My Initial Thoughts on the Equinox 800. BEWARE

Okay, what about when you find a coin with Nox and the Etrac sputters.
What then?
It will happen given time. Might as well brace yourself.

I hope it will. That is what we are trying to achieve. Maybe it will, and maybe it won't here. I am keeping an open mind.

If it does ever work better than my E-Trac then great. I can't swing my E-Trac that long. I am disabled. Most of my disability is in my neck and right arm.

I really am hoping it will work on smaller gold without me digging too much trash in the water.

Time will tell. I am not tossing it out yet!
 
Hello,
What you are reporting is strange.
Even at the default sens setting of 20 in park 1 and carrying a cell phone the machine should not be chatty after a noise cancel.
I don't have an issue with carrying my cell and ramping sens to 25. At 25 it will get a little chatty, but nothing you cant handle. The "falsing" is a different issue. I haven't seen this. May be an issue with the recovery speed or the iron bias setting, how fast are you swinging?, are you in heavy trash or iron?
The bottle caps coming in 20-24 is normal, that's where they hit. It is also where zincs and IHP's come in. Wheats USUALLY hit at 24 and up. I dug four this afternoon and all were above 24.
A copper Canadian should be above 22.
You might try a factory reset and try again.
HH!
 
Factory reset is always a good starting point when in doubt. After noise canceling and ground balancing (you need to do again if you change modes), I have usually had fewer EMI or chattering problems with my Eq 600 than I'm used to with an Etrac.

The Equinox won't replace my Etrac, but it isn't designed to compete at that level in terms of accurate FE/CO and depth. Think Safari, instead. However, in some sites so filled with rusty nails and other iron that the Etrac is practically paralyzed, the Equinox has found me more coins, including two silvers. Even if the Equinox turns out to be a one-trick pony, I like this particular trick :)

Not a scientific test at all and also somewhat apples to oranges, but a few days ago, I used both machines at the same time (only time I've done that so far--too much to lug). This place has so many rusty nails and other iron trash, it's difficult to find a patch clear enough to ground balance. The Etrac was wearing a 6x8 SEF. At each strong dig signal with the Equinox, I went over the target with the Etrac. Not a lot of time as was getting dark, but I found several clad coins and a copper penny. Can't remember which was which, but on one, the Etrac saw it fine; on another, not at all; and on the other two, the Etrac gave dig tones only sometimes, with careful maneuvering--not sure I would have noticed these without already knowing they were there. None particularly deep, just a lot of junk around them.
 
I came very close to ordering one from Kellyco but had 2nd thoughts about paying $899 for it and waiting for months to get it. I was in the army a long time ago and may be able to get the discount if I get my discharge papers but I am thinking that in a 6 months or a year the price will be much lower and we will have more realistic knowledge of what the Equinox can do.

I use an AT Pro now and find a lot of good stuff with it but I think the Equinox might find some stuff that I have missed but I need to wait and see. I just found 15 old coins in a small junky I have hunted at least 10 times so the AT Pro still produces. Would the Equinox find more, the same or different finds? I am curious to find out but I will save my money for a while.

I want to be loyal to Garrett because the have great service and have helped me a lot but I am curious to see how other machines compare.
 
You can get your discharge paperwork online now. Shoot me a message if you’d like the links.

I came very close to ordering one from Kellyco but had 2nd thoughts about paying $899 for it and waiting for months to get it. I was in the army a long time ago and may be able to get the discount if I get my discharge papers but I am thinking that in a 6 months or a year the price will be much lower and we will have more realistic knowledge of what the Equinox can do.

I use an AT Pro now and find a lot of good stuff with it but I think the Equinox might find some stuff that I have missed but I need to wait and see. I just found 15 old coins in a small junky I have hunted at least 10 times so the AT Pro still produces. Would the Equinox find more, the same or different finds? I am curious to find out but I will save my money for a while.

I want to be loyal to Garrett because the have great service and have helped me a lot but I am curious to see how other machines compare.
 
You can get your discharge paperwork online now. Shoot me a message if you’d like the links.

Thanks but I have some papers and the link. Also, I am not sure what kind of discharge it was. It was a medical discharge when I was still in training that disqualified me from rejoining for 3 years. I have never tried to get any benefits from it so I don't know if I want to go through the effort to get a metal detector discount.
 
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I came very close to ordering one from Kellyco but had 2nd thoughts about paying $899 for it and waiting for months to get it. I was in the army a long time ago and may be able to get the discount if I get my discharge papers but I am thinking that in a 6 months or a year the price will be much lower and we will have more realistic knowledge of what the Equinox can do.

I use an AT Pro now and find a lot of good stuff with it but I think the Equinox might find some stuff that I have missed but I need to wait and see. I just found 15 old coins in a small junky I have hunted at least 10 times so the AT Pro still produces. Would the Equinox find more, the same or different finds? I am curious to find out but I will save my money for a while.

I want to be loyal to Garrett because the have great service and have helped me a lot but I am curious to see how other machines compare.
I can all but gaurantee it will find coins your AT Pro missed. I used the AT Pro for three years then picked up an etrac and hit the same exact spots my at pro had produced and found a lot more silver and wheats. I then took my Nox 800 to the same parks and just found more silver and wheats. I will not attribute every single coin solely to the nox being better. I have found that every detector responds to certain targets in certain soil and trash scenarios differently so sometimes it is just right place at right time with right detector. Kind of like looking at a puzzle you have been working on forever with a fresh set of eyes as they say.

But I know for a fact the silver roosevelt dime I found last trip was missed by both my atpro and etrac along with every other detector that has passed over it. It was about six inches from the sidewalk at a small park. It was sitting right next to a nail at 2-3 inches down. Literally any detector would have found it at that depth if it was not masked. And I have personally walked the edges of that sidewalk many times. I am sure many other seasoned detectorists have as well. As we all know old sidewalks are prime area for high traffic and coin drops. That was a turning point with me and my Nox 800. I had already found several wheats and a barber dime at 8+ inches so I knew depth wasn't an issue.

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I can all but gaurantee it will find coins your AT Pro missed. I used the AT Pro for three years then picked up an etrac and hit the same exact spots my at pro had produced and found a lot more silver and wheats. I then took my Nox 800 to the same parks and just found more silver and wheats. I will not attribute every single coin solely to the nox being better. I have found that every detector responds to certain targets in certain soil and trash scenarios differently so sometimes it is just right place at right time with right detector. Kind of like looking at a puzzle you have been working on forever with a fresh set of eyes as they say.

But I know for a fact the silver roosevelt dime I found last trip was missed by both my atpro and etrac along with every other detector that has passed over it. It was about six inches from the sidewalk at a small park. It was sitting right next to a nail at 2-3 inches down. Literally any detector would have found it at that depth if it was not masked. And I have personally walked the edges of that sidewalk many times. I am sure many other seasoned detectorists have as well. As we all know old sidewalks are prime area for high traffic and coin drops. That was a turning point with me and my Nox 800. I had already found several wheats and a barber dime at 8+ inches so I knew depth wasn't an issue.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

I know you believe what you wrote and I have absolutely no reason to doubt you. I have had the same experience with the CZ-21 and the Tiger Shark. I hammered a place in the Detroit river where I found over 300 silver coins and 53 pieces of gold with my CZ-21. I took my Tiger Shark out there and I found more silver and more gold.

But we all know when you swing if you don't overlap your swings you will miss a target. You could miss one by half an inch because you didn't overlap your swing just once. That is why I take claims of finding things that other machines have missed with a grain of salt.

I proved beyond a shadow of a doubt the E-Trac was superior in this soil to the At-Pro. My friend and I hunted side by side and checked deep coins before I dug. Now he has an E-Trac and sold his At-Pro. As stated, the Canadian penny was a disappointment. Sure it was just one coin. However, the Equinox told me it was junk and the E-Trac was hitting it solid.

I am not dissing the Equinox. I will test it again and again. We will be going back to that park next week. I will be testing it while diving hopefully within a month. Wading for sure against a CZ-21 and a Tiger Shark. THOSE tests will be the deciding factor on if I keep the machine or sell it.

Strange I might have to do a factory reset and I have never changed any settings but I will try that. I will change the ground balance also. I did what the quick start guide told me to do and posted my results. Period.
 
Didn't read through all the comments. But this is gonna be more a game changer at the beach. Shallow targets can give you more than one hit on the same target. Not sure about gold but I know the Nox loves silver:shock: Will say the worse flaw with the Nox is the lower cam lock fails quickly on the mid shaft. You get play in a lower rod being a beach hunter the sand peels the coating off the inner mid shaft, sand wears the lower rod down and the shaft will snap from wear and the aluminum will start corroding quick in salt. Will say I have two carbon fiber rods coming to mod the shaft which is easy. I know mine is a dream water hunting in saltwater. Makes an at pro look like a poser:shock: Cant submerse it since we don't have waterproof headphones yet. But in the wash mine is a beast. And I can almost stick the coil to a Excalibur turned on or a DFX turned on and don't hear a peep of chatter. Again an amazing feat. The Excalibur can hear the nox though:lol:
 
Larry, I have headphones ordered. I will have them in plenty of time before the water warms up here. I am hoping to wade with it where all the party boats play which is here:



I find a ton of bottle tops with the CZ-21. However I do not find completely rusted ones like I was finding in the park. So I know I will be digging a lot of them here along with shot gun shell bases.

This should be interesting.
 
Larry, I have headphones ordered. I will have them in plenty of time before the water warms up here. I am hoping to wade with it where all the party boats play which is here:



I find a ton of bottle tops with the CZ-21. However I do not find completely rusted ones like I was finding in the park. So I know I will be digging a lot of them here along with shot gun shell bases.

This should be interesting.

Cant speak for fresh water. But in salt you need to dig the hits that sound good and also drop to -5 in iron. Fresh water this may be a pain in the rear. But this is what silver it can find down deep. Even the chain. All targets are from the water and we are sanded in.
 

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We do not have deep sand or sanded in conditions here. The sand is sometimes 8 - 10 inches thick and then you have clay. You can use a backhoe on your beaches and still not get down to hardpan!

Nothing gets by my CZ-21 or Tiger Shark unless it is masked or I miss getting my coil over it.

On the west side of the state where Mudpuppy, Irons, Sturrat and others are is a different story. They get sanded in.

I get mucked in but that is deeper than I can take the Nox in most places. I will be able to dive with it in the Detroit river though. With all the iron in there I will see what it can find that my CZ-20's or Tiger Sharks can't because of masking.

I still won't hold my breath though. I can pull gold and silver out of nails and cans with both those machines.
 
Kidlester

He already admitted he did not Ground Balance the machine , with his experience , he should have before making a pre- mature Equinox judgement's, , a rookie mistake , which only question's his judgement on future Equinox thought's , i give him a break, he's old school , his faith is within OLD technology :D , even i do the same thing, but this machine , i have only a few complaint's, # 1 the headphone jack should have been the same as the CTX3030- so i could have used my CTX3030- waterproof headphones with the Equinox 800- while ML drags there toes, getting accessories out, why different who knows , but my gut feeling , so they could profit more, it's a shame people have to scramble now finding other Head Phone- sources , and most likely see those's OUT-before ML Waterproof phones come out :roll: #2 Charging equipment , wires to short, the CP connections would have been fine with a 3 way adapter -included :roll: , not having to fire up the cp, or use a alternate power source- to charge all 3 items. Other than that, i really like the machine so far, happy hunting, Earl
 
Especially if you are an underground sleeping aluminum twist top. I don't care if you are sleeping peacefully, the Equinox 800 is going to find you.

I know where they ring up on the E-Trac. They are 12-38 - 12-41 and the cursor is against the left side of the open area. On the Equinox they ring up 20 - 24.

I didn't get my coil over a single coin, EXCEPT once. Kevin got a 12-41 on his E-trac and called me over. I got a jumpy signal at 10, 12 and as high as 17. I told him trash. He dug it and it was a 1963 Canadian penny. I was disappointed in that, but I can't judge with just one coin.

Anyway, I knew that park has been hammered for years but we still coax coins out of it.

My observation. I was in park 1 mode. I couldn't believe how chatty it was. Chatty is an understatement. The machine is falsing constantly. I played with the settings a little but not a lot. I had read some comments on it and I did NOT have my cell phone with me nor did I take the headphones.

20 - 24 are aluminum bottle tops, 17 - 18 are pull tabs and 4 - 6 are rusted bottle tops.

This is my observation in this park. The oldest coin I ever pulled out of it was a 1825 large cent.

I do like how light the machine is. I am hoping I can quiet it down after I read more on it.

I am really hoping that wheat cents also do not fall into the 20 - 24 range.



I was out there for 4 hours and had enough. 33° out and cold.


In Finland we have similar screw tops but they came from hard liquor bottles over the last 70 years or so :laughing:

And the sad thing is that over last 500+ years this country has been ruled by several nations and there are so many different coins to be found that one simply cannot pass these screw tops or you could miss a coin or relic.

Nox seems to be impressive machine in pulling non ferrous targets from depths and displaying correct ID while doing so
 
Yeah it loves bottle caps... I hit a beach that was littered with them, after digging about 50 I left in frustration...

Turn the sensitivity down, your instincts tell you to have sensitivity over 20, but I hunt at 18 most of the time and it is very stable and still deep as heck.
 
It loves deep iron too. Wish the depth meter was better, chased a couple nickel signals that were supposed to be 4-6 inches and ended up being some rebar deeper than my pinpointer. Going to have to do the high coil sweep trick to see if it’s a coin sized target or something big and deep before digging.
 
Monday it is going to be almost 50!! YEA. After being in 84° weather the last week I can use some warmth. Will try the Equinox again.

Might be going to South Carolina for a few days next month. If it is warm enough will be driving with my dive gear and my Equinox and CZ-21. Then off to Utah for a week or so if all goes as planned. Will try the Equinox in different soils.

Going to reset the machine, play with the ground balance and sensitivity and go from there. I have all day tomorrow to tweak it in the house.

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions. As I said, I have no intentions to part with the critter yet. If it fails in the park, it might excel in the water.
 
Had

A issue today detecting my yard, can slaw deep, rang up in the silver range, appeared to be a small target while sweeping, than after digging to china 10 to 12 down, can slaw, :laughing: I agree on the depth meter issue - not good :roll:, after about 4 hours i had a trash collection of can slaw, iron , 1 -1997 Quarter, and 8 Lincolns , i sorta cherry picked it, thinking there was old silver here , but disappointed- None. Left a lot of Lincolns to rest in peace .:yes:
 
Especially if you are an underground sleeping aluminum twist top. I don't care if you are sleeping peacefully, the Equinox 800 is going to find you.

I know where they ring up on the E-Trac. They are 12-38 - 12-41 and the cursor is against the left side of the open area. On the Equinox they ring up 20 - 24.

I didn't get my coil over a single coin, EXCEPT once. Kevin got a 12-41 on his E-trac and called me over. I got a jumpy signal at 10, 12 and as high as 17. I told him trash. He dug it and it was a 1963 Canadian penny. I was disappointed in that, but I can't judge with just one coin.

Anyway, I knew that park has been hammered for years but we still coax coins out of it.

My observation. I was in park 1 mode. I couldn't believe how chatty it was. Chatty is an understatement. The machine is falsing constantly. I played with the settings a little but not a lot. I had read some comments on it and I did NOT have my cell phone with me nor did I take the headphones.

20 - 24 are aluminum bottle tops, 17 - 18 are pull tabs and 4 - 6 are rusted bottle tops.

This is my observation in this park. The oldest coin I ever pulled out of it was a 1825 large cent.

I do like how light the machine is. I am hoping I can quiet it down after I read more on it.

I am really hoping that wheat cents also do not fall into the 20 - 24 range.



I was out there for 4 hours and had enough. 33° out and cold.

Stop it! My butt hurts! :laughing:
 
A issue today detecting my yard, can slaw deep, rang up in the silver range, appeared to be a small target while sweeping, than after digging to china 10 to 12 down, can slaw, :laughing: I agree on the depth meter issue - not good :roll:, after about 4 hours i had a trash collection of can slaw, iron , 1 -1997 Quarter, and 8 Lincolns , i sorta cherry picked it, thinking there was old silver here , but disappointed- None. Left a lot of Lincolns to rest in peace .:yes:

Surf master,Congrats on your purchase.But what you just described is exactly why I cancelled my nox order..I don’t need another multi purpose machine.Im a coin hunter,and the nox from all accounts is not a dedicated coin machine.
What I understand and isn’t being addressed with the nox,is the guys making these videos and pushing the nox are pretty much relic hunters.Sure they find a coin now and again,but they dig everything.And being good in iron is what relic hunters look for,so it would be the best for they’re needs.
Not for mine though,I’m not into digging trash and bottle caps.Lots of middle of the road machines out there,and the nox could be the best of them all.I have enough middle of the road machines,I need a true coin machine.As far as I’m concerned,the Etrac or any fbs are the only ones made.
 
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