Northeast

Hope it all goes well Jim and you recuperate well. Look forward to seeing you back on here soon 👍🏻

Thanks Steve. Now I feel bad I didn’t just do it myself and save you the time! Or perhaps the name Steve H on an email gets a quicker response 😉 Great news all round 👍🏻

Evening all. Noticed that all Garrett detectors, pinpointers and search coils now come with a 3 year warranty. https://garrett.com/sport/axiom Sorry if these have been asked somewhere else on the forum but a search did not bring anything up. 1) Does this only apply to Axioms purchased from a certain date or have all Axioms purchased since the model was released been upgraded to the 3 yr warranty status? 2) is this 3 yr warranty transferrable from the first owner to the next?

Might want to patent that Scott 🤣 Actually looks more versatile and hard wearing than the original 👍🏻

32" spiral...mono coil? And you mentioned in the post GPX 4500/5000 and in the heading GP and GPX...it still work on the GP series? Weight will be interesting 👍

I opened it up on Facebook no troubles. I’m assuming it is Aussie Gold Hunters Reg? You’ve probably seen it already on pay tv Mitchel?

Not sure that it is common but I had an issue with mine after i'd had it for a couple of years. Sent it back and they put in a new PCB. Prior to sending it in it was working one day and then the next time it got used it just went hay-wire! From a thread I did here on DP Forum. "Just an update to this thread. SDC had been returned whilst we were away. Kevin from Minelab advised via email that they had replaced the main pcb and should have no further issues. I'm not sure what a pcb is but it sounds technical Fired it up this arvo and all seemed good."

Yep, picked one up last December. Used about 10 times. Would have been more but it just wouldn’t stop raining for long enough for river levels to drop and water to clear up. Have had no issues and really like it thus far. Hopefully it stays that way 👍🏻

No I haven’t. Sorry to hear you’re having the issue. Did you just get the one battery?

Caution - I would stop doing any more detecting for at least 3 weeks. The last thing you want with a hernia is to re-open it. Often after that type of surgery they might suggest something like not lifting anything more than 1 kilogram for 4 weeks, 3 kilogram for another 4 weeks, 5 kilogram for another 4 weeks, etc. Walking is great but the twisting, lifting, squatting of detecting and retrieving targets is something I’d avoid for awhile. That’s just what I would do. No point overdoing things and having to go back to the OR for the sake of a few weeks 😉 Keep on top of the pain and don’t get constipated 😀

Sorry, but I’d be asking the manufacturer/dealer that sold you the very expensive product. Hope it works out ok for you but concerned that it won’t 😔

Blimey!! That’s a crap load of gold in a small area 😮 Bet the farmer wishes he’d shut up for a while until he’d found a tonne or so for himself.

Mmmmm, bugger!! 🤔

I'm sure this has been asked before...will the older GPX series coils work on an Axiom??? Different connection perhaps? If the connection was changed would they work? Has anyone tried? EDIT: an afterthought. Are the coil ears/end of the Axiom shaft too different? Could make an adapter?

Hi Aureous and @Reg Wilson . I am hearing you and trust me, if I had the option it would be definitely be mounted behind a vehicle. Unfortunately it just isn't an option. My wife and kids have zero interest in this hobby and therefore gold finds have to fund the next purchase and adventure and gold finds this year were slimmer than last! When we lived in Arnhem Land and I bought a $45,000 bought that was not an issue in the slightest because everyone got use out of that 😉 So, I either give up on the idea altogether or I push ahead, try to be a bit inventive and work with what I have been provided. For better or worse I am a stupidly optimistic bugger so will plow ahead - nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? 😁 Great point Reg and probably almost more of the point of making the coil. We wasted so much time trying to extend patches on our recent trip (to no avail) where that time could have been used elsewhere if we could have gridded quicker. I'm wondering if you could please expand on this Reg? A P.A. member has contacted me privately and provided some great info but has pretty much said that AI coils are the way to go to decrease EMI and ground noise/salt signal as much as possible, and then settings can be ramped up a little. Now, I don't know either way but my small brain has me sitting on the fence because: - re: EMI. With no tow vehicle and mostly remote W.A. locations I am hoping EMI would not affect a mono to any great degree. - re: ground noise/salt signal. I know the 17" coil on the GPX6000 struggled at times this year and last year due to salt signal whereas the 11" fared much better. It has me thinking that a 50" mono is just going to be a nightmare in W.A. Or are you using the myriad of settings on the older GPX's to get the mono usable? Cheers, N.E.

Wheels and PVC tubing to make a sled are certainly an option too. I am trying to keep it really simple for a couple of reasons though. The first is so that there is less to go wrong out in the field. Second is that the more moving parts means it is more complex to make and everything needs to be metal free. Not impossible but harder. The third is that I will certainly use it here in Victoria on farms, etc, but it is really being purchased to take to the wide opens spaces of Western Australia. Something like Woody's loop could be easily shipped to my brother-in-law in Perth before I fly across there and he can simply have some conveyor belt and ropes organised. The ideas around the sled make up are appreciated but it is more the make up of the coil that is the concept that is outside my boundaries. I have had a generous offer of assistance from a Prospecting Australia member to provide some info around that and will definitely keep you updated re: if I proceed with making the coil myself 😊

Yes, that is an option. I am looking for something a little wider though (60" - 72") to really cover some ground.

Thanks GotAU. Although that set-up is weighted better I'm trying to find an alternative to the side-to-side swinging motion. Walking/pulling in a straight line seems like it would be better on the body long term 👍 Actually seems like a decent option RR, thanks. Made in Idaho - I wonder if @Gerry in Idaho has seen them out and about? Looks like you have to use their P.I. module though. And shipping to Australia - I don't even want to know 🤣 Definitely ground coverage in the first instance Jasong. Depth is just an added advantage. However, I think the option below will give me both. It could be laid out in a wide oval shape to get ground coverage. Then, if a patch is found or I wanted to go over the B-I-L's original patch (found 1/2 a kilo and counting) then it could be shaped into a 50" round coil. https://detectormods.com/shop/77/flexible-drag-coil

It is pretty much exactly what I had in my head - and it is already made with all of the bugs ironed out. It takes away the learning and the fun but it lets me get on and use it and work out how best to run it before W.A. next year. A vid about it here. Make it a long oval shape rather than round and the 50" coil could be roughly 25" X 65" 💪 Might need to change the heading of the thread 😂

Yes, we did talk about e-bikes. My B-I-L bought one of these ( see link below) about 8 months ago as APLA has their own recommendations that you don't drive your 4X4 everywhere on a tenement - I'm not really sure why. They encouraged the use of a 4 or 2 wheel motor bike. Now pastoralists do not want that. https://fatcatbikes.com.au/ Again, initial cost of a decent e-bike, carrying it around, length of time you would get out a battery, possible EMI interactions - I'm really just happy to drag the thing 😊 Have also just seen these - https://detectormods.com/shop/77/flexible-drag-coil

Thanks everyone for the comments so far and a bit of a reality check - I always knew in the back of my mind that it would not be as straight forward as I hoped 😉 Thanks Aureous - yes, the shielding will be another hurdle. Re: a tow vehicle - I am pretty steadfast on the need to pull this myself, for a couple of reasons. The first is cost - both the purchase cost, and the cost of a trailer to put a motorbike in and then the extra cost of towing, etc. All of that is simply not an option for me for what is essentially a hobby. If I lived in the W.A. goldfields then it would be a different scenario. The second is that in W.A at present there is a bit of a push from the pastoral lease holders requesting prospectors to not use combustion engine motor bikes (2 wheel or 4 wheel). Apparently having a lot of issues with cattle. The 3 different stations we went on this year all requested the same thing. My brother-in-law is a member of APLA and we very much try to do the right thing and follow requests, whether they 'legally' need to be followed or not. It hopefully means no issues for us returning in the future and we also don't need to provide any further ammunition for pastoral lease holders/mining companies to further their efforts to reduce prospector access. I'm a big lad and quite fit so dragging something that moves reasonably easy over the ground (even at 10 kg) should not be too hard of an ask. Although I may get some carpet, a 10 kg weight and give that a whirl before I make too many claims 😁 Yeah, naaa, thanks anyway 🤣 A 40" X 20" Coiltek may end up being the resultant purchase but I'll tease this out as far as I practically can 👍

Big idea from a bloke with no idea!!! Hoping that this forum can be of some assistance 🙂 Well, with another trip to Western Australia done and dusted my last statement to my brother in law before I left was that "I don't think I will be back without a drag coil". Aaaaaaaand I am hoping to go back next year 🤣 We did OK considering we were genuinely 'prospecting' and we knew that it may be a boom or bust type situation. The issue is that we passed over so much country because it is just too big. Vast. Expansive. And much of that vastness looks exactly the same - where the hell do you start? And of the patches we did find, then gridding out from those located pieces would be far more efficient and easier on the body than the side-to-side, slowly moving forward, small step action that gridding requires. I'll proceed with what I want to do, what I don't want to use, what I hope I can build and then questions re: what is actually feasible. I have looked through a few topics on here and there are snippets that can be picked up but not specifics and the cans, cants and have to's and how to's. I am really hoping to build a thread that anyone can follow and build their own basic coil design or at least have the basic idea of where to start. I'm hoping that @Reg Wilson @Chet @jrbeatty @Aureous @jasong @Geotech and others with technical expertise and prior experience can be helpful. Disclaimer - I checked out Geotech forum and although I am sure it is a fantastic forum I am sorry to say that it is all just too far over my head. I really need things in laymen's terms. I guess it is a case of if you never learnt it you just don't know it and I don't have the time to go and do a diploma in electronics. I help student/new nurses go through a step-by-step-by-step process of changing vacuum dressings on huge abdo wounds or changing PICC dressings or setting up a syringe driver for a palliative care patient. They are technical things and they need guidance, unfortunately I am asking for the same guidance here 🙏 My basic plan - to make a 5 or 6 foot wide, oval or rectangle shape, mono coil that I can drag myself - not with a vehicle of any sort. My goal is coverage more than depth although depth is always a welcome advantage I suppose. I would be hoping such a coil could pick up shallow gold pieces that are 2 grams and up?? Mount the windings inside plastic tubing (inch poly??), solidify those windings inside the tubing with either some sort of foam or resin, affix that to the top of a folded piece of non-metal conveyor belt, place a solid timber on the front edge/folded edge of the belt and tow with a rope. All connected to a GPX series (4000/4500/5000) detector that can be carried on a harness with the battery, etc. As I am trying to keep-it-simple-stupid I am hoping that the windings can simply be bundle wound and that a gel type resin will both provide some weight, some rigidity and keep the windings in place. I do not want to use a vehicle due to the extra cost of purchasing a vehicle, transporting it and the EMI complications it can bring. As I will be pulling the device it needs to be reasonably light weight but not so light weight that it is not durable and that it does not remain as flat as possible. I know there is a pre-fab ready-to-go option with an @Coiltek 40 inch drag coil but I am wanting something a little wider to really make the process efficient. And I might learn something along the way 👨‍🎓 So before getting into the what I need and how to do it, I really need to start with 'Is it possible?'. Noting Reg's post below re: as things get bigger they develop more problems - is a 72 inch wide coil even feasible? Is this why Coiltek don't make anything over 40"? The build itself it adaptable but I am guessing the physics is not, so that is the first hurdle I need to over come. Question 1 - Will physics defeat me before I even start? Look forward to your responses 🙂 Cheers, N.E.

Steve did a review recently. Looks good. But, check out the 2nd last paragraph especially. Transmitter, receiver and the Phasetech audio lead means it will likely be a bit costly.

Glad you brought it up 🙂 @Coiltek anything in the testing phase that you can divulge? I keep reading terrible reports about the 11" coils and feel lucky that I got a good one. It is just crazy sensitive to tiny pieces and also larger targets at depth. Granted, there are fine cracks in the coil ears and one at the cable insertion point but performance wise it is faultless. It will get returned under warranty but I'm not in a hurry, and certainly not before W.A. And I'm still on my original coil cover and I scrub quite a lot 🤷‍♂️

Sorry Aureous but I am going to be a pain in the ass and do exactly what you asked us not to.... Yes, they will need the audio adapter. But why don't they use this instead? Also from Phasetech. Used it on the QED and it is a brilliant bit of kit. Lasts for ages. Recharges quickly. Only a 0.06 sec delay. Has a volume control. And I'm sure Phasetech will confirm that it 100% works for the SDC. Then just use whatever headphone/earbud options they prefer. https://phasetechnical.com.au/product/quest-wirefree-mate-kit/ Audio adapter https://phasetechnical.com.au/product/sdc2300_adaptor_lead/ Not the cheapest option though at a total of $250 or thereabouts.