OK where's the Equinox stand with the gold issue?

[Southwind]

I have yet to see any videos showing that the Equinox does any better on small odd shaped gold than the E-Trac/CTX which is crap. I would think being able to set it at a single frequency of 40 kHz (800 model) it SHOULD do very well, but I have yet to see anyone comment of the Equinox's gold ability, or lack there of.

 

[GONEHUNTIN]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DhNAcpBMcbY

I believe they are testing that in this video not to for sure!

 

[bulletman]

40 kHz certainly has the capability for some very small nuggets. Doubt it will compete with Minelabs upper end machines like the GPX series.

Bulletman
Shalom

 

[Southwind]

I'd just be happy for it to compete with the AT Pro or DFX. I have to keep two detectors, the E-Trac and AT Pro because the E-Trac, which an excellent deep coin machine, is a terrible tot lot detector. I'd love to find that one detector that does well at both.

 

[Tyber0z]

I have yet to see any videos showing....

Yeah, because the machine was announced a little over two weeks ago, it's still in prototype, the release date hasn't been announced, and there's not a lot of information that's been released, let alone videos. Every day we see threads like this, and I can't tell what the point is.

 

[Greg (E.Tn)]

Wish I spoke French.

The vid maybe answered a few questions, but methinks. It will quite some time before we get definitive answers.

I did like seeing how the detector handled the big iron object without even a peep of a false, while still being sensitive to the small gold.

At least we know now the detectors are ibeing used-- I noticed the bottom of the coil was pretty well worn.

Hopefully soon, some people in the states will get their hands on them and we will start seeing some testing in our soil conditions.

 

[Jason in Enid]

I have yet to see any videos showing....

Yeah, because the machine was announced a little over two weeks ago, it's still in prototype, the release date hasn't been announced, and there's not a lot of information that's been released, let alone videos. Every day we see threads like this, and I can't tell what the point is.

same people keep asking the same questions which they know cant be answered. I have to wonder what the motivation behind them are.

 

[cobill]

Not a total answer to the gold issue, but found this on T'net forum from Treasure Hunter:

"I had a chance to play with Equinox 800 today and I can happily vouch for the fact it does find small gold chains using 20 kHz freq, It had no problem seeing a thin 14k herring bone chain. I didn't bury chain real deep, only about 4 inches but it was seeing it with no problem and chain was stretched out straight, not in a ball, tiny clasp and no charm on it. It won't replace the 3030 or Etrac but it will certainly have a place in my arsenal.

It is also like the excal in that it sees a gold ring with a piece of iron rebar inside ring if you turn 90° and rescan after the null in desc mode, the iron can also be discriminated out too and see a coin or gold ring under the iron. Earphones on 800 are nice and very comfortable.

I only played with it about 30 mins and wasn't able to take to the beach, maybe next time".

Bill

 

[Greg (E.Tn)]

n/t

 

[UtahRich]

"I had a chance to play with Equinox 800 today and I can happily vouch for the fact it does find small gold chains using 20 kHz freq, It had no problem seeing a thin 14k herring bone chain. I didn't bury chain real deep, only about 4 inches but it was seeing it with no problem and chain was stretched out straight, not in a ball, tiny clasp and no charm on it. It won't replace the 3030 or Etrac but it will certainly have a place in my arsenal.

It is also like the excal in that it sees a gold ring with a piece of iron rebar inside ring if you turn 90° and rescan after the null in desc mode, the iron can also be discriminated out too and see a coin or gold ring under the iron. Earphones on 800 are nice and very comfortable.".

Bill

Good news on the thin gold chains. As with newly announced detectors, information comes out a little at a time. Keeps the anticipation up. I guess the Pause between announcement and availability gives those interested time to save their 'spare' change.

Rich (Utah)

 

[Southwind]

same people keep asking the same questions which they know cant be answered. I have to wonder what the motivation behind them are.

It's a real simple question Jason. No motive other than wanting to know if it is better on gold than the E-Trac/CTX. Clear enough for you now or do I need to simplify it more?

Can't be answered? Looks like someone did a pretty good job just below your post.

We all know that small odd shaped gold, I.E. Chains/Pendents, are not a strong point of the E-Trac/CTX. In fact, that I why I still have to own two detectors.

 

[MI-AuAg]

I have yet to see any videos showing....

Yeah, because the machine was announced a little over two weeks ago, it's still in prototype, the release date hasn't been announced, and there's not a lot of information that's been released, let alone videos. Every day we see threads like this, and I can't tell what the point is.

same people keep asking the same questions which they know cant be answered. I have to wonder what the motivation behind them are.

The Equinox was officially "announced" about two months ago, not two weeks, e.g., the parachute promo. The name wasn't "officially" released at that point, but the "leaks" gave everyone a good idea.

As to the audacity, and motivation of the people asking the questions. I don't see any grand conspiracy, nor unreasonable questions, just a lot of people who have seen some bold promotional releases, with little information, or validation of the claims within those promos. When you put a product out there with such fanfare, yet little information, common sense dictates that anyone with interest will have a desire for more information. There are of course, those who have already declared this new offering the best thing since sliced bread, with virtually no validating information, their minds are clearly made up, their prerogative to do so, I have no cause to question their motives. It may turn out to be just that, that remains to be seen? It seems to have good possibilities, yet nothing validated.

To spell it out: Question (definitions) 1. an asking; inquiry 2. something asked 3. doubt; uncertainty 4. a matter open to discussion Those things pretty much spell out the motivations of the audatious rabble, with the unherd of nerve to ask questions! No conspiracy, no nefarious motives, just interested people, very possibly frustrated by a lack of information.

Perhaps, the same people asking the same questions, and yet, the same people suggesting no one should ask questions or seek further information. This Equinox Forum, was opened well before the machine was put in the hands of the general detecting public, folks with no vested interest, other than how it will work for them. Since no information has been forthcoming to this point, only questions will remain, or declarations by the faithful as to it's (expected) wonders, as the case may be. That's what forums are about, don't try to silence the people with legitimate questions, they have just as much right to ask, as the folks who make declarations of it's wonders.

It's very clear the Equinox is in the hands of a lot of people. The dribble of videos that make suggestive, yet unclear demonstrations of what it may do, are all part of the promotional game. It's like throwing blood into shark infested waters. The sharks are there, circling, waiting, but unable to sink their teeth into that hunk of meat. There's plenty of answers right now, to the many legitimate questions being made. Minelab is simply choosing to hold back as part of their orchestrated promo, and eventual release of this one.

 

[Tyber0z]

The user who started the thread didn't just ask a question - they stated they had "yet to see a video", as if this is unusual. I suggested that the lack of videos was due to the fact that the machine has only recently been announced. And an announcement of an impending announcement is NOT an announcement of the machine itself, by the way. I agree that people are asking a lot of questions way too prematurely; manuals, holiday deals, performance in x conditions, frequencies, etc, and I push back on these posts because seemingly the majority of threads in here are either suggestive of the notion that information is being withheld or at the very least, they encourage a discussion focused less on the machine and more on the flow of information and the behavior of Minelab. Need further proof of this phenomenon? See the thread in this forum about the Kellyco ML repair announcement; the user doesn't just ask or theorize about the meaning of the announcement, but instead end their post mid sentence which invites users to finish the thought. Reasonable people like you or I would follow up and find out that Minelab announced their own NA service center, but some of the conspiracy-minded folks might jump at the opportunity to conjure up another story about how ML is up to "something fishy". Call ME paranoid, but I think many of active users in here are just on this board to incite suspicion. I'd love to be proven wrong and see nothing but posts written without highlighting user bias, but I doubt that will happen.

To answer the OP's question - the Nox has 20 and 40 kHz. Might do well on small gold. There was also a Detectival video that showed the Nox hitting on a very small nugget in the test area, so despite you "having yet" to see such a video, one such video does exist. Let's wait and see how it performs when more testers release their findings.

 

[Charles (Upstate NY)]

If this helps I recently ran some tests on small gold using a 54 kHz coil, I think the Equinox at 40 kHz might do okay. The 54 kHz coil crushed my Explorer Se Pro coil on small gold, the Explorer couldn't get a signal on any of these gold targets even if you rubbed them on the coil. Here's how the 54 kHz coil did and the machine settings were not maxed out, I wasn't even using the machines gold mode.

 

[dewcon4414]

Charles..... and that appears to be raw gold. Mixed gold may well be better. Im still waiting on the water report ..... im sure its going to be a good all around machine, but someone needs to get it wet in auzzie land.

 

[Charles (Upstate NY)]

Charles..... and that appears to be raw gold. Mixed gold may well be better. Im still waiting on the water report ..... im sure its going to be a good all around machine, but someone needs to get it wet in auzzie land.

The raw gold bits (dredged in Idaho) has some impurities but is probably more conductive than alloyed gold. Pure gold is highly conductive its only when gold is alloyed with another metal that it loses its conductivity. The dredged gold is probably 90% gold or higher, 14k gold like that second target with the fake diamond in the center is only 58.3% gold.

 

[Jason in Enid]

Charles..... and that appears to be raw gold. Mixed gold may well be better. Im still waiting on the water report ..... im sure its going to be a good all around machine, but someone needs to get it wet in auzzie land.

The raw gold bits (dredged in Idaho) has some impurities but is probably more conductive than alloyed gold. Pure gold is highly conductive its only when gold is alloyed with another metal that it loses its conductivity. The dredged gold is probably 90% gold or higher, 14k gold like that second target with the fake diamond in the center is only 58.3% gold.

but don't confuse conductivity to the flow of electrons and the induction of a current from an EM field (what we as detectorists use). Gold is great for electrical conductance but bad for inductance. Copper and silver are both good for conductance but great for inductance. When gold coins and jewelry are alloyed to make them more durable, they are typically mixed with copper and silver. This will make them MORE responsive to our detector, not less.

 

[sgoss66]

Jason -- I believe you are correct -- gold is a "low conductor" with respect to our machines, because it does not produce a large EM field when "lit up" by detector transmitted energy. Nuggets are often even poorer conductors than a ring or ball of gold of the same mass and karat/purity would be, as I understand it -- because the irregular shape and possible "nooks and crannies" in the nugget result in even worse eddy current generation than would otherwise be the case if it were solid and consistently shaped. Adding copper to gold (as in a 14K ring) does make the ring MORE visible by a detector; two equal rings in terms of size/shape -- one 14 and one 24k -- the 14k would read "higher" than the 24k. This is my understanding.

Steve

 

[Charles (Upstate NY)]

Charles..... and that appears to be raw gold. Mixed gold may well be better. Im still waiting on the water report ..... im sure its going to be a good all around machine, but someone needs to get it wet in auzzie land.

The raw gold bits (dredged in Idaho) has some impurities but is probably more conductive than alloyed gold. Pure gold is highly conductive its only when gold is alloyed with another metal that it loses its conductivity. The dredged gold is probably 90% gold or higher, 14k gold like that second target with the fake diamond in the center is only 58.3% gold.

but don't confuse conductivity to the flow of electrons and the induction of a current from an EM field (what we as detectorists use). Gold is great for electrical conductance but bad for inductance. Copper and silver are both good for conductance but great for inductance. When gold coins and jewelry are alloyed to make them more durable, they are typically mixed with copper and silver. This will make them MORE responsive to our detector, not less.

Interesting, its not that often someone discombobulates my thinking. I never really thought about varying inductance qualities of metals. Please continue. I considered building a PI machine years ago, hanging out on the popular PI forum I learned the induced signal of various metals and soil decay at different rates. And that you can tune a PI for low conductive targets, but lose depth on high conductive targets as a side effect. Or tune them for high conductive targets, but then lose depth on the low conductive targets. Perhaps its more accurate to replace inductance for conductance. Very interesting good post.

I had always thought of inductance as a property of target size, shape, target orientation to the coil e.g. surface area the coils field lines strike and that's absolutely a huge factor. But you gave me something new to think about bravo!

 

[Jason in Enid]

Yeah, its pretty interesting and complex topic. The ability to induce a current and then read it before it decays is at the heart of this game. PIs have to be tuned for the environment and the target. The one set best for gold sensitivity are unusable in salt water. The ones tuned for salt beach still dont work for deep underwater use. By the time they are tuned for deep saltwater, they are almost useless for jewelry and far better for looking for big iron.

Another thing to think about is target orientation and shape. When you induce a current, the item acts like an antenna. The EM field doesnt radiate in all directions like a globe. Nail shaped objects shoot that field off the tips, which is why you get that perfect false, the hole is empty but there is a nail off to the side, pointed in to the center and often angled up slightly. Angled coins to the same. And angled coin sends the main response off the flat face. So an angled coin reads to the side of its true position. A straight on-edge coin will give you a double-blip off either side.