NOX 800 Advice Needed

[RJReynolds]

Hi All,
We recently bought an Equinox 800 plus a 5 inch coil. Slowly getting the hang of it. I'm looking for advice on the accuracy of the depth indicator and the actual ground penetration for the 5 inch coil.

We took it out for a swing in Creswick today and while we made some interesting finds (mystery machine parts, bullet casings, bullets, shotgun pellets, and even a Florin) we got a fair number of targets that seemed to be unbelievably deep (as in we dug and dug but they were still down there somewhere). Is the depth indicator actually reliable? Can the NOX 800 really drive that deep? (We were using gold 2).

Also no that I think of another question... do any other NOX 800 owners get false signals when the coil hits a bump? We noticed that if the coil bumped a stick or protruding rock, lump of dirt etc we'd get a signal response.

Thanks in advance for any input

 

[Goldtarget]

Bump sensitive might be coil wire not fixed firmly to shaft and/or connection point.

 

[Dave79]

Sounds like ground noise, the equinox is mostly only good for small bits of gold in the top 2 inches with the 6" coil. Try waving it over various size buried bits of lead to learn what to listen for. It's bump sensitive too, not much you can do about it except not bump it.

 

[RJReynolds]

Bump sensitive might be coil wire not fixed firmly to shaft and/or connection point.

I did check the connection and adjusted the Velcro ties. I'll probably add a couple of extra ties just ensure there's no unwanted movement.

 

[Goldtarget]

I could be wrong mate, I never had an issue with either my 800 with the 11 or 5 or 600 with the 11, but from Daves post about sounds like it may be a well known effect with them. Mind you although I did take the 800 out and did some testing I stuck to the quiet ground, pipeclay etc, and might be more noticable on hotter ground.

Both the 800 and the 600 never noticed it in the parks.

 

[RJReynolds]

Sounds like ground noise, the equinox is mostly only good for small bits of gold in the top 2 inches with the 6" coil. Try waving it over various size buried bits of lead to learn what to listen for. It's bump sensitive too, not much you can do about it except not bump it.

Ah.. good to know that they are bump sensitive, managed to avoid bumping it the more we used it.

Re the potential ground noise, I'm no that worried if we're not digging up nuggets... and had the small coil on specifically to focus on smaller shallow targets which is why it was surprising to pick up some fairly deep (comparatively) targets (lead). But just couldn't work out if the signals we were digging that just kept going deeper and deeper were genuinely nothing or if we just weren't committed enough to digging down to the earth core. Is there a rule of thumb as to when to give up on a response?

 

[RJReynolds]

I could be wrong mate, I never had an issue with either my 800 with the 11 or 5 or 600 with the 11, but from Daves post about sounds like it may be a well known effect with them. Mind you although I did take the 800 out and did some testing I stuck to the quiet ground, pipeclay etc, and might be more noticable on hotter ground.

Both the 800 and the 600 never noticed it in the parks.

Hmmm... well I'm taking it out again tomorrow (school holidays, getting the kids out and about). I'll see if ground conditions make any difference. :Y:

 

[grubstake]

Sounds like ground noise, the equinox is mostly only good for small bits of gold in the top 2 inches with the 6" coil. Try waving it over various size buried bits of lead to learn what to listen for. It's bump sensitive too, not much you can do about it except not bump it.

Ah.. good to know that they are bump sensitive, managed to avoid bumping it the more we used it.

Re the potential ground noise, I'm no that worried if we're not digging up nuggets... and had the small coil on specifically to focus on smaller shallow targets which is why it was surprising to pick up some fairly deep (comparatively) targets (lead). But just couldn't work out if the signals we were digging that just kept going deeper and deeper were genuinely nothing or if we just weren't committed enough to digging down to the earth core. Is there a rule of thumb as to when to give up on a response?

After the first couple of metres you're probably safe to call a halt.

 

[RJReynolds]

Sounds like ground noise, the equinox is mostly only good for small bits of gold in the top 2 inches with the 6" coil. Try waving it over various size buried bits of lead to learn what to listen for. It's bump sensitive too, not much you can do about it except not bump it.

Ah.. good to know that they are bump sensitive, managed to avoid bumping it the more we used it.

Re the potential ground noise, I'm no that worried if we're not digging up nuggets... and had the small coil on specifically to focus on smaller shallow targets which is why it was surprising to pick up some fairly deep (comparatively) targets (lead). But just couldn't work out if the signals we were digging that just kept going deeper and deeper were genuinely nothing or if we just weren't committed enough to digging down to the earth core. Is there a rule of thumb as to when to give up on a response?

After the first couple of metres you're probably safe to call a halt.

It's a good thing I remembered how to dig up...

 

[Goldpick]

Experiencing bump sensitivity can also be a side effect of auto ground balancing on hotter ground. Might pay to try and manually adjust the GB to see if it reduces the touch sensitivity.

 

[RJReynolds]

Experiencing bump sensitivity can also be a side effect of auto ground balancing on hotter ground. Might pay to try and manually adjust the GB to see if it reduces the touch sensitivity.

I'll give that a try... I was reading an article the other day about tuning the equinox for gold, it gave some pointers around thus also.