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Equinox 600 vs ACE 400?

dohcsvt

Junior Member
Joined
Feb 10, 2019
Messages
52
I know from all the threads and videos I have seen this is probably a stupid question, but I have to ask. I have been using an Ace 400 for awhile and decided an upgrade was in order. After much soul searching and research I decided to jump from Garrett to Minelab. My equinox will be arriving this week and I am just curious what to expect?

My little Ace is a real coin magnet. She finds all kinds of stuff. She also does REALLY well with minie balls and other relics. I am not sure what to expect from the 600 but I almost feel like it should be some sort of religious experience the way some people talk about them... I hope it is.

Will I be able to avoid small chunks of aluminum and pull tabs? Will I actually be able to come home with nickels, without a pouch full of trash? I just hope that I am happy with this kind of expenditure of my hard earned cash. I am greatly appreciative of any feed back/input. Have a great day!
 
My first detector was an ACE 350 and I upgraded to a Minelab Sovereign GT. The Garret to Minelab jump is definitely worth it. I cannot speak to the Equinox specifically, but Minelab overall has better technology with the multifrequencies. When I upgraded, I was able to go deeper and avoid more tin foil type of trash. Also you will be able to make a killing at the beach!


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I know from all the threads and videos I have seen this is probably a stupid question, but I have to ask. I have been using an Ace 400 for awhile and decided an upgrade was in order. After much soul searching and research I decided to jump from Garrett to Minelab. My equinox will be arriving this week and I am just curious what to expect?

My little Ace is a real coin magnet. She finds all kinds of stuff. She also does REALLY well with minie balls and other relics. I am not sure what to expect from the 600 but I almost feel like it should be some sort of religious experience the way some people talk about them... I hope it is.

Will I be able to avoid small chunks of aluminum and pull tabs? Will I actually be able to come home with nickels, without a pouch full of trash? I just hope that I am happy with this kind of expenditure of my hard earned cash. I am greatly appreciative of any feed back/input. Have a great day!

How long have you used your 400? What is your end goal? If the ACE400 is REALLY working well for you, then why change at this point?

If you are looking for nickels and gold, you will still have a pouch with a lot of aluminum in it.

The Equinox is a great machine. It takes experience and lots of practice, but it is a much better machine than the ACE series. I hope you have the patience to make it work for you.
If you are expecting a Religous experience? I'm afraid you will feel you wasted your money.

Don't get discouraged. Give your new equinox a lot of practice. I love my equinox. It isn't magical right out of the box, but you will be successful once you learn the language. Keep us posted on your progress!!
 
Hi,
I went from the AT Pro and AT Gold to the Equinox. I have learned a lot about metal detecting since the change over. I thought I already knew plenty but in my opinion the Nox does not do things the same as other detectors. So, I started in Park 1, sensitivity about 18,
always noise canceled and ground balanced (I have very mineralized dirt with lots of iron) and used 5 tones max. I did that for the first month (about 50 hours). I started out digging everything including plenty of trash, bottle crown caps, screw caps, aluminum can slaw, and pull tabs. I dug plenty of coins too. Copper pennies, clad dimes and quarters along with silver coins are a slam dunk from 24 to 31, if you size the target and raise your coil. If you still have a clear beep at 6" or so as you raise the coil it is either a surface high conductor coin, large deep iron or most of an aluminum can. Nickels hit hard at 12 to 13 in my dirt but so do the most modern pull tabs which hit 12-13-14.

Really practice with the onboard pinpointer. It takes some getting used to. Learn how to use the Horseshoe button and what it is for. Learn to trust the depth meter for coin sized objects=each depth triangle is about 2" or so. Also, read the online manual a lot, study the Minelab Essential Information over on Detector Prospector site and don't watch too many YouTube videos unless they are directly from Minelab. Many of those YouTubers have NO CLUE.......... and are just as inexperienced as you and me with this new technology and are shooting the breeze..........

The stock wired headphones are really junk and will break easily. Invest in some ATPX low latency bluetooth headphones or buds.

have fun...

Jeff
 
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For some unknown reason the minelab nox only uses 50 vid's. This is the same as on my 705's. On my other machines with 100 vid's I have a lot less tabs to nickels. When it comes to war nickels the vid's will be higher so to find them you're going to have to dig the tabs.. Maybe someone can help you with nox tips to better your tab to nickel ratio. Congrats on your new machine.
 
Every MD I own have + and - about them that my others don't have. I hunt always with 2 MD and use them too. I find alot more then just using one.

GLHH

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My end goal is deeper capability and better segregation between two close targets. As well as to STOP drunk shopping...🤣

From the videos I have watched the tones on the new machine are REALLY going to try my patience as they sound really annoying to me, but I can usually learn to tolerate most things. Thanks for your feedback. Most of the info is reinforcing what I already suspected.
 
Will I actually be able to come home with nickels, without a pouch full of trash?

Nox 800. Same property, three different hunts with all trash shown, including trash that was in the same hole as the target and not its own false positive.

Sometimes I focus on nickels, such as I did here, but will still dig a a good high conducting coin signal. That's why you see a few old copper pennies, dimes, and quarters. If I could get myself to ignore those signals I would have had a little bit less trash than what is shown. But, I also would have missed that Mercury dime.

With the Nox 800 I have a custom audio setting for really making nickel signals stand out that isn't possible on the 600, but something similar is possible on the 600. Also, even when I'm not looking for them specifically and don't have a special program set up, I still dig nickels more often than I did with other detectors.


The nox doesn't do all of the work. This property has hundreds (thousands?) of beaver tail pull tab signals for every nickel. In some areas there are five or more probable pull tab signals in every sweep. You have to pay close attention to subtle differences in the audio/visual feedback. An old beaver tail pull tab with just the beaver tail part sitting flat in the ground, or the beaver tail bent back into the ring, are difficult to impossible to tell from a nickel. Modern pull tabs are easier to ignore.
 

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That nickel pile is very impressive! I have some highhopes for this machine. We will see.
 
How long have you used your 400? What is your end goal? If the ACE400 is REALLY working well for you, then why change at this point?

If you are looking for nickels and gold, you will still have a pouch with a lot of aluminum in it.

The Equinox is a great machine. It takes experience and lots of practice, but it is a much better machine than the ACE series. I hope you have the patience to make it work for you.
If you are expecting a Religous experience? I'm afraid you will feel you wasted your money.

Don't get discouraged. Give your new equinox a lot of practice. I love my equinox. It isn't magical right out of the box, but you will be successful once you learn the language. Keep us posted on your progress!!

Agree with this post. Went from AT pro to the 800 and had to spend a lot of time learning. Don't try to learn all the features at once. Just hunt in the appropriate standard mode for your type of hunting. Learn the more advances stuff later after 50 - 100 hours. Keep in mind the nox will find even more small bits of metal. Yeah, I know just what you wanted to hear.
Don't give up on the Nox.
 
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