phrunt

I wouldn't be too worried, I've found in my area the CTX beats the Equinox for deeper small silver coins and it's target ID accuracy is a real joy to use in a place where you only should dig if you have to. Don't get me wrong I'd never get rid of my Equinox as I use my Equinox for gold as well and in some areas it will be better than the CTX possibly if I strumble into a really trashy area, but I choose the detector for the task at hand and now I've got a CTX 3030 I'd never be without one. I hope you've fixed it, must be some weird sand to cause that.

Here is a link to the video ? https://ae-cn.alicdn.com/9f8e1de30350cb41/nHtCXMJOlMy5HbbUnSU/WyN768JqueQgXIxaCqW_320679396375_mp4_264_hd.mp4

The reason people often want small coils isn't just about increasing the small gold sensitivity, it's often about necessity, the elliptical shape somewhat helps with the small size and ground coverage and also gives you a pointy nose to get up into spots rounded coils can't do. Having a big round coil, and yes I consider 11" to be quite big is just useless in a lot of places where you can't get the coil to the soil. Gold is where you find it, sometimes it's in big flat wide open spaces, other times it's in a rocky rough terrain where a standard coil on something like a GPX/GPZ will really perform poorly as you just can't get it near the ground and it's just awkward. Where I hunt often using a GPZ or GPX with their Minelab coils would be pointless, and I'd be forced to use a different detector. It can be quite annoying having a very expensive detector that you just can't use and have to pick up your cheap VLF instead as at least it has a suitable coil. VLF gold hunters knew the 10x5" Coiltek Nox coil would be popular before they even knew how well it worked, why? Because everyone's always wanted that size, it's one of the necessity coil sizes for a VLF gold detector. I was not at all surprised by the demand for that coil, it was a given. If a manufacturer makes a coil that is more sensitive to hot rocks or whatever because it's very small, if they just put that in their sales blurb that the smaller more sensitive size will respond more on certain ground types and hot rocks people would accept that, as long as they're aware of it then it's a non issue. Coils designed for a certain task that you otherwise wouldn't be able to do is a good thing and opens up opportunities. I see coils as more a tool in the toolkit, you have certain coils for certain situations, not so much one coil for every job. This thread clearly demonstrates the demand for smaller coils in different parts of the world, I expect a similar thread on an Aussie forum to be the other direction with people suggesting larger sizes from 14x9" and up. 12x8" is quite a nice size but the nose is quite rounded still, 12x6" gives a skinnier noise to get into rocky spots, 10x6" is a good size.

I love CRC silicone but wouldn't use it for switches or electronics, proper electronic cleaner is best for that, silicone leaves a film that could cause contact problems. The silicone is great for lubrication and restoring and protecting plastics and rubber though.

Are you sure it's not EMI, have you lowered the sensitivity and obviously done the noise cancel? You may have a bad coil, I assume you don't have a second coil to try on it? You could try a factory reset on it if you haven't already.... with the detector switched off press and hold the power button, it'll turn on and play the startup tune, keep holding the power button down until you hear a low tone and then release the button, a menu will come up and go to Reset All. The other thing you could try is checking if it has the latest firmware, if not update it, long shot but worth a try. Are the numbers all over the place in air tests? Say waving a coin over the coil will it give a solid ID? If it does that sounds positive... I assume you tried a ground balance too? A video of your problem would be helpful but I've read in the past someone with a problem like yours with a CTX and they had a coil where the cable was damaged internally where the cable comes out of the shaft down near the coil, so a replacement coil was the solution so if you've got someone you can borrow a coil off to try that'd be helpful if all else fails.

Well if the Scottish could manage to clone Dolly the sheep in the 90's I'm sure the Chinese could clone a Gerry the Detectorist/Detector Salesman in the 2020's. I think you're onto something strick.... we will now have clone Gerrys selling clone detectors all across China to deal with!

It seems to me a discriminating PI is the holy grail which might be why the Impulse AQ crew tried to make out in their marketing that's what they had...... although not quite. Hopefully in my lifetime one is made, I don't want to get old and have to dig everything and I find beach hunting to be an easy sort of detecting, easy to dig and finds readily available, it's something I plan to do more of at some point in time as a summer activity. If VLF tech has truly hit it's depth limits then I will want something deeper at some stage as I've used my previously owned QED on the beach and saw the beauty of a PI on the beach, the nice big coils for ground coverage (I used the 15" round X-coil) and screaming on old deep coins my Nox didn't even sound off on at all as I tested them side by side. I would like to use a rig like that as a beach detector but only if it had discrimination and ideally Target ID. Is it that no one has bothered to make Target ID on a PI or is it an impossibility with current technology?

I'm very tempted to buy one and put bad reviews up all over the place....

The Chinese have gone nuts flooding the auction sites with fake Whites detectors since Whites closure for very cheap prices and instead of blanking out the brand name they're taking on the Whites names even in their marketing and on the detectors. They used to edit the photos of them hiding the branding I guess to keep the brand names from complaining and are doing that far less now Whites is out of business. They've even been so bold as to use one of Gerry's videos for their marketing and branding the video with their GPoint brand logo at the start of the video acting like Gerry is endorsing their detectors. I doubt there is anything you can do Gerry but if you want the direct link to the detector being sold with your video on it as advertising I will give you it, I won't post it here as I don't want people being foolish buying one of these detectors thinking they're getting the real deal for a cheap price as they're not the real deal, and they will likely not work near as well either. It's sad to see this happening but I guess it was inevitable with Whites going out of business they'd get more bold with their fake detectors.

Yes, Nokta seem to have a way to keep the imported prices so they're not heavily inflated and end up a reasonable price.

Small town ball parks have paid off well for me, looks like you're onto something ?

Sounds good, do you know what sizes you intend to make? Any small coils?

Your best bet is to contact these people. https://www.centrevilleelectronics.net/

I wouldn't worry about the AT Max being said to be more reliable, it has a 2 year warranty, the Equinox has a 3 year warranty. Minelab have a service center in NZ for the Equinox, for the AT Max you'd be shipping it back to the USA. My Equinox has not skipped a beat and I treat it like a tool, not a precious piece of equipment. It's had a hard life and it's got to be around 3 years old now. I got it as soon as they came out.

Personally I'd buy the Equinox 800, multi frequency machine with more features and more versatile. Both are good machines the Equinox is just the more modern machine that is overall a better unit.

Welcome to the forum. Firstly, I've never used Newegg, but it took 5 seconds to have a quick search on it to see Chinese clone fake detectors are sold on there all over the place, I expect that's why you've discovered detectors like the T2 which can be genuine or fake, more often than not fake as only Teknetics dealers would be selling the real thing and the TX850 is a Fake Teknetics G2 which is much like the F19 (another variation of it) you're also talking of. Keep in mind when buying these clones you're not getting the real thing, performance is variable as is build quality. Some models appear to work almost as they should, others not so much. If you want to do well finding these antiques you're better off buying a genuine detector. The Equinox 800 and Garrett AT Max as far as I'm aware are very rarely cloned if at all, so either would be a safer option and both suitable for what you want to do. I'm not sure why your only payment option is crypto but generally the stores that will accept that could possibly be the same stores that will be happy to rip you off ?

Well they were advertising on their site a new pinpointer is coming, I wonder why that would be..... Bluetooth perhaps ?

Here is a video of the 12x6" coil finding a little nugget, it's very windy there at the moment, I think he does very well to recover this with one hand while filming with the other..... I doubt I would be capable of doing that, I always put my phone down to recover it ? They're currently working on an even smaller size coil so I will hopefully have a video of that one being tested soon.

I've seen two posts on Facebook now with people who had out of control EMI, they both had their GPX replaced and were then happy with the new one. It wasn't the coil in either case, one of them only had it a few days and took it back to the dealer where they tried another coil, the detector itself had a problem. There must be some part that's possibly a bit variable and makes some perform worse than others and in rare cases makes the detector just terrible to use, although this diagnosis is very simplistic based off only a couple of detectors. Yours sounds unusually bad and perhaps you also have a faulty coil or like these two people a faulty detector.

They used to make them in Adelaide Australia, and best I can tell almost all manufacturing is done in Malaysia but of course that doesn't mean all the parts are made in Malaysia, they'd be sourced where they can be, mostly China and Taiwan I would guess. Even detectors made in the USA will be made with parts sourced in Asia, it's certainly not unusual. Their investor report outlines a bit of information about manufacturing although they lumped Warehouses in with Manufacturing in the chart so it looked like they're made in many places when they're not. If you dive into it a bit deeper doing research outside of that document you can come up with this one Which basically shows the manufacturing is done in Adelaide South Australia, Penang Malaysia and Victoria, Canada I looked into the manufacturing in Canada and it is the radio communications equipment. As long as the quality is there and the support I'm not bothered by where it's made. I would hope making it in cheaper to manufacture countries would have some of the costs cut passed onto the consumers though and not just be to maximise profits.

Looks like a prototype toilet to me ?

Yes, the Chinese are pumping out replacement GPZ and CTX screens. There has to be a market for it or they wouldn't do it. I guess sometimes it's not practical for people to send their detector in to get it fixed if they need it or when they want to do it themselves to keep costs down or maybe they just don't have a service agent nearby or even in their country. The price of getting it fixed officially is just too high by comparison of doing it yourself and I'm sure they'd buy the genuine parts if they could, but for things like screens they won't sell them to you. I wasn't even able to buy the little rubber USB cover for my WM12 when it snapped in half, they wanted me to send it in to have it replaced, they were of course going to do it under warranty as it's under a year old I'd guess but they would not send me the part to do it myself even if I just offered to buy it so I can see peoples reasoning for sourcing aftermarket parts but having worked in a service center before myself I also know why they don't want people doing things themselves, it can go terribly wrong ? If I was able to find that little rubber on a Chinese site I would have bought it just so I could do it myself.

Damn! you've beaten my total ring tally with one hunt! fantastic, good one Mitchel.

Most their detectors are made in Malaysia, and parts like shafts and so on come from China. My genuine Equinox replacement shaft came in packaging with shipping documentation of made in China. I guess this is relatively normal in this day and age, what isn't made there? not much! What you're seeing there with that Ebay listing is Chinese manufactured clone components, the Chinese have worked out that selling parts for Minelab detectors can be very lucrative. They sell everything now for many models of Minelab like shafts, batteries, screens, keypads and so on. You name a part they now make it. These will be the same parts they're using in their clone detectors so some parts might be questionable quality. I guess because some of the parts like screens Minelab won't sell you and instead want you to pay the service center to fit them into out of warranty detectors, some people would rather save the money and do it themselves if they're capable of doing so, in that case they source aftermarket parts to do it themselves. Often the labour on a repair can be more than the parts required.

All you do is paste the youtube link into the post and press enter, it will automatically embed. You don't need to do anything