phrunt

I'm pleased a few of you have got older built ones of these things that are tough, surely they must have used thinner tubing on mine, it's insanely thin... maybe they were trying to lighten it up as weight is becoming a focus now. I did think it was a bit weird it's so light. I'd already cut my losses after the first one bent, I knew then it wasn't the tool for me as I prefer to treat my tools like tools and if I have to be delicate with it, then it's not suitable for me to use it. The tool itself I liked, worked well, did the job and made nice clean plugs so I can imagine those who have a good one really do have a good one. Anyway, time to move on and buy something more suitable for digging soil, hopefully the Aussie black widow is built better, I may contact them directly first saying I'm going to break this thing if it's not tough, should I buy it and see what they say, at least then if it breaks I've got correspondence with them backing their product ?

Let's not forget some of the "more for less" will be the led light, vibration and carbon shaft... it may even mean they throw in a hat or some Nokta undies! More doesn't necessarily mean more to do with the electronics/performance...

I'm not metal worker but I do have an angle grinder, I could give it a shot, thanks for the idea.

Maybe build quality has diminished over the years, with yours being 4+ years old and mine far more recent perhaps the move from hardened thick steel tube to recycled baked bean cans is more recent. Quality on a lot of things has dropped over the years, profits above quality is not unusual unfortunately. I've far more confidence in the Aussie made one, it's likely to be tough and if not at least warranty is easier. I treat my Davsgold prospecting pick like it's a Hitachi 800 tonne excavator lifting up rocks that are suctioned down with it that weigh more than I do. It's spent its life smashing up rock and it looks as good as new except the paint on the handle has worn off ? While I don't expect that from a shovel, it'd be nice if it could handle digging soil, you know, what a shovel is designed to do especially when $7 camping shovels made in China from the hardware shop do the job just fine for years and are generally what I end up using instead as I've far more confidence in them, old pinky lasted for about 10 years of gardening and a couple of years of detecting before it broke, it's plastic turned from pink to near white it was getting so old, stored outside up against a fence most of it's life. They've just got too big of a blade and leave messier plugs. One failure I can understand, two failures with such small hours on both of them is beyond a joke. I'd put both at under 100 plugs combined and if you knew how soft our soil in the areas I'm using it is you'd think it's as crazy as I do.

Yes, I've no doubt they'd warranty it, they were outstanding with the warranty last time. They were closed for the pandemic between when we first made contact and when they were shipping the replacement, and closed for a number of weeks, then all the sudden I had an email from them saying they've back open and it's been shipped. I didn't need to follow them up or do anything, so even in tough times they got the job done. I don't want to trouble them with them wasting money shipping me another one, I wouldn't use it as I've lost all confidence in it, I'd understand if I was working them hard, but to have two fail doing light duty digging in soft soils is just nuts. I'm happy to find another brand, one with local warranty as other than cheap nasty Chinese shovels that seem to last for ages but without the ideal blade size for detecting these expensive ones have a curse with me ?

Now that I've seen hot thin the metal tube is I'm not surprised your welder guy had problems, I couldn't believe it when I saw how thin it was, no wonder my first one bent. The odd thing is for the top handle bit they've used a much thicker metal tube giving the impression the entire thing is built that way. I'm not too bothered about it breaking as I was too scared to use it anyway and the one time I did ? I've been researching the Aussie made one called a Black Widow, but can't find much on it other than it's made of powder coated steel, a lot of people saying it's expensive for what it is, other than that I can't see much on it. I'd like the Nokta one but I just can't see how it could handle the job with the way they've made the shaft extendable, that looks like it'd be a weak point to me What I don't get is why a shovel from a hardware store that costs virtually nothing is so much better than one of these shovels they claim is super tough and designed for some serious digging seeing detectorists dig a lot of holes.

Treat it like a princess, never use any force to dig holes with it, don't lever out clumps of soil putting force on the shaft and you should be ok. I don't even have a lot of hours on it as after my first one bent I was always worried I'd break the next one, today I foolishly decided to use it... It's probably had less than 20 hours on it.

Well, I've now broken my second Sampson T-Handle, and it broke doing nothing you'd think, I just dug a plug in damp soft soil, went to lever the plug out and snap! sucker broke in two. Prior to this dig there was no signs at all of it going to break. At least the dig turned out to be a coin although a pointless coin ? The first one I had bent really badly while digging a plug in the same way. The people at WW manufacturing were very good and replaced it under warranty for me as it was my first week using it when the first one bent, this replacement would still be under warranty no doubt but I can't be bothered with that this time, I want something better quality and stronger, these things are absolute junk. I like my equipment to be fit for purpose and these are not. I paid a significant amount more for the shovel than you guys in the US do to get one in NZ, big mistake. I'm now looking into the Aussie made Black Widow shovel, it looks good and hopefully tougher, the Nokta Digger is also available locally but it really doesn't look tough... in fact it looks flimsy. I bought a $7 camping shovel at the local hardware store that's taken an absolute beating and works a treat, no signs of breaking no matter how rough I treat it, made in China.... The only problem with it is the blade is too big so it digs quite nasty plugs. Look how thin the metal is on it, no wonder they snap I've seen thicker metal on a tin of dog food. Well, now time to buy a new better one! It ended my hunt after only 15 minutes today ?

I'd be more inclined to use your Equinox 800 for the gold than the 3030, far more sensitive and geared more towards gold than the 3030 is. The Coiltek 10x5" is quite good for rocky creek gold as it has a very sensitive tip to the coil. It's good for poking it's nose up into places the round 6" coil can't go as easily.

Does it not say in the manual? https://www.minelab.com/__files/f/4244/Instruction Manual Relic Hawk_Scan.pdf

I think we look nerdy enough using our detectors without people seeing us talk to them too, I can just see it now... a guy in a park using his detector with headphones on and a crowd of people around him laughing with him completely unaware they're there and him talking away to his detector to adjust settings. It'd be "Come on your stupid detector, I said recovery 3, RECOVERY 3! R E C O V E R Y 3! ?

It will be for easy removal and replacement too, up inside the handle isn't as easy to pop off as under the arm cuff. If it just clips in it'd be easy to carry a spare if you're going away for a weekend or something. I think it's a good idea.

You can check here where your nearest dealer is https://coiltek.com.au/where-to-buy/

Yes it did, but also people were offloading detectors like Racer 2's and so on and just buying a Simplex. When I was buying my Simplex a guy was selling his Racer 2 with 2 coils for $100 less than a Simplex as he wanted to "upgrade" to a Simplex, I was tempted to buy it instead as it supports Nel coils ? Although I think they priced the Simplex in the right price range where it needed to be to compete with the new offerings like the Vanquish and now Apex and even First Texas come to the party with their F19 derived paint job the Bounty Hunter Time Ranger Pro, other detectors on the market that have similar features and performance to these new entry level type detectors especially from FT are just priced too high. We've largely got the company you'd least expect for this change in market direction to thank for it, so thanks Minelab for lowing the price of performance ? In the next year or two most single frequency machines should end up in the entry level category, or discontinued as we start to see the new breed of detectors as who's going to be in the market for one other than the odd Gold prospecting VLF where single frequency is still viable. XP may even keep the original Deus and use it as a cheaper model to compete in a different market to the Deus 2. There will be those that like to hold on and justify how good their single frequency detector is and how they love the brand it came from and so on.... admirable of course but times and changing, and they're also not putting money into the bank of the manufacturers as they've settled on their machine.... for the past 15 years. Having 20 or so models from a brand now is getting to be ridiculous when there are detectors on the market like the Equinox that can virtually do it all, it just highlights how bad the brands that have a model for every day of a the month really are behind. The Simplex was something Nokta needed to do, it reached many users hands and took some of the entry level market they'd otherwise not have and it's surprising how many users that would in the past just buy higher end are now also owning a Vanquish, Apex or Simplex... the same people didn't blink at buying a Go-Find or early Ace series detector. It would have also been their best selling detector ever, I'm very sure of that and they're in the market to sell detectors. The brands of old are fading away and now the focus will be on these multi frequency detectors, although I wasn't seeing much action in the forum on the single frequency detectors historical areas prior to all these new ones.

The fact Garrett released the Apex as an entry level Ace range detector says they knew it's SMF wasn't up to scratch yet for a high end machine, that's a big positive. They know what they need to do and I'm sure they're working on doing it. Nokta have said their detector is going to be better in virtually every way than the current market leading multi frequency VLF, we all know what detector they're talking about. They've either made a massive PR mistake by saying that, or it actually is better, if it is then we are in for good times as if they were able to crack multi frequency on their first attempt it's a good sign Garrett will nail it soon too, and XP probably have done a good job on it too. I don't know why I just think the XP version will be better than the Nokta version.... I guess we'll all find out soon. If the Nokta is competitive in performance to the Equinox I'll get one just for the better build quality and the extra little features they throw into their detectors. I hope they've focused a lot on the Gold mode with it, they've made some pretty good gold detectors so they have something to work from. I really like having Multi-IQ on the gold mode on the Nox, it does seem to be a bit better than just running on 40kHz for me, but it's good to have 40 and 20kHz to drop back to if EMI with multi is an issue so I hope they also have multi and single frequencies on their gold mode. If Nokta allow Nel to make coils for it I'll be more than happy, if they prevent that I'll be extremely disappointed. Fisher does seem a write off but I'm starting to gain interest in these European machines like the Atrex, it really sounds like good things are going on in that part of the world and a lot of us are missing out as they don't have worldwide dealers yet, hopefully they follow XP's lead and start international distribution, we even have an XP dealer in NZ. It seemed to me like 2021 was a year I'd rather forget but with the GPX 6000, the Concentric X-coils for the GPZ, the Apex, Nokta's SMF and now XP's Deus 2 coming out, it's been a stellar year for detecting products bringing a bit of life back into a year I'd otherwise forget.

Maybe my waiting will pay off after all.

I guess my thinking is more along the lines of Steve, I don't want anymore detectors now unless they bring something to the table I don't have that I'd benefit from, I already have too many detectors that never get used. My introduction to Nokta detectors was buying the Simplex, I realise it's an entry level detector but other than some features others don't have like vibration and a flashlight it brings nothing to my collection and I'll never use it, in fact I don't even like it. I like where they're heading with build quality and extra little features like I previously mentioned but what matters the most to me is performance as unless it's the best at what I'm using it for I see no point using it. The Deus 2 can potentially bring something to the table I don't have so I've got a keen eye on it, The Nokta I'm not so sure so it's very much a wait and see. Nokta did something to the Simplex to make aftermarket coils difficult, Nel announced coils for it some time ago but they never arrived, perhaps they couldn't agree with Nokta on terms of making them and any costs involved. This to me is a bad sign for the Nokta MF, an advantage it may have had would be aftermarket coil variety. Nokta have made some very bold claims about their MF, so if they're correct maybe I will want one. I don't mind paying more for better, price isn't really a factor coming into play with VLF type detectors as they're all within reasonable price ranges for what you get. It's great to see others starting to compete or at least trying, the more the better... Even if all it does to benefit me is force Minelab to release the Equinox 1000 sooner I'd be happy ? It's not like me to want to sit out new releases like this, but I've reached peak detector... I for the first time don't really want anymore VLF's.

Have you been finding gold so far using what you've got? You've got some really good detectors there for finding gold especially the Equinox and ATX and both are suited well for creeks being waterproof. Some interesting reading for you on your ATX, it's a very good PI detector.

It's interesting that you point out the air test depth in mild soils of small gold is about the same as the in ground test, I too have noticed the same thing. This to me means it handles my soil very well, very few other detectors that have similar results for me other than the GPX and GPZ which I guess you'd expect. I'd be interested to see how the 24k handles nasty soil, as it handles my milder soil well and hot rocks very well. I have a few areas I could take it to where I'd put it through hell, I just haven't had a chance yet as it's hard to get away with my daughter in school. I will probably go away over Christmas and stay in some gold areas and give it a workout. One particular creek where I've done well the hot rocks drive me mad and the PI and GPZ are just too big and bulky to take into this wild creek, the 24k seems to handle hot rocks better than the other detectors I've tried in this particular spot so who knows, I might be on a winner.

I would have taken the furry little fella home as a pet! Surely the crystals don't have metal content, I am guessing they were eyeball finds, all the same super cool you can find crystals! That landscape with the snow on the hill and the foreground could have easily been taken around here, surprising how similar some places can look.

yep, I've done a post on some gold finds with it on my first day out with it, found 5 bits I think from memory on an old patch, lost on the forum buried by now I guess ? I've found a bit since then too but just haven't done any posts, nothing significant so not worth posting on. I really like the detector, it's become my primary gold prospecting VLF. I'm finding both the 10x6" and the Whites 6" Concentric to be very good coils, I hope Garrett makes a concentric for it too. Nel have said they're going to make 24k coils, they said they'd be out late this year but I've seen in the past when they announce something is coming it always takes longer than they say. I'd love a Snake coil for it so I hope they follow through with them.

The business someone works for doesn't reflect the person. I think he's done a good job proving that ? Hopefully with time he can set them straight.

We've lived through two years of "coming sometime" I'll wait and see how it pans out, I'm in no rush to buy this one. There have been some pretty bold claims about it directly from Nokta, but I'd rather wait and see, others can be my guinea pigs. It either has to be better or I don't want it. I don't care if it's cheaper, it would need to be unless of course it's better.

Not much different ? https://www.detectorprospector.com/forums/topic/7587-naming-contest-for-new-multifrequency-detector/?tab=comments#comment-77257

yea, only took 2 years.