phrunt

How long did the coil take to get to you Mitchel? The Aussies seem to average about 2 weeks to land in Australia then another week for it to go by horse and cart from the Airport to their house. In NZ they seem to take about 2 weeks to my door. Is it the same in the US? Do they go by horse and cart once they arrive there?

Yes, dealers are going the way of the Dodo over the next few years it seems, they tested the waters in Africa, now they've done the same in Indonesia, selling direct to customers off the Minelab Indonesia and Malaysia website, Indonesia is not a small market, 273 million people, combine that with Malaysia at 33 million it's not all that much smaller than the USA really. This is Minelab's Official Indonesian website where you buy your detecting gear direct. https://minelab.co.id/ Some light reading on it https://stripe.com/en-au/customers/minelab It's only a matter of time until they roll this out everywhere I think, cut out the middle men and make higher profits.

Depends on what you intend to do with it and if you're going near salt water but the Garrett Pro Pointer AT is a good solid pinpointer that works very well.

Wow, so Minelab said stop selling Quest and Nokta that both now have SMF's competitive to Minelabs detectors or you can no longer sell Minelab products, so they said bye bye Minelab, Would have been a tough decision for them, I've seen this sort of thing play out in the computer industry with brands playing games like that, when distributors and dealers start focusing on other brands instead they can influence customers to move off the brand they were intending to buy, and onto the brands they're pushing with easier access to instead. This sort of thing can end badly for Minelab if they now only push Quest, Nokta and XP.

Our gold areas are full of briar rose from the Chinese miners wanting their rose hip tea, they're nasty and can easily poke into a coil cable, and they damn well hurt! They attack me every time I go detecting. It's rare I don't come home with holes in my clothes from them, the thorns are very tough. They're an invasive pest plant, and they entirely cover areas, gradually taking over the land, JW often cuts them down and has benefited greatly doing so by finding gold in places no one can get to.

I think it's best giving a basic idea of area you'll be hunting, Queensland has some hot soils and many not be overly suitable for a VLF (the cheaper sort of detector) and you may end up being better off buying a used PI machine. Regardless you'd do better with a PI in most cases. Hopefully someone from QLD can step in and help you, quite a few people on this forum are from or hunt in QLD for gold.

No, I've not tightened mine up right and it just makes the detector bump sensitive. Same with the GPZ. If it's coming up with a Coil error and shutting down I wouldn't think it would be the cable not tight enough. This is the moment JW's coil died, it caused the detector to just keep turning off when you turned it on

I'll take a photo of mine later to compare but I don't recall it looking like that, mines in my do not use cupboard next to my Simplex as I've switched to using the aftermarket coils. The new coils all have something changed in the plastic to prevent cracking though. Unfortunately when mine was replaced it was replaced with an older coil than my detector is by manufacturing date so I've likely got another dud.

yes, but they've also changed plastic formula to stop the cracking too.

Holy crap! that looks like a total redesign of the 11" coil, now mine needs to die again, I want the new one, you can bet they've fixed all the issues on the new model. Now this is why people recommend waiting a year or in the GPX 6000's case a couple of years before jumping into a new model, the EMI fix, now a redesign of the coil that was plagued with issues from instability, noisy operation to cracking on the ears and body...

Would you mind putting a photo up of it?

If it was me I'd take a tiny bit of the shielding off the cable and get the splinter out in case it eventually breaks through the thinner insulation on the coil wires. Have you tried doing a good bend in the cable where the entry wound is to try make it easier to get the thorn out with the tweezers? I'd then use dual wall adhesive lined heat shrink over the injury to seal it up and make it as good as new. Good heat strinks can shrink up to 4 times their size so you'll be able to get one that fits over the coil cables plug connector but still shrinks down small enough to shrink onto the cable. I use them doing X-coil adapter stuff and putting plug ends back on coils. They slide over the coils plug ends fine to be used on the cable. You can just use a lighter to shrink it down if you don't have a solder station with a heat gun. https://www.te.com/usa-en/products/heat-shrink-tubing/dual-wall-tubing.html Once that's done the cable is as good as new and just as waterproof as it once was. Dual wall heat shrink tubing protects against moisture and corrosive environments, while providing electrical insulation and mechanical protection using engineered adhesives. Dual wall tubing products consist of a crosslinked outer jacket and an inner layer of adhesive or encapsulant. During installation, the adhesive or encapsulant lining melts and flows, creating a moisture-resistant protective barrier. Benefits of this type of tubing include controlled amounts of adhesive and consistent results; compliance with AMS-DTL-23053 standards; UL recognition/CSA certification; and RoHS Compliant.

I guess nobody can now say Minelab don't care about their customers as they've proven otherwise in this case, along with the GPX 6000 EMI issue.. They did the EMI fix for the GPX and it now works a treat, they're now looking into the ID issues with the new detectors. I'm really happy about this just as I was about the GPX 6000 EMI Fix. Thanks Minelab. I agree too, it's good they made the call to a detector user that's very knowledgeable and level headed and not just some Facebook or Youtube personality, Jeff's criticism was not click bait like Youtube videos often are, it was a genuine opinion of a possible problem that may need some attention with the new 900 and possibly also the Manticore. I had a play with my Manticore today, there is nothing I can do settings wise other than beach mode to give it anywhere near the ID stability of the Nox. I can improve it over default settings but I can't get it to the level of the Nox, even taking into account the extra ID's of the Manticore on deeper coins that the Nox can remain quite solid on. Beach mode is the only way I can get it what I'd call good on ID's on deeper coins.

Ok, I'll get it all measured up for you and provide photos and all info required.

It might be best @davsgold measure up his 8" X-coil and send you dimensions, that way you're not dealing with international shipping and he could test it out, I'm happy to provide photos and sizing for any coils though. Thanks for the very nice offer.

I could give you measurements to any of their coils.

What happens if you ever need to change the battery?

Thanks Jeff, that's great news and good to see Minelab are on the ball, I'm sure we all very much appreciate them doing that phone call to you and they called the right person to describe the situation well. I hope this means a firmware update is on it's way for both the Manticore and Nox 700/900. Perhaps in their testing ground they didn't see these problems and they do have to rely on testers that they have selected in other ground conditions and perhaps they didn't have the issue either, who knows, seems odd but that's metal detectors for you 🙂 This really is fantastic news. Good work Minelab! A little DD for the 6000 is a very desirable coil, so good move there Jeff giving them a poke about that. Thanks for thanking them for the EMI fix, I for one am VERY happy they did that repair, such a difference it has made.

That's a really good video, an education for sure, it should be watched by every Manticore owner. It is a more difficult detector than the Nox for sure, it's not just a turn on and go and be happy detector like the Nox is. It's also fantastic in EMI, he's got that right, the best detector with multi frequencies I've used by far. I've been singing it's praises with EMI since day 1 as it's so easy to notice how much better it is. That long press EMI scan should have been on the GPX 6000, shame they only worked it out in time for the Manticore and not a detector double to triple it's price.

If the bouncier ID's are not user error which for me is entirely possible as I'm still learning the machine and I expect to be doing that for some time, I learn slowly as I learn by finds, the more finds I do of a particular target the more I understand how it behaves on that target, so I tinker with settings and find stuff and gradually figure it all out. With the Nox it was easy and I never really needed to leave default settings and it just worked extremely well, now it seems I have to change that way of thinking with the Manticore. If they do make an update to improve it I'm going to absolutely love my Manticore, if they can just get it so they're on par with the Nox taking into account the larger ID range that's all I'd need. I never complained about the Nox ID stability, I was very happy with it, if the Manticore just bounced a few extra numbers to take into account the larger ID range I'd be so happy. I'm already able to use it to dig more silver threepence coins because the bigger range has separated them from the common pull tab where as the Nox they both came up the same numbers so I'm pleased it has the expanded ID range, I'd just like a little bit more stability with it if it is possible. In beach mode it has the stability I desire but obviously with that comes sensitivity issues to smaller targets, I've not noticed any depth issues in beach mode. It does feel like a bit of a bandaid fix by detecting fields in beach mode though. I also hope one day the Nox 800 goes into a Nox 900 body, I'd buy that to get a better quality Nox 800, I'm not all that interested in a 900, the Manticore can take that role and better it, I'd like a tougher 800 though as I intend to stick with that detector for a long time.

People are perhaps holding onto them more now that they've found the 900/Manticore aren't as good for some applications, the Manticore doesn't even have any coils available yet. I'm never parting with my 800, it's found me the most out of every VLF I've got by far, and I just enjoy using it. The Equinox was just a brilliant machine, yes it has some issues with build quality mainly affecting heavy duty water hunters with leaking and coil ears breaking but a good percentage of them will be people using their detector to lift their body off the ground when they get up from a dig. Some genuinely break when they shouldn't like my CTX's ears on the 17" coil but others I'm sure are people doing the wrong thing so it makes the problem sound worse than it is. In saying all that the ears wouldn't be breaking with people doing the wrong thing near as often if they were built stronger and thicker like Nokta's ears. There was a fair few sales here in NZ for 800's and we are such a small market so it's noticeable more so but it stopped quickly, and I haven't seen one for sale for a while now. The people were selling to upgrade to the Manticore in most cases as their reason for sale. I see no reason to sell it as I may end up with a 900 in the future if my 800 dies and the 800 is discontinued and then I've got all the coils for it already. Ok Ok, I also hate parting with detectors so I'd not sell anyway 😛 In NZ the Legend is the easy detector to get on the second hand market, and way less people owned one. It's been tempting as the used price can be very low.

For me personally the difference was small, the 5000 has fine gold timing which suits some peoples conditions, it also has coin and relic timing if you're interested in that in VERY mild soils looking for coins. The 5000 also runs smoother and handles EMI better than early 4500's, the newer 4500's are based upon the same hardware and the advantages are less notable than early model 4500's. Some light reading. https://www.minelab.com/community/treasure-talk/the-gpx-5000-compared It's worth reading both links. If they're similar priced the 5000 every day, if there is a substantial price difference the 4500 is the better choice. I've had both, I disposed of my 4500, but nothing to do with performance compared the the 5000, just the 5000 is slightly better. At the time when prices were substantially different I'd say the 5000 over-priced. It's a bit of an Equinox 800/900 all over again, some will understand that 🙂 If a 4500 is in your price range it's a great detector and not all that far behind a 5000.

Minelab mostly fix what they have to, do not expect Legend level updates to the Manticore, any update is a massive bonus, they may do none. The GPZ 7000 which cost 10 grand lacked updates, it has stuff that needs fixed like changing between difficult to normal can randomly drop out audio requiring a power cycle to get it to work again, it's had this problem for years and they are not fixing it, they even said they're not going to fix it. It also links to PC software for mapping and that was broken for years. Minelab are not the type of company to provide updates other than for necessities and even then it may not happen. They have a history of not providing good update support. They're WYSIWYG (wiz-ee-wig) detectors, what you see is what you get, don't expect it to change.

They're micro USB, no different to any other product with the same, I advise not trying to charge them after 30 beers and plugging it in the wrong way 🙂

Good report Mitchel, wait and see you'll be digging tiny bits deeper than you ever expected so much so that you will think they're much bigger than they will end up being 🙂 I really like that 15" CC more so than any other coil on the GPZ, now you have a spiral for the better edge sensitivity and covering ground better and the 15" CC for going over areas you know gold should be and you're set, a good combination of coils. I see they've included the new polycarbonate skid plate for you as a bonus over the standard one, that's the clear sort of one, they're super tough and will last you a long time. A guy in Australia that detects full time has had his on now for 2 seasons as he bought one when they first were introduced, he was going through standard skid plates like mad prior to getting that poly skid plate. He's an aggressive coil scrubber.