone I like it!

Just for fun I rigged a Mercury Dime vertical straight up on edge, also invisible to an Explorer, the EQ800 nailed it!

 

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[vferrari]

The problem with going too low on recovery speed is that ground feedback noise starts to dominate and overcomes the depth gain as you lower swing speed to accommodate, that is where my signal to noise ratio comment comes into play. As you surmised, however, some significant gains can come with minor tweaks (2 to 3 clicks) in default settings. Equinox is optimized to run near the defaults (notice I did not say "at"). ML did a pretty good job integrating the preproduction findings of their test users into the defaults and factored into their last minute decision to use Multi IQ in Gold mode vice single high frequencies.

Have fun testing. Will be interesting to see what else you find out.

 

[adamBomb]

After testing I am mostly keeping the default beach settings. I did change my RS to 2 (4 on the 800) for beach 1&2. Iron bias 0. Otherwise the only thing to mess with is the sensitivity, which changes multiple times per hunt in some cases. The lower RS does increase depth but when I put it on the lowest setting on the beach it was falsing like crazy, which is why I am keeping near default.

 

[CharlesUpstateNY]

The problem with going too low on recovery speed is that ground feedback noise starts to dominate and overcomes the depth gain as you lower swing speed to accommodate, that is where my signal to noise ratio comment comes into play. As you surmised, however, some significant gains can come with minor tweaks (2 to 3 clicks) in default settings. Equinox is optimized to run near the defaults (notice I did not say "at"). ML did a pretty good job integrating the preproduction findings of their test users into the defaults and factored into their last minute decision to use Multi IQ in Gold mode vice single high frequencies.

Have fun testing. Will be interesting to see what else you find out.

LOL no I'm sorry you are wrong on that one. Its fine I have heard this all before, Charles your wrong followed by Charles you were right. lol

 

[vferrari]

Cool, sounds like you have it all figured out. It's been a pleasure. Oh, and if I am indeed "wrong on that one" I am in good company so be sure to let ML know that they also got it wrong on the bottom of p. 51 of their manual. LOL. Have fun with the Equinox, Charles.

P.S., You really have a knack for winning hearts and minds. Lol. If I can help you out further by letting you answer your own Equinox questions, just let me know.

 

[CharlesUpstateNY]

Cool, sounds like you have it all figured out. It's been a pleasure. Oh, and be sure to let ML know that they screwed up on the bottom of p. 51 of their manual. LOL. Have fun with the Equinox, Charles.

P.S., You really have a knack for winning hearts and minds. Lol.

LOL V man there is no more close minded, opinionated, stubborn group of people on the planet than metal detectorists. I became a know it all opinionated got it all figured out FOOL then proved many of my assumptions WRONG! Humiliating. Now I question everything.

Today, my thinking is if you are not constantly questioning your assumptions, settings, approach, and yes factory defaults you have stopped learning your machine.

I question the EQ's factory defaults because its a mass market machine. The factory defaults on the Explorers were horrible, FACT. I'm not saying Minelab was wrong, just that the factory defaults was I think their attempt to make the machine easier for those new to detecting. I get that but compared to what the Explorer is really capable of some important settings were far too conservative. So I will question the EQ's factory defaults, and just as I did with the Explorers I'll adopt some of the factory default settings and crank up some of the others for performance.

 

[CharlesUpstateNY]

After testing I am mostly keeping the default beach settings. I did change my RS to 2 (4 on the 800) for beach 1&2. Iron bias 0. Otherwise the only thing to mess with is the sensitivity, which changes multiple times per hunt in some cases. The lower RS does increase depth but when I put it on the lowest setting on the beach it was falsing like crazy, which is why I am keeping near default.

RS 1 and 2 on my 800, really squirrely last night, where 3 was quite stable. I'm going to experiment with this further today.

 

[vferrari]

I'm just providing suggestions on how to ease in on a new machine and giving the machine the benefit of the doubt at first. If you actually bothered to read my posts more than half way I have never said don't tweak it I said take it slow at first, take it a few clicks, feel the machine out, and I quote from another thread, when you have it figured out, "tweak it to your heart's content". I personally think it is sound advice for most new users and have gotten good feedback from them. You don't need the forum for advice, you need need it as a platform, so go for it, I say. I won't waste your time further, because you know how you want to do it and don't need to listen to my "wrong" advice. Enjoy, brother.

 

[vferrari]

RS 1 and 2 on my 800, really squirrely last night, where 3 was quite stable. I'm going to experiment with this further today.

When you were doing your recovery speed tests were the targets in the ground or where they air tests? I ask because you may be experiencing the ground noise/falsing symptom I was talking about regarding running RS really low.

Note that Adam has the 600 so he can only adjust recovery speed in three increments 1=2 (800), 2=4 (800), and 3=6 (800)

So much for butting out on my part. Just can't help myself. Lol.

 

[Terry Soloman]

Laughing myself silly in White Plains!

 

[vferrari]

Terry - help me to stay strong and fight the impulse to "help out" on this one. Lol.

 

[CharlesUpstateNY]

V man you are one of the most knowledgeable guys on the forum. I always appreciate your input even if we may not always agree. Disagreeing is a good thing. Imagine how boring and useless the forum would be if everyone agreed on everything. lol Over time you will win me over to your viewpoint, and I may win you over to my viewpoint, and sometimes we'll just agree to disagree. Its not personal. I am open to and welcome someone changing my mind and pushing me to question my own opinion. Feel free to say Charles you AH you are stubborn as a mule I won't take it personal, its just the internet bro.

 

[CharlesUpstateNY]

When you were doing your recovery speed tests were the targets in the ground or where they air tests? I ask because you may be experiencing the ground noise/falsing symptom I was talking about regarding running RS really low.

Note that Adam has the 600 so he can only adjust recovery speed in three increments 1=2 (800), 2=4 (800), and 3=6 (800)

So much for butting out on my part. Just can't help myself. Lol.

Bro get your brain in this discussion. See that ^^^ you make one post which caused me to think hmmm what about the EMI I saw on Sensitivity 24-25 last night. BAM then I remembered one of your other posts about cell phones and BAM AGAIN it dawns on me, what about all the wireless crap running in my house? Including the wireless security cameras on the front of my garage pretty close to where I was testing last night. That's the power of brainstorming with others on the internet. Keep the posts coming v man.

As to your questions, it was air tests. I had the targets suspended 3 feet in the air over concrete, several inches of sand under the concrete, clay under that, no metal down there. But nearby about 3 feet away was my 24x24 mobile workbench on casters, lots of metal in that. I was also sitting on a stool with metal. So there was a fair amount of metal within 3 feet or so of the test area. Today I'm going to move further out from the house so I have a good 5-6 feet of metal free test area. I'm on acreage out in the country so no other buildings near me and I'm well away from power lines. I'm also going to turn off all the wireless stuff in the house. Just for fun maybe I'll turn off the main breaker and cut all the AC power too.

 

[vferrari]

V man you are one of the most knowledgeable guys on the forum. I always appreciate your input even if we may not always agree. Disagreeing is a good thing. Imagine how boring and useless the forum would be if everyone agreed on everything. lol Over time you will win me over to your viewpoint, and I may win you over to my viewpoint, and sometimes we'll just agree to disagree. Its not personal. I am open to and welcome someone changing my mind and pushing me to question my own opinion. Feel free to say Charles you AH you are stubborn as a mule I won't take it personal, its just the internet bro.

I agree...you are stubborn...and knowledgeable to a fault. And so am I or else I wouldn't be replying. I think a lot of context gets lost in text replies vs. face-to-face discussion and that results in noses getting bent out of shape and bunched up underpants. And I know I have my prima donna moments, but the thing that I react most strongly to is flat out saying someone is wrong when there are so many shades of gray and variables and just plain opinions in detecting, it is almost impossible to make that assertion. So I have made it my goal to avoid telling another poster that they are "wrong". I tend to give the benefit of the doubt and explain why I may disagree but avoid using the "w" word. So, I'm glad we put that out there and now lets put it behind us. I'm also grumpy about not being able to get out and go detecting today, which I hope to fix tomorrow.

Now answer my question: Were those beach mode gold target tests air or ground? I want to get more user info on these low recovery speeds and the ground noise assertion.

Also, I am kind of surprised by the Mercury edge-on test. I forgot to mention it previously, but there have been a lot of youtube videos made and wailing and gnashing of teeth over Equinox perceived poor edge on coin performance. Well these videos are typically done in Park 1 mode which is high conductor and large target biased. Invariably, when the same test is repeated in Park 2/Field 2 which is biased to mid-conductors and low-profile targets, the edge on coin, magically appears. So since both Beach modes are high conductor biased (with Beach 2 being slightly lower frequency biased than Beach 1) and probably lower frequency biased than Park 1, I was surprised you hit the edge on merc. I have also heard anecdotes about Beach 1 hitting small jewelry better than Beach 2 in dry sand. Beach 1 is ok in dry sand, good in wet sand, but you can probably use ANY of the Equinox search profile modes in dry sand. I have used Gold Mode 1 to find stuff in dry sand and it is stable, if you are into finding earring back fasteners and wristwatch gears, it is highly recommended. LOL.

 

[Davers]

Interesting thread as I know the Equinox & ML machines as much as I know Mr, Trump.
Love to "try" to learn tho.
Davers

 

[vferrari]

Interesting thread as I know the Equinox & ML machines as much as I know Mr, Trump.
Love to "try" to learn tho.
Davers

Are you considering getting one? What type of detecting would you prefer to do with it? I was interested in the Equinox because I felt ML finally put out an affordable but fast multifrequency beach machine with Audio and Visual TID (CTX was slow and Excal was audio only and could not be used reliably in dirt afaiwc). I found that Equinox was a great all purpose machine from salt beach water hunting to relic hunting in mineralized soil. So considering all the great detectors you already have in your profile, it is good to have a least one detecting area where the others all fall short to see if the Equinox can close that gap. It is not a miracle machine, so if you have the bases covered with your other machines, it may disappoint unless you are also looking to "thin the herd" of your older detectors.

 

[flgliderpilot]

Considering setting up my user profile with beach 2 and slow recovery. would make it fast to switch back and forth

 

[CharlesUpstateNY]

Also, I am kind of surprised by the Mercury edge-on test. I forgot to mention it previously, but there have been a lot of youtube videos made and wailing and gnashing of teeth over Equinox perceived poor edge on coin performance.

Interesting. I had already lowered recovery speed to 3 before I did the on edge tests, maybe I should go back and try them again at RS 6 and see if that makes any difference. I can test also in Park 1 and other modes. But I'm super happy with what I saw in Beach 1.

I have also heard anecdotes about Beach 1 hitting small jewelry better than Beach 2 in dry sand.

I received an email from someone this morning who said a Minelab engineer told him Beach 2 transmits at half power. We know its reduced power but half? Dang. Not sure if that's true but you can't reduce power (whatever that actually means) and expect the same performance as Beach 1. It would be worth testing/knowing if the Beach 2 reduced power is a reduction in depth and/or sensitivity to small targets if that's about the same regardless of target size or if the reduction impacts small targets the most, dimes cents less, and quarter size targets the least.

Beach 1 is ok in dry sand, good in wet sand, but you can probably use ANY of the Equinox search profile modes in dry sand. I have used Gold Mode 1 to find stuff in dry sand and it is stable, if you are into finding earring back fasteners and wristwatch gears, it is highly recommended. LOL.

Yep already saw that one in the manual and rolled my eyes at Minelab. To be fair to Minelab I think they just explained that poorly. Dry sand with wet sand under it within reach of the coil that's probably still going to require Beach 1 so in that version of "dry" sand they would be correct. When I think dry sand I think several feet of dry above the high tide line which should allow other modes and more aggressive settings.

 

[vferrari]

Interesting. I had already lowered recovery speed to 3 before I did the on edge tests, maybe I should go back and try them again at RS 6 and see if that makes any difference. I can test also in Park 1 and other modes. But I'm super happy with what I saw in Beach 1.



I received an email from someone this morning who said a Minelab engineer told him Beach 2 transmits at half power. We know its reduced power but half? Dang. Not sure if that's true but you can't reduce power (whatever that actually means) and expect the same performance as Beach 1. It would be worth testing/knowing if the Beach 2 reduced power is a reduction in depth and/or sensitivity to small targets if that's about the same regardless of target size or if the reduction impacts small targets the most, dimes cents less, and quarter size targets the least.



Yep already saw that one in the manual and rolled my eyes at Minelab. To be fair to Minelab I think they just explained that poorly. Dry sand with wet sand under it within reach of the coil that's probably still going to require Beach 1 so in that version of "dry" sand they would be correct. When I think dry sand I think several feet of dry above the high tide line which should allow other modes and more aggressive settings.

The manual (p. 25) is unclear whether Beach 2 only reduces power when in the presence of black sand or at all times. You will see a caution symbol (Exclamation mark in a triangle) when black sand related falsing overload happens and power is reduced (further?). Not clear if the black sand overload power reduction condition applies to both beach modes.

All I know is I can get the other modes to run stable unless I am looking at saturated wet sand, but the beach park I frequent is tidal but is bay protected and has little surf.

 

[cudamark]

I've experimented with Gold 1 in the dry sand at the beach and find it VERY interesting. Found many stud earrings that way.....and tons of foil too! I have a tiny link 18K bracelet that I've used for testing. My 800 won't see it at all in Park 1, Field 1, or either of the Beach modes! WTF? It hits hard in the Gold modes, which I figured it would, hits okay in Park2, and pretty good in Field 2. So much for finding small link gold chains out in the wet ocean sand/water!