TTT2866

That's super cool! Dont suppose you know of any extension cables for the GP/SD/GPX coils like this? I'm aware Coiltek make them, but they're very expensive.

Beautiful washout, nice finds! I don't mind digging the odd 50cal shell as we don't get many here. The 303's are OK, but wow you get a few! Are you allowed to scrap them? Our scrapyards will deny an entire load if there's any shells mixed in.

Funnily enough, I work in jewellery retail which was obviously heavily inspired by the stuff I find whilst detecting. It has lead on to recoveries, sales, and learning far more about the rings I've found and what repairs they require, as well as the different stones, what's valuable and what is not. I've even began to try repairs on rings I've found, which is a very affordable way to learn. Also cost almost nothing if something doesn't work out the way I want. If I continue with it, I'll do my jewellery making courses and be able to supply my own gold easily. Honestly a pretty good combination of job/hobby. My previous job was at the local Minelab dealership for a few years which also worked great hand-in-hand. Absolutely! We're blessed to have a lot of tourist locations nearby. It's well worth spending the time at "richer" beaches with a demographic of wealthier people. I'm on the work computer at the moment so don't have a picture but a couple years ago, one of my best finds was a 2.8ct diamond Pave 18ct gold ring. It was the only target I got in the water on a huge tourist beach where I generally find nothing of value. First time using the Deus 2 so I thought it said "925" whereas it actually said "2.85 [ct]" . was definitely a pleasant surprise when I got back. Pretty similar to this. I sold it for a couple thousand dollars. https://www.templeandgrace.com.au/buy/pave-perfection-diamond-ring Sort of off topic, but would anybody be interested in a book/guide if I wrote one about beach detecting? What I look for, techniques, equipment, recoveries, costs, etc? I'm aware there are already a few out there but I feel like there's more I'd cover that isn't really mentioned in most of them. 🙂

I’ve been extremely blessed this past year. After hitting 260 rings last year, with ~70 in a month being my best, I figured there’s no way I’d be able to beat that for 2024. Lo and behold, within the first few days of January I’d hit a honey hole of over 20 rings. over the course of the year, I had many good days producing sometimes 3-6 gold rings in a single hunt. It got to a point I was taking less shifts at my second job because I was earning more beach detecting lol. It wasn’t uncommon to make an easy $500 a day. One of my best days was when I found that 36 gram 18ct bracelet, now being worth over $3400 AUD in scrap. fortunately, both of my jobs have been very flexible with my detecting hustle. This year however I think I’ll need to take work a bit more seriously so I don’t think I’m going to hit 200 by December 2025. There’s also only so many rings a handful of beaches can hold. anyway I had around 280 rings by early December. I think that’s when I realised I could definitely hit the 300 mark by New Year. I hit every spot I could think of, including areas I’d obviously found tons of stuff at, as well as areas that should’ve had fresh drops, and remote areas that occasionally threw good stuff up. I also revived an old spot that was extremely weedy and managed to find all sorts of stuff including a working GoPro 13 and multiple phones. I got to December 27 and was up to 298 rings. December 28, back to the weedy spot, and boom! 2 more gold rings, and a Pandora gold plated ring. 301 total rings. Anyhow, on top of all the rings, I also found a plethora of “cool sheit ”. The gold bracelet I mentioned earlier, a 9ct belcher bracelet which I thought was a tarnished silver fob chain, my first gold half sovereign, a working GoPro hero 13, 2 other broken GoPros, 7 or so phones in December (6 returned), a rare Seiko divers watch (6039-7040) which I restored, many sunglasses, a massive 22ct ring with a real natural emerald and ruby, and so much more. I’ve also had the opportunity to do many recoveries and returns. Off the top of my head there were about a dozen ring and pendant recoveries, as well as a couple phones. here’s the numbers: 2024 tally: Silver rings: 108 Tungsten, titanium, junk : 90 Gold/platinum rings: 103 Total: 301 Average of 0.83 rings per day. I hope this inspires people for 2025! HH Some pictures were too large to add but here’s a small photodump 🙂

This is how I found the wiring on the Manticore Gray Ghost headphones. The 2 yellow arrows are meant to be soldered together. There should be 2 wires coming from the bottom right loom, 1 connecting to the black/white cables, and the other connecting to the red/white. (white being one of the Piezo speakers on this side) This is really really poor for how expensive these headphones are. I can't believe these retail for $260 AUD. There is literally less than $30 worth of parts. Here's another photo of the damaged wire connections. As you can see, nothing is protected. The shrink wrap isn't even covering the exposed wire at all, and there appears to be cuts in the red and black wires where it was stripped during manufacture. Here it is when joined together properly and shrink wrapped. Like mentioned earlier I also put silicone around the ends to further protect it from water corrosion. In hindsight I should've added more shrink wrap to cover the red/black wire but it shouldn't matter really.

Ok so a bit of an update. I put a picture earlier in the thread with my D2 headphones. The wiring on my Manticore version was completely stuffed. Looks like it was thrown together by a child. Little heat-shrink, no zip ties, and nothing even covering the wires properly. Salt water had just simply rotten the wires away. It's a very easy repair. I'll update with pictures later but I simply mapped the wiring, cut everything shorter, re soldered, re-shrink wrapped and glued it back in place with silicone for extra water resistance.

That's a great thread, I've always thought about doing the same thing but numbering the rings and tracking them. Eg, pin where it was placed, then another pin where it was found.

I made the mistake of using cheap scales for a while of gold trading. They were showing about 0.10 or so grams positive. I only noticed when it gradually got worse and worse and was showing up to 1.5 grams positive!! I now use calibrated scales. Oops.

Wowzers, that's a nice ring!! Be sure to get the claws checked 🙂

You might be right re. the vibrations? I used the hacksaw and then Dremel to sand it down. Perhaps it didn't like that too much. When forming the skidplate I heated the plastic over a wooden mold which was the same shape as the coil, so no heat was applied to the coil itself. It wasn't tested in the water, only switched on above dry sand for about 30 seconds. I probably didn't notice it at home as I had to put the sensitivity at 2, assuming all the noise was from electrical interference.

Was it hot outside? Maybe it was overheating? I recall some Equinox 800's had this issue and it was due to screen covers from memory

Here's a photo of the custom skidplate plus the cut-off pieces. I made the skidplate using a wooden mold/copy of the coil and a heat gun. I had a pretty close look and couldn't see any copper pieces sticking out of any cuts. Thankfully my old colleagues are hooking me up with a discounted replacement coil at a pretty good price. 😄

That's a great image, I'll do a side-by-side tomorrow and see if I can find where it went wrong. Cheers!

Here's a photo I sent my friend a few hours ago, I'll have to get some better pics tomorrow as it's 11pm for me currently. I'll try get some close-ups of the "tube" type things I mentioned as I've still got the offcuts in the back yard.

Unfortunately no good. The coil tested fine in my back yard but once I got to the beach it was extremely unstable. Almost like being under a powerline. Couldn't ground balance or noise cancel. I'm thinking when I cut the spokes there may have been some sort of antenna or something that has been cut out. I'm not too fussed, I did this experiment knowing full well that best case I'd have a lighter coil, worst case I'm risking ruining it and needing to buy another. Hopefully, my misfortune will serve as a reminder to others about the risks involved in attempting this modification. I cut it exactly like how others have done it. Maybe I got too close to the perimeter? I did notice that 2 of the spokes were epoxy filled and 2 were hollow, maybe they had a wire in each side? There was also a square "tube" of resin inside the coil underneath the epoxy which also makes me think it contained some sort of wiring. bummer but it is what it is, at least I have a spare 🙂