First time out with the NOX 600 (and it's very talkative)

Call Me V

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 23, 2018
Messages
253
Location
Montana
It's been a couple of months since I've posted anything. But that's because the ground has been covered in snow or simply frozen. A couple of weeks ago Mark and I finally got out (he's been braver than I have been). I had a great hunt for two hours with my AT Pro, finding four rings -- three junkers and one small silver.

But a reoccurring problem popped back up with my AT Pro. Wrist pain. For whatever reason I can't seem to handle that detector for very long without hurting. So after some research and penny saving I decided to buy an Equinox 600.

I just got it today. I assembled it and turned it on (outside in the cold wind) and immediately it started to hum without stopping or variation. No matter what I tried I couldn't get it to stop. So I eventually did a factory reset and that seemed to fix it.

Okay, so I decided to do a short hunt in a nearby park. I intentionally went to a newer area where I knew there wasn't a lot of trash. But OH MY GOSH! The Nox 600 chattered incessantly like I was hitting the trashiest area in town.

No matter what I did I couldn't get it to stop chattering. I did a noise cancel (at least twice), tried to ground balance and eventually set that to auto, adjusted the sensitivity, and changed the frequency. Nothing seemed to make a difference.

I've been over the area with my AT Pro and it never makes that much noise.

What I'm I doing wrong? :?::?:

Thank you everyone!
 
I have an 800 and had the same experience. I talked the the guy at the shop down the street, and he said "just dig some holes", essentially. His thinking was that the machine is seeing multiple targets at once.

Coming from an MXT this was kind of new to me, so I followed his advice. I've dug about two dozen holes now, and recovered three or four dozen targets.

Long story short, the 800 was seeing what is actually in the ground. The "chatter" that I heard was it separating out many, many targets that were close together.

For example, in one set of holes, that a actually became an elongated trench, I heard three separate returns that seemed too close together to be real so I kept digging and pinpointing and using the 800 to find every last bit of metal. I pulled out three nails and a BB sized bearing.

I think this 800 is just seeing everything in my ground, and while there are some spots that have been fertilized and require a lower sensitivity than others, it seems to be showing what's down there and all I have to do is dig it up.
 
It's been a couple of months since I've posted anything. But that's because the ground has been covered in snow or simply frozen. A couple of weeks ago Mark and I finally got out (he's been braver than I have been). I had a great hunt for two hours with my AT Pro, finding four rings -- three junkers and one small silver.

But a reoccurring problem popped back up with my AT Pro. Wrist pain. For whatever reason I can't seem to handle that detector for very long without hurting. So after some research and penny saving I decided to buy an Equinox 600.

I just got it today. I assembled it and turned it on (outside in the cold wind) and immediately it started to hum without stopping or variation. No matter what I tried I couldn't get it to stop. So I eventually did a factory reset and that seemed to fix it.

Okay, so I decided to do a short hunt in a nearby park. I intentionally went to a newer area where I knew there wasn't a lot of trash. But OH MY GOSH! The Nox 600 chattered incessantly like I was hitting the trashiest area in town.

No matter what I did I couldn't get it to stop chattering. I did a noise cancel (at least twice), tried to ground balance and eventually set that to auto, adjusted the sensitivity, and changed the frequency. Nothing seemed to make a difference.

I've been over the area with my AT Pro and it never makes that much noise.

What I'm I doing wrong? :?::?:

Thank you everyone!

When you speak of noise or chatter.
Is this with coil on the ground sweeping or while coil is held in the air??
 
After noice cancel and ground balance adjust your sensitivity to the area you are hunting.

Use Park1 and 5 tones until you get more aquinted with the machine.

I experience the same thing sometimes, lowering the sensitivity always lowers the chatter for me.

Keep in mind, you dont have to run it on max all the time.

:thumbsup:
 
Today was my maiden voyage with my Nox as well. Unlike yourself V I had a nice quiet hunt and was pleasantly surprised with how well the Nox performed.

I did not know what I was doing exactly but what I do know is that I was hunting in Park 1 with no head phones and a volume level of 22. All the rest of the settings were factory as I did not knowingly change anything...:lol:

I got chased out of the park about 40 minutes into my hunt by a short rain storm. I can't wait to get back out there again. I do believe once you get your machine running right, you will love it.

Best Wishes & Happy Hunting

HDD
 
Hi Call Me V,

If I do a factory reset and use default Park 1 (-9 to +2 discriminated out) I will hear similar chatter to what you seem to be experiencing. I have to lower the sensitivity level from default 20 until the chatter stops and maybe raise it up one afterwards. Then I auto noise cancel and ground balance. I wouldn't use tracking ground balance yet. Like Bajanick said, use 5 tones for a while and try not to press the horseshoe button unless you want to check a target for possible iron falsing in the mid teens to low 20s. If you press that button you will hear EVERYTHING in the ground from big 18" deep iron or aluminum targets to tiny, shallow, pin head pieces of foil, can slaw and iron.

I hunted today here in Denver for a couple of hours in a local park. My Nox 600 was detecting 8" dimes easily with good repeatable tones and target ID, very quietly in default Park 1 except my sensitivity was on 13!!! The dirt in my area is very mineralized and EMI is thick. I have tried several great detectors made by Garrett, Whites and FTP in this park and they either can't handle the EMI or they can't penetrate the mineralization. The 600 and 800 can do quite well however at lowered sensitivity levels.

Just a few things: make sure your coil connector to the control box is screwed on well and that your phone is in airplane mode or at least has data turned off if it is near your detector. Also, if you are using a handheld pinpointer turn it on and hold it close to the 600 while doing your auto noise cancel. The same goes for anyone hunting with you. Make sure you are not getting crosstalk from other detectors or pinpointers by noise cancelling near them too.

Forgot to mention that hum you heard before you did the factory reset was probably the threshold tone set at a level where you can hear it. The factory reset lowered that tone to default level.

Let us know what your settings were or what settings you tried.
Jeff
 
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I can run my 600 at 17-19 sensitivity and it still goes deep in my soil. I run Park 1, the recovery speed at 2 and swing a little slow. Depending on the age of the park, the targets won't be all that deep anyway. The Equinox sees all of the targets under the coil so you will hear different tones and threshold drops while sweeping back and forth. I have found so many good targets right next to trash and in some cases the good targets were an inch or so below the trash. If I hear a good high tone chirp along with a low tone, I am breaking ground. The 600 has not lied to me yet. I recently picked up the 6" coil and on my first run with it, pulled 3 pieces of jewelry from a school tot-lot. If you are going to hunt trashy areas, the 6 inch coil is a blessing. Good luck and be patient, the Equinox really is an excellent detector.:yes:
 
Thank you all for the great advice! I plan on going out again as soon as I can and will put all that great info to use.
 
Why would you noise cancel with your pin pointer on ? The only time your pin pointer should be on is when you are actually using it. With it on during noise can won't it add "noise" that normally isn't there during detecting, thus giving you a wrong value for a setting .
 
This is something that a lot of people don’t realize...you do NOT have to be running ridiculous sensitivity levels to achieve depth. A COiN is a very detectable target being uniform in every way...setting sensitivity so high that you can’t understand what is going on is almost ALWAYS counter- productive,especially when first starting out with it.
 
Hi Minlooker,

Equinox operating with simultaneous multiple frequencies means my single frequency pinpointer will definitely interfere with it and the opposite is true too. Sometimes I leave my pinpointer on during a hunt and give my thumb and the on/off switch a break. I use rechargeable batteries for it so no big deal.

Jeff
 
I think I get caught in the "more sensitivity is better" trap, based on what I am seeing here.

IDXMonster, I'll run the sensitivity down and see if I can find some more good stuff! Thanks for all the tips here from everyone.

--Matt
 
Thank you everyone for the helpful hints. Maybe it was the wind and the cold that got to my head the first time out, but I went out again yesterday and turned down my sensitivity. I had it at 20 (per the manual for "beginners"). I turned it down to 15 and it sounded much better. Mark and I spent about 3 hours hunting (still a little cold, but bearable). We went to a park that we knew was fairly clean. In 3 hours I dug up 77 clad coins and a small Our Lady of Guadeloupe pendent. Nothing too exciting, but it was still a good time swinging the coil and getting to know my knew machine.



Now the reason I really got this machine was to try to eliminate some wrist pain my AT Pro was giving me. At most I could do a 2 hour hunt. Yesterday I was out for 3 hours pain free. Yes, I am a happy girl!
 
Had the same problem with wrist pain. If you have your shaft extended so that your coil is more than 1-2 feet away from your toes, then shorten the shaft where if is just about 6 inches from your toes. Now the weight is pulling more straight down and not bending your wrist as much. Got that tip on the forum here and it worked for me.

and don't wear steel tipped boots or shoes with metal shoelace eyelets.

On the chatter: Your machine is reporting a lot of small junk. sometimes reducing the sensitivity and using park 1 or field 1 for coins will ignore small junk. It is a very sensitive machine.
 
The Equinox is sensitive to small targets. If you are coming from a detector that was not then it can be a bit much to process. Trying to do it all at once can be intimidating and frustrating. Going to a known site helps. Staying out of the iron concentrations helps. Maybe the six inch coil? And as discussed...lowering the sensitivity. Learn to swim before you jump in the deep end. Even this weekend I set up the 800 to basically ignore everything below 18 or Indian Head pennies. It was a nice hunt.
 
In my experience so far, the auto noise cancel does not always (or even most of the time) find the quietest channel. Or, at least, it doesn't pick one I prefer. Several times I've manually adjusted the noise cancel and achieved a better result. (Often time the detector can't even decide and gives wildly different settings on auto-noise cancel while standing in the same spot.) The manual noise cancel feature might only be available on the 800 though. If you do have it, and are trying to get as much sensitivity as you can without too much EMI chatter, then it's worth manually scrolling through the noise cancel settings to see if there's a channel that better fits your ear.

Trying a single frequency mode is another option if the EMI is particularly bad and sensitivity has to be turned down to levels that sacrifice too much depth.
 
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