Frustration with my Nox!

[sandmartin]

Hi guys I have had 3 or 4 land hunts with my new 600, found plenty of coins so no complaints there.

But beach hunting is entirely different! Just got back from my 4th beach hunt. To sum it up i'm getting loads of signals. The problem is they very rarely result in a find. The numbers either keep changing wildly or sometimes when I do get a good signal and dig the signal seems to disappear? Today I dug several signals, isolated them in the scoop, dunked my scoop in the water, looked in the scoop, nothing! That must have happened 20 times. I am so frustrated right now. I ground balance and noise cancel every time yet each hunt ends up the same way. Tried beach 1 and 2, no difference. I must be doing something wrong?

 

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[Treasure_Hunter]

Where are you ground balancing at, in the water, wet salt sand, dry sand, manual or auto ?

What sensitivity setting are you using?

How does it work on dry land?

 

[smokeythecat]

And do you think very small items are falling through the scoop? I've had that happen. Frustrating as all get out.

 

[sandmartin]

Where are you ground balancing at, in the water, wet salt sand, dry sand, manual or auto ?

What sensitivity setting are you using?

How does it work on dry land?

Hi, I usually auto ground balance. I did it on wet sand today. I started off on 20 sensitivity but then down to 17.

Never had any problems on dry land. Was careful with the scoop, pretty sure nothing was falling through.

 

[saanich2018]

Interesting.

I am brand new to this and just bought an 800.

I went to the beach to use it for the first time about two weeks ago.

Being new to this, I left all the settings as FP.

I did a noise cancel and auto ground balance.

Every single hit I received, there was something there, whether it was a pull tab, a key, food/gum wrapper, or a coin. I felt good knowing that if it gave a signal/tone, there was something there to dig.

I do not know anything about the 600, but I understood it was basically the same machine but does not have the gold settings. ??

Have you done a factory reset?

 

[vferrari]

If you are in salt water, especially surf, use Beach 2 and Tracking GB. Varying salinity concentrations in surf can cause the ground reference to frequently change.

 

[RobNC]

Hi guys I have had 3 or 4 land hunts with my new 600, found plenty of coins so no complaints there.

But beach hunting is entirely different! Just got back from my 4th beach hunt. To sum it up i'm getting loads of signals. The problem is they very rarely result in a find. The numbers either keep changing wildly or sometimes when I do get a good signal and dig the signal seems to disappear? Today I dug several signals, isolated them in the scoop, dunked my scoop in the water, looked in the scoop, nothing! That must have happened 20 times. I am so frustrated right now. I ground balance and noise cancel every time yet each hunt ends up the same way. Tried beach 1 and 2, no difference. I must be doing something wrong?

This is going to sound stupid, but have you checked your coil cover for debris? Remove it and clean underneath.
I seen where someone else also had recommended in the past someone to do 3 full factory resets in a row and best of my memory that helped them with some erratic behavior.
Have you tried cutting back your sensitivity?
I read below where someone recommended using the ground balance tracking feature. Sounds like good advice to me.

 

[CarsonChris]

I've seen videos where a guy scoops, nothing in the scoop. He sweeps over the hole and gets nothing. Digs deeper and gets the find. Seems the coin falls deeper in the hole and you can lose signal.

 

[FloridaSon]

Some ideas:

I have one place on a beach where numbers are just crazy. Thought it was the machine but turned out to be a huge undersea cable going into the ocean. Could EM interference be the problem?

Just spoke to John and Minelab Detector Repair who said we should turn sensitivity down a little. The default 20 can be too hot.

I had to be careful swinging, lift the coil up at the end of a swing and it falses. Bump a shell or seaweed, same. And if there is a lot of black sand and you don't dig a wide hole, it falses when the coil passes over the two edges of the hole. Made me swing correctly.

John also said Beach 1 & 2 ground balance is factory set, doing a GB in Beach mode won't change the default setting.

Hope this helps

 

[Iffy Signals]

Sooooo.. here are my findings with the beach. Was a great beach detector untill i installed the update then my hunting was very simialr to what you explained even using a lower sensitivity. If you have the latest update you may want to try rolling it back and see if that works better for you. The update made the nox more sensitive to hit silver on edge better which then causes it to be more sensitive on everything creating some false signals in tough conditions. I may be wrong but it has been what i noticed. Good luck

 

[sandmartin]

If you are in salt water, especially surf, use Beach 2 and Tracking GB. Varying salinity concentrations in surf can cause the ground reference to frequently change.

I did use beach 2 and tracking gb buddy, it didn't seem to make any difference. And turned the sensitivity down to 16.

 

[sandmartin]

Sooooo.. here are my findings with the beach. Was a great beach detector untill i installed the update then my hunting was very simialr to what you explained even using a lower sensitivity. If you have the latest update you may want to try rolling it back and see if that works better for you. The update made the nox more sensitive to hit silver on edge better which then causes it to be more sensitive on everything creating some false signals in tough conditions. I may be wrong but it has been what i noticed. Good luck

My machine does have the update, I checked. I was wondering about this too. I have just changed it back. All this does point to the machine running too hot/falsing to me. I have been making sure under my coil cover is clean too. I will be out over the weekend to see if there's any difference and I will let you know what happens. Thanks to everyone.

 

[vferrari]

Some ideas:

I have one place on a beach where numbers are just crazy. Thought it was the machine but turned out to be a huge undersea cable going into the ocean. Could EM interference be the problem?

Just spoke to John and Minelab Detector Repair who said we should turn sensitivity down a little. The default 20 can be too hot.

I had to be careful swinging, lift the coil up at the end of a swing and it falses. Bump a shell or seaweed, same. And if there is a lot of black sand and you don't dig a wide hole, it falses when the coil passes over the two edges of the hole. Made me swing correctly.

John also said Beach 1 & 2 ground balance is factory set, doing a GB in Beach mode won't change the default setting.

Hope this helps

That info on beach GB being factory set is inaccurate or the Minelab manual is completely wrong (I suspect whoever you were talking to is mistaken). While it is true that the Beach Mode Multi IQ algorithms are designed to account for a salinity based ground ground reference, you can still adjust GB as necessary.

From the manual:

The default Ground Balance setting of 0 is recommended for Park, Field and Beach Modes because these locations typically have less mineralisation than goldfields.

However, if the ground is generating many noise signals (and/ or the Sensitivity level is set very low), then using Auto Ground Balance is recommended. If the Auto Ground Balance process does not greatly reduce ground noise (due to highly mineralised ground or high salt levels), then repeat the Auto Ground Balance process by sweeping the coil from side-to-side, rather than the standard up-and-down motion.

Also:

Tracking Ground Balance can also be useful when using Beach Mode 2 underwater at the beach (in salt water).

These statements clearly imply that beach mode ground balance CAN be adjusted from the default. Second statement is very explicit about using tracking in beach mode. Nothing in the manual mentions that beach mode GB's are fixed or factory set and finally, it has been my experience in beach mode that adjusting GB on black sand away from the default using an Auto GB or Tracking GB DOES make a difference. If someone can point me to some actual documented evidence Beach GB is factory fixed, I would love to see it. It is unfortunate that purported ML experts are disseminating inaccurate information, if that was the case. Thx.

 

[PetesPockets55]

Could the type/size of coil be making a difference?

Is it true a double D works better in the salinity of the surf/beach?

 

[vferrari]

Could the type/size of coil be making a difference?

Is it true a double D works better in the salinity of the surf/beach?

Equinox only uses DD coils (which handle mineralization and salt better than concentrics) and is a proven beach machine. OP either has a severe EMI situation (but unlikely if nearby dry beach performance is OK), a setup problem, or perhaps an equipment failure of some sort. Suggest starting from scratch with a factory reset and trying the above suggestions. Throw some test targets in the sand and see what happens.

 

[cudamark]

If you have lots of black sand, that can cause all sorts of false signals, and the genuine ones you do get can read all over the scale........usually a lot higher VDI. In my local black sand, deep copper cents can read 39/40, just like deep rusty iron targets. The difference is the iron reading is usually just one direction. I usually hunt these sites in all metal (push the horseshoe) and find deep iron will give a good repeatable sound, but, sweeping the coil one way it will read 39/40, and back the other way it will read a minus number. A good target usually won't do that unless it's mixed in with another target close by. Deep target signals many times will disappear once you remove the overburden. Just dig a bit deeper to get to the target. A good pin pointer will sometimes help in these cases.

 

[vferrari]

If you have lots of black sand, that can cause all sorts of false signals, and the genuine ones you do get can read all over the scale........usually a lot higher VDI. In my local black sand, deep copper cents can read 39/40, just like deep rusty iron targets. The difference is the iron reading is usually just one direction. I usually hunt these sites in all metal (push the horseshoe) and find deep iron will give a good repeatable sound, but, sweeping the coil one way it will read 39/40, and back the other way it will read a minus number. A good target usually won't do that unless it's mixed in with another target close by. Deep target signals many times will disappear once you remove the overburden. Just dig a bit deeper to get to the target. A good pin pointer will sometimes help in these cases.

Agreed, but all the typical "black sand" remedies (namely, use of Beach 2, tracking ground balance, and reduced sensitivity), did not seem to help in sandmartin's case.

 

[cudamark]

Agreed, but all the typical "black sand" remedies (namely, use of Beach 2, tracking ground balance, and reduced sensitivity), did not seem to help in sandmartin's case.

I should have been more specific and explained my response better. In some cases, (like some EMI) there are no remedies that will totally fix the problem on the current version of the Equinox. My local beaches lately are thick with black sand. My machine squawks something awful in it. It took a while to figure out the good signals from the bad. In his experience with black sand, it may be that what he thinks is a good signal/target, is actually a false signal caused by the heavy black sand. Sometimes the difference in false vs. genuine signals in black sand is very subtle. Since the I.D. numbers can be all over the place and unreliable, you need to do other things to help determine if the signal is worth digging or not. Much of that just takes hours of experience swinging the coil in those conditions and listening carefully to the audio. I find it's also helpful to just scrape off a couple of inches of sand sometimes with iffy signals. Usually with good targets, the sound will improve, whereas false signal will not.....and will sometimes go away all together. Deep rusty iron will usually stay the same, but will sometimes change position when you re-pinpoint. Deep targets will often completely disappear after taking a scoop or two. Don't just give up on those targets. If they were repeatable before you dug, there's probably something down deep. Take a few more scoops before you conclude it was a false signal.

 

[sandmartin]

So I have an update guys. I have just got back from a beach hunt. I met another guy with a Nox. He showed me a gold ring and several coins he'd found today. I told him about my issues so he set my machine exactly the same as his, same everything. I started hunting and it was falsing straight away and the numbers were all over the place. He was running on 22 sensitivity with no problems. I had to turn mine down to 14 and even then it was still chattering. I have never been able to use it as high as 20 even on grass. It's unusable on wet sand, no wonder i'm not finding anything. Anyone else heard of this? I am really disappointed but I have to get this dealt with. I will be contacting my dealer tomorrow and keep you all up to date.

 

[vferrari]

Yep, sounds like a machine problem, were you both using the same coil? Same firmware?