jasong

I haven't tried to balance on the ML one yet, but I will when I get some free time again to get away from town. The fact that the aftermarket ferrite is conductive is the concerning part to me. Because if a person tries to balance it in manual they will be changing both X and G and leaving it set wrong. At least that's the way I understand it. That, and the X itself may be not matching the X in the ML ferrite either.

The Ace250 was the first real detector I bought and it's what really got me into detecting. I had a couple $5 garage sale 1970's machines before that and they were a bit frustrating to learn on and I didn't do much with them. But they got me into reading forums for a few years as a distraction from homework. In 2004, I believe it was the first year the Ace 250 came out, I finally decided to take the plunge and spend what seemed like a bankrupting amount to me at the time - $199. I literally spent months going back and forth on whether I should spend that much or not. I was paying my way through college as a dishwasher and doing lab TA'ing at the time. I bought it with the idea that I'd detect the campus grounds and pay the machine off quickly and have extra money to go to concerts and movies, one in a long line of get rich quick schemes I had at that age. What I didn't know was that the White's factory was literally right across I-5 (an interstate) from me and many times a week there were 2 guys (sometimes 3 or 4) associated with White's, sometimes testing machines, who would grid all the good spots regularly. So I'd try to wake up real early and haul ass through all the fields, detecting a million miles an hour, to try to beat them to it. That machine absolutely rocked for that purpose. It was so fast, easy and intuitive. And that fast technique kinda carried over to prospecting too in a way later on. I still got the 250, I take it out with me looking for old abandoned homesteads and ranches, it's beat to hell from bouncing around in the back of my truck and being abused for 15 years, and still runs great.

I was going to post this in one of the X Coil threads, but it might be of interest to everyone. I bought a replacement ferrite ring since I left my ML ferrite in Arizona. It's one of the Doc's ferrites with the white backside (off Ebay), I did not realize they were not ML ferrites when I bought it. The OEM Minelab ferrites have a black backside. It would not balance on the X Coils at all and actually sounded like a screaming target (I didn't try the Z14) so I reported that to the coil manufacturer. He responded that the white backed aftermarket rings are not the same as the ML rings. So, as I normally do, I checked for myself, bought an authentic ML ring, and he was right. They are the same size, but the Doc's ring is 10 grams heavier (something I noticed immediately but did not have a ML ring to compare to until recently). It is also more magnetic. The Doc's ring is also conductive whereas the ML ring is non-conductive - the Doc's ring was reading about 38 ohms from side to side whereas the ML ring read infinity. And after I sanded the backs to get a fresh surface to check resistances on I noticed the ML ring looks dull and black as a ferrite should, but the Doc's ring looks shiny and metallic, like iron. So, clearly there are differences between the two rings. Thought people might like to know even if you are just using the stock coil, as I'm not sure how this affects the ground balance, but someone could be running suboptimally using this ring.

One more update, after talking to the manufacturer it looks like all coils will now come with these plastic spikes/clamps on the cables.

Not visible in my photo because my coil didn't come with them.

Do you have one of the stock Minelab ferrites Jin? They are a bit black colored on the back. I bought a replacement that wasn't made by Minelab, with a white backing, and the manufacturer said it wouldn't balance on anything but the stock ferrite. Sure enough, it screamed on the white backed ferrite and wouldn't balance it. I haven't tried the Minelab ferrite yet. Andy might be gearing up for some night detecting, dunno. But, here is a picture of my replacement coil/cable inserting into the middle shaft, no problems. Next to it can be seen the old coil cable being re-wrapped onto a 5/16" (~8mm) spindle as the manufacturer suggested I keep the coil and rewrap it rather than send it back. The newer cord is slightly blacker but I'm not sure if that means it's a different material or if it's just because my old cord is discolored from leaving it in the sun to rewrap twice before (this time I used a heat gun). Also, the patch I made in the upper right. Apparantly I still need to wrap it with a lot of layers of tape for strength according to the manufacturer. I think a few layers of adhesive shrink tube should work too though, if that's what Steelphase is doing?

Another odd move. Considering SDC's are $3730 in Australia, that means they are only $2534 USD if we bought from overseas. Not sure why they would raise the price even more here in USD, it should be going the opposite direction with currency exchange rates. Shouldn't it? Not to mention the margin between invoice and MSRP is huge, $50 would seem to make very little difference in that light.

I received my replacement 12" X Coil this morning and I'm happy to report the cable inserts with no problems now, drops right into the shaft with no friction, same as the stock cable does. 👍 From what I understand, all the cables now are being wound into a tighter wrap like this, so that's good as it should eliminate the shaft binding. I have not had a chance to get out and use the coil yet though to see how it does.

In total, the GPZ with the 10" X Coil is about equal to swinging around 2 large Coke's, a medium pizza, a soft shell taco, and a Big Mac which your buddy took a big bite out of when you weren't looking, accounting roughly for packaging weight. Also, roughy equal to a 7lb bag of feathers. The coil diameter is also equal to 30 barleycorns, or approximately 5/36ths of a fathom. And all that still somehow makes more sense to me than the pennyweight does.

Good idea. Do you know how much less the CTX battery weighs than the stock battery?

I don't have a CTX battery, but here were the weights of the coils I got (coils +cables, no shafts). Even though it's only a little over 250 grams lighter, the 10" (with the stock battery) feels like something I can swing without the bungee. The 12" feels like I'd still need a bungee for a full day, but if I forgot the bungee I could make it through a day by taking breaks. I guess I'd have to add the weight of the patch on too. Overall, not quite as much weight savings as I had thought initially, but it's enough to be noticeable. Weight (grams) Z14 Stock Coil 1240 X17 Spiral 1393 X12 Spiral 1133 X10 Bundle 988 250 grams = the approximate weight of a Big Mac, for easy visualization of what's being subtracted from the coil end of the detector.

Might get your wish there Andy, the 17x12's are in testing, not sure if they are for sale or not yet though? We'll have to see how they go. That $3500 AUD repair is crazy... That's like $2500 USD. Some dealers were able to hook their friends up with entire GPZ's for around $4800 USD, I forgot the exact number, which I presume was their invoice cost or close to it. I'd be very surprised if that main board costs more than $200 to make, so they are turning a healthy profit on repairs too I guess.

This would take 100's of people, it ain't happening. This would have 20 posts by now if enough people cared to move forward. It appears that almost the only people willing to do anything are the people who already have patch leads and thus nothing to gain! I have, however, shown rather effectively by accident why Minelab was right to stay out of the coil fray. So, feel free to thank me down at corporate, boys. I thought this was a solution that would help other people, from current customers to ML to dealers to coil manufacturers. I got no horse in that race anymore since I already made a patch lead that lets me run any coil. No use spending time on this if others don't care, moving on to more productive things!

I think Bill left after ML moved their marketing HQ to Chicago. Not positive, but I remember him saying something like that when I was communicating with him too about various subjects. Unfortunately anyone I ever talked to at ML seems to be gone now so not sure who to contact, but I'll find out.

Cool, cool. Stoicism doesn't land a nation on the moon though.