Epoxy

[Badger-NH]

57 minutes ago, Sinclair said:

Did your coil ears break?

I'd only glue something to the coil, if really necessary..
I have the feeling, that sometimes those stiffeners even are the reason why some ears broke.
Still got my first coil (5 years), well beyond 1000h of use, no issues so far 🤞
 

 

I don't see how using the coil support could cause the ears to break. I'm positive that if I had added the support in the beginning, my ears never would have broken in the first place.

You only need to glue it if the ears are broken. You are better off getting the coil support before they break.

You might want to check your ears for cracks. They may be on the verge of breaking. I also went for many years with no problems. Then one day it happened.

 

[phrunt]

7 hours ago, Sinclair said:

Did your coil ears break?

I'd only glue something to the coil, if really necessary..
I have the feeling, that sometimes those stiffeners even are the reason why some ears broke.
Still got my first coil (5 years), well beyond 1000h of use, no issues so far 🤞

Yes, I did it to my 17x13" CTX 3030 coil, the ears broke and I suspect it's a coil that's at very high risk of breakage being such a big heavy coil on substandard ears.

[TedinVT]

10 hours ago, Badger-NH said:

I don't see how using the coil support could cause the ears to break. I'm positive that if I had added the support in the beginning, my ears never would have broken in the first place.

You only need to glue it if the ears are broken. You are better off getting the coil support before they break.

You might want to check your ears for cracks. They may be on the verge of breaking. I also went for many years with no problems. Then one day it happened.

 

I used a coil ear stiffener and my 11” ears broke in a week or two. If the ear stiffener bolt holes aren't perfectly aligned with the coil ear bolt holes the coil ears will be stressed as the coil moves. That's what happened to me. I'd never use one again. I did the Gigmaster fix of glueing 1/8” ABS plastic to the ears which doubled the thickness / strength of the ears. Rock solid fix if done right.

[midalake]

10 hours ago, Badger-NH said:

You only need to glue it if the ears are broken. You are better off getting the coil support before they break.

I disagree. If you do not want your Equinox ears to break, then epoxy the coil stiffener to the coil ears and do not skimp on product! 

[Badger-NH]

13 hours ago, midalake said:

I disagree. If you do not want your Equinox ears to break, then epoxy the coil stiffener to the coil ears and do not skimp on product! 

True, the support will definitely be stronger if epoxied, but that will lower the resale value when/if you go to sell the detector.

The vast majority of coil ears out there never break. The only risk to not epoxying is that it will end your hunt if they do.

 

[Badger-NH]

13 hours ago, TedinVT said:

I used a coil ear stiffener and my 11” ears broke in a week or two. If the ear stiffener bolt holes aren't perfectly aligned with the coil ear bolt holes the coil ears will be stressed as the coil moves. That's what happened to me. I'd never use one again. I did the Gigmaster fix of glueing 1/8” ABS plastic to the ears which doubled the thickness / strength of the ears. Rock solid fix if done right.

Was it a Detecting Adventure coil support? They have a very snug fit and the holes should line up perfectly. As long as the zip ties are tight, it shouldn't move at all.

It's also possible that your ears were already on the verge of breaking and not necessarily the fault of the support. Either way, I would rather risk having the ears break during a hunt before messing up the coil with epoxy.

 

[midalake]

45 minutes ago, Badger-NH said:

True, the support will definitely be stronger if epoxied, but that will lower the resale value when/if you go to sell the detector.

I charge and get more for that work.

[Sinclair]

On 3/18/2023 at 12:00 AM, TedinVT said:

I used a coil ear stiffener and my 11” ears broke in a week or two.

Same happend to a friend of mine. He didn't glue/epoxy it, only used zip ties - that's probably key tho'.
I keep my coil relatively loose and make sure, it can flex a bit. Even still got the first rubber washers on there, but put some 0.1-0.2 spacers per side to compensate for the wear. You don't want to bend the ears in any direction - I presume some stiffers do add some strain in the lower section of the ears to the outside direction.

[phrunt]

What's laughable about this is you just don't have to care on most other detectors,when has someone ever broken an ear on a Minelab GPX coil or any of the aftermarket coils for it? a GPZ coil or any of it's aftermarket coils? So many VLF models it's unheard of breaking coil ears, even really cheap entry level type detectors, it's really a VLF problem and most noticeably a Minelab problem.  Hopefully they have solved it on the Manticore as it's gone on far too long with too many models... CTX, Vanquish, Equinox 600/800, all the same pitiful ears, the 900 only has improved ears on the 11" as it's the highest risk being the most owned coil, the 6" is safer being small but the 15x12" is at high risk.

Having customers having to care about a millimeter being worn off their coil ear rubbers is a joke, it should never matter, over tightening the ears should not matter, and the fact people do that is because they need to as their coil flops around if they don't as their rubber wears. it's a design problem simple as that.  If they think it's acceptable they need a big warning section in the manual and a sticker on a new coil saying to be careful not to over tighten and get out your calipers and measure your coil rubber weekly otherwise most people unless reading the internet will never know just how bad the design is until it breaks.

 It's not like people are going crazy tightening them up, just slightly over tight bending the ears a bit and snap!  Plastic just like metal has fatigue.....  You know how if you bend a bit of metal enough times it snaps? and metal is a whole lot stronger than plastic....

Plastic fatigue

 

It is the progressive and localized structural damage that occurs when a material is subjected to cyclic loading. The exposure of plastic materials to dynamic stress can produce several different responses, and will certainly alter the mechanical properties of the material

 

Why is fatigue important in plastic product design?

Fatigue occurs in plastic when stress is repeatedly applied to an area. The load does not have to be very great as to weaken or break the material immediately but over time a repeated action, each time applying a small load to an area, will break it down and cause it to fail.

Design fault, NOT an end user fault.  Toughen them up Minelab.

 

[Sinclair]

On 3/20/2023 at 8:54 AM, phrunt said:

Having customers having to care about a millimeter being worn off their coil ear rubbers is a joke, it should never matter, over tightening the ears should not matter, and the fact people do that is because they need to as their coil flops around if they don't as their rubber wears. it's a design problem simple as that.  If they think it's acceptable they need a big warning section in the manual and a sticker on a new coil saying to be careful not to over tighten and get out your calipers and measure your coil rubber weekly otherwise most people unless reading the internet will never know just how bad the design is until it breaks.

Actually the manual states, that you shouldn't over-tighten the nut 😊

For me the rubber washers are consumables. You have to take care of them, as you do with the brake pads on your car. 2-3x per year has been sufficient for me - talking ~100-200 hunts per year, the invest is neglectable. The design may be flawed, yes - but big part of the failures happen due to user-errors - imho. I often see people using the coil to scrub through the sand, searching the target - that's a particular bad habit.

We'll see, how the Manticore does with that completely new design. New doesn't always mean better.. 😬

On 3/20/2023 at 8:54 AM, phrunt said:

It's not like people are going crazy tightening them up, just slightly over tight bending the ears a bit and snap!  Plastic just like metal has fatigue.....  You know how if you bend a bit of metal enough times it snaps? and metal is a whole lot stronger than plastic....

Sorry, but that's a pretty general / dowdy statement nowerdays and very wrong. There many different plastic compositions/flavours on the market, that easily outperform metal in many criteria, depending on their application.