Experienced Beach Hunters Only - EQ800 sucks, what should I replace it with?

[LawrencetheMDer]

I think Cutaplug has a point regarding ferrous metals getting through the Equinox discriminator (-9 to 0). I have had my 800 for just over a month and already have found too much iron in my backyard with numbers good enough to dig; for me in my backyard I'm usually looking for coins so I concentrate on values over 20, except for nickels at 12-13 and find them by using the rotate and wiggle method as described in Sabisch's book on the Equinox. Ferrous objects have included nails, heavy iron pieces about 1" square, and a variety of other ferrous objects. This has not been my experience with the CTX 3030 - when I concentrate around the 12 line I seldom recover ferrous objects. On the other hand, the ability of the 800 to detect good targets hidden in trash, with much help from super fast recovery, is just Cool and it has been fun to hunt trashy areas where previously ya thought, too much trash to hunt [when background threshold shuts off and on like a machine gun...and you're already crawling along.] Finally, and in all fairness, the NOX is a complex machine and requires time to learn. This stuff about the detector ready to go out of the box after 3 button pushes, is Baloney. Because of its complexity, I can see people trying the machine and giving up after a short trial.

 

[UtahRich]

I, for whatever reason, do not dig a lot of bottle caps. Now beaver tails yes lol

Lots of folded beaver tails, but then I’m expecting lower conductive targets to stand out with my settings. And yes, it does find gold.

LawrencetheMDer,

Nothing complicated about the 800. Download the owners manual

Rich

 

[jmaclen]

Crown caps are definitely an issue with most detectors especially Coronas!!!!!. The Nox has several tell-tales for most crown caps. Using default search mode settings I look for jumpy numbers and always detect at 90 degrees if I suspect a crown cap. Never used a Nox at a salt water beach......At fresh water beaches I use an audible threshold tone so I can hear iron nulling in the background. If I am still not sure I press the horseshoe button to remove any discrimination and make sure to scan the target at 90 degrees. Any jumpy numbers and hint of iron from the audio and/or negative numbers on a shallow to 8" target is a dead iron giveaway. I have rarely dug a coin sized iron target like a crown cap by mistake using those tools. Coin sized iron or bigger iron targets past 8" using the Nox in my iron rich dirt can be difficult to distinguish from good targets so I keep an eye on the depth gauge and raise the coil to see how deep the target is too. At least the Nox will hit those 8"+ coin sized and smaller targets. Nothing else I have used will..........which includes the AT Pro and even the CTX 3030 in some instances from experience.

Jeff

 

[Cutaplug]

The problem with bottle caps is mostly with salty wet sand on the beach. Park modes you can just switch from multi frequency to 40k and it will tell you if it's a bottle cap or not. Problem with salt water and wet sand is that you need to run beach mode to get stability but you can't switch from multi to single in beach mode. Went out last night and think I figured out a way to distinguish bottle caps nearly 100% of the time. Going to investigate that more today and will post here if it is reliable.

 

[D&P-OR]

Let us know how that b.c. cap check works out.---I for one would be very interested in hearing about it.---------Del

The problem with bottle caps is mostly with salty wet sand on the beach. Park modes you can just switch from multi frequency to 40k and it will tell you if it's a bottle cap or not. Problem with salt water and wet sand is that you need to run beach mode to get stability but you can't switch from multi to single in beach mode. Went out last night and think I figured out a way to distinguish bottle caps nearly 100% of the time. Going to investigate that more today and will post here if it is reliable.

 

[u2robert]

Why would anyone not dig every target on the beach except iron? I don't get it.

 

[BigTony]

Robert, I for one try that but it wears me down then I get tired and selective.

Tony

 

[D&P-OR]

Old age!

Why would anyone not dig every target on the beach except iron? I don't get it.

 

[goodmore]

I skip the high tones now and then myself. Depends on the amount of targets, if it is in the splash zone, temp, crowded area. Hey sometimes I just give up on targets. The hole just keeps filling and filling.

 

[bigtim1973]

why don't you just notch out bottle caps and maybe a pull tab and go from there. It is real easy to reject a target with the equinox with the reject/check button. It will notch a few numbers out and you just keep on trucking. Odds are you would not dig a ring that rings up exactly in the notched areas anyway and if you do walk over one how would you even know it?

Your gonna dig trash if your looking for gold on the beach or relics in the woods. I do it all of the time. I did not start digging cool stuff until I dug my first civil war bullet several years ago. Previous to that I only dug coins. Now I dig it all if it locks on and I get surprise every now and then and I still dig plenty of pull tabs and screw caps. It is fun to detect and not find a good target than not to detect at all.

 

[Donut]

Hate the NOX. Sell it to me cheap it’s no good.
Just teasing you.
Every detector has its learning curve. And also every Detectorist had
S good days and bad days and good streake and bad streaks. Just have fun with it.

Your Friend Doug

 

[Joe Black]

I disagree on how you feel about the 800 sucks! I myself have a fair amount of experience detecting, mostly with Minelab machines. The CTX is a good machine but, not for the money! The 800 works fantastic and definitely more sensitive to gold ;more so than CTX and E-trac in my opinion! A friend of mine had a CTX and has gotten rid of it, not because it's performance but, weight and passed issues. We have hunted together now since June. We are both about equal in finds so far with his CTX to my Equinox 800. we compared signals together and found not to much difference except, I was able to pick up a small broken 10K bracelet and his CTX couldn't! That sealed the deal for him on getting rid of his unit. I must admit, we primarily beach hunt for gold. We coin hunt also on occasions and again have found that CTX doesn't blow away the Equinox in the field. The bottom line is that I'm glad I didn't purchase The CTX. $2,500 to $800.00 in comparison on performance. In my opinion , you get your $800.00 worth from The Equinox. Light, fast, waterproof and, better screen! A big plus I must mention is it's more user friendly. A CTX more simplified. Great job Minelab for listening to your product users complaints and making a great unit!

 

[1hotwire]

I'm not a beach hunter but I am looking for the grade scale to determine what a expert is !

 

[RichW]

You can't notch them out at the beach. Well, I guess you could but you'd be digging mostly coins and not much else. They start degrading very fast at the beach... sometimes they'll be down in the foil range after they have corroded. Others will read in the tab range or even higher if they are new. It Wouldn't be wise to do a lot of notching with the Equinox with it's compressed numbers if you are searching for gold.

 

[Cutaplug]

Let us know how that b.c. cap check works out.---I for one would be very interested in hearing about it.---------Del

The problem with bottle caps is mostly with salty wet sand on the beach. Park modes you can just switch from multi frequency to 40k and it will tell you if it's a bottle cap or not. Problem with salt water and wet sand is that you need to run beach mode to get stability but you can't switch from multi to single in beach mode. Went out last night and think I figured out a way to distinguish bottle caps nearly 100% of the time. Going to investigate that more today and will post here if it is reliable.

Have been able to go out 3 hunts since this original post and have done some testing. The beach I was previously going to and spent a solid 2 weeks at had a very high concentration of bottle caps. I have visited 3 beaches since then and there are far fewer bottle caps on average. I have learned how to distinguish bottle caps nearly all the time using the following methods:

Dry Sand or Land:
1. Run Park 2 and multi frequency for best gold capabilities.
2. Set discrimination on whatever you want. Bottle caps can read from 4-18 so it doesn't matter what your descrim is.
3. Once you get park 2 set up how you want it set the custom user setting (button on right side of machine) to the exact same thing except set the frequency to 40k. This way you can switch from multi freq to 40k quickly.
4. When you get a good signal that may be a bottle cap switch it over to custom user (which is essentially just bumping it to 40k frequency) and see if the number jumps around. The number won't jump on multi but will increase in 40k if it's a bottle cap. If it isn't a bottle cap (non ferrous) then it will stay the same number when you switch to 40k.

Wet Sand:
1. Run Beach 1 all metal mode. You can't switch frequency in beach modes so you're stuck in multi.
2. When you get a signal back the coil toward you until you start to lose the signal.
3. Once the coil starts to exit the signal you will keep swinging left and right as you back away. The signal will turn into either a iron signal like -5 or completely disappear. Here is what the numbers and tones mean:
Signal completely disappears = Non Ferrous good target
Signal repeats in the negative tone range and is a short precise signal = Ferrous bottle cap
Signal repeats in the negative tone range but is a longer smoother signal as if it is a big target = Non Ferrous Good target

Still need to investigate this more but those are my initial observations. Was able to get 3 golds in the last 3 hunts at a beach that I was told was not very good. I guess it's all in the machine =)

 

[Mike K (Ohio)]

Great job Minelab for listening to your product users complaints and making a great unit!

Well if they were listening to the thousands of people that owned a CTX that paid $2500 for their detectors and those people figured that software upgrades were possible from the advertising but hardly ever came!!!! Who really won??????? Not the people that shelled out big $$$$ for what some call Minelabs Flag ship! So they are suppose to feel good about having to shell out another $800 for something that might have been a software upgrade to there machine!

 

[laplander]

Let us know how that b.c. cap check works out.---I for one would be very interested in hearing about it.---------Del

The problem with bottle caps is mostly with salty wet sand on the beach. Park modes you can just switch from multi frequency to 40k and it will tell you if it's a bottle cap or not. Problem with salt water and wet sand is that you need to run beach mode to get stability but you can't switch from multi to single in beach mode. Went out last night and think I figured out a way to distinguish bottle caps nearly 100% of the time. Going to investigate that more today and will post here if it is reliable.

Have been able to go out 3 hunts since this original post and have done some testing. The beach I was previously going to and spent a solid 2 weeks at had a very high concentration of bottle caps. I have visited 3 beaches since then and there are far fewer bottle caps on average. I have learned how to distinguish bottle caps nearly all the time using the following methods:

Dry Sand or Land:
1. Run Park 2 and multi frequency for best gold capabilities.
2. Set discrimination on whatever you want. Bottle caps can read from 4-18 so it doesn't matter what your descrim is.
3. Once you get park 2 set up how you want it set the custom user setting (button on right side of machine) to the exact same thing except set the frequency to 40k. This way you can switch from multi freq to 40k quickly.
Great observations Cutaplug, I don't hunt salt so I am not much help. A little time in on the machine has paid of well!!
HH Jeff
4. When you get a good signal that may be a bottle cap switch it over to custom user (which is essentially just bumping it to 40k frequency) and see if the number jumps around. The number won't jump on multi but will increase in 40k if it's a bottle cap. If it isn't a bottle cap (non ferrous) then it will stay the same number when you switch to 40k.

Wet Sand:
1. Run Beach 1 all metal mode. You can't switch frequency in beach modes so you're stuck in multi.
2. When you get a signal back the coil toward you until you start to lose the signal.
3. Once the coil starts to exit the signal you will keep swinging left and right as you back away. The signal will turn into either a iron signal like -5 or completely disappear. Here is what the numbers and tones mean:
Signal completely disappears = Non Ferrous good target
Signal repeats in the negative tone range and is a short precise signal = Ferrous bottle cap
Signal repeats in the negative tone range but is a longer smoother signal as if it is a big target = Non Ferrous Good target

Still need to investigate this more but those are my initial observations. Was able to get 3 golds in the last 3 hunts at a beach that I was told was not very good. I guess it's all in the machine =)

 

[Mark kus]

Let us know how that b.c. cap check works out.---I for one would be very interested in hearing about it.---------Del

The problem with bottle caps is mostly with salty wet sand on the beach. Park modes you can just switch from multi frequency to 40k and it will tell you if it's a bottle cap or not. Problem with salt water and wet sand is that you need to run beach mode to get stability but you can't switch from multi to single in beach mode. Went out last night and think I figured out a way to distinguish bottle caps nearly 100% of the time. Going to investigate that more today and will post here if it is reliable.

Have been able to go out 3 hunts since this original post and have done some testing. The beach I was previously going to and spent a solid 2 weeks at had a very high concentration of bottle caps. I have visited 3 beaches since then and there are far fewer bottle caps on average. I have learned how to distinguish bottle caps nearly all the time using the following methods:

Dry Sand or Land:
1. Run Park 2 and multi frequency for best gold capabilities.
2. Set discrimination on whatever you want. Bottle caps can read from 4-18 so it doesn't matter what your descrim is.
3. Once you get park 2 set up how you want it set the custom user setting (button on right side of machine) to the exact same thing except set the frequency to 40k. This way you can switch from multi freq to 40k quickly.
4. When you get a good signal that may be a bottle cap switch it over to custom user (which is essentially just bumping it to 40k frequency) and see if the number jumps around. The number won't jump on multi but will increase in 40k if it's a bottle cap. If it isn't a bottle cap (non ferrous) then it will stay the same number when you switch to 40k.

Wet Sand:
1. Run Beach 1 all metal mode. You can't switch frequency in beach modes so you're stuck in multi.
2. When you get a signal back the coil toward you until you start to lose the signal.
3. Once the coil starts to exit the signal you will keep swinging left and right as you back away. The signal will turn into either a iron signal like -5 or completely disappear. Here is what the numbers and tones mean:
Signal completely disappears = Non Ferrous good target
Signal repeats in the negative tone range and is a short precise signal = Ferrous bottle cap
Signal repeats in the negative tone range but is a longer smoother signal as if it is a big target = Non Ferrous Good target

Still need to investigate this more but those are my initial observations. Was able to get 3 golds in the last 3 hunts at a beach that I was told was not very good. I guess it's all in the machine =)

So do you think the Equinox is a piece of junk and can’t find gold? In all seriousness it probably is better than their $2500.00 CTX at finding gold my friend has thousands of hours on a CTX and his gold finds are way better and more with his nox it made me a believer
Time spent with this machine should convince you and a whole lot of other new users that it finds well.
HH
Mark

 

[RichW]

I'm afraid I'd wear out my user profile button.

 

[Joe Black]

Personally, I believe Minelab has just moved on now from the CTX and focused on creating the Equinox. Maybe they decided to revamp a CTX and introduce the new Equinox in place?they knew they couldn’t fix the issues that were present on CTX. The Weedwacker design (weight) , sun glare, & overall design? The machine works good though. Again, I believe they took on most of users complaints and made the Equinox (CTX) offspring? You are right though about CTX users not being the winners in the long run! I’m glad I didn’t buy one either, not because it wasn’t any good. I didn’t care for design, mainly because weight! I wouldn’t be able to hunt as long either (ware on my body) forcing me to visit therapy clinic! Now, I have a machine that answers my prayers (Equinox)! It’s a great machine ,especially on the beach! It’s darn user friendly all around! This is just my personal opinion! I believe it’s a good value. It works! I’m sure many CTX owners are probably angry with no recent software updates but, some have moved on! YouTube shows some of the veteran CTX users have made the switch. Probably because of the ease of use?