phrunt

Well I don't know about these 11" coil problems especially this Axis thing, all I know is the difference between my 11" and the 14x9" Coiltek is night and day. I can go up sidewalls of gully's fine, lift up over rocks, tilt that bad boy around all I want, hell I can swing it in the air like a lasso and it not go crazy and it's a bigger coil and gets more EMI as JP wisely pointed out. This is the major reason I disliked the 6000, it was not fit for my purpose how it arrived to me, I don't hunt on flat ground, rarely ever do I have flat ground, and even my flat ground is covered in thyme bushes and schist that I'm going up over and around but mostly I'm on a rocky hillside or in gully's on angles so a detector that had to be kept flat on level ground was something for me that was not suitable. My little 10x5" Coiltek should arrive today too, so I'll give it a spin, can't imagine I'll be disappointed. It's more like using a normal detector now, you know, one that works well. Happy to video anything for anyone, can't video my 11" now as off on a flight to go to the rubbish bin. I've shipped my 11" off to the service agent now to be looked at, or binned or whatever they do with it. The problem is the NZ service agent has a policy if they don't find a fault with something you send them they charge you something like an $80 fee (can't remember the exact figure) along with the $50 return shipping after spending $50 to get it to them, ends up quite an expensive exercise for an "iffy" problem. It's getting up to near half the Coiltek 10x5" price just to get the coil looked at if they say they can't fault it and it's a coil I'll likely never use again anyway unless it works as well as the Coilteks, and maybe for the people with a good one it does, if that's the case that's awesome, I'd love a 11" size that works as well as my Coiltek and it sounds like for many people their 11" does work as well as the Coiltek, so who knows. I just wanted to know if its faulty or if that's just how the Minelab coils are. I'm that confident now they can't say it's not faulty that I sent it off. I've seen Aussies send theirs in to be checked and have them sent back no fault, and many others have sent them in and had them replaced as a "precaution" as they couldn't fault it. One person sent theirs in a couple of times and eventually one of the Minelab guys took it out into the field for the weekend and used it and managed to fault it then so I'll see how it pans out, if they send it back no fault It's getting open heart surgery then smashed to pieces and put on Youtube 😛

You really need to use Youtube, makes life easier 🙂

Thank you Trevor, I'm incredibly happy I bought the 14x9" and I couldn't help but contact Dan quickly to order the 10x5" after experiencing the 14x9" before he sold out no matter how hard I tried to resist 🙂 Thank you for making your coils, I've always thought Coiltek make great coils, love the 10x5" Nox coil too and realistically I've never been disappointed with a Coiltek coil, I have quite a few of them, particular favourites are the 11" AI coil for the legacy GPX and also the little Joey 10x5' for the legacy GPX, both brilliant coils. I also appreciate you communicate with your customers. The 6000 coils are looking like they're going to be a very welcome addition to anyone's toolkit. I want to reiterate that I appreciate that Coiltek made coils for the 6000, I'm sure others will appreciate that as much as I do once they give them a go. It's very likely I'll end up with the 9" too to complete the set, I do hope you'll end up producing a smaller DD, I'm sure many will agree with me it really needs to be happen, I'll commit to buying it now if you'll commit to making it 😉

Just imagine how many of your big Aussie nuggets are left in the ground as current technology can't get deep enough, so if they improve ground balance at some point in the future the possibilities are great. NZ is a great training ground, finding little dinks at depth with small variations in threshold, the ever slightest of target response is very good training for when better ground is encountered. The depth I see Aussies get the little nuggets and carry on they were deep in videos is quite funny, the fact they call them little, and the fact they think they were deep. It really demonstrates the differences in soil conditions and detector performance in different conditions though.

I haven't spent a lot of time testing but initial impression is the 11" is a bit more sensitive to smaller gold than the 14x9" Coiltek, however the Coiltek seems to have a bit more depth on larger targets, this is very preliminary and not set it stone, just initial basic testing. Where I think the aftermarket coils are going to shine on smaller gold over the 11" is the smaller coils, I'll have my 10x5" in a day or two so I'll start to see then. The 11" really is a good coil when it comes to sensitivity, I'd be extremely happy with it if it just worked well for me so I'll send it in to get checked now that I am of firm belief mine is faulty, I'm not sure about this Axis stuff, but in saying that I've had no trouble swinging the 14x9" round and going up and down slopes and lifting it in the air tilting it and all things that caused my 11" grief, I can swing it around in the air and not have it go crazy, but I do believe I've got a faulty 11" so that maybe different for others. All of the manufacturers have been very careful to make different size coils to each other and for very good reason, comparisons are going to be impossible and I'm sure it was planned to release different sizes to each other on purpose, so you just have to focus on the coil size/shape/performance to suit your needs. For me I'm happy with the sizes available, they really suit the strong points of the detector and I'm glad both Coiltek and NF are making coils for it.

Yea, I don't think I've ever used tracking on the 4500, but in saying that I'm the person least likely to need to use it, I was always on fixed and manual is my go-to on the 7000. The more detector manufacturers can improve ground balance the better depth the users will get, I think people in hotter soils would get a surprise the depth difference between having any ground balance and ground balance disabled. For example, the GPX 5000 with GB completely turned off, not fixed, off completely gives so much more depth than the same detector with Ground balance enabled and balanced in mild soils where the detector gets no reaction from the soil with it either on or off. The QED was the same, in any mode other than Mode 11 (GB Disabled) in mild soils even with a perfectly balanced detector the depth is killed just by enabling the ground balance circuit. I guess in a way Geosense is working towards this, I would still like a way to disable it on the 6000 just to see how it works for me. In some of my prospecting areas I can run both the QED and GPX 4500/5000 with ground balance completely disabled and they remained perfectly balanced, no reaction from the ground at all, the down side is by disabling it the hot rocks really come alive so the area has to be selected carefully to take advantage of it. The better manufacturers can improve the detectors ground balance the better the depth will be and if they can use some sort of AI technology to do this or just faster processing or whatever it will be the next big improvement in PI's. I always thought that if I used ground balance and balanced the detector I'd get the same depth as if I had ground balance turned off entirely in very mild soil, and this is simply not correct. My mild soils are the perfect example of this as even though I can run with no ground balance at all, just by enabling it I am hindering depth.

You can't get a better attitude than that, great work and a nice little nuggie. I have a real soft spot for my 4500, I just can't part with it.

Ahh sorry JP, I mixed the two up!

While I've never owned any model of GPX below the 4500 both my 4500 and 5000 can turn the Ground Balance off. From the GPX 5000 manual Ground Balance (GB) Type Ground Balance Type has three settings: Normal, Specific, and GB Off. Normal is the preferred setting for most soil types. Specific Ground Balance is designed to be used in very hot ground, and is especially useful with Monoloop coils. GB Off switches the ground balance circuit off for maximum depth in very mild soils, sand etc. (Ground Balance) Off In very benign soils, such as non-mineralised loam or sand, there can be very little and sometimes no ground effect. These areas are quite rare but are identified when your ground balance doesn't appear to be doing anything. By switching the GB Type to Off you can achieve improved depth and sensitivity. This feature will most likely be used by beach hunters, or inland treasure/relic seekers, as it is extremely rare to encounter a spot in the gold field where Ground Balance is not required. Procedure: Raise the coil off the ground, away from metal objects, and switch to GB Off. After the tone is heard you can commence detecting. Note: The Iron Reject function (p. 74) will provide the best results when using GB Type General. I've found GB off works fine on my GPX's in a good range of soils around here and has crazy depth on a coin, doesn't work too well around prospecting areas here even though they're mild and signals on every hot rock possible but as a coin detector it can be used with GB off. I experimented with the QED with GB off (mode 11), makes a huge difference to the depth of the detector, makes it quite good, almost GPX like for depth and worked on the same sort of areas the GPX works with GB off. The GPX 5000 also has coin and relic timing, it's as close as you can get to GB Off without going in and turning GB off, it's crap for gold prospecting though even in very mild gold areas as it has very reduced sensitivity to small gold. From the Manual Coin/Relic Coin/Relic is designed for use in lightly mineralised soils including many beaches. It offers maximum detection depth on a range of target sizes, significantly greater than any other timings. However, if the ground is any more than lightly mineralised, the detector may not ground balance. Coin/ Relic should work very well in most common parks, ovals, and old home sites, so is the preferred timing when using your detector for coins, jewellery and relics. On ocean beaches containing significant quantities of black sand, better results may be had by using Normal, or Salt/Gold (GPX 5000).

If X-coils can make a 8" DOD GPZ coil then a 10x5" Mono should be all good 🙂 I'm looking forward to the 10x5", good all round prospecting size. I look forward to hearing how you go with it too.

Yep normal EMI, I'm fine with that and expect it. I'm so happy with the 14x9" I've ordered and paid for the 10x5" now too. Still keeping my order for the 2 smaller NF's though.

Thanks yep, if your 11" sounds like that Coiltek that's great news to me as it means my detector is now considered stable! If my 11" ran the same as the Coiltek I would have been happy. Prior to the Coiltek it would run like that with the 11", but it wouldn't last long and would start to go crazy police siren crossed with alien spacecraft every 5 to 15 minutes, more realistically 1 to 10 minutes but the Coiltek just stays running like that. I'm very happy I'm all sorted out now though, can't wait to go use it again.

No, I've never tried any of JW's coils on my machine. He's been out using his 6000 and doing great with it though, he makes me jealous 🙂

Well JP has said the NF has less EMI problems and runs more stable (correction, he was talking about the GPZ 17' NF coil). The Coiltek's run great too. Coiltek have said theirs are bundle wound, it's been alluded to the NF's are also bundle wound and looks like it by the photo of their larger coil that shows winding width in the plastic shape, the stock coil is semi spiral. Perhaps that has something to do with it? Why did both NF and Coiltek do bundle? Both make fantastic spiral coils for the earlier GPX. I always found bundle coils a bit more stable on the earlier GPX. A majority of people have stock 11" coils that work perfectly fine though, so I just think mine was faulty.

I have no idea, I blamed it on Geosense going crazy, I couldn't last 5 to 10 minutes with my 11" without having to battle it going mental. Sometimes it was doing it straight away, and oddly it does it almost all the time if I sit the detector down doing nothing. I think that's why it's caused so much conflict as the behavior I was seeing is what people with a good coil see sometimes, I was seeing it all the time. The bad coil must confuse Geosense or something. The weird thing is the Coil when it wanted to work was good, very sensitive. It was just a battle to keep it stable. I'll send mine in now to be checked but I really can't imagine the service agent is going to drive an hour out of the city their shops in to to get to an EMI free enough environment to test it, they'll do standard service agent too hard basket stuff, Sorry we were unable to fault your coil however we've replaced it as a precaution 🙂 I've served my time in the service center environment, I know how it works. By doing that they're not taking responsibility for a faulty product, but are swapping it out as they know it will likely solve the problem. I doubt I'll ever use it again anyway, I'm going to be sticking to the small coils on mine. I only bought the 14x9" as I wanted the two smaller NF's as I like their sizes best and the 14x9" seemed a good size to get for the bigger size and it was out on the market first, now I'm very glad I bought it, pleasantly surprised by it. I really think you need to find someone to use their coil for a bit and just see if it solves it for you too.

Back on topic of the Coiltek, here is the 14x9" going over a few little nuggets, one is 0.03 of a gram and the other two are in the 0.04 range. Response I think is pretty good for the size of the coil. My detector runs stable with the coil, especially considering I was near high voltage lines and an urban area (behind my house) and running it maxed out with my phone filming and wifi and bluetooth enabled on my phone, doing nothing to minimise EMI. I ducked out before the snow started to get some footage of it running, so happy I've been able to sort out my problem. It has absolutely no knock sensitivity and just runs all round nice, how I hoped my 6000 would run. I'm so tempted now to pull the trigger on the 10x5" as well, I may not be able to resist and order it before the weekend is over so it gets posted Monday morning 😛 I'm trying to resist as I've got the two smaller NF's on order too. The crazy thing is I didn't even noise cancel when I turned it on, didn't let the detector "warm up" this is just turning it on and going for it, raw unedited footage the way I like it, it's not that I can't edit videos, I just don't like doing it as I think it changes the feel of the video, I like them raw. I haven't even watched it back myself after recording it. And for those wondering, it's not the same design as the stock coil under the skid plate, it's more a standard coil design without the hollows, probably for the creek hunters the 10x5" will be ideal because of this more solid design with it not filling up with water under the skid plate. It gets absolutely no response on a #9 lead pellet, barely gets a #7 and half but hits a #6 OK, didn't bother filming that. I think the smaller coils will be pretty deadly. Happy with my 6000 now!

Yup, that's the start of the road. I haven't done any bungy jumps, I'm not too good with heights 🙂 There are a number of jumping options around here, this is the old bungy jump spot they've moved it to a new spot as that one is just so difficult to get to with the crazy access road, it's scary enough being in a car going across that bridge for me. Look at that beautiful gold catching bedrock, facing the right way to suck up the gold too. It's like that all along the creek. Some old workings in there. Was a bit of a climb down to the creek. Steep too, we went down there 😛 More workings. The roads that little green line of plants along the cliff. Looking out the window at the straight drop. Crossing the bridge they used to do bungy off before moving it, It's a very old bridge from the Gold Rush days. I don't trust it 🙂

Why I'm so scared to drive it is if you encounter a vehicle coming out when you're going in or the other way around. One of you have to reverse for however far until there is a wide enough spot for the other to get around, I just couldn't confidently reverse while driving on a cliff edge so I'd refuse to budge and force the other vehicle to go backwards 😛 It'd be a nightmare this time of year with snow and ice. It'll be snowed in today as I'm stuck at home with snow today. This is a photo of where the road is down below us when skiing. My daughter in the photo. Plenty of gold down in that area but the rivers/creeks are all claimed.

This is the Episode from my prospecting area You'll see the road I'm too gutless to drive down, I've only been there when JW or my ML dealer have driven me in there 😛

yes, it's hard to beat that feeling, only better feeling is when you get one, then instantly another, then another and bingo! A little patch! I can't even imagine the feeling of a big nugget, my legs go wobbly when I find a 4 gram nugget.

No, I think September at the earliest for the little guy, I'm sure it's going to be worth the wait though, but judging by my 14x9" Coiltek I think you'll be happy with the 10x5" anyway, and it's a good size if you're just getting one of the smaller coils. I just wanted the smallest coil possible so I'm riding out the wait. I'm truly looking forward to the smaller coils and to put it bluntly that's why finally gave in and bought a 6000 after resisting one for a year or so, as soon as I knew smaller coils would be easily available I just desperately wanted one. The 6000 at the moment with the 11" is a competitive detector with my other options on small gold, put a tiny coil on it like the little Sadie size and it should be absolutely deadly, not only that it can get poked around anywhere and have the hot edges on the coils to get bits other coils might miss. I'm not worried about the hot rocks, as it's only in some places and I have other options for dealing with them.

yea, I've had it on order for a while, I can't wait! I'm sure it will be a killer combo.

I haven't been using my 6000, detecting takes a back seat over winter but I think I'm all sorted now with my problems so I'll be starting to use it again soon, I'm looking forward to using it especially with the smaller coils, JW has proven to me it's a good small gold slayer in our area, he's done very well with it by taking advantage of the hot edges of the mono coils.

You're the lucky one to get to use and hold one, we have to use Mr Google to even find pictures of one 🙂 I believe that guy is a Russian Garrett Dealer from what I can make out using translation which explains why he has one I guess. Not the best video but the first example of use in salt water that I've seen.

When I first opened it from the box the detector didn't turn on, and when it did it mostly had an error and locked up. Sorted that but then I just always felt something else was wrong, JW likes his 6000 although still uses both as he prefers the GPZ for depth, he does struggle with EMI more so than with the GPZ, but that's a PI for you he hasn't had the difficulties I have had to the extent I do. I was running with my snap crackle and pop Tourus neck speaker, I didn't want to push my luck with the built in speaker. I couldn't understand why he likes his and I really didn't like mine., I just thought I was more fussy about instability than he was about it as I always prefer stable detectors and he doesn't overly care, Steve's insanely wild GPZ settings to him were not insanely wild at all so I just blamed myself thinking I just don't like the detector. We swapped detectors for me to try his out but as we did it on an afternoon we just went to the local spot that's right near an airport and has power lines run through it as its close to his house and its a little area and I didn't think his was any better but at the time I had to use his 17x13" as his 11" was away for warranty as it completely died so from there I was blaming the detector in general. I ended up just handing his back to him about 5-10 minutes after getting it saying it's no better. He had mine running with a stable enough threshold after doing a factory reset and a few noise cancels or something so I just thought that's how life with a 6000 is and I don't think I've used it since and that was shortly after getting it. For anyone that thinks they may have a problem, it might not be in their head, I'd suggest trying someone else's coil before buying one just in case. I could have just sent it away and waited to see if the service center would find a problem but they're just a camera shop and how much experience would they have with fixing or diagnosing a GPX in this country? likely next to none where very few have ever been sold. I can't just drive to my dealer or the service agent as they're both a 7 hour drive away each way. Anyway, early days so far with the Coiltek, it's had about half an hours use, but for the first time other than when I had the DD coil on I felt OK using the machine, it wasn't driving me crazy. I really hope my problems are now solved and so far I of course think the Coiltek coil is fantastic.