jasong

I did stretch the cables before pushing them in, they went back to regular size when it came around to the 2nd time reinserting the same cable (and 3rd in the prairie), I mentioned this in a subsequent post. I'll keep doing it and see if they get smaller. Also as mentioned, on one of the coils the cable still gets stuck even with the "threading in" so it requires some further finagling and pulling, at least for now. I put calipers on the cables and all 3 are definitely different sizes. Like Goldilocks and the 3 bears, one is too big, one is a little tight, and one is just right. Of course the largest one is the one I chose by chance to use the first time in my backyard. I'm pretty sure it was that pulling/stretching, extending the shaft, or me pulling on the patch lead up through the shaft when I finally finagled the end of the patch out that broke that wire now as I've looked at my work, testing, and trying to figure any other potential way it could have happened. Even once I got it pulled through, I could feel it was difficult to extend the shaft all the way out, which is how I normally detect, it was binding up as I tried to extend it and wouldn't go all the way. I was able to get it to extend all the way in the prairie, but it was definitely pulling hard on the cable/patch doing so. I tested the patch numerous times before using it, so I'm positive it was connected on my bench, the break happened sometime during putting the coil on the first time or extending the shaft. Wether it was pulling, vibration, or something else I don't know but I know that wire was connected before I used the patch so something in that process must have contributed at least a little to breaking that wire. Just relaying this so someone else doesn't potentially do the same thing. If that cable is pulled on, probably best not to pull by the patch cable. For the taller people among us who need to extend the shaft all the way out, this is impossible to avoid for particularly tight cables. *edit: I just tried this again and even stretching the cable it is still binding up in the middle shaft if I try to extend it, and it requires tugging at it a few times to get it to extend all the way, this is almost certainly putting strain on the patch. This occurs when I push the shaft back in too to fit into my truck, and then again when I extend the shaft once more to use. Opening the control box and holding the patch only marginally helps since the connector end in question is still in the upper shaft and cannot be grabbed so the strain on it persists. I think if there is any possible way for the manufacturer to make the coil curls smaller and more consistently sized, he should do it. My 17" fits perfectly, so it seems possible. Just my input.

That's true, but I don't think this is a situation where mechanical anchoring would help on the pin. My solder joint was good, it was the wire itself that broke, right where the solder stopped and the insulation started, if not a little inside the insulation. Definitely mechanical anchoring via the hot glue helps though to prevent the wire from moving or pulling though. I either cut too deep with the wire strippers, bent the wire around too much and fatigued it as I rotated to solder each pin, fatigued it pressing the cable repeatedly through the middle shaft, or some combo of all 3. It was connected when I completed the patch, and I've reviewed my video to ensure both visually it was connected and that my continuity tests were positive. It only stopped working once I inserted the whole shebang into the GPZ and tried to use it so just that amount of mechanical vibration or pulling on the patch to get the rest of the wire through must have been the straw to break the camels back. Another reason to make the cables fit in the shaft better, if we pull on the patch it's going to put strain on it, if the clamp slips, it's only the hotglue and then the wire taking all that force. Hopefully awareness of just how fragile that particular wire is will prevent someone else from making the same mistake though. My recollection is part of it was just some thin foil or something too, and then just a few strands of very thin wire. It is apparantly very easy to break even while trying to be careful.

That's a good tip too Norvic, if I did it over again I'd do it that way too. I actually did that tiny wire first because it happened to line up right there with the proper pin, and that was probably the worst possible order I could have done it on reflection. *Good catch, yep that's exactly what happened to mine too (except on the patch), as to that pic in Condor's except mine was actually hot glued, I had to spend some time cutting it all out. I hot glued my Z14 connector too just to be safe.

I thought it was via a heatgun, maybe wrap it up then put it in an oven set at low or something, but when I made the new connector on the Z14 I wanted some more straight wire so I put the curl flat in between a pair of needlenose pliers and warmed it up then let it cool back down and that only worked with mild success, but it did give me enough straight wire to get the new connector on at least and push it back far enough to have room to solder in front of the clamp body.

Argh, I'm slapping my forehead. I wish I would have thought of that.

Yep, first time I used the wire cutters, a pair of electricians pliers with precut holes for various wire sizes. The wire size must be non standard in the US, kinda like metric vs SAE. Unfortunately it'll be a month before I can get out to the goldfields. There was a long (14 days) delay halfway through shipping the coils to the US, so I missed my window at work to leave as a result and now I can't leave since it's 1000 miles drive to any patch I know about. I am going to go do some rebury tests though to get some actually numbers against the Z14 and I'll put them on vid along with some stuff like balancing to ferrite, EMI comparisons, some weights, bump sensitivity, etc etc. That's about all I can do now until I finish building this last house and then I can take off to do some real detecting with these coils in some places people will recognize and have been gridded for decades by veterans, probably seen 20+ GPZ's. If they produce those patches, I'll be pretty dang impressed.

Definitely the way to go Norvic, pulling instead of pushing if one has a wire or something on them to use. Reverse finger trap action right there, for those who had those toys as a kid. But even using a wire it's still a needless hassle, it should be quick and easy to do something like change a coil IMO. My 17" coil for whatever reason has a cable that fits right in. The 10 and 12 don't though, not just a little tight...the 10" I had to remove and stretch out a number of times just to get it through the middle shaft. Then the second time I put it on it had gone back to tight again and had to repeat, then screw it in.

I shot out the prairie real quick because I couldn't stand to wait to see if the coils all worked. Happy to report all 3 are in working order. I'll try to do some controlled testing and depth comparisons on video later next week to verify what I saw tonight before I say much more so I can be certain of the results. Initially, based on a very brief run of all 3, I see some indications of measurable performance gains that go beyond simply size related issues and getting into tighter areas, but I would need to run controlled tests before standing behind that statement. Unfortunately I realized today that I left my ferrite in my camper in Arizona so I have a 2nd one on order. I ordered a new one from Rob on ebay, if you see the order feel free to overnight it. After changing coils quite a lot, one thing I do want to say now in hopes that it can be addressed soon for future coils though is that X Coils absolutely needs to improve their coil cables. 2 of the cables are so wide that you have to "thread" them into the middle shaft, or sometimes cram them in if they get hung and won't rotate anymore. And in fact require me to take the machine apart into 3 pieces just to switch coils, which gets to be incredibly tedious. The 3rd coil cable however goes right in and takes way less time to change. Also, if there is any way to make the connection in the lower shaft, or lower part of the middle shaft that would be vastly preferable. It would make changing coils a breeze and right now changing coils out is kind of a hassle. If Minelab is considering some gesture of generosity for their lack of follow through by offering a patch cable to customers who already paid a ton for their equipment, this would also be something to consider in design of such a patch cable.

It's not really deserving of a thread in of itself, but since I just made a patch cable (and I'm in the US too) I thought I'd illustrate some potential hangups for any of those following after me: 1.) I think Andy already mentioned it before, but I think it's absolutely critical to test for shorts between pins after soldering. It's very easy to make a little solder bridge by accident. Any multimeter can do this. I'm somewhat ok at soldering and I still managed to bridge one connection (I caught it via the multimeter). This could short and kill a control box. 2.) 220 and 320 grit sandpaper worked the best for me to remove the wire epoxy, cleaned off remaining dust residue with acetone for a good solder joint. 3.) The signal RX wire is incredibly thin. Be very careful with stripping this wire, get it right the first time because you don't have enough to correct an error if you remove too much. 4.) "Helping hands" make the job go way easier if this is your first time soldering. Harbor Freight has them for $5, and they have the 3/4" shrink tubing that is about as close as you can get for standard sizing. 5.) A nice small, precision chisel soldering tip works great for soldering those connectors. I use a standard Weller WLC-100 solder station, set to "3" temperature and the chip survived just fine. 6.) This is a fairly easy job for anyone with a little experience in electronics, having all the tools around already saved a lot of money too. However, IMO, if you've never done anything with electronics before you may want to consider paying someone else to do it, there are a lot of little ways to short things out and while some things can be corrected, you only get one chance for some of this stuff. 7.) Hot glue is definitely necessary for physical support of the tiny wires. So, I made the patch no problems 2 nights ago, turned it on in my yard with no problems other than squeeling like crazy - but no coil errors. I took it out today away from any noise sources and it was still squeeling like crazy. Dissected the patch cable and discovered my signal RX wire had broken at the spot I cut the insulation (this, ironically, does not throw a coil not connected error). Almost certainly I cut it too deep and of course steel will cut copper too. Oddly, I tested continuity after soldering, tested again after shrink wrapping, and all pins had connection. Double checked each phase (so checked 4 times total) and I got it all on vid which I reviewed and it was definitely not broken. So, it must have occured in the process of pushing the coil wire up into the shaft and something bent and snapped - a process which is a bit more difficult because (also as Andy noted) the spiral cable section is wider on the X Coils than the stock coil so it's quite a tight fit. Some are bigger, some are smaller. I made sure to put more hot glue on this time to prevent movement/bending. I still am not quite sure how or why it broke, but it did. Anyways, just got done remaking the patch cable, all seems to work. It's still quite noisy around my house so I have to wait to go drive some distance away tomorrow to actually see if the 3 X Coils all work now too, but the detector appears to be working with the stock Z14. Just figured I'd pass these lessons learned on to anyone else doing this.

Mine doesn't say Jobe Tools on it, but I bought it like 15 years ago. As long as it's got those little molded in tiny riffles on the bottom that look like overlapping arcs then it should work fine though. Those things really catch the small gold and hold it while letting the black sands move a bit more (thus easier to seperate), which is why that pan is so good for cleanups. The rectangular wide bottom really helps too because you can get a straight "wave" moving back and forth very accurately. No swirling, more like rocking. For regular test panning a round pan like Mike Hillis' always worked better for me though.

That Le Trap square pan is my secret weapon for doing final cleanups, nothing beats it IMO and you can get gold totally clean, even ultra fine stuff. I don't use it like a normal pan at all though, not sure I ever would but who knows maybe it works good like that too. The way I clean up with it is use the "riffles" carved into the far 1/3 of the pan bottom to collect you material and shake it side to side and back to forth slightly at the same time to settle stuff. Keep just a little water in it, barely up to the 1st real riffle. Swoosh gently the top material off your pile of cons to the back of the pan then snuffer it up and replace the water you removed. Repeat this 10+ times until you have mostly gold and a bit of heavy cons scattered on the pan bottom riffles. At this point you can do a tap on the corners, sides and back that gathers the gold into a little pile in the corner of the pan (a little gentle shaking while tapping sometimes is necessary), it will be close to 100% clean gold. Snuffer that up. Now you will have a little bit of fines and a little bit of heavy cons left. I personally just dump that all back into a container which itself gets dumped back into the Le Trap on the next dredge cleanup and the process repeats. but you can also clean that bit further using the same process if it's all you have or want it all seperated right away. It's really quick once you get it down, you'll surprise people who can't understand how you can get your gold so clean. It's far easier with the square Le Trap than with any other pan I've ever used. You can even clean hard rock crushings which are very fine when you get good at it. I should probably buy a few more myself just in case they disappear entirely, I love those things.

Nice, hope you post an update if you crack that big one open. Not much you can do about the slow uploads, high res vid files are massive. Even on a good cable internet connection it'll take a long time to upload. Then Youtube has to process it using their own codec after that which is why it still takes time after the upload is done. Faster internet, video compression, or rendering to a lesser resolution are about the only solutions. Depending where you live, you often will only get a fraction of the upstream bandwidth on your internet line as they give you on downstream, so that slows uploads too. You can compress your videos using different codec, Youtube will accept a number of them but you'd have to research which ones. Higher compression means less quality though. I have to upload all my videos in the field over my cell phone data connection so I usually render down to 720p or now 1080p since Verizon gave me more data on "unlimited". Still, they are usually 1-2GB and take quite some time to upload, I start it before I go to sleep at night. No way around that stuff when dealing with HD videos, several hours is normal for me, some have taken 10+ hours depending on the state of my connection.

Yeah I detect a lot of places that are probably about equivalent to JW's soil so I guess maybe I'm biased. But a lot of people here in the US detect similarly mild soils almost exclusively too. I guess when I talk about products I usually am speaking in terms of the US since I'll never have the time or money to detect anywhere else so I it's rare for me to consider it. Same way I see very little consideration for US soils when I read Aussie forums. I know what you are talking about though with gold that hits less deep on the GPZ. When it was first released I was finding very occasional nuggets like that and reported them to ML instead of the forums because at the time it would have caused arguments to say such a thing, even with video proof. I even found large ones, one was 24 grams, that hit a good 20% less deep on the GPZ than the 4500 w/17x13 Evo (some others were up to 50% deeper on the 4500). They were all oddballs though, like chewed up wads of tangled, ropey gum.

Don't you own or have leased a big portion of Rich Hill along with some gated land that prevents access (or at least the ability to get to close enough to hike) to open public land behind it? I mean, if I'm thinking of the right guy, that's a massive advantage that allows one to essentially ignore dinks if they want and go exploring places none of us can really get to. For some of us dinks are 95% of what we find and ignoring them is not an option. Starting from zero with no family or inside info might provide a different perspective. To me, every ounce of performance I can squeeze out of my equipment makes a massive difference between not being able to go prospecting at all and being able to afford to take time off work and make the long trip out to the goldfields.

To me the SDC is just a tool for bad ground. It doesn't really shine over the GPZ in any aspect I can see other than ultra dinks and gnarly ground. And it looks to me like the 10" X Coil is going to outshine it there too now. The SDC reminds me of a backhoe - ok at a lot of things but not the best at many. The GPZ/GB2(or GM1000) combo is like a mini excavator/skid steer combo - way better and more efficient at the widest possible range of things. If I was just starting detecting I'd probably be tempted to start with an SDC (and regret it just like I regret going with a backhoe instead of a miniex/skidsteer instead). But to expect people who already own a GPZ to go buy one is a really stupid business decision that sounds like it was made by accountants and not detectorists.

Is that the spiral or bundle 12" Norvic? How do you like that coil now that you've had a run of different sizes for a while? I'm hoping it can turn into my daily use coil if it's roughly as sensitive to the sub-2 gram stuff as the Z14. Tangentially, last winter I realized I had lost my WM12, went back and walked 6 miles of ATV tracks on my GPS and was able to find it buried in a tire track with only a bit of the rear clip showing above ground, so glad I had GPS tracks recording or it'd be lost forever... X Coil 2021 News

You are a brave man bustin bedrock with the sharp Hermit pick end on those screamers Rob. I've resorted to carrying a pinpointer and screwdriver with me due to losing sleep over dinging up some nice ones in those situations.

JP, is the "mod" which you suggested in prior posts and which may or may not occur in newer X Coils a ferrite inside the coil over the solder point? I had ventured a guess this might be it some time back after the coil X Ray thread. Or is it some spacer to raise the TX a bit further over the RX? Or is it confidential? The ferrite thing seems pretty easy to include if the solution were that simple. Or if the coils are easy to disassemble then maybe a user could do it themselves, no idea.

This is what I was getting at too when I asked JP about Manual last page. Since Manual stays balanced to the ferrite, and the ferrite balance is supposed to be the best, I can't understand what the purpose of manual is at all since Semi Auto also stays balanced to the ferrite and also tracks to the ground as the coil moves which should be the best possible ground balance. I didn't see the purpose for either Auto or Manual anymore, that being the case. The only thing that makes sense to me is when you want to be unbalanced to the ground for some reason. This used to be a technique with VLFs to filter some hotrocks out or make them sound more obvious. The GPZ to me feels like a mega VLF acting like a PI so there might be some use for a technique such as that in hot ground - I'm not in hot ground enough to have really tried anything like that though. The only other reason I could think of is in soil that doesn't change hardly at all - at which point maybe Manual completely bypasses some GB filtering circuitry and in fact does get slightly better depth?

40 hrs for an ounce detecting in the USA? Maybe 10+ years ago. Most the people I meet in the field are struggling to get 1 ounce a season today if they don't have exclusive land access or insider/oldtimer knowledge to work off. I don't have a subscription since they run LRL ads (or did when I subbed) and paper hangers and I believe an engineering journal shouldn't support scam artists and pseudoscience, but that's like $60k a year equivalent, more than I make at my job. That isn't greenhorn deterrent, that's the stuff that makes a newbie go out and buy a $2500 metal detector and get extremely frustrated. Hopefully the article clarifies that stuff.

Thanks for the reply. I'm at work on my phone so I will have to take this all in later when I can think a bit longer. But that all makes sense. I will definitely try out semi auto and the ferrite again when I get back into the field and see how it affects both the z14 and x coil balancing. The semi auto update did not yet exist when I had to stop detecting to go back to work so it's kinda new to me. I detect all over the country in different ground types Arizona to Colorado, good to know how to adjust for each. But that leads me to a last question: is there a circumstance you can conceive were Auto would be used instead of semi auto now? Also, would manual still be preferable in cases where the soil is very consistent, or is there no advantage to using manual on the GPZ now?

Near as I can tell, it must have to do with varying temperature throughout the day which cannot be accounted for in algorithms, at least not without a temperature sensor on the GPZ maybe? I have asked this question a few times with no answer though, even back years ago after the GPZ (then ferrite) release. Maybe it involves proprietary info that can't be shared? A design flaw they don't want to share? No idea. X Rays from Strick showed us a ferrite inside the coil already too, interestingly. Which makes me wonder if the yellow ferrite is somehow necessary to balance out the ferrite in the coil since I still don't see why they can't just track the ferrite in the ground even if it's saturating, since putting the ferrite under the coil will saturate it too. This discussion all leads to what might be 2 guesses regarding the weighty mystery "mod" JP mentioned in X Coils - either something to raise the TX winding 2 cm, or a ferrite around the solder beads. Would be interesting to see a X Ray of an old X Coil and a new one if they incorporate said mod.

This kinda leads back to Andy and X Coils because I'm wondering now if there is a work around to having to switch back to the Z14, balance to the ferrite, then switch back to the X Coil where ground is particularly gnarly such as where Andy is at. Chet's idea of just raising the coil up another 2+cm over the ferrite is definitely the first thing to try and the easiest. But if that doesn't work, I wonder if a ferrite taped to a stick and waved 5+cm in front of the coil while it's in the air might also be worth trying too since it removes the local ground ferrite component (salt will still get picked up a bit at hip level though). Based on a thread I saw discussing doing ferrite balance in the air with the Z14. If all the detector needs is a balance to the ferrite, and not the ground itself, for X anyways, then this may work in particularly bad ground with the X10. And the let Semi Auto track the G in your local ground as normal. Just never run in Auto if that works. Not a great solution I know, but potentially worth trying just to see if it works or not and then go from there. The problem being needing to carry the contraption around if the temperature change thing requires rebalance.

The question I can't seem to get straight in my head is this: Why track X at all in the GPZ if we aren't tracking it in our local grounds and using the ferrite value instead? Semi-auto locks X to the ferrite, which doesn't change with location as we move around (unless we QT, which we are told should never be done without the ferrite). In another post I saw JP and someone else talk about balancing to the ferrite in the air to eliminate the effects of the local ground too. If that's the case, then why even track X in the ground at all, why not remove it from the tracking program altogether and just have the ferrite saved in the firmware, or embedded in the coil? Is it only to update the program with temperature changes on the ferrite through the day? Also having trouble understanding why a constant ferrite value in the yellow ring will work anywhere - Australia, NV, the moon... Why have a tracker at all for that component if it's held constant to a ferrite that doesn't change in those places? I thought it had something to do with how the ferrite affects the ground underneath it, but if you can do the balancing with the ferrite in the air, that throws that idea off. So, in places with very little temperature variation and very little ferrite component in the soil, is there still a need for the ferrite? Conversely, is the need for the ferrite much greater in places with high temperature variation and high mineral content? Just taking a wild guess here at why I'm not seeing much effect from the ferrite in AZ where I detect in mild ground and places where it's around 50 degrees and cloudy all day. And a different note, does the ferrite in the Z14 coil over the wire solder points affect the GPZ's X balance?

Thanks for explanation Chet, you are speaking my language... Given the superparamagnetism stuff, is there a possibility here that "X" from Minelab actually represents susceptibility and not saturation? Magnetic susceptibility is represented in physics by the Greek letter Chi. Which looks a lot like "X". And it's used in reference to paramagnetic materials far more often than is saturation. That would also (potentially) explain how some salts can throw the X balance off (A question I keep asking over and over), some salts exhibit paramagnetism. So while not saturable in a ferromagnetic sense, I believe some salts can exhibit postive magnetic susceptibility values. Aka "X". Though I have no idea if they exhibit superparamagnetism or not. I hadn't considered paramagnetic effects with salt, only conductive/inductive, I guess it can affect both though in theory. I still have a ton of questions, but it's late.