Question For Steve - Coil Problem

[Jim_Alaska]

Steve,

I still have my old White's Goldmaster V-Sat. It's the same one I used when we hunted together at Crow Creek. I have two coils for it, the original coil it came with and the very small one that is used for tight places and bedrock. This is the coil that White's first put out when we lived in Alaska, small and black with no markings on it. Steve Houston introduced it when he came to Alaska on his promotional trips.

I don't use the original one because I find it impossible to ground balance with that coil, so I am limited to just using the small one. That's ok by me since most of my limited and sporadic nugget hunting is in bedrock areas.

The problem I am having is that I constantly get false signals and lots of other noise whenever the coil comes in contact with anything. If I bump rocks or brush, or if I even brush it up against wet grass it will false signal. this makes it impossible to "scrub" the ground as you advise people.

I am wondering if this problem might be in the settings on my control box, perhaps I am choosing the wrong settings? I have tried just about everything I can think of, but it does this all the time and is very annoying. Is there anything that you can think of that I may be doing wrong?

[Steve Herschbach]

Hi Jim,

Sounds like a bad coil to me. That is exactly the symptoms one expects from a coil losing its integrity.

[fredmason]

well now that Steve has spoke...I agree, sounds like coil gone bad!

fred

[Jim_Alaska]

I had wondered about it being a bad coil, but sort of ruled it out because of such low time on it. Of course I got it many years ago, but I would bet that it doesn't have 20 hours on it.

Well, I guess it's time for a new coil then. Thanks for the input Steve and Fred. I may not get to detect much, but I know where to go when I need an answer.

I guess now I need to decide which coil to get. I really like the small one for the areas I usually work, but I may be better off with the same one that was originally supplied with the unit.

I can actually use it like it is, it is just annoying the way it false signals. I have not actually found a nugget with this little coil, but can consistently find shot as small as #7. So when trying to justify using the coil I always convinced myself that if I could find lead shot that small, I wouldn't miss gold.

I do have a number of different size test nuggets, some very small and I can bury them and have no trouble with the detector giving me a proper signal.

Thanks again guys, you are the best.

[G.B.]

After time the earth wire (l think it is the earth wire) comes loose inside the coil. It is usually attached using adhesive tape or glue. lf the wire comes loose it will give false signals at the slightest bump or touch. lt can be fixed by removing the cover plate of the coil and renewing the tape or adhesive being careful not to damage the shielding.  Warning if the coil is under warranty l would not attempt the proceedure as will void warranty but if an old favorite it may be worth the effort to save old faithful.

I have saved 2 out of 3 minelab mono coils. l also check for any movement between the windings and if excessive l use thin cardboard to pack the coil to prevent internal movement.

[Jim_Alaska]

Thanks GB, I may try that if I can figure out how to get the cover off without damaging it. This coil is about sixteen years old, so warranty is not a problem.

[Steve Herschbach]

If you have both coils and just the one coil falses a lot that proves the problem, as coil swapping is the best way to diagnose the issue. Getting the detector to a Whites dealer and trying another coil is the normal solution if you only have one coil. If you do not get out and detect much just using the good coil is a decent option - there is only minimal sensitivity difference but the stock coil will cover more ground and reach deeper on some gold. I have to say I have always favored the smaller coils myself for super hot machines like the Goldmasters, GMT, Gold Bug 2, and Gold Racer.

Whites old style thick coils are foam filled. It is lot unusual on the larger coils to have the foam break down and deteriorate from long term knocking against rocks. This in turn would cause movement internally, generating false signals. The 14" x 8" coils seemed especially prone to this problem. That is unlikely to be the problem with your small coil but rest assured coil failure is far more common than control box failures, many times over.

[Jim_Alaska]

Thanks Steve, that's good information for someone like me that goes great lengths of time between detecting. Somehow I doubt that it may be foam break down since this machine has hardly been used and not abused at all.

I have no dealers where I live here on the Klamath. I had even thought of getting it to White's and letting them go over the whole machine. I emailed them several times about sending it to them for a tune up, but they never answered the emails. I guess I should have done it the old fashioned way and called them.

I'll go back to the original larger coil and see if that makes a difference. I have not used that coil since I first got the machine in Alaska. When White's came out with the new tiny coil I used it exclusively since then. But as I said before, I don't detect much.

I had been crevicing blind in a small hydraulic pit all summer and doing ok just cleaning cracks. But winter came and the rains put a stop to that because of mud.

Scouting around I found this large hydraulic pit and decided to switch gears and use a detector. It is very rugged ground, lots of exposed, decomposed bedrock and a lot of climbing. That's where the small coil gets my attention because it is so easy to use and carry and it gets in the cracks, where the original coil has to just go over the cracks and hope it can "see" deep enough to not miss gold.

Anyway, I really do appreciate your and other's suggestions. Time to experiment by going back to the stock coil.

You mentioned the Gold masters as being "super hot" machines. I had never heard of them described as such. I was always under the impression that because it is so old that there were many "hotter" or better machines that my relic. Unless of course "hotter" doesn't necessarily mean better.

[Steve Herschbach]

The original black box Goldmaster II was the first hot machine running at 50 kHz, a very high frequency at the time. The Goldmaster II preceded the Gold Bug 2 and for a time the Goldmasters were unmatched in sensitivity to small gold until the Gold Bug 2 came out in 1995. The Goldmaster V/SAT, Goldmaster 3, Goldmaster 4/B, and finally GMT at 48 kHz are all just variations on the theme and none of the newer models are appreciably more sensitive than the original 50 kHz Goldmaster II model.

Companies that do not answer emails within 24 hours are quite deficient in the 21st century. 

[Gold Seeker]

Jim,

With the VSat being a older model it's possible that Whites may not be able to give it a checkup and or fix it if it needs work, I would think they would be able to at least check it out, but I would suggest you send Tom A.K.A. "tboykin" here on the forum a PM, he works for Whites and he has been very helpful to other memebers here on the forum and at the very least he should be able confirm if Whites can do a checkup on your VSat or not and if it's possible he should be abke to help you get it done I would think.

Here's a link to his profile page so you can send him a PM and go from there.

http://www.detectorprospector.com/forum/profile/957-tboykin/

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