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The New Coils For The 2300


phoenix

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I wouldn't change my SDC 2300 no way, it is a beast of a machine. I have found over 1500 sub gramers with mine.

Bigger head no thanks.

If I'm going for a bit of a walk i put it into my back back, with the power of the big Z and the smiplicty and small head of the SDC they make :biggrin: a great couple. 

 

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6 hours ago, LukeJ said:

The 2300 IS the smaller coil for the Zed....   :wink:

Very true they are a top combo but you know I think back to this years season and I did approx 5 hours with the SDC and only to check out how it was with the Lithium batteries, but if the SDC was my only machine I reckon say a 14" mono would be the bees knees. The 14" size seemed to be the most used size for me in the PI days.

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Quote

The 14" size seemed to be the most used size for me in the PI days.

What a lot of Aussie prospectors don't get is that conditions are wildly different in the USA. Steep slopes, rocky outcrops, uneven terrain and hunting among dense bushes, big rocks and boulders are the order of the day in many US locations. A lot of Aussie goldfields are almost as flat as a pancake - a big hill is 15 feet tall from base to peak. So, yup, based on my experience in WA, I'd use a 14 or bigger coil too if I hunted over there. But many guys here use coils that size only once in a while on certain occasions when conditions warrant it.  The coil for the SDC is plenty large enough and I have no interest in anything larger. The coil for the GPZ is more than plenty large and I wish for a smaller GPZ coil.
So what works fine in Australia may not be so great in the US.

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I hear people all the time talking about how they'd like a bigger coil for the SDC or a smaller coil for the GPZ.  Which is pretty much what this thread is about....  :biggrin:  I think either would defeat the main purpose of these particular detectors.  I also believe the GPX series covers all the 'ground' between these 'extremes'.

I don't think there is going to be a smaller coil for the GPZ and here's why.  The GPZ utilizes a 'DOD' type coil.  There are two 'ears' placed on either side of the transmit coil.  In order for a smaller coil to have the same basic properties that the Zed needs to have, it would require 'roughly' the same resistance and inductance and possibly similar capacitance.  Which means that the same amount (lengths) of wire would need to be coiled into smaller bundles.  Then the three coils would need to be 'tuned' and placed properly in relation to each other for the coil to function correctly.  Things get pretty 'tight' at that point and might not be possible.  If a smaller coil were to see the light of day, I'd guess an 11" coil would be the smallest.  Just my opinion.  Perhaps Minelab will prove me wrong.  I think that if making a smaller coil for the 7000 was a 'no brainer', that would have been the coil that came out instead of the 19".  As far as I have seen, most people who own a GPZ7000 wanted a smaller, lighter coil.  Not a bigger, heavier one.  Which is one reason for my thoughts here.

As far as the SDC is concerned.  I believe a coil much bigger than the 8" will not be able to handle the short pulse delay that allows the SDC to find things that a GPX equipped with Sadie are unable to see.  If a larger coil came available for the SDC I think it would lose it's edge and then find itself in the GPX range and then what would be the point of that?   The SDC has an edge because of it's 'special' technology in a specifically tuned package.  A smaller coil could be possible, but how much smaller do you want your 'nuggets' to be?  I take my Goldmaster to spots when I can't get anything else with the 2300.  My Goldmaster only cost me $250.

Reno Chris makes a good point too.

Luke

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Aftermarket coil options for both detectors are surprisingly lacking.

patent rights and legal BS might be the reason.

I feel that the bottom line is what Minelab is looking at the closest.

If a larger  coil was available for the 2300 that wold offset the sales of the GPZ

Therefore if a smaller coil was available for the GPZ less 2300's would sell.

a updated version of the 2300 would make more $$$$ than a simple accessory.

kinda like the pentium chip.  do you believe they could only develop it in small steps....

Continued years of sales is what they developed.

This consumer bleeding has become a standard in many markets.

DZ

 

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4 hours ago, LukeJ said:

As far as the SDC is concerned.  I believe a coil much bigger than the 8" will not be able to handle the short pulse delay that allows the SDC to find things that a GPX equipped with Sadie are unable to see.  If a larger coil came available for the SDC I think it would lose it's edge and then find itself in the GPX range and then what would be the point of that?

A very good post Luke, and I believe you are right about a bigger coil for the 2300. I think because of the timings of the 2300 it would be totally pointless slapping a 18" coil on it.    For me, I`m thinking, maybe a 12x7 would be the ideal coil for the 2300. Lose a little bit of sensitivity on the small stuff and gain a little bit on the bigger deeper stuff, but after that, if you went bigger on the 2300 you`d be wasting your time.

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1 hour ago, kiwijw said:

LukeJ: For me in my detecting conditions my GPX 4500 with sadie coil left the SDC for dead. If it didnt, then I would have stuck to the SDC. Again....horses for courses & again I believe the SDC is more in its element in hot ground. Maybe that is why your GoldMaster gets gold at spots your SDC didnt, because the ground is very mild. Is it/was it? I do know that I did get pretty tiny gold with my SDC, as I do with the GM 1000 & GB2 but when the 4500 & sadie got bigger gold at depths that the SDC didnt even register on, consistently. I had to take notice & why I lost faith in the SDC. Even more so when the sadie coil is smaller than the SDC's coil. You would think the 8" coil on the SDC would get that same gold deeper than the sadie on the 4500. But it didn't & I was running the SDC flat out, as I was the 4500. But then that is just me & my ground conditions. Probably very different for many others of you. And yes. Reno Chris made a very point.  Cheers.

Good luck out there

JW :smile:

Hi JW,

I wanted to try to clarify a few things and I wanted to say beforehand that I know, that you know, what you are doing when it comes to detecting for gold, so please don't take my inquiry the wrong way.  :biggrin:

I have spent at least a couple hundred hours listening to the 'music' of the SDC.  I can find things with that detector that other people just can't (or didn't).  When I started out, I was finding a fair amount of targets, some were gold.  After awhile, several of the spots I was visiting were 'hammered' by myself, and 'originally' by others in the past.  But then, over time I began to hear "beyond the threshold" and sometimes it almost seems like I'm 'willing' a target to be there, and as it turns out, often times it is.  I now find nuggets (.1g and smaller) at the very edge of detection of that 8" coil, things that a Sadie or any other coil or timing on a GPX just can not hear.  So with that being said, I'm very familiar with the SDC and it's capabilities.

My question arises when you say that the 4500 and the Sadie left the SDC for dead.  I know I must try to take the mild ground in your area into account.  The ground in my 'areas' vary from mild to fairly mineralized.  We both know that nuggets vary in shape and size and other conditions can also make a nugget easier or more difficult to detect.  One thing that is fairly common is shotgun pellets.  The ones I'm referring to are still perfectly round and the very smallest of the lead shot, the birdshot.  The ones that VLF detectors hear quite easily and the SDC can detect them as well. 

Can your 4500 and the Sadie detect those birdshot too? 

Once again, I'm talking about the smallest ones and they have to be lead, not steel or iron.  If they are deformed in any way, they become easier to detect, so those are not what I'm asking about. 

The reason I ask the question is that I'm wondering if maybe you didn't spend enough time with the SDC, and since I've heard people talk about their dislike for the 'warbley' threshold of the SDC compared to the silky smooth threshold of the GPX.  I know that my 5000 and the Sadie will not (so far) find those smallest lead pellets, at least at the settings that I have to run on 'my' ground.  I almost always run the SDC at '4'.  When I run at '5' it's just too noisy for me and when I switch back to '4' the magic starts to happen.   When I get tired of digging those tiny bits of birdshot, I swing the GPX and go for bigger stuff.  If I find gold with the GPX, I return and find more with the SDC or Goldmaster.   The Goldmaster is for particular areas that are shallow, or where I get too much EMI to run the Minelabs effectively.  At this point, I consider using the SDC to be 'cheating' and I like to use it to break the skunk that happens more often with the GPX. :smile:

I would say that perhaps one difference and quite possibly a major factor, is your mild ground and that you can run your 4500 'flat out'.  Maybe that's why the Sadie was able to perform better for you.  There is no '6' on the SDC....

I know this may have gotten a bit off subject, but things are said all the time here and there, without clarification.  I just wanted to specify and be more clear so that we all can understand a bit better.  Hopefully I didn't ramble too much since it's late here and I should have been sleeping an hour ago.

Thanks,

Luke

 

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Whether people buy them or not is beside the point from a user perspective. That is why they are “optional”. In my opinion any detector benefits from as many coil options as possible, both large and small. That way you get to choose instead of having the choice forced on you.

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Wherever you are in the world the MD and coil options you have are  to maximise your chances of getting gold, in the past I know some of the extra coils I`ve purchased achieved bugger all some do well, now because I have the Z, I probably will not buy coils for the SDC, but I`ll keep an open mind and see what the go is when one is available.

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my take on the SDC, is that its a simple to operate and very sensitive detector and will see bird shot that the GPX4000/4500 will not detect with either the sadie or joey coils. When I got mine I took it straight to a patch that had produced lots of Au, and right away started to get targets...after about 20-30 bird shots I gave up with no gold. Yes indeed it detects small targets but that's not such a great plus to me when there is shed lots of bird shot present. Patience of a saint? no quite yet...

 Then I took it back to a waterway that had produced several oz's  with the 4000/joey combo, time to clean up all the small stuff..good times ahead...yeah nah..not a sausage.. that's right, nothing , my thinking is the small gold the SDC can see, will not hold on bedrock in a flood situation, and more importantly I cannot poke and prod the round SDC coil around like the joey.

 A SDC that is lighter(its too heavy to swing all day) that is actually waterproof(mine would go crazy when the control box went under) and had a joey sized coil would be a great machine for sniping waterways and poking around mostly  birdshot gold fields . The smallest piece I found was .02 grams from memory, that's more like a flake. .finding fly shitte pieces of gold isn't really my cup of earl grey anyhow.

When they first came out I wanted one straight away, it looked like my dream machine, a underwater super sensitive PI..be careful what you wish for...sold it 4 months ago and lost $250 on the deal...I won't die wondering...and if a small elliptical coil does come out..well I probably won't be able to help myself...

all sorts of luck to ya all

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