Using the Nox 800

If your ground balance is 44 in Park1 I would not leave on zero. Make sure you ground balance in a spot free of metal items in the ground. Put in all metal(Horseshoe Button engaged) find a clean spot then GB.

I hunt in all metal 100% of the time. Make sure you are centered over the target and circle it. It takes time to learn to figure out what might be good targets if it's not an obvious solid repeatable signal. The more hours you get on it the better you will get at it. It would be best if you dug most targets at first to get a handle on what's what.

I have no idea on the tip your talking about. I'd leave it Multi and start digging stuff until you figure out how stuff sounds and what they read on the V.I.D.. Personally I don't like 50 tones (Lot's of folks do though). I use a customized 5 tones setup.

My tips: Make sure you get centered over the target, and circle 360 degrees before you dig. Nox is very sensitive and if you are inches away from target it will up average the numbers and sound deeper than it actually is.

Lift the coil off the ground as you wiggle over the target before you dig to gauge the size of the target. Coin size targets disappear pretty quick when you get the coil very high off the ground.

longbow62 said:

If your ground balance is 44 in Park1 I would not leave on zero. Make sure you ground balance in a spot free of metal items in the ground. Put in all metal(Horseshoe Button engaged) find a clean spot then GB.

I hunt in all metal 100% of the time. Make sure you are centered over the target and circle it. It takes time to learn to figure out what might be good targets if it's not an obvious solid repeatable signal. The more hours you get on it the better you will get at it. It would be best if you dug most targets at first to get a handle on what's what.

I have no idea on the tip your talking about. I'd leave it Multi and start digging stuff until you figure out how stuff sounds and what they read on the V.I.D.. Personally I don't like 50 tones (Lot's of folks do though). I use a customized 5 tones setup.

My tips: Make sure you get centered over the target, and circle 360 degrees before you dig. Nox is very sensitive and if you are inches away from target it will up average the numbers and sound deeper than it actually is.

Lift the coil off the ground as you wiggle over the target before you dig to gauge the size of the target. Coin size targets disappear pretty quick when you get the coil very high off the ground.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply. I read that tip on the Minelab site, so I went back to check. Something about the Nox measuring ferrous and conductivity. Steel caps have ferrous material in them, coins / jewelry don't. Switching to one frequency from multi and seeing a change in the TDI means that the Nox is detecting ferrous material and measuring it differently because of the change in frequency, thus the change in the TDI. I probably butchered that explanation, but that is roughly what is going on.

According to the manual, there is no need to ground balance when in Park, Field or Beach modes. I've had my Nox for over a year now, and have never had the need to ground balance, and have had no issues. If you aren't getting a lot of chatter, I wouldn't ground balance.

longbow62 said:

My tips: Make sure you get centered over the target, and circle 360 degrees before you dig. Nox is very sensitive and if you are inches away from target it will up average the numbers and sound deeper than it actually is.

Lift the coil off the ground as you wiggle over the target before you dig to gauge the size of the target. Coin size targets disappear pretty quick when you get the coil very high off the ground.

Click to expand...

These tips are very good. With a high sensitivity setting, if you clip the edge of a Corona cap on the surface, it will sometimes give you a deep silver dime signal!

Wearing steel toed boots also will give you a sweet deep silver signal if you swing too close to your feet. Yep, I know from experience.

DrMRM
Ground balance: My yard came in at 44. I understand what ground balance does, but is that a significant number? Some of the reading I've done says you can leave it at zero. I was able to manually ground balance really well with my Bounty Hunter and as such was able to find some things I don't believe I would have found if I didn't. My question is when does that number become significant? (not that it matters as I am always going to ground balance, but I'm just curious).

hddeuce03
According to the manual, there is no need to ground balance when in Park, Field or Beach modes. I've had my Nox for over a year now, and have never had the need to ground balance, and have had no issues. If you aren't getting a lot of chatter, I wouldn't ground balance.



A reading of 44.........? Personally, the ground I detect on most of the time is -3 to +8 GB and it is highly mineralized according to the almost maxed out mineralization meters on my XP Deus and Teknetics G2+. One would think that using the default 0 setting might work optimally in my area since the numbers I get are right around 0. Using the default 0 does not work in my area since that number does not give an accurate indication of the mineralization levels. Your number of 44 doesn't either and the Equinox does not have a mineralization meter which to me is pretty dumb on Minelab's part.

There is nothing wrong with ground balancing your Equinox if you feel confident doing that. It takes all of 30 seconds at the most. Sometimes the hardest part is finding some clean, target free ground. So, ground balancing or leaving it on default 0 gives you some options.

The manual says the default setting of 0 is "recommended" for Park, Field and Beach modes......... it does not say there is no need to ground balance.

The manual also doesn't say to press the horseshoe button in Park, Field and Beach mode to check for the "chatter" that hddeuce03 mentioned or is called "noise signals" in the quoted section of the manual.

On moderate to highly mineralized ground, most if not all of the the chatter and noise signals will not be heard in Default Park, Field and Beach modes. You will only hear it if the iron range of target IDs is accepted by pressing the horseshoe button. If it is moderate to highly mineralized ground caused by high levels of natural iron content in the soil, you will clearly hear plenty of pops and short duration signals that may give -9 to 0 numerical target IDs. Leaving the ground balance on default zero and just gently raising and lowering the coil will let you know if the sound is caused by iron mineralization because you will get audio responses either on the downward or upward movement of the coil. You can also get negative number low tone responses at the end of coil swings or when sweeping the coil over holes or uneven ground. So, if you don't ground balance, you stay in default Park, Field or even Beach modes and you don't use the horseshoe button to check for mineralization, you have no idea if you are on mineralized ground or not and if you are, depth, target separation and target ID accuracy will suffer.

Going into pinpoint mode does the exact same thing as pressing the horseshoe button and is a good way to check for mineralization also if you use it over what you think is clear of targets, mild mineralization ground. If instead it is moderately to highly mineralized, you will hear similar responses from the coil either on the downward, upward or end of swings.

This bit is just my opinion, but some of the complaints I have heard about the erratic performance of the Equinox pinpoint function could be related to people trying to use the pinpoint function when they haven't properly ground balanced their Equinox or have left the ground balance setting on default 0. I have seen this too many times when detecting with fellow club members that are just starting out with the Equinox and are not ground balancing on ground that I know is moderately to highly mineralized. Their pinpoint mode sounds like a continuous fire truck siren and it becomes silent if their Equinox is ground balanced until they pass the coil over a target.

I don't understand what the GB numbers mean on the Nox. I thought the higher the number the higher the mineralization. When I hunt spots with very sandy ground the GB number averages high single digits to low teens in Park1. This is also where I consistently hear the deepest targets and dig the deepest coins.

Contrast that to the clay soils around my home city I hunt most of the time and 40's is right there about the average GB number. It has gone into the 60's on some sites. In the clay I can't get beeps on targets as deep as I can in the sand, and the deep ones are not as clean either. More iffy's.

I have noticed on more than one occasion where I will get out with a buddy and for whatever reason forget to do a GB right off the bat. I hunt a while then notice I am not finding deep targets or the machine is just not acting right. I GB and boom it's like I'm swinging a different machine.

I did a test not long ago where I compared 0 GB to a Auto GBing. I put the machine on 0 and swung over some deep coins in my limited test garden which has what I consider to be fairly mineralized clay soil. Then I GB'ed and did the same again. GBing helps on deep targets in my test. In my opinion if you want the most stable V.I.D. at depth, and deepest performance you better be GBing regardless of what the manual says.

I also find it useful in some places to GB multiple times. This at least let's you see if the GB numbers change.

longbow62:

I don't understand what the GB numbers mean on the Nox. I thought the higher the number the higher the mineralization. When I hunt spots with very sandy ground the GB number averages high single digits to low teens in Park1. This is also where I consistently hear the deepest targets and dig the deepest coins.

Contrast that to the clay soils around my home city I hunt most of the time and 40's is right there about the average GB number. It has gone into the 60's on some sites. In the clay I can't get beeps on targets as deep as I can in the sand, and the deep ones are not as clean either. More iffy's.

I have noticed on more than one occasion where I will get out with a buddy and for whatever reason forget to do a GB right off the bat. I hunt a while then notice I am not finding deep targets or the machine is just not acting right. I GB and boom it's like I'm swinging a different machine.

I did a test not long ago where I compared 0 GB to a Auto GBing. I put the machine on 0 and swung over some deep coins in my limited test garden which has what I consider to be fairly mineralized clay soil. Then I GB'ed and did the same again. GBing helps on deep targets in my test. In my opinion if you want the most stable V.I.D. at depth, and deepest performance you better be GBing regardless of what the manual says.

I also find it useful in some places to GB multiple times. This at least let's you see if the GB numbers change.

Longbow62,
I have written way too much lately. We have had really cold weather and over a foot of snow lately so I guess I'm missing detecting and taking it out on this forum. So instead of writing another 1,000 words I am going to link you to a topic called: Ground Balance Number =Mineralization?

All I will say beforehand is that the Equinox and Minelab X-Terra 705 share many things like similar target IDs, tones and ground balance scale. The X-Terra 705 had a ground balance range of 0 to 90. The Equinox ground balance range is -9 to 99. I don't want to confuse you or me any further BUT, in the areas I detect that have high iron mineralization my former X-Terra and my Equinox ground balance to very low numbers in the single digits and even into negative numbers on the Equinox. That same ground using my Deus, AT Gold or Teknetics G2+ gives ground phase numbers that are in the high 80s to low 90s and the Deus and Teknetics G2+ have almost full Fe3O4 mineralization bars meaning high amounts of magnetite. So the Equinox/X-Terra ground balance numbers seem to be backwards from every other VLF I've used.

Here is the link: https://www.detectorprospector.com/forums/topic/1599-gb-numbers-mineralization/

I have tried setting the ground balance at 0 on the Nox and found less then I did by ground balancing. After ground balancing on a Nox or X-Terra you can also bump the numbers up some and that will set a negative balance, that helps for finding silver and copper.

jmaclen said:

longbow62:

I don't understand what the GB numbers mean on the Nox. I thought the higher the number the higher the mineralization. When I hunt spots with very sandy ground the GB number averages high single digits to low teens in Park1. This is also where I consistently hear the deepest targets and dig the deepest coins.

Contrast that to the clay soils around my home city I hunt most of the time and 40's is right there about the average GB number. It has gone into the 60's on some sites. In the clay I can't get beeps on targets as deep as I can in the sand, and the deep ones are not as clean either. More iffy's.

I have noticed on more than one occasion where I will get out with a buddy and for whatever reason forget to do a GB right off the bat. I hunt a while then notice I am not finding deep targets or the machine is just not acting right. I GB and boom it's like I'm swinging a different machine.

I did a test not long ago where I compared 0 GB to a Auto GBing. I put the machine on 0 and swung over some deep coins in my limited test garden which has what I consider to be fairly mineralized clay soil. Then I GB'ed and did the same again. GBing helps on deep targets in my test. In my opinion if you want the most stable V.I.D. at depth, and deepest performance you better be GBing regardless of what the manual says.

I also find it useful in some places to GB multiple times. This at least let's you see if the GB numbers change.

Longbow62,
I have written way too much lately. We have had really cold weather and over a foot of snow lately so I guess I'm missing detecting and taking it out on this forum. So instead of writing another 1,000 words I am going to link you to a topic called: Ground Balance Number =Mineralization?

All I will say beforehand is that the Equinox and Minelab X-Terra 705 share many things like similar target IDs, tones and ground balance scale. The X-Terra 705 had a ground balance range of 0 to 90. The Equinox ground balance range is -9 to 99. I don't want to confuse you or me any further BUT, in the areas I detect that have high iron mineralization my former X-Terra and my Equinox ground balance to very low numbers in the single digits and even into negative numbers on the Equinox. That same ground using my Deus, AT Gold or Teknetics G2+ gives ground phase numbers that are in the high 80s to low 90s and the Deus and Teknetics G2+ have almost full Fe3O4 mineralization bars meaning high amounts of magnetite. So the Equinox/X-Terra ground balance numbers seem to be backwards from every other VLF I've used.

Here is the link: https://www.detectorprospector.com/forums/topic/1599-gb-numbers-mineralization/

Click to expand...

The only problem with lower number means higher mineralization is when I hunt sandy ground which should not be mineralized in the first place I get the lowest GB numbers. It's also where I get the most depth which generally means low mineralization. I will look at the thread. I may have already.

longbow62 said:

The only problem with lower number means higher mineralization is when I hunt sandy ground which should not be mineralized in the first place I get the lowest GB numbers. It's also where I get the most depth which generally means low mineralization. I will look at the thread. I may have already.

Click to expand...

The X-Terra and Equinox read backwards from most detectors for ground balance. Lower numbers means higher mineralized ground.

graybeard said:

The X-Terra and Equinox read backwards from most detectors for ground balance. Lower numbers means higher mineralized ground.

Click to expand...

Graybeard, I totally agree that the Equinox and X-Terra ground balance numbers are backwards from most VLFs. However, I cannot agree that there is a direct correlation between lower numbers equals more Fe3O4 mineralization. That is why I wish the Equinox had a mineralization meter.

So, most VLFs ground balance near 0 for saltwater beaches with salt mineralization. The Equinox also ground balances at 0 for saltwater beaches.
So zero on all of these detectors seems to be related but their ground phase numbers are backwards............Something is not quite making sense.

Guys I don't know the answer but, there is no way at least for me lower GB numbers mean higher mineralization. As I have stated several times in the past the lower the number the deeper I find targets in both Park1&2. Sandy Farmland gives me the lowest GB numbers consistently. I also know that on the same site Park1 GB numbers will always be lower than the Park2 GB numbers.

In the town I live the soil is red clay in most places which means it's rich in iron. So much so there was numerous brick factories here in the past. GBing in town gives me the highest numbers I ever get anywhere. Higher numbers at least for me means I can't hit targets as deep as when the numbers are lower. It also means when the GB numbers are higher I get more iffy targets on average.