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The availability of the NEL Snake for the legend was discussed in this thread In that thread I mentioned I was new to detector prospecting and wondered if the NEL Snake would be a better nugget hunter over the stock 6" Legend coil. Clearly the Snake can get into spots the 6" cannot and that alone MAY be enough reason to buy one. When I looked at NEL's site I noticed the "Sharp" coil. https://nel-coils.com/index.php/en/production My novice take is the Snake covers a bit more ground, gets in tighter spaces and has slightly better separation. The Sharp covers less ground than the Snake or my stock coil, has a bit less separation, but a bit more depth than the Snake, and being only 5", I still get into slightly tighter spaces than my stock coil. The Sharp seems attractive for the smaller size (Compared to stock) and more depth. But if the depth is no better than my stock coil, and there is no other benefit beyond being 1" smaller than my stock coil, I'd just go with the Snake for the size/shape advantage. To those with actual experience, is my thinking sound... anything I'm not considering?

The bases of my Macro VLF coil cables have gotten pretty sensitive. I have to re-arrange the cable a lot to get a steady signal. They are about 6 years old. Can they be replaced or what?

Hi Folks, Just did a bit of research into the cost of a skid plate for a newly purchased coil. As it was only 8” in diameter, I assumed that the plates would be quite cheap because when you think about it, they are only glorified ice cream container lids. When I found that another kidney would need to be sold to fund the purchase, I decided that there must be a better way. Now this may end up as a total failure but I’m sure that many of you have tried and had some success. I reckon the wizards out there with 3D printers could come up with something or people who work in industry and have access to vacuum formers would be able to construct them with very little effort but in my case, I would like to use what I have in my own workshop and hope that something could be made to produce these throw away items. Logic tells me that a thermoplastic of some sort would be the obvious choice to use as it can be softened by heat and moulded in some way. If I could come up with a technique, the best choice of material would be determined later. After thinking about it for a while, I decided that a plug and ring mould might be a good option for making the skid plates. If I could accurately machine these components and then press some plastic into shape, there is a possibility that a reasonable plate could be made. I made a start this morning by making a plug. A piece of 16mm MDF was cut into a disc and machined to size on the wood lathe. it was turned down in diameter until it was a tight fit onto the skid plate that I already had. Some extra MDF was then cut and glued to make the ring mould. When the glue dries, the ring mould will be mounted on a face plate and machined so that the plug will sit inside with an allowance for skid plate wall thickness. I decided to make the depth of the recess a bit over 20mm. The deformation of the plastic as it’s pushed into shape will create problems so I decided to add the extra depth so that surplus could be cut off later. When I was teaching, the kids and I used to make moulds for acrylic using this technique and we found that the compression and expansion forces involved created all sorts of issues unless tolerances were right. I’ll get back to the turning tomorrow morning.

When you swing a coil from one side to the other G-Force comes into play. When you swing that coil let’s say to the right and stop that coil is still going because the G-Force is building up being it’s swinging now in the other direction. Here you are all day long left right left right until your arm plays out. The trouble we don’t think how those coil ears are fairing. The guy who’s swinging that coil may be young and strong may be that coils worse enemy because he can swing it faster plus that bigger coil will pull more G’s just being it’s just bigger. You take a strip of tin are wire bending it back and forth with like your coil ears it can take only so much and then break . I’ve known some who think a coil is a shovel trying to move rocks when nugget hunting. So many times they find out that don’t work too well. Here’s pictures of Legend coils and the ears on the LG 24 is a little thinner than the LG 15 are LG 28 plus LG 30 . The last three I do believe they are the same thickness. That’s just eye balling it . Chuck

Hi Folks, Just thought I’d give a bit of feedback on the 8” X Coil that I pinned to the 7000. Yesterday was its maiden voyage into our local gold country and Joe and I were keen to see how it performed in the field. We decided to go back to a creek bed that was mainly dry to see if we could scratch out a few targets and do some comparison work between this coil and the 10x5 Coiltek that was swinging on the end of Joes 6000. After burying a few targets the day before and running both machines over them, we already had a bit of an idea as to how it would perform but nothing beats detecting in a real situation to see how a machine/ coil combination works. I purchased this coil so that I could give my daughter the 6000 when she comes out detecting and I could then use the zed with a small coil to work through old workings or around rock bars. The 12” ZSearch is a great coil but is a bit too large for this type of work (especially with the thick undergrowth that now exists in our gold fields.) The first thing I noticed was the weight of the coil. It is reasonably heavy for its size. It is of a similar weight to the 12” coil and I’m guessing it is full to the brim with wire. On the Zed it is well balanced and it swings nicely with minimal effort. External build quality looks quite good and it appears that it should be able to cope with a good workout. Joe and I decided to walk the gully well past where we detected on the last trip and see if there was any gold present higher upstream. The first issue with the X Coil is that it’s not waterproof so I was restricted to dry rock bars and banks. Joe was able to do the shallow pools and submerged bars to ensure that we had all bases covered. The area where we started to detect was highly mineralised with hot rocks and noisy ground upsetting both machines. Threshold was stable but false signals due to the ground were an issue until we moved downstream. Apart from a couple of bits of rubbish, nothing of any real interest turned up. We slowly worked our way down stream until we got to an area that had produced some gold on a previous trip. The zed was behaving a bit like a hyperactive kid that had been fed a handful of red lollies. In other words, it was running like a 6000. In a funny, twisted sort of way, it was a good feeling as I knew the coil was right on the edge and was super sensitive. As we had detected this area before, we knew that we had to make a bigger effort to reach difficult spots, move a few rocks and fallen vegetation etc to see if we could uncover something of interest. Joe started detecting a yellow clay bank as it was a good trap for gold during a flood. I decided to try an steep area that was well above the stream bed where there was evidence of past working by the old timers. At the base of a cliff face, I noticed a couple of undercut areas which were gouged out by last years floods. I was able to get my detector coil into one of these holes by lying flat on the ground and reaching forward through some flood debris in order to swing the detector. A very faint moan hit the headphones which wasn’t surprising at all as the hole had a lot of red mineralised soil in the cavity. It sounded just like every other broad, false signal that I’d been getting during the morning from similar material but as per usual, a check was in order. The pick was used to drag out about 6” of this dirt. It was soft and not compacted in any way which indicated it was recently deposited. When the detector was placed back into the hole, the signal had sharpened up and I knew that I had something metallic. I wish now that I’d called Joe over before any material was moved so that we could have done a bit of a comparison between the machines. My gut feeling is that the 6 would not have heard anything at all but we will never know for sure. Eventually I dragged out a nice little nugget of about 3/4 gram. When I ran the machine over the spoils, a signal was detected and another small piece was recovered. Joe picked up a couple of small pieces that were barely a signal so he didn’t call me over to check. You know the ones I’m talking about. “Is that a signal?” One small scratch with the pick and then it screams at you. The typical 6000 small gold scenario. I started detecting a high vertical bank that had washed away badly last year. When I placed the coil under a tree root, the machine screamed loudly in protest. I knew it had to be junk or a shallow piece of gold. One careful scrape with the pick and it fell into the scoop. Couldn’t believe my luck when a nice little half grammer winked at me. No skill in that one. A kids detector could have found it. But in saying that, no one had put a coil in that location before so I took it with a smile. After a brief stop for lunch, we continued to slowly move towards our starting point. I picked up the zed and took one step forward before getting a nice little double “bleep”. It was pointless getting the 6000 to run over that target as it was quite a shallow, dig me signal. Turned out to be a 0.08g piece at a depth of about 1.5”. It was good to see that the coil could pick up bits of fluff with ease. I decided to follow Joe and work the same clay bank that he had just detected to see if there was a deeper target to find. Normally, that wouldn’t be a good idea as Joe is very good on the detector and rarely leaves even a scrap for his mate. About 3 metres from where I picked up the little nugget, I ran the X Coil over some vegetation that had been partially washed away by flood water. I could see the clay bank was about 5 inches under the exposed roots of a small bush. To my surprise, I picked up a signal when the coil passed over the area. The vegetation was pulled out of the way and this is what I saw: Before it was moved, I called Joe over for a look. It was a beautiful little sunbaker. Joe passed his coil over the top of the nugget and lost the signal at about 4”. The process was repeated with the X Coil. It still gave a faint signal at about 5.5”. That was the first bit of information that demonstrated some of the X Coils potential. The piece weighed in at 0.095 grams which is pretty small. Joe picked up a couple of micro bits on a bank during our walk towards the car. He finally found a slight but repeatable signal that he thought might be a good test for the new coil. He put back the scrape of material that the pick had removed and the X Coil was then directed across the area. In all honesty, there was very little evidence of a signal at all. There may have been something but under normal detecting conditions, it would not have stopped me. When the scrape material was removed, a faint signal was heard. It ended up being a really small piece of shot and showed how good the 10x5 coil attached to the 6000 is when the gold size gets really small. It was a day that was hard work and didn’t prove anything much at all except that the X Coil is capable of finding small gold at good depth. Will it compete with the 6000? In some situations depending on gold size and depth, it may do well. In others where the gold is really small and shallow, the situation may be different. From yesterdays trip I could say with confidence that the zed/ X Coil combination is one that I will use in many of our future adventures. Will try updating comparisons as we test over time. Here is a pic of the gold that it found on its first outing. And our tally for the day.

Nel Coils may have unintentionally set themselves up for their "Storm" line of search coils earlier on. Should they continue to also produce a compatible coil for Garrett's new anticipated metal detector release, they may have an "ACE" in progress. (pun intended)

For myself I tend to use the following coils the most: GPZ-7000 14x13” Stock DOD GPX-6000 10x5” Goldhawk Mono GPX-5000 14x9” Evolution Mono Equinox 900 6” DD Gold Bug 2 6x3” CC

I was looking through several different coil manufacturers websites and trying to see if any of them offered stacked spiral coils outside of the GPX-6000 coils. There coil descriptions are usually pretty vague and I could not find anything mentioning stacked spiral windings. From what I have been told the stacked spiral or also called semi-spiral coils for the 6000 our stacked 6 wide and 5 high. This windings type gives the 6000 great depth on small bits. Has anyone heard of or used this stacked type of coil windings on any non GPX -6000 coils.

It's great to see Nel still around, they've survived the odds so far and now they've released their range of coils for the Legend. Legend owners now have an additional 10 coil choices for the detector, and this will mean it's fiercely competitive with the best of the best from any brand. That 17x15" Nel Big would have to add some depth, then the absolute tiny gold nugget (flake) sensitivity of the Nel Snake at 6.5 x 3.5. The Nel Superfly and Tornado are also coils to take note of. It was always my condition that I wouldn't buy a Legend unless it had Nel coils, as I have too many detectors and adding another similar one would be a pointless exercise for my needs. However, now with Nel having their range of Legend coils available it is a must have detector for me, the Legend paired with a Nel Snake coil would be a beast for prospecting. He's a link to the Legend's Snake coil. https://nel-coils.com/index.php/en/production/nel-snake-9-5x3-5?id=2376 I'm sure they're going to be hard to come by at the start, and no doubt expensive as shipping from Ukraine at the moment is sky high, a price I am willing to pay though, this has to be a giant kick in the marbles to Noktas competitors.

I figured it was time to change the battery for my X--35 9" coil, I watched all the videos on how to do it , I figured it would be a cinch, but after i got the little plastic plate off the bottom of the coil a hard piece of foam was glued in so hard over the little battery connector I could hardly get it out , then i looked to find the connector to unplug the old battery and could not even see it , It was totally covered in epoxy glue I pulled on the wire and it broke off, apparently the temp worker filled it with glue and completely covered the battery plug in making it impossible to remove, why me ? why does it work for everyone else but when i go to do it its covered in glue, ? I was pissed now it will cost me 300.00$ to get the HF coil . I will never buy another X-35 because I have no assurance the battery plug will not be glued over again . at least the HF coil its possible to change the battery

I was on a trip, using my Gold Bug Pro device with the standard 11-inch search coil, and suddenly the device continued to buzz with the Overload message appearing. I moved away from the place, but nothing changed. I raised the detector high and nothing changed. I also tried the other 5-inch disk, and it was normal. I expected a nail or Something similar entered through a crack at the base of the search file. I dismantled the damaged file and did not find any indication of the problem... Any help is welcome

I bought somebody's GPX 4500. It came with 4 coils. Then I realized that I don't have a clue what are the strengths and weakness of the different coil configurations. What are some general principals to guide folks in matching coils to the situations that they encounter? I don't recall having seen any guidance on this. Thanks

I was just curious to know if the AlgoForce runs bundled or spiral coils optimally? I know it's early days to know definitively but is it safe to assume that the AlgoForce isn't too fussy in coil configuration. I know there is mention of the older Gold Search coils working well as do the Evo line of coils (Spiral). I guess this leads to whether either of these coil formats would be best in hotter ground? Thanks for any feedback. I only own 3 mono coils that I use with my GP3500.......my all time favourites.

VMI went out today, it was beautiful. Wanted to do a bunch of testing and comparisons on coils and depths between a vlf and pi. ( So i know where the cross over is ). When I got to the stock 11" dd commander for my 4500 it didn't work. I mean I waved it two inches off my pick before it responded! I looked the whole thing over but can't find the reset button. Any words of wisdom? I've included pics top and bottom for reference. And fat fingered the pics, sorry. I think I'm going to ever so carefully take it apart with a two pound hammer and see if I can find the problem. On the other hand I can now fully justify a new aftermarket.🤠

Looking into purchasing an aftermarket coil, equivalent to White's DD eclipse for an MXT specifically. I really don't know whats out there from other manuf. Looking for a HOT (sensitivity/depth) coil. Better target separation is a plus too. Or would you recommend I stay with whites coil? Any experience and feedback would help. Thanks, TC-AZ

I keep reading in a few different post (To Not Turn A PI On Without a coil connected) I have not attempted to do so because of reading what I quoted, but have often been curious as to what would happen if one was to turn a PI on without a coil connected I know with a VLF generally you will get a coil Error pop up and for instance like the Legend the Legend will shut itself down with out a coil attached so can someone explain to me what happens if you power up a PI with out a coil attached (Just Curious) also why do manufactures not put in a fail safe to prevent a PI from powering up with out a coil connected, if it can cause harm to a PI again just curios because of a statement in one of @Steve Herschbach recent post

I have an Axiom and a good old AT-Gold for hunting in water. I've been trying to find out why Garrett favors blunt ends on it's coils. I've found one brief reference in a forum that the design provides more depth on the front and back end of the coil. I've also seen a reference that stated that the rounded corners may be the hottest part of the edge. They seem to use this design for both DD and Mono coils across all of their products. Can anyone talk about the good and bad aspects of the blunt end design? Why is the round coil design better or worse?

Anyone know what types of plastics all the manufacturers use? I am looking at printing some skid plates and coil bodies if I'm able to get some time to experiment with making my own coils next season if this Algoforce rolls around and we have use for non-chipped coils again. I can 3d print strong plastics like polycarbonate and nylon, leaning towards one of those. But I'm just curious, is there an industry standard for the types of plastics used for the injection molded coils? I feel like maybe nylon, but I'm unsure. I like the idea of transluscent polycarbonate coils so I might try that first (inspiration from Strick's x ray posts). Seems like the cheaper spools like PLA, PETG, even ABS all might be kinda too weak. I know layer adhesion makes 3d printing non ideal for wear parts, but the ability to quickly print and prototype different geometries seems compelling for experimenting. Anyone know what like NF uses for example with the modern coils like Evos? Anyone printed a coil yet and determined how robust (or weak) it is compared to injection molded of same plastic?

Has anyone ever used both or at least the Detech and have any comments at all? I'm confident enough in the Commander but wonder if the Detech might be a better option. Basically going to use for looking for coins and better yet rings at the beach so don't care about hitting tiny bits, in fact prefer not doing that. Detech has the spec edge at 780 grams versus Commander at 820 grams. Detech is rated waterproof whereas Commander is only rainproof. Commander coils I am pretty sure are Litz wire. Not sure about the Detech.

Looks like M15's are hitting retail at the moment, a guy in NZ has secured one, not me unfortunately, I may have been to slow to order by the looks of it but at the early stages I wasn't even sure I was going to bother with my Manticore, now I've decided I'll give it a chance. Hopefully my spots not too far away. I've ordered both coils.

So I read all the old reviews on here for the GPX17 coil for the 6000. Is everyone still in love with this coil like the old reviews indicate? The 6000 is my primary gold detector and I dont have a 7000 or 5000, and I also know the 6000 will never match these machines regarding depth on larger gold. Is the GPX17 still a good coil to have for patch hunting in open ground and some extra depth compared to the stock 11 inch or the NF 12x7? I was patiently waiting for the NF 16x10 mono coil to be released but it does not appear like this is going to happen any time soon and maybe never. Please advise if the GPX17 is a worthwhile investment now or should I wait for another year to see if the NF coil will be released. I have not seen any field test results comparing the GPX17 to the NF 16x10 even though it appears that JP and maybe others have tested it. Please advise, Ceril

Anyone know of any person or company, worldwide that sells coil shells? Thinking about building a smallish CC coil for the Legacy Minelab PI's. I only know of a Bulgarian and Ukrainian seller but neither has coil covers to accompany their shells. The Ukrainian one (Pictured) is only a 9", so the receive coil will be C.5" at best.....so should be sensitive but not great overall depth for larger targets. Any ideas????

I tried to finalize the purchase of a Troy Shadow X5 coil and it seems that the only way to pay is by making a deposit into a bank account, money order & money gram, which is strange or suspicious for any company that considers itself serious. Note: The same coil is on an auction website for twice the price.