Equinox 900, what am I doing wrong?

[metalwrkr]

I have had a Whites DFX and a Garret ATPro for many years. I recently bought a Nox 900 and I am very disappointed. I tried it on a nearby beach where the DFX has had a modicum of success in the past few years and even the ATPro has done ok in the drier sand. We do have black sand here and I tried both beach 1 and 2 programs (large coil). The 900 kept throwing medium to high high vdi's and almost every target dug up was iron. I didn't find a single coin and only a couple of tab tops and yet I know there are a lot of both out there. My DFX would have blown the 900 away and the machine is about 23 years old. In the park I tried both field 1 and 2 in an area that we find Minnie balls in and same deal, almost every target within the lead range vdi's or higher was oxidized iron. I tried several higher iron bias settings with no appreciable improvement. The ATPro has found several hundred balls here even though it is subject to occasional iron falsing. Around several soccer fields where the other detectors have been stellar performers, I found about 10 coins hunting in the same general area with my brother with his ATPro. He found about 60 coins and a lot of trash. I didn't even find much trash. The machine gave a lot of iffy tone indications indications but few of the solid target hits like the ATPro or DFX. The 900 has got to be more capable than that. I bought from a reputable company and the warranty went through with no problem so no Chinese clone here. I have been using the basic factory programs with 5 tone and a little more iron bias in the bullet field and beach. Properly noise canceled and ground balanced. I am not new to detecting but am beginning to feel I got a lemon. My next move is to try the small coil in case the large is bad. Don't know what else to do! Next move is warranty! Any insight would be appreciated.

 

[oldkoot]

I have had a Whites DFX and a Garret ATPro for many years. I recently bought a Nox 900 and I am very disappointed. I tried it on a nearby beach where the DFX has had a modicum of success in the past few years and even the ATPro has done ok in the drier sand. We do have black sand here and I tried both beach 1 and 2 programs (large coil). The 900 kept throwing medium to high high vdi's and almost every target dug up was iron. I didn't find a single coin and only a couple of tab tops and yet I know there are a lot of both out there. My DFX would have blown the 900 away and the machine is about 23 years old. In the park I tried both field 1 and 2 in an area that we find Minnie balls in and same deal, almost every target within the lead range vdi's or higher was oxidized iron. I tried several higher iron bias settings with no appreciable improvement. The ATPro has found several hundred balls here even though it is subject to occasional iron falsing. Around several soccer fields where the other detectors have been stellar performers, I found about 10 coins hunting in the same general area with my brother with his ATPro. He found about 60 coins and a lot of trash. I didn't even find much trash. The machine gave a lot of iffy tone indications indications but few of the solid target hits like the ATPro or DFX. The 900 has got to be more capable than that. I bought from a reputable company and the warranty went through with no problem so no Chinese clone here. I have been using the basic factory programs with 5 tone and a little more iron bias in the bullet field and beach. Properly noise canceled and ground balanced. I am not new to detecting but am beginning to feel I got a lemon. My next move is to try the small coil in case the large is bad. Don't know what else to do! Next move is warranty! Any insight would be appreciated.

you are not the only one that is saying what you are about the Nox 900, I have been putting off purchasing one until mine Lab gets it sorted out, there are some saying the same thing about the Manticore that both the 900 and Mantiicore have some serious iron falsing going on, hopefully mine lab will get it all sorted out, some day when they aren't to busy producing different detectors LOL

 

[CountyWorker]

 

[jmaclen]

I am not experiencing any unusual iron falsing with my Equinox 900. Deus 2, Equinox and Legend will all false on some iron targets and iron mineralization. Making sure to have at least part of the iron target IDs accepted with iron audio ON is important for iron ID.

Just to be sure, do a full factory reset (hold down power button on startup until you see FP) and then check your 900 with both coils in a low EMI area and see if both coils are working okay.

 

[metalwrkr]

Thanks for the reply and suggestions. I will accept several iron notches and use the iron audio. I have already tried a master reset but will do so again along with a small coil test.

 

[metalwrkr]

I am not experiencing any unusual iron falsing with my Equinox 900. Deus 2, Equinox and Legend will all false on some iron targets and iron mineralization. Making sure to have at least part of the iron target IDs accepted with iron audio ON is important for iron ID.

Just to be sure, do a full factory reset (hold down power button on startup until you see FP) and then check your 900 with both coils in a low EMI area and see if both coils are working okay.

Thanks for the reply and suggestions. I will accept several iron notches and use the iron audio. I have already tried a master reset but will do so again along with a small coil test.

 

[metalwrkr]

I have tried the small coil and it is very stable and concise as one would expect This was in park 1 mode in the park area I hunted before. Didn't find a lot but then you don't cover a lot of ground with that small a coil. This AM I went to a nearby park and hunted with the large coil in park 1 mode. I used the all metal (Hose shoe) function numerous times to cull out high, but actually iron, responses. This was something I had to relearn from ATPro days using iron audio. What jogged my memory was a suggestion by jmaclen in the above post. Thanks for that Sir! I also ran with only 2 tones. Seemed to help keep the audio from being a scrabble of noise. I will keep hammering at this until I understand what the machine is telling me!

 

[TonyLo]

Sorry to hear this. I just purchased one...hasn't arrived yet. I am going to call the reseller; he was a good guy.

 

[metalwrkr]

Don't cancel the order just yet! I am beginning to get the hang of this machine. I have it figured out in parks 1 with 2 tones. I beach hunted today with beach 1 and 2 tones. The beach where I am hunting is challenging because there is small iron everywhere but I am beginning to stumble my way around. There is the added difficulty that it is winter and several years of Covid have lessened the amount of good targets. It all makes things more difficult but as I said, the light is beginning to dawn.

 

[metalwrkr]

Went to a tiny little park yesterday and collected over $4 of deep quarters and dimes. Very few iron targets so no iron falsing. Also a lot of hard targets in the 30 to 65 range that I didn't dig. Saving them for a day of trash and penny digging. Maybe a little gold will sneak in there also!

 

[Dozer Bitch]

Hello, I also have the 900 and am new to detecting. So, I'm doing better with digging and recognizing the modern coins, but I get a lot of trash! Oh man, a lot of trash. I have not found any gold or silver. Not sure what tones those even are. Is there any cheat sheets out there to help with learning these ranges or tones? I see everyone says practice, but I hear a lot of tones that I'm not sure if and don't want to just be digging holes everywhere. Any helpful advice would be so greatly appreciated!! Thank you

 

[MasonDixonMding]

These numbers are from my F75 but they are close to the 900. It gives you a idea of where thing line up. Maybe someone will have something better. In my opinion. Your best bet with a new machine is to dig it all to learn. Than if you what to discriminate you can. Good luck

 

[stetam]

Cheat sheet's are only good if the coin is laying flat with nothing else around it. Dig and learn.

Steve

 

[jmaclen]

Hello, I also have the 900 and am new to detecting. So, I'm doing better with digging and recognizing the modern coins, but I get a lot of trash! Oh man, a lot of trash. I have not found any gold or silver. Not sure what tones those even are. Is there any cheat sheets out there to help with learning these ranges or tones? I see everyone says practice, but I hear a lot of tones that I'm not sure if and don't want to just be digging holes everywhere. Any helpful advice would be so greatly appreciated!! Thank you

Gold jewelry can have target IDs from 1 to about 70 depending on the size, weight and type of jewelry. Silver jewelry starts around 70 and goes up to 99.

The Equinox models are extremely sensitive and will hit just about any target that is in range of the coil from millimeter sized iron and aluminum shards to crushed aluminum pop cans 12”+ deep. Memorizing the IDs for the commonly found targets that are not mangled like the various types of pull tabs, freshness seals, aluminum screw caps large and small, steel crown bottle caps with or without foil coverings, the coins in your area and shell casings, slugs etc., may really help. You can also setup your tone bins and tones to match the targets that you want to find and use the single digit notching to temporarily reject target IDs that you don’t want to deal with. Pressing the horseshoe button will immediately accept those rejected target IDs.

 

[Dozer Bitch]

Cheat sheet's are only good if the coin is laying flat with nothing else around it. Dig and learn.

Steve

I have a little book and take notes. I laugh at some of the things I dig up. And love the guessing game. Thanks for all the advice. I really do appreciate it.

 

[Paul mx]

I have had a Whites DFX and a Garret ATPro for many years. I recently bought a Nox 900 and I am very disappointed. I tried it on a nearby beach where the DFX has had a modicum of success in the past few years and even the ATPro has done ok in the drier sand. We do have black sand here and I tried both beach 1 and 2 programs (large coil). The 900 kept throwing medium to high high vdi's and almost every target dug up was iron. I didn't find a single coin and only a couple of tab tops and yet I know there are a lot of both out there. My DFX would have blown the 900 away and the machine is about 23 years old. In the park I tried both field 1 and 2 in an area that we find Minnie balls in and same deal, almost every target within the lead range vdi's or higher was oxidized iron. I tried several higher iron bias settings with no appreciable improvement. The ATPro has found several hundred balls here even though it is subject to occasional iron falsing. Around several soccer fields where the other detectors have been stellar performers, I found about 10 coins hunting in the same general area with my brother with his ATPro. He found about 60 coins and a lot of trash. I didn't even find much trash. The machine gave a lot of iffy tone indications indications but few of the solid target hits like the ATPro or DFX. The 900 has got to be more capable than that. I bought from a reputable company and the warranty went through with no problem so no Chinese clone here. I have been using the basic factory programs with 5 tone and a little more iron bias in the bullet field and beach. Properly noise canceled and ground balanced. I am not new to detecting but am beginning to feel I got a lemon. My next move is to try the small coil in case the large is bad. Don't know what else to do! Next move is warranty! Any insight would be appreciated.

Same story here. Still very intriguing cause I can find very deep coins, (copper nickel zink ones) but the (aluminum and bronze alloy) ones i dont even get a TID even at 2 inches. That is in beach mode 1 and 2. In dry sand it works beautifuly, but on wet or in the surf it really strugles. Pinpointing is another issue. and trust me, i do center them right in the middle. but the target always end up being somewhere else. I only have 50 hours or so on this Nox 900, but i've been doing this for 34 years, Still its my first minelab, I started with Fisher and then Garrett but I heard so much about the Nox so I wanted to give it a try . I'm not saying its a bad maching, i'm amazed with its depth. Just saying that i need to understand it better and that it may need some issues to be addressed by minelab. Hoping to try it in parks soon.

Happy hunting guys!

 

[jmaclen]

Same story here. Still very intriguing cause I can find very deep coins, (copper nickel zink ones) but the (aluminum and bronze alloy) ones i dont even get a TID even at 2 inches. That is in beach mode 1 and 2. In dry sand it works beautifuly, but on wet or in the surf it really strugles. Pinpointing is another issue. and trust me, i do center them right in the middle. but the target always end up being somewhere else. I only have 50 hours or so on this Nox 900, but i've been doing this for 34 years, Still its my first minelab, I started with Fisher and then Garrett but I heard so much about the Nox so I wanted to give it a try . I'm not saying its a bad maching, i'm amazed with its depth. Just saying that i need to understand it better and that it may need some issues to be addressed by minelab. Hoping to try it in parks soon.

Happy hunting guys!

If you are using default discrimination settings it is really hard to identify iron unless you are using the horseshoe button a lot. The same goes for coins that have steel alloy as part of their composition. Try hunting with at least some of the iron target IDs accepted.

 

[Retiredsailor]

I have had a Whites DFX and a Garret ATPro for many years. I recently bought a Nox 900 and I am very disappointed. I tried it on a nearby beach where the DFX has had a modicum of success in the past few years and even the ATPro has done ok in the drier sand. We do have black sand here and I tried both beach 1 and 2 programs (large coil). The 900 kept throwing medium to high high vdi's and almost every target dug up was iron. I didn't find a single coin and only a couple of tab tops and yet I know there are a lot of both out there. My DFX would have blown the 900 away and the machine is about 23 years old. In the park I tried both field 1 and 2 in an area that we find Minnie balls in and same deal, almost every target within the lead range vdi's or higher was oxidized iron. I tried several higher iron bias settings with no appreciable improvement. The ATPro has found several hundred balls here even though it is subject to occasional iron falsing. Around several soccer fields where the other detectors have been stellar performers, I found about 10 coins hunting in the same general area with my brother with his ATPro. He found about 60 coins and a lot of trash. I didn't even find much trash. The machine gave a lot of iffy tone indications indications but few of the solid target hits like the ATPro or DFX. The 900 has got to be more capable than that. I bought from a reputable company and the warranty went through with no problem so no Chinese clone here. I have been using the basic factory programs with 5 tone and a little more iron bias in the bullet field and beach. Properly noise canceled and ground balanced. I am not new to detecting but am beginning to feel I got a lemon. My next move is to try the small coil in case the large is bad. Don't know what else to do! Next move is warranty! Any insight would be appreciated.

I sent my 900 back to Kellyco, it was erratic the tdi numbers were all over the place. I did everything with no luck, should have kept my 800.

 

[Valley Hunter]

There is a guy om You Tube that just got a The Legend and already telling how to make changes
When you get a detector put it in default and detect put in loots of hours then start adjusting

 

[bvoss]

You may want to do some mock detection with a new detector. Plant some different coins in various depths to see how they read. Most of the old coins can be bought for pretty cheap and will at least get you in the ballpark.