Big Boys Hobbies

Minelab EQX 800 over 9” dime- changing GB video

tnsharpshooter said:
Some folks here say not to ground balance the Equinox detector. Well this video here says different. Depends on one’s soil.
This video is of a 9” deep dime using park 1 and 2 using actual GB and checking dime with GB intentionally dialed to 0.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sYdFzqIvF94
Click to expand...

Well done demonstration. Thanks for taking the time to do it. I used to do a manual ground balance and then turn on tracking, but switched to running at zero unless I was in single frequency. This gives me something to think about for sure.
 
tnsharpshooter said:
Some folks here say not to ground balance the Equinox detector. Well this video here says different. Depends on one’s soil.
This video is of a 9” deep dime using park 1 and 2 using actual GB and checking dime with GB intentionally dialed to 0.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sYdFzqIvF94
Click to expand...

Two different swing speed routines. I have tested and tested and tested again in my garden, on 9 inch dimes from years of being buried. The zero(0) GB still gives crisp reports on GB=0, with the coil even elevated 2+ inches above that 9" dime.

Switching to a new GB number by using auto, changed the number, but as God is my witness, that change in auto was worse than the stock zero.

If you are going to do comparison tests, work the coil the same. PUT THE COIL FLAT IN BOTH GB EXPERIMENTS, and swing in exactly the same profiles.

Frustrating to see odd-ball methods of swinging a coil between tests.

Just be consistent.
 
Everyone should do their own testing to see how their detector reacts to their particular type of soil and targets that they're searching for.

beephead
 
Martin_V3i said:
Two different swing speed routines. I have tested and tested and tested again in my garden, on 9 inch dimes from years of being buried. The zero(0) GB still gives crisp reports on GB=0, with the coil even elevated 2+ inches above that 9" dime.

Switching to a new GB number by using auto, changed the number, but as God is my witness, that change in auto was worse than the stock zero.

If you are going to do comparison tests, work the coil the same. PUT THE COIL FLAT IN BOTH GB EXPERIMENTS, and swing in exactly the same profiles.

Frustrating to see odd-ball methods of swinging a coil between tests.

Just be consistent.
Click to expand...


I do narrate my videos. Folks can believe what I am saying or not. As far as consistency goes. No one swings there coil the same speed all the time. Even me. So if I see where I can swing faster (depending on how detector is setup) I might can capitalize in some sites. Or depending on how much time I have to detect.

This video’s purpose.
To show that indeed GB can negatively affect signals in soils around the world.
Some newbies to detecting may be buying either 600 or 800 model and read another person’s comment and just stay with 0 GB. This may or may not be getting them the best performance out of their detector while using.

Cheers.
 
coin pirate said:
people will give opinions of their personal and sometimes unique situations, I would go by the manual, and use personal experience to determine anything different.



Page 40 here--->https://www.minelab.com/__files/f/326548/4901-0249-1 Inst. Manual, EQUINOX 600 800 EN.pdf
Click to expand...



d9e715186174f8563970782679a40585.jpg

That’s why most leave it at 0 it’s in the manual but yes sometimes if the grounds bad then you need to gb


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Martin_V3i said:
Two different swing speed routines. I have tested and tested and tested again in my garden, on 9 inch dimes from years of being buried. The zero(0) GB still gives crisp reports on GB=0, with the coil even elevated 2+ inches above that 9" dime.

Switching to a new GB number by using auto, changed the number, but as God is my witness, that change in auto was worse than the stock zero.

If you are going to do comparison tests, work the coil the same. PUT THE COIL FLAT IN BOTH GB EXPERIMENTS, and swing in exactly the same profiles.

Frustrating to see odd-ball methods of swinging a coil between tests.

Just be consistent.
Click to expand...

With all due respect, I have no idea what you're criticizing. I re-watched his video with the sound off. He consistently swings flat and hits the target under the same spot of the coil with each test. Much better than a lot of test videos I see. The only thing that varies is swing speed in Park 2, which he does point out and replicates for both ground balance settings. If anything, the slightly faster swing speed, which really wasn't even all that fast, is applicable to more people.

Clearly, your dirt might be different, which was part of his point.
 
L0S3R said:
d9e715186174f8563970782679a40585.jpg

That’s why most leave it at 0 it’s in the manual but yes sometimes if the grounds bad then you need to gb


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

On the same page above that highlighted box, the manual says:

"Using Auto Ground Balance is the recommended Ground Balance
Method."

But, the gist of that statement is: IF you are going to change the ground balance due to ground mineralization noise, then the way to do it is "auto" rather than manual.

Something I've never in the manual until now is the recommendation to ground balance when using lower sensitivity levels. That seemed counter intuitive to me at first. If I had to guess, perhaps multi-frequency's ability to effectively compensate for ground mineralization on its own is decreased at lower sensitivity levels....perhaps (I'm speculating) because different individual frequencies don't dial back relatively evenly.
 
Sounds like Martin need to go buy go pro.
Do some videos, post and we can all watch.

Maybe I need to mount a speedometer on top of my EQX’s coil. Lol

If folks will notice I am not just swinging back and forth couple times and rating or evaluating performance.
More like multiple, multiple sweeps.
So, when in the field detecting just how many times my do we swing over the same spot from generally same direction when we are actually detecting?

What I am saying what you see in the video above would be best case scenario one could expect over that dime if trying to locate in the wild.
Real world could be worse.
I know where the dime is roughly in video.
 
ToySoldier said:
On the same page above that highlighted box, the manual says:



"Using Auto Ground Balance is the recommended Ground Balance

Method."



But, the gist of that statement is: IF you are going to change the ground balance due to ground mineralization noise, then the way to do it is "auto" rather than manual.



Something I've never in the manual until now is the recommendation to ground balance when using lower sensitivity levels. That seemed counter intuitive to me at first. If I had to guess, perhaps multi-frequency's ability to effectively compensate for ground mineralization on its own is decreased at lower sensitivity levels....perhaps (I'm speculating) because different individual frequencies don't dial back relatively evenly.
Click to expand...



I would guess by very low sensitivity they mean less than 10 but I’m no minelab tech lol

I agree about the statement “IF you are going to change the ground balance due to ground mineralization noise, then the way to do it is "auto" rather than manual.”


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Great video David. I can definitely relate to your results in moderate mineralization.

When I'm prospecting in Arizona and Colorado I often have to keep sensitivity between 10 and 13 sometimes due to extreme ground noise. I auto ground balance after every loud hot rock or big target so 50 or more times in one day's hunt easily. If I don't it is impossible to hear small non-ferrous targets including tiny gold nuggets that are 0.1 grams or sometimes even smaller because of the constant ground noise chatter from extreme amounts of iron particles.

Where I coin, jewelry and relic hunt in some areas of western Denver I also have to keep the sensitivity around 15 due to excessive ground noise. I auto ground balance whenever the Nox gets noisy. If I don't auto ground balance target IDs above 20 go wonky and if I try to pinpoint with the Nox I hear a constant howling from the Nox wherever I swing the coil over the ground even if there is no target. (This is similar to some of the weird pinpoint issues many have complained about. Maybe there is a connection......). If I auto ground balance, pinpointing is absolutely silent except over the target.

I honestly believe that Minelab was being overly cautious in recommending leaving ground balance on factory default 0 since they knew that the Equinox was going to be more detector than most newbies could handle and might even be a problem for some more experienced detector users depending on what detector they were coming from, especially those with fixed or auto tracking ground balance. Most Australian users have reported that they need to auto ground balance due to the really bad soil there. So do most Rocky Mountain users. It is so easy to do...........I just can't think of any other reason why Minelab would recommend leaving it on 0 except to somehow dumb down intitial operation by new users.

Jeff
 
jmaclen said:
Great video David. I can definitely relate to your results in moderate mineralization.

When I'm prospecting in Arizona and Colorado I often have to keep sensitivity between 10 and 13 sometimes due to extreme ground noise. I auto ground balance after every loud hot rock or big target so 50 or more times in one day's hunt easily. If I don't it is impossible to hear small non-ferrous targets including tiny gold nuggets that are 0.1 grams or sometimes even smaller because of the constant ground noise chatter from extreme amounts of iron particles.

Where I coin, jewelry and relic hunt in some areas of western Denver I also have to keep the sensitivity around 15 due to excessive ground noise. I auto ground balance whenever the Nox gets noisy. If I don't auto ground balance target IDs above 20 go wonky and if I try to pinpoint with the Nox I hear a constant howling from the Nox wherever I swing the coil over the ground even if there is no target. (This is similar to some of the weird pinpoint issues many have complained about. Maybe there is a connection......). If I auto ground balance, pinpointing is absolutely silent except over the target.

I honestly believe that Minelab was being overly cautious in recommending leaving ground balance on factory default 0 since they knew that the Equinox was going to be more detector than most newbies could handle and might even be a problem for some more experienced detector users depending on what detector they were coming from, especially those with fixed or auto tracking ground balance. Most Australian users have reported that they need to auto ground balance due to the really bad soil there. So do most Rocky Mountain users. It is so easy to do...........I just can't think of any other reason why Minelab would recommend leaving it on 0 except to somehow dumb down intitial operation by new users.

Jeff
Click to expand...

I agree Jeff.
Imo Minelab should edit online manual when referencing auto ground balance and the recommending setting of 0. Be ok to say beginners of EQx can or should use zero GB. With another statement recommending Advanced or experienced EQX users should perform auto ground balance.
Manual is confusing folks the way it is worded on this issue. At the very least.
You and I know this too Jeff.
 
Good video thsharpshooter, I have found auto ground balancing just fine tunes the Equinox to the ground you are hunting a little bit more than running 0 all the time. My ground is medium to borderline hot. I ground balance first thing every time. I will even depending on the spot redo if I notice a change in how the machine is acting. I personally think it helps to ground balance. If people are happy running it on 0 all the time stick with it.
 
I would like to remind all who might be reading this thread, that in the CTX manual there are several known mistakes that Andy S. and others have pointed out in various books they have written. Also Andy points out some things that can be done better than the manual suggests on other settings for optimal performance on the 3030. I do not know how many of you have read the post on the park i hunted where I found over 40 plus old coins in 2 trips and my friend only found one with his NOX 800? We were both using 800's those days. If you read the post i even mentioned that i set his machine up just like mine after he got extremely frustrated that i was finding so much and he was finding nothing. Well after reading this and another post by Longbow on GB i have realized the one thing i did not do when setting up his machine was the GB,,,,,, i assumed he was doing one. He was not,,, he put his on zero. Could that be the difference in his finds and mine? I can tell you it was not the other settings on the machine because i set it up exactly like mine. All the old coins were 8 inches and deeper and not obvious dig me stand out punch you the face dig me signals. I am thinking that those deeper on fringe coins were missed by him due to setting his machine on zero.. I had struggled with why he could not find anything and i did so well. Has to be the GB nothing else was different between the two machines.
 
Trashfinder said:
..........I had struggled with why he could not find anything and i did so well. Has to be the GB nothing else was different between the two machines.....
Click to expand...

There might be something to that explanation, but the difference between 40 old coins and 1 due to ground balance on the Nox? I'm not saying it doesn't matter, but that's a dicey conclusion given the possible "user error." You were able to see his technique, so I'm sure you would have helped him with any obvious technique problems. But, you can't put on his brain and ears. Ideally, you'd link two headphones to his machine using the WM08 units and walk with him and listen along. Most of us have likely done the simple, less ideal option and removed the headphones to compare signals. I know I've done this and people have said they wouldn't have reacted to signals I was pointing out.
 
ToySoldier said:
With all due respect, I have no idea what you're criticizing. I re-watched his video with the sound off. He consistently swings flat and hits the target under the same spot of the coil with each test. Much better than a lot of test videos I see. The only thing that varies is swing speed in Park 2, which he does point out and replicates for both ground balance settings. If anything, the slightly faster swing speed, which really wasn't even all that fast, is applicable to more people.

Clearly, your dirt might be different, which was part of his point.
Click to expand...

Lack of consistency, very simple. As for swing style...these vids show me staggered moves, different length swings, plus changes in pattern of swings with the zero test example.

Put a blindfold on this tester, and literally scrub the grass with BOTH. Let all of us get on the same "sample-page-of-testing."

Blindfold and scrub grass, and please...stay with the same program. Don't drift to Park2.
 
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