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Coiltek Coils For The GPX 6000 - Confirmed!


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6 hours ago, phrunt said:

“I  do hope you'll end up producing a smaller DD, I'm sure many will agree with me it really needs to be happen, I'll commit to buying it now if you'll commit to making it “😉

@Coiltek  I SECOND THAT, definitely interested in a smaller elliptical DD!  Thank you for supporting us users also!

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The 6000 must have some large scale shielding relating issue on it's stock coils then. Because in the same location as other 6000's, mine acts the same as the other machines - so it doesn't seem as if it has a coil fault unique to my specific machine/coil. Unless literally all the coils sent on 6000's to the US at the same time all had shielding issues? If that's speculation then I'd love to hear an actual, non speculative answer that makes logical sense. Because this one single issue is enough to make me sell my 6000 as soon as I can get an Axiom in hand to replace it with no prospecting downtime.

It's totally unusable in some locations, purrs along just fine in others. It's not a loose wire/failing cable/bad connector type problem. 

That we have to spend another $400 on another coil just to potentially fix what sure appears to be a factory problem or design issue is pretty low IMO, if that is really what is happening.

 

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Well I don't know about these 11" coil problems especially this Axis thing, all I know is the difference between my 11" and the 14x9" Coiltek is night and day.   I can go up sidewalls of gully's fine, lift up over rocks, tilt that bad boy around all I want, hell I can swing it in the air like a lasso and it not go crazy and it's a bigger coil and gets more EMI as JP wisely pointed out.  This is the major reason I disliked the 6000, it was not fit for my purpose how it arrived to me, I don't hunt on flat ground, rarely ever do I have flat ground, and even my flat ground is covered in thyme bushes and schist that I'm going up over and around but mostly I'm on a rocky hillside or in gully's on angles so a detector that had to be kept flat on level ground was something for me that was not suitable.  My little 10x5" Coiltek should arrive today too, so I'll give it a spin, can't imagine I'll be disappointed.

It's more like using a normal detector now, you know, one that works well.  Happy to video anything for anyone, can't video my 11" now as off on a flight to go to the rubbish bin.  I've shipped my 11" off to the service agent now to be looked at, or binned or whatever they do with it.  The problem is the NZ service agent has a policy if they don't find a fault with something you send them they charge you something like an $80 fee (can't remember the exact figure) along with the $50 return shipping after spending $50 to get it to them, ends up quite an expensive exercise for an "iffy" problem.  It's getting up to near half the Coiltek 10x5" price just to get the coil looked at if they say they can't fault it and it's a coil I'll likely never use again anyway unless it works as well as the Coilteks, and maybe for the people with a good one it does, if that's the case that's awesome, I'd love a 11" size that works as well as my Coiltek and it sounds like for many people their 11" does work as well as the Coiltek, so who knows.

I just wanted to know if its faulty or if that's just how the Minelab coils are.  I'm that confident now they can't say it's not faulty that I sent it off.  I've seen Aussies send theirs in to be checked and have them sent back no fault, and many others have sent them in and had them replaced as a "precaution" as they couldn't fault it.  One person sent theirs in a couple of times and eventually one of the Minelab guys took it out into the field for the weekend and used it and managed to fault it then so I'll see how it pans out, if they send it back no fault It's getting open heart surgery then smashed to pieces and put on Youtube 😛

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8 minutes ago, phrunt said:

...if they send it back no fault It's getting open heart surgery then smashed to pieces and put on Youtube 

😛

Please do. Something just seems fishy here to me. Unless I'm missing something, there seems to be a large scale issue with poor cable/coil shielding. As usual though, Minelab's complete lack of response makes it impossible to do much but guess.

I'd send mine in to the shop, but I know what the response is going to be, based on others who've sent in with the exact same problems. And I can't lose a full month of prospecting out of a short 3 month season for no reason. So I'm just going to sell it once Axiom's become available and stick to the locations where it works ok for now, and thus I won't be able to cut it apart and see for myself since I need to sell it to fund the Axiom.

I did take some video showing normal and unstable operation, not quite sure where to post it though as really this has nothing to do with Coiltek and I just have written the 6000 off myself now - I'm now positive there is some kind of issue - so it seems pointless to make another dedicated thread on the problem since I know it exists, and don't really care if no one else sees it or not.

Jen's point about cable shielding might be a good first place to look though if you cut into things. I'll be curious to see.

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stricks very useful 11" coil X-ray, the coil cable doesn't look wrapped in foil to me, would the X-ray not pick up the foil as a solid mass and not show the wires inside it if it was foil or braided?  The GPZ 7000 coils have no extra shielding in the cable and I find the 7000 very good with EMI, if not excellent.

1166027682_11coilx-ray.thumb.jpg.175a4cf488d2578d10897f2c0c8d4765.jpg

The GPZ 7000 coils have no shielding inside the cable, the shield is just a little blue wire going down from the control box to the coil.   You'll see on this photo of my 19" Coil where I was adding the plug end back onto it to use it on an X-coil adapter.  I suspect the stock GPX 6000 coils also have no shielding in the cables.  Perhaps the aftermarket do, I know some do.

IMG_20200322_144030.thumb.jpg.59d59bf2ab42381bebca9cd3e2a83f6c.jpg

Keep in mind something like braided shielding inside the GPX cable might cause a big nulled out area on the coil, with the 6000 easily picking up the solid mass of metal, as it already picks up the wires no troubles.  The best method is the wires that matter having their own individual shielding to keep the solid mass of metal size down.

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1 hour ago, phrunt said:

stricks very useful 11" coil X-ray, the coil cable doesn't look wrapped in foil to me, would the X-ray not pick up the foil as a solid mass and not show the wires inside it if it was foil or braided?

Depends a lot upon the shielding material used (aluminum is more transparent than copper) and the energy of the X-rays (higher energy being less absorbed, in general).  @strick has done X-ray imaging of other coils.  Do their cables show shielding?  I think braid is plated/coated copper (or sometimes just raw Cu with no surface treatement), but far from sure.

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On 8/9/2022 at 1:00 PM, GB_Amateur said:

 @strick has done X-ray imaging of other coils.  Do their cables show shielding? 

The braided ones certainly show, and some just show a solid mass.

A couple of what looks to be a solid mass examples

265627460_soldimass2.jpg.139c10dd8bedce231b306700568f7c4b.jpg1311425437_solidmass.jpg.851bc15fc1b59308ac24988f9fd29ef4.jpg

and Braided examples

66520563_braided2.jpeg.973a710ed45dd096e46769e96094cdf8.jpeg

braided.thumb.jpeg.b26f2c68d1c49c65472380296ed97621.jpeg

The cable you showed from the component looks possibly braided to me when zoomed in.

1179973018_braided3.thumb.png.b4cc0141b4e1977ddab54fdf313f2b85.png

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Most EMI is picked up by the coil. The coil receives EMI similar to the antenna of an AM radio.  The larger the coil surface the more EMI is detected. Proper EMI shielding of the coil is the most critical factor.

For a low impedance mono coil the approximate three foot of lead can be a twisted pair of unshielded wires and be very effective in canceling EMI. It does this by the EMI on each wire being balanced and of opposite voltages being introduced by the twisted wires receiving equal and opposing EMI signals.

With a Double D coil the low impedance transmit wires are often a unshielded twisted pair. The higher impedance sensitive receive coil is normally connected by a small diameter shielded cable. 
 

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I was hoping you would chime in Chet, thanks!

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We always used shielded Cat6, what's the point using the cheaper twisted version when the price is so close to the same for the much better quality shielded cables.  Even in a home situation there are many appliances and power cables running through the house to interfere, and fluro lights are killers for Ethernet cables.

Shielding helps protect the data from any sort of electromagnetic interference from an outside source. This could alter or weaken the signal traveling through the copper in the cable. The shields of the two connectors in our shielded Cat 6 cables are electrically tied together via the drain wire.

cat6-shield-drain-wire.jpg.31abfeb4fad6cb4349071249b8f83c11.jpg

I never understand any place that tries to save a few cents by going cheap on things that are so cheap and easy to use an improved version.

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