Nokta/Makro Simplex+ User Guide KKSP55000389EN

I bought a 2.68 Simplex its a new one ,however I am being told that I cannot use a 8.5" or 9.5" coils unless I upgrade to  2.77 or 2.78 .Is this true?Thanks William

I recently picked up a Garrett Ace Apex with 3 coils for a very good price locally. This is the second one I have owned. I spent the last few weeks doing some indoor and outdoor tests as well as some park hunting to get reacquainted with it.
I stated on the Garrett forum that I would give the Apex another chance and do some infield testing against the Equinox and Simplex and report back. I had a chance to spend about 5 hours at a relic site over the weekend and do just that.
The site has had mixed usage since the late 1850’s and includes Military artifacts as well as more modern house site items. The site has been hammered over the last 6 decades and so I thought it would be the perfect test. Ground is 4-5 bars on the F75 and is for the most part loaded with iron except farther out where we will usually just find fired .58 cal bullets, shotgun and .22 brass.
I started with the Apex 8.5 x 11 coil out where we usually just find bullets running MF, custom program where everything is accepted over 20 and sensitivity all the way up. My goal was to just see if I could find bullets, no comparisons were done. I quickly found out the sensitivity was too high as I got a lot of false signals and chased a few ghost signals. Once turned down 1 bar the Apex ran smooth. I managed to find 4 .58 cal bullets and a few .22 and shotgun brass. Deepest bullet was 6 inches and was a very jumpy signal. I’ve done a video in the past digging bullets with the Apex in this same area if you want to see it you can find it in the Garrett forum. It’s under 10 things I like and 5 I don’t like about the Apex. Unlike the Equinox in this same area, the Apex has a real hard time identifying deep large targets vs small .22 brass. The signals are jumpy in both regards and hard to determine depth.
Next I moved to an area close by that has produced quite a few buttons and dropped bullets in the past. The area is very trashy in places with glass shards and square nails. I used the Equinox 800 with the 11” coil running Park 1, 50 tones, iron bias F2 0, recovery 4, Multi and sensitivity 22. The Equinox 600 can be setup exactly the same way. I proceeded to mark 8 targets that came in at as low as 1 up to the highest being 15 on the Equinox. All of these targets were located in the trashy areas. The Simplex 11” coil Park 2 was able to see all but 2 targets, one being a small pewter button about 3 inches deep the other being a fired percussion cap also about 3 inches deep. The Apex 8.5 x 11 coil unfortunately was only able to see 2 targets. The first being a large pewter button maybe and 1 inch deep the other being a fired percussion cap on the surface. A small Navy cuff button laying on the surface (that only read 1 on the Equinox) was surprising invisible to the Apex. Granted there were a lot of iron signals around it.
Last area, the house site. This time I started with the Simplex 11” coil running park 2. Now I know what some of you are going to say. Why use the larger coils in trashy sites? I wanted to see what the stock coils would do, I consider the 8.5 x 11 the stock coil for the Garrett machines. Yes I may have gotten better results with the Apex using a smaller coil. Anyway, I located and marked 4 targets with the Simplex. The Equinox was able to see all 4 but did struggle with one, all explain in a minute. The Apex was able to see 3 out of the 4, but was totally blind to the one the Equinox struggled with. Target 1 was a modern penny about 1 inch deep and was not a problem for any of the detectors. Target 2 was a small piece of decorative brass about 2 inches deep which all the detectors saw. But the Apex numbers were all over the place where as the Equinox was a solid 14 and the Simplex a solid 44. Target 3 turned out to be a 1929 S wheat penny at 5 inches deep. The Simplex read 66-68 and could get the signal as I rotated all the way around it. The Equinox struggled, first direction I tried got nothing but iron grunts. But as I rotated around it, I started to get a choppy signal that would bounce up to about 17. The Apex got nothing but iron grunts no matter what I tried. Signal 4 turned out to be a 1946 dime at about 3 inches and was a good solid signal on all the detectors. I also located 2 old clay marbles while I was walking around the house site.
In a relic hunting scenario, the Equinox and Simplex have a clear advantage over the Apex. The Apex likes round objects and does the best on them and has a fairly accurate ID. Odd shapes are not it’s strong point for sure. But for someone who only wants to dig coins, it could be great. I will also say that of the 3 the Apex was most comfortable to swing and I think I like the wireless headphones the best on the Apex.
In the future I plan to take the same 3 machines to a ghost town and the beach to see how they stack up against each other. I will say that the more I use the Simplex the more I see just how great a value this machine is. For the money you can’t beat it.

Been using the Simplex with the SP 24 for a year now and have done really well with it, especially in trashy areas. Just won an xp orx which came with the hf elliptical coil and I just ordered a 9 inch x 35 coil. Detected a couple of places with the orx and it doesn’t seem to separate out the trash that is close to a coin like the Simplex. I’m wondering if the x35 coil I’m getting  can be setup to do as well as the simplex in trashy areas. Thank, Jim

This may require some out of the box thinking. In a relatively recent interview with DetectorShop Italia Dilek said there are future plans for the Simplex that she couldn’t discuss right now. Sounds pretty intriguing given that NM is an innovative company. What are your guesses about what the future might hold for the Simplex given that we know they have no desire to make it any more complex. This should tell us the plans aren’t necessarily feature driven. Then again…I do believe it was Dilek who had also discussed the idea that high end machines could be made more affordable by breaking them down into a series of software packages. For a beginner, once you outgrow a startup package you could buy progressively more advanced packages, growing with the machine and paying for it in more affordable increments. The Simplex may also be powerful enough to run as a two box attachment similar to that of the Garrett GTI-2500. What do you think might be the possible future of the Simplex? I know it doesn’t get us anywhere to speculate, but I think it’s fun to think about and see what people come up with. Over time we see how it ages. 

In a recent interview Dilek of NM said the company has no plans of making a concentric coil for the Simplex unless they get enough requests/feedback from the customer base that they’d like to have one and would buy it. So, how many of you would buy one if one were available and what size do you think would be best. If you don’t want to write anything, at least give a thumbs up to the idea if you like it so NM can get an idea of the demand or lack thereof for such a coil. I’m going to suggest a 9.5” coil. The benefits of a concentric coil are that in lower mineralization they tend to ID better, pinpoint better, and inch for inch give you more depth than a DD.