Equinox 800 in iron infested fresh water lake

Acquisitor

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Jan 6, 2011
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There are a few lakes in my area with lots of mostly small iron (nails, screws etc). I have cleaned them out with my excalibur which as we all know discriminates very well. What I found was mostly rings of course (talking about gold only) but there has to be lots of fine jewelry still out there, waiting to get saved.

Whats the optimal program in equinox 800 for such lakes? I dont mind digging occasional iron but Id l prefer not to.

So which program + setting would you guys recommend?

I do understand that ideally I would have to clean it out in all metal but believe me, its mission impossible.
 

vferrari

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If you are looking for micro jewelry, try one of the gold modes at the default settings. One has recovery at 6 for separation the other has recovery at 4 for depth. Both have iron bias at 6. You might want to lower that to 1 or 2 or off, to prevent iron masking of non-ferrous. Decide for yourself whether all metal or disc is preferred using the horseshoe button.

If you can't get either gold mode to run stable without significantly lowering sensitivity, give Park 2 or Field 2 a shot. Good luck.
 

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Acquisitor

Acquisitor

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Jan 6, 2011
302
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If you are looking for micro jewelry, try one of the gold modes at the default settings. One has recovery at 6 for separation the other has recovery at 4 for depth. Both have iron bias at 6. You might want to lower that to 1 or 2 or off, to prevent iron masking of non-ferrous. Decide for yourself whether all metal or disc is preferred using the horseshoe button.

If you can't get either gold mode to run stable without significantly lowering sensitivity, give Park 2 or Field 2 a shot. Good luck.

Thanks a lot!

One more question: there are still deep rings out there that I couldnt get with my excalibur. What settings would you recommend for the deepest RINGS?

Also in a lake without much iron.. where the excl doesnt get any signals at all.
I would really like to see whether my nox's raw power can outperform excl 10" which I use at max sensitivity in such lakes.
 

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vferrari

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Jul 19, 2015
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Thanks a lot!

One more question: there are still deep rings out there that I couldnt get with my excalibur. What settings would you recommend for the deepest RINGS?

Also in a lake without much iron.. where the excl doesnt get any signals at all.
I would really like to see whether my nox's raw power can outperform excl 10" which I use at max sensitivity in such lakes.

I am going to approach your question in a manner that might seem rude to you. I am not trying to be rude, I am trying to get to a common point of understanding on the Equinox such that my advice can be useful to you so we are not wasting each other's time. So bear with me.

The way you are asking this question makes me wonder if you actually have a basic understanding how the different modes and settings affect depth and separation with the Equinox. With little understanding of the "why's" behind the settings, just plugging in another user's recommendations can actually be counterproductive to you as you will not know how to tweak those settings in the field if you encounter adverse conditions such as black sand or thick modern trash such as foil.

So please tell me why you think the settings I provided will not get you deep "rings"? The answer to that question also depends on whether you are focused on gold or silver "rings".

I know you are not just looking to be spoon fed settings without really understanding what the settings do, so if you want more detailed advice, why don't you offer up some settings tweaks against what I have put down and we can go from there. Having a rudimentary understanding of how and when the modes should be used and how key settings such as sensitivity, recovery speed, iron bias, and frequency weighting should be applied are fundamental to success. I can help you better from that starting point.

Otherwise, if the Nox really has you scratching your head, get some hours on dry beach runs and peruse the manual, then we can start tweaking for "deep rings".
 

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You are absolutely right about many things. Also there is no such thing as being rude, in fact you typing such a long reply proves the opposite.

I did read the manual from A to Z. But the thing is: the manual is one thing, while reality is something entirely different.

It took me quite a long time (100s of hours even) to achieve nearly perfect understanding of excalibur and its nuances and I may not have as much time to discover the nox and its nuances at this period of my life.

Your advice about the iron infested lakes was perfect as it offers an ideal point of departure. From there I can explore the detector and tweak the settings according to the results or lack there off.

Then I thought: well this person may have indepth knowledge of the detector and may save lots of time by advising me where to start in lakes without iron, lakes where I may want to find very deep rings and not concentrate on only very fine jewerly :)

Either way, Im very thankful for your hints!
 

vferrari

Silver Member
Jul 19, 2015
4,910
8,377
Near Ground Zero for Insanity
Detector(s) used
XP Deus with HF/x35 Coils and Mi6 Pinpointer/ML Equinox 600/800/ML Tarsacci MDT 8000 GPX 4800/Garrett ATX/Fisher F75 DST/Tek G2+/Delta/Whites MXT/Nokta Simplex/Garrett Carrot
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
You should do well with the recommended settings based on my knowledge of the Equinox, but what you are driving at now requires more intimate knowledge of your lake sites which I do not have. I primarily hunt salt vice freshwater sites which limits my setup choices to the beach modes. But those modes are likely too tame to go as deep as the other non-beach modes. If you want sheer depth, you might want to try Park 1 or Field 1 with perhaps Beach 1 as a distant 3rd choice as those modes have the lowest frequency weighting. Even going single frequency at 5 khz or 10 khz will go fairly deep. But that will likely be limited to high conductive targets like silver. The modes I recommended previously are higher frequency weighted and will hit small gold rings harder than the "deep" low frequencies. Hope this makes sense.
 

OP
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Jan 6, 2011
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You should do well with the recommended settings based on my knowledge of the Equinox, but what you are driving at now requires more intimate knowledge of your lake sites which I do not have. I primarily hunt salt vice freshwater sites which limits my setup choices to the beach modes. But those modes are likely too tame to go as deep as the other non-beach modes. If you want sheer depth, you might want to try Park 1 or Field 1 with perhaps Beach 1 as a distant 3rd choice as those modes have the lowest frequency weighting. Even going single frequency at 5 khz or 10 khz will go fairly deep. But that will likely be limited to high conductive targets like silver. The modes I recommended previously are higher frequency weighted and will hit small gold rings harder than the "deep" low frequencies. Hope this makes sense.

Thanks! This does make sense.

Im absolutely not interested in high conductivity targets like silver etc. Most of it has been hunted out long ago so all whats left is very deep heavy rings and not deep fine jewerly.

Thanks for your advice which I appreciate greatly!
 

cudamark

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For deep gold in mild lake bottom conditions, I'd start with the Gold 1 mode. If low trash, try reducing the recovery speed for added depth. If Gold 1 is too noisy, Park 2 or Field 2 would be my next choice as a starting point. There again, I'd run a low recovery speed (you can't swing too fast in water anyway) and bump the sensitivity up as high as I could and and still keep stability. Iron bias will depend on the degree of infestation. You'll have to play that by ear. Coil size is the same variable. A large coil is better for depth, but, worse for separation in heavy iron.
 

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For deep gold in mild lake bottom conditions, I'd start with the Gold 1 mode. If low trash, try reducing the recovery speed for added depth. If Gold 1 is too noisy, Park 2 or Field 2 would be my next choice as a starting point. There again, I'd run a low recovery speed (you can't swing too fast in water anyway) and bump the sensitivity up as high as I could and and still keep stability. Iron bias will depend on the degree of infestation. You'll have to play that by ear. Coil size is the same variable. A large coil is better for depth, but, worse for separation in heavy iron.

Thanks a lot!

Im very skilled with excl at max sensitivity, I assume you are good with it as well and know just how deep that thing can go at sensitivity at 10.. would you say that the nox with the correct settings can be as powerful for deep, heavy (6+ gr) gold rings?
 

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cudamark

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Mar 16, 2011
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Thanks a lot!

Im very skilled with excl at max sensitivity, I assume you are good with it as well and know just how deep that thing can go at sensitivity at 10.. would you say that the nox with the correct settings can be as powerful for deep, heavy (6+ gr) gold rings?

That's hard to state in a yes/no answer. In most mild conditions, with the same size coil, with the machines setup for optimal depth, I think the Excalibur will go deeper. Not by a lot......maybe a couple of inches or so. In black sand or trashy sites, I'd give the edge to the Nox. Small gold or Platinum and the Nox has a bigger advantage.......sometimes it will hit on targets that the Excal won't even see.
 

OP
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That's hard to state in a yes/no answer. In most mild conditions, with the same size coil, with the machines setup for optimal depth, I think the Excalibur will go deeper. Not by a lot......maybe a couple of inches or so. In black sand or trashy sites, I'd give the edge to the Nox. Small gold or Platinum and the Nox has a bigger advantage.......sometimes it will hit on targets that the Excal won't even see.

Thanks again! Thats my expectation as well. That my nox can pick up signals from smaller jewerly and rings which are not horizontally positioned in the bottom etc.

Thanks a lot
 

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