Andyy

That is a little beauty. Thanks for sharing!

I have been in areas before where I never achieved complete balance off the ferrite even with the 14" coil. Now I am understanding that people really need to be cognizant of "Saturated signal", "X signal", "Ground mineralization signal" and "Salt Signal". Sometimes I think this can be tough to determine. Obviously ground mineralization can be ground balanced with side pumps. Deciphering whether there is salt signal, has also been discussed previously. Saturation has been discussed in this thread and instructions were given to determine if this signal exists. (I still need to follow through to see if this method clearly identifies saturation in my soils) It would be nice for the machine to tell us the amount of these components so that we can best tune the machine. Maybe that will be a future machine. I am not sure if I will get out testing this weekend, but if I do, I have a place in mind that had very noisy ground, and is a lot shorter of a drive (which is a plus). Then I can try to raise the coil off the ground to determine if saturation is present. It is possible saturation has been giving me issue for some time (even on std. coils) and I just thought it was ground signal that was not balancing. Things I would like to try with the ferrite (specifically for the Xcoil) are: 1) how well auto works (no ferrite use) 2) semi-auto (with ferrite) using recommended technique by JP 3) semi-auto (with ferrite balance only over the front tip of the coil) 4) semi-auto (with ferrite raised on rocks 6-8 inches)

I am in full agreement that the GPZ is a great machine to use and fairly easy to learn. The questions we ask are not intended to make the machine seem more difficult to operate or to make us look or feel smarter for asking the direct pointed questions, or to frustrate JP :) The truth is, that the more information we have on how something works, also helps us solve current or future problems that might come up, whether it is some strange coil, setting experimentation, or who knows what. Many terms are used and assumed (sometimes incorrectly) leading to misunderstanding information. I prefer not to assume. And the fact that we have someone like JP on here to explain this stuff, is much appreciated. For example, if the questions were not asked, I would still be using the octopus style ground balancing, which can still end up leaving the machine not ground balance to its full capability. Anyways, I have found this to be a very healthy discussion.

th But something JP said was interesting. Saturation will be amplified by the ferrite. My guess is that the Rx can only translate a set range of magnetic field. Maybe saturated ground with the Tx overloads the electronics that the Rx coil can handle. in JP's personal method of ferrite balancing, it was said: "If the Ferrite balance is out the resultant X signal will blend with or elevate ground signals potentially causing spurious indefinable signals and generally make the detector noisier to listen to, all of this will affect depth. " This is what happens with the Xcoil that cannot handle the return signals in "saturated" ground... I think it is simple to JP because he has been so enveloped by all of the parameters and definitions for so long. That makes it difficult and maybe frustrating to explain it to us. I hope for his further input.

And …. Saturation only affects X balance, not ground balance. And …. Semi Auto locks the X balance when you release the button (I proved this well in my testing) but allows the ground balance to track slowly. As an added note, my 14" coil was smoother in Semi Auto, than when I used to always have it set to Auto. As JP has mentioned in the past, if you don't want to use the Ferrite, then he suggests Auto, but if you use the ferrite, we should lock it in with SemiAuto. we will figure this out, yet... As I questioned on a different link, what exactly saturation is …. still has me confused.

Right, this makes some sense since saturation cannot be balanced out according to JP. Saturation means you have spillover from something which I have to assume is limited by the magnetic field of the coil. Therefore maybe it is all of the left over "saturated" signal that cannot be handled. I don't know. Honestly, though, I had never heard of high saturation until the Xcoil came out. So, yes, I am still confused.

If it were just soldering wires together, I would rate the job as "easy". But this has a cup connector and needs to be soldered in pretty tight quarters. I would give it "intermediate" difficulty. You definitely do not want to rush through it. There are many ways to mess this up.

So is Saturation Signal just ground noise that the machine cannot balance? (is it moisture) I understand it is different than the X-signal but can be greatly magnified by the ferrite. Is it part of the G-signal? I'm not sure if I am clearly expressing my question. In the past I had always thought there was: 1) ground noise (mineralization) including: a) X signal component (requires ferrite to remove this component) b) G signal component 2) EMI (ElectroMagnetic Interference- air wave noise) Is there a 1c) Saturation?

Sounds good, Chet. Maybe between you me and Jason, we'll find what the best method of ferrite balance will be in saturated ground.

If you guys are code hackers.. maybe I could have you add a simple time stamp to the front page so I dont have to hit a few keys to show it in the gps screen. Ha ha I know nothing of the legalities of changing code, unfortunately.

Thank you. And I almost did not ask because I know it is a touchy subject. I think we are beyond all of that now and just have a keen interest to try to make anything and everything work to the peak of ability. You know how we love to experiment. If anything I have a greater knowledge on X signal, G signal and saturated ground, now. I'm sure some of us will be doing more testing to determine alternative ferrite balancing. I know I will be.

JP - excellent thread. I have not gotten out to check this method in the saturated soils with the xcoils. But my question is whether this was sufficient to stabilize them in your tests or whether those of us with xcoils should use the button 6 to 8 inches above the ferrite to minimize saturation affect on the xcoils and then we follow with std pumps to the side? Thx

I tried locate patch in my ground in hope that i could scan faster with less noise. But I always found the opposite so have never been able to use this feature.

Ummm, I am so sorry Condor, but while you were gone kicking roos, I cleaned up all of the AZ gold. You might as well stay there a bit longer. Haha As for that Oz gold, it sounds like people are just using the wrong equipment. The reports keep saying all you need is to walk your dog and you'll be kicking over pounds of gold. If it were only that easy.

Oh no! That was my concern about having someone else do it. If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. I was a little OCD and kept ohm-ing out the pins to make sure I didn't bridge any. I bet I checked it 20 times. Maybe Jason's suggestions will help. If you can't get the non-modified coil to work, then this is about all you can do short of sending it to a minelab house to review. Maybe you won't have to pay for an entirely new machine, just a board. Best of luck! Andy

Jason - do you think you will have saturated soils to test this in when you run testing in a few weeks? I am curious if JP's suggestions will help to bypass this issue.

I am pretty sure that the 10" are not spiral wound.

Flakmagnet - Yes, it was my patch lead. Simon - I definitely believe the first four were missed by the std coil. So this tells me that the size of the 10" likely did improve hearing the small gold. Of course there could have been other factors, but I scrub the coils very slowly. I checked my gps previous tracks, and it seems like the last two nuggets were not found because I didn't see the wash all together, before. As for the bobcat, I was walking towards the patch when I saw a large amber reflection. I thought someone put up a mine claim marker at first. A couple more steps and I saw the other eye open. That gave me the chills. Then the large shadow left with a catlike gait. Jason - it seemed really noisy before I ever broke out the ferrite. No amount of smoothing or ground balancing would help. But I was in semi-auto so it probably took the X ground balance of Patch#1. I did not try to go into Auto and leave out the ferrite. Sorry, I was getting tired. Hey JP, I did check General/Difficult on Patch#1 and it was fine. But on Path#2, it failed in HY/Normal. I never got around to testing in Difficult. Typically, I can just go to General/Normal and be fine.

Some pics from the first patch hunt: (sizes in grams: .05/.07/.08/.21/.19/.71 = 1.3g)

As promised, I got out this morning to do a review on a new Russian Xcoil that I received. But let me state firstly that I am not a dealer, I paid for this coil myself and have no self interests other than reporting what I find as I see it. So here it goes: I headed off to the gold fields of Arizona at about10:15pm last night. It was 105F outside but it was dropping. So it looked like this was going to be a fairly comfortable night for detecting. The goal of this trip was: 1) compare the Russian 10" Xcoil to the 14x13" ML coil in respects to finding gold 2) check ferrite balance 3) check knock sensitivity 4) review overall design The first patch I tested was one in which I had only found small gold (nothing over .3g). In total, I am lucky if this patch gave up 15 grams, but it was very fun. And I gridded this area to the best of my ability. Rough dimensions are 50'x50'. It is unlike any of my other gold area I have been to. There is no quartz on the ground, but seems to be a basalt looking grey covering up a red gossan type material (which the gold is in) There are areas on this hill where you cannot swing a detector it is so hot. And hot rocks are the norm, here. Once on location, I began with the standard coil, dropped the ferrite ring and ground balanced. I also followed up with noise cancelling, etc. Then I proceeded to recheck an area which had a dense concentration of nuggets, previously. I found nothing but I succeeded in warming the machine up. No knock sensitivity, threshold was a little ratty with the EMI, but nothing out of the ordinary. I ran the most conservative settings I know. There are much better settings, but I wanted to know how the coils would operate without optimization. Settings are below: High Yield/Normal/Sens=4,Vol=8,Thresh=25, tone=53, Vol Limit=7, Ground Balance Mode=Semi Auto, Audio Smoothing= off, Ground smoothing= off Next, I switched to the 10" coil. Used the ferrite and checked knock sensitivity. all was good. It also, had the same level of noise as before. so I began hunting. after 15 minutes or so I had a target and it was a small nugget. and then another. At this point I just wandered through the area I had gridded and found a couple more. Total to this point was four small nuggets. I didn't want to spend all of my time here so I headed back to the truck. On the way I checked a wash that I thought I checked previously. Apparently not good enough. I found two larger nuggets, now I am up to 6 nuggets for the trip. But back to the truck I went to check patch #2. Now this is where it gets interesting. It is about 5 minute drive to my new area. The gold from this area *did* come from quartz stringers and the local metamorphic rocks. The largest piece found was 5 grams and I believe I found a little over an ounce in total. Most of it from two washes but some from the adjacent hillside. Anyways, after parking I started my slow walk to the patch with the 10" coil. After getting my wits scared out of my by what I think was a bobcat, I continued to the area. I immediately noticed a problem. The coil was very noisy. I tried everything I could and tried to rebalance to the ferrite. But it would not work. So then I walked back to the truck and got the std coil. This coil ran smoothly. So it wasn't my imagination. Then I switched back again to the 10" coil without rebalancing to the ferrite. No problem. It was smooth. As soon as rebalanced to the ferrite ring, it was out of wack again. So this was frustrating. I never did check knock sensitivity as the ground noise was already an issue. By this time it was 4am and I decided to call it a night. So it seems that while the coils work well in some areas, there are the areas (as JP mentioned previously) that will give some issues. The only way to trick it is to use your std coil and lock in the X-balance and then switch coils without rebalancing to the ferrite ring. Another note I would make about this new coil is that the coil wire itself is thicker and does not like to go into the shaft. After multiple changings, I found that with a little mid shaft rotation, it helped with this immensely. The standard coil wire drops right in. That is really all I have on this, for now. I am not sure if this helps or just muddies up the water.

I guess I have just never seen one person on this forum, so against a product coming out. There seems to be a hidden agenda or the product would be allowed to just fail on its own. Facts given for buyer beware, is helpful. But everything afterwards is just useless. As for IP, time will need to tell on that one. It is *very* easy to work around existing IP. You add one novel idea to an existing patent, and you are around it. So attacking the integrity of people who have bought this coil is just a low blow in my opinion.

Too funny, Rob. When I saw this, I wondered if you'd have any information. I didn't think that could be the 2nd biggest.

I started painting with the liquid adhesive and the stuff is just a mess. But I am sure it could work if you took the time for it. I ended up leaving the liquid adhesive covering the exposed copper and then filled everything in with the hot glue and shaping it as needed. But then I am so awesome at soldering that I had all kinds of room for the connector (sarcasm). If the glue is not filling in for you, you may need to use a different glue stick or hotter gun. Back in my early days when I was too cheap to buy the garmin gps cables, I would make a cable by plugging the wire with just the pins into the garmin port and just hot gluing a mold. This worked great and always protected the connection. I believe the hot glue makes a stiffer (higher durometer) cover. But yeah, do whatever floats your boat :)

I actually tried liquid tape brushed around the leads first. It was sort of a mess. So I cleaned it up and used hot glue for the rest. I had no problems getting the hot glue between the wires. In hind sight I would just use the glue. But that is just my experience. Overall, the hardest thing about the mod was getting the enamel off the magnet wire. My choice method was 400 grit sand paper. I just lightly dragged it across. Acetone did nothing to remove it. Steel wool tore it up. Tinning process worked fine once i used the sand paper.

Exactly. Of course it is not going to meet Minelab standards. I am also stuck in this engineering world where "standards" are considered a holy grail word to use. Every company will have it's own design and test standards, Including this Russian maker. When a new company starts out, this is usually all that they have. Then they start building in quality standards, hopefully safety standards, and the list goes on. But to JP's point, testing and quality standards are extremely important. For TV's, this would be drop tests, vibration tests, thermal cycling. For smaller electrical components it might be a resistance test, HIPOT test, etc. When you have one person doing it, the risk is less in my experience. But if this Russian builder were to get a building and hire some people on an assembly line, I would be very afraid. Quality is usually the first thing to go. For now, this Russian guy is testing the waters. He doesn't know if he has a great product. He is probably looking for an investor. It will be curious to see where this goes. But isn't funny that this one Russian was able to do what Minelab engineers have been just trying so... so hard to do for like 4 or 5 years, now? No, Minelab knows exactly how to make a smaller coil. They just don't want to, yet. So the Russian is first to market. That is a big deal in any industry.