CPT_GhostLight

Just received this from my dealer for those that may be interested:

Coiltek Nox coils update June 2021 - Supply Delays.pdf

14 hours ago, F350Platinum said:

That is an outstanding cache, all clad/modern? Regardless, gotta get me onea them 10x5's. 👍 Beautiful watch.

Thank you! 2 copper pennies and the rest of the coins are clad 1968-2016 dates. Most of the parks  in my area were built in the 60s or later so haven't found any silver yet, but I keep hoping. 😉 

I took the 10x5" for another spin for a couple of hours at a small park that I pounded for six mounths last year and hadn't returned to. I drive by this park almost daily and was curious about it because I never see anyone there except a few dog walkers and wondered if there was anything still there. I had cleaned out most of the upper layers of modern trash and clad but there's still tons of iron so I decided to dig any non-ferrous targets just to see what's there.

I ran the stock Park 2 program with Horseshoe on,  iron volume reduced, sensitivity 16-18 depending on EMI,  FE2 6, and Speed 6. For the first hour I mainly just got iron targets. Then I got a larger signal bouncing from about 12-32 with lots of iron grunt and figured it was a large iron bolt falsing, but the 30s kept popping through fairly consistantly so I decided to dig. At about 6 inches down in a 2 inch diameter hole (we can't dig plugs in parks here) were 7 coins dating from 1968 to 1999. In fact everything I dug was yesterday was at 5 inches or deeper, most of which had iron targets nearby. I'm sure I had hit most of these targets with the 11" coil in the past but didn't dig because of the iron sounds and probable masking. I did get quite few nice sounding squeakers at below 8 inches, but couldn't dig them because of park restrictions, so the 10x5 does go deeper than I thought it would.

Near the end of my time there I was in a heavy iron patch near and got a pretty clear high 20s tone. I thought it was probably a bottle cap but I was digging all non-ferrous so I went for it. At about 7 inches I found this ladies locket watch. I have no idea how old it is, but it was an interesting surprize.

Below are shots of the "Hoard", all dug targets, and a close up of the watch.

3 hours ago, midalake said:

Well what the heck was the conversation about soldering and blah. blah???

Even a electrical hack like me can change this battery! 

That was before we found out we could order the battery pack direct from minelab and authorized repair centers.

On 5/24/2021 at 7:41 PM, Erik Oostra said:

 

 

Here's how to change the battery posted earlier by Erik.

This was posted by Dan (NM) in another thread:

"UPDATE.....If you buy an out of warranty replacement pod, it will carry a 3-year warranty. If you buy the refurbished unit, it will carry a one year warranty.  The batteries are $30 and can be purchased through either the repair center or your dealer. You do not have to send in the old battery, but she did recommend that the repair center do the replacement. It wasn't required, only recommended. You cannot buy a replacement pod without sending in a defective unit."

It looks like the UK Ebay seller has quite a few 10x5 coils, about $330 shipped but you'll get it before the end of the month. Here's the link:

UK 10x5 Nox Coil on Ebay

15 hours ago, Scarfoot said:

Has any of you guys recieved a 10*5 coiltek for equinox lately ,  I've got 2 ordered from different dealers and I'm still waiting....

I haven't heard of anyone receiving their preorder in a while. The seller that I preodered from in February recently sent a notice that they expected to see orders to begin arriving in June.

I sometimes forget that not eveybody has a solder iron in their hands 8 hours a day. Soldering lithium batteries is one of the more dangerous thing you can do with a soldering iron. I too have had a lithium battery pop on me while soldering. If you haven't made lithium battery packs, it's probably best to seek other solutions.

I read somewhere that you can buy a Nox battery direct from Minelab for about $40 if you email them.

Also, if you don't need to stay waterproof, there is the external battery option. Here's a popular one that just clips onto the Nox shaft. You could remove the stock battery and clip this on and there would be very little overall weight change.

Nox External Battery

22 hours ago, phrunt said:

Maybe they fixed it on later coils, I have one of the first batch.  That's good news for buyers if that is the case.

Your bolt looks like it's very close to going into the yoke. Maybe lightly sand the solid part of the Minelab bolt's shank as GB_Amateur suggested and it may just slip in.

I measured the Coiltek and Minelab bolts and there are significant differences in diameter and length. I had noticed that the Coiltek bolt looked thinner in diameter so I just used it and never tried the Minelab bolt.  I figurered I'd check it out to see at what point the Minelab bolt would stop going into the Coiltek yoke and it just slid right in. I didn't have to modify it at all.

9 hours ago, phrunt said:

The biggest oddity is the bolt holes being different so you can't use an Equinox bolt, you have to use the Coiltek bolt.  Why they'd do something like that just makes no sense to me and all it would have taken is the bolt hole to be an extra millimeter or so bigger. 

You could just ream the holes out a bit to make the Nox bolt fit. I've been thinking of doing that to my 10x5". It might void the warranty but mine came broken and I fixed it myself so that's probably a mute point. 

5 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

 

Here's a source for a very high quality 26650 Li-ion battery for $10.95. All you'd have to do is remove the plug-in cable from the old battery and solder it to the new one. I've been using their 18650 Li-ions for over 12 years in high power devices and their quality can't be beat.

Orbtronic 26650 Battery

2 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

Nice effort, and deservedly rewarded.  Do you think this coil is providing improved separation, leading to finding keepers where you previously hunted with the same detector (but with larger coils)?

I hit this same park before with the 6" coil in some smaller dense trash areas and found my first gold ring there last year after missing it with the 11" coil. I don't know if the Coiltek has better seperation because the 11" has excellent seperation, but I think the narrower width helps alot with reducing target clutter under the coil, allowing more focused target search.

I experienced that last month at an iron riddled ghost town hunt. The 11" was detecting everything under the coil, but there were so many targets that I couldn't differentiate the target sounds in my head, it was just too much noise. When I switched to the 10x5" at least half that clutter seemed to disappear as I was able to focus in on the good targets better.

So I think the Coiltek's strong point is it allows laser precision focusing of the targets under the coil and allows you (or at least me) to better differentiate the sounds in your head, while allowing a larger sweep range than the 6" coil.

3 hours ago, rvpopeye said:

Did ya weigh that ringer ?

The 14K ring weighs 7.95 grams.

I recently went out to a very trashy local park to test out the new Colitek 10x5" coil with my Equinox. This park has been heavily detected and has high mineralization mixed with tons of ferrous and non ferrous trash. I had also covered it pretty thoroughly with the 11" & 15" coils since last year and figured it was pretty hunted out. The new coil proved me wrong and provided many unexpected targets. It also went deep. In my area we can't dig plugs so anything over 8" is out of reach and I left many deep signals behind, but what I found in reach really surprised me, including my second 14K White Gold ring! I guess nowhere is ever truly hunted out. 🙂
 

After the good results using the new Coiltek 10x5" coil at an iron infested ghost town a few weeks ago, I decided to take it out to one of my hard hit trashy parks and see how it would perform. I've pounded this park with my 11" and 15" coils and thought that it's been thoroughly covered by plenty of detectorists in recent months, so I wanted to see if there was anything left. Since we can't dig plugs in my local parks, I usually just pop targets 8" or shallower. I thought that the Coiltek wouldn't go as deep as the stock 11" in my highly mineralized and fertilized parks so depth wouldn't matter much. Boy was I wrong on all counts!

I decided to just run the stock Park 2 setting ( with iron volume turned down to 4 ) until I got a feel for how the new coil would perfom in the modern trash at "party park" as I call it because of all the bottle caps, ring pulls, pull tabs, and foil, not to mention tons of old iron trash from fill material in the fairly modern park.

I ran with "all metal" horshoe mode turned on most of the time and was surprised at how well targets popped through the iron background chatter. Sometimes I would just get a squeak of a higher tone, but when I shifted my sweep 90° it would lock on and stay locked on. I was getting good target hits from well below 8" and couldn't dig them, but I pulled quite a bit out from the 4-7" range inluding the 14K white gold ring in the photo. Another pleasant surprise was that I could cover the same park area with the 10x5" coil in about the same amount of time as the 11" coil. The 10x5" won't replace the 11", but in my opinion, the Coiltek is definitely a winner.

Copy what Jeff said.  The "white material" in the photo is actually light glare from the epoxy used to fill the coil cavity. They all look like that underneath, but the coil's bottom snap-on cover covers it from view and protects the bottom of the coil.

Well , my fix worked and there appears to be no internal damage to the coil. I got to try the 10x5 in a coal mining ghost town that only lasted from 1880 to 1920. The ground in the entire area was saturated with large to microscopic iron and tons of old aluminum as well. I used the 11" coil for a while but the deluge of tones was deafening. So I swapped to the 10x5 and I immediately got a clear and stable 20 on the TID. The tone cut right through the noise floor and it was a 200 year old ladies copper ring. Unfortunately the two stones were gone. The results convinced me that the 10x5 is a keeper. I also tried the 6" coil in the same ground and it also performed well, but with a smaller sweep coverage, so the Coiltek 10x5 defnitely earned it's place with the other coils.

3 minutes ago, midalake said:

Seems like more than one coil is coming broken. 🙄

As far as I can tell, Coiltek packages them in clear plastic display bags. Some sellers ship them boxed and others ship them in mailing bags. Mine was in a mailing bag that had damage on the outside and when I opened it, the coil was damaged too. I can't understand why a vendor wouldn't spend an extra $1 to box such an expensive coil to guarantee it arrives to the buyer in good condition. I won't be shopping there again.

Every sellers sells them at full price. They are sold out everywhere and trickling in from Coiltek. Mine came with a broken cable strain relief at the coil end, but I fixed it myself because no replacements are available.

I did contact the seller and sent photos. They responded quickly and basically I have 30 days to return it in the original Coiltek packaging in pristine condition for a refund. Given the continuing lack of stock in the US, I think I'll just put a garbage bag on it and do some testing at a local park to see if it's fully functional. If it is, I'll probably just keep it and fix it myself.

I would have thought such a huge detecting seller would have packed such an expensive coil more carefully for shipping. I ordered a much cheaper Nel coil for my old White's Prizm earlier in the month (from a different seller) and it came in it's own form-fitted box that protected the entire coil, including the mounting ears, cable, and strain relief.

This is very dissappointing, but I hope everybody else's orders arrive safely. 🙁

The reason I asked whether others received their 10x5 coil in a bag or a box is because this how I received mine in a plain mailer bag with no padding or protection.

Question for those that have received their 10x5 coils...

Was your coil shipped in a mailing bag or a box?

This is more like it, but this is in Japan... 😉