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While out on the Sawtooth adventure, Dee tried a GB Pro 5" coil on her F-75. Guess what.... it worked! Steve, any comments about that?

All the nugget hunting I have done with the Garrett ATX so far was done with the standard 10" x 12" DD coil that comes with the unit. That coil is a very good coil but as my story at http://www.detectorprospector.com/steves-mining-journal/gold-nugget-detecting-with-garrett-atx.htm illustrates it has a couple quirks. The best sensitivity to small gold is in the inner coil area so it is hard to get the hottest portion of the coil close to objects like rocks or stumps. But the main problem is the DD coil is prone to false signals when knocked, making it tiresome to manipulate in rough ground. I hoped the 8" mono might help with these issues. ATX™ 8 inch Mono Searchcoil PN: 2234000 So I put in quite a few hours with the 8" mono in some rough terrain. I was not so lucky as to find any gold but recovered a handful of small ferrous targets, mostly short bits of wire and portions of nails. All pretty small stuff wedged in crevices in the bedrock wash locations I hunted. I also recovered quite a few non-ferrous targets, mostly bullets and some brass rivets. Some of the lead bits were quite small and overall I was very happy with the depth and sensitivity I was seeing. The locations I hunted were not prime gold areas but gold is present and the number of non-ferrous targets recovered proved the places were not completely hunted out yet. The 8" mono proved just as prone to false signals when knocked as the stock DD coil. The good news is it is lighter and the machine balances better with it on so it is less strain on the arm working the coil effectively for long hours. I do not want to overstate this issue with the coil falsing when knocked because I can hunt effectively with an ATX. But it is an issue that needs to be noted. Well designed detector and coil combinations do not suffer from this flaw and it adds extra effort to the hunt being sure to manipulate the coil in a fashion that does not lead to constant false signals. I much prefer coils I can put anywhere I please in any way I please without a false signal being generated. I cannot imagine how the epoxy filled coils can be the source of the issue so I presume it is the cable that generates the signals when moved in the course of a coil impact. Since the coil cable is inside the rod assembly there is not much I can do to experiment with that theory. If the cable was external to the rod perhaps strapping it more firmly in place would help. The 8" mono does have good external edge sensitivity to small items and the coil does work better in rough terrain. You can get the sweet spot closer to obstructions and the edge of the coil can be worked down into crevices. Quite a few of the targets I recovered were in bedrock crevices and sounded directly on the edge of the coil. One big factor with the 8" mono is that the ATX iron discrimination check will not work with it. If you push the button to engage the check you get a repeating tone that tells you the feature is not in effect. The iron check is a nice feature and this alone may deter someone from wanting to use the mono coil. However, I tend towards digging all targets myself so this did not bother me and in fact I am ok with the temptation being removed entirely. Personally I just do not trust discrimination systems much. Overall I prefer the 8" mono operating characteristics and for uneven, rough terrain it is my preferred coil. I also much preferred it for in water use as outlined at http://www.detectorprospector.com/forum/topic/102-garrett-atx-review-beach-detecting-in-hawaii/ For flatter open terrain I would stick with the stock coil. The main problem however is that it is very hard to justify the 8" mono to most people given the fact that when you buy it you are forced to buy an entire telescoping rod assembly also. This drives the price of a decent coil option up to the point where it is a significant fraction of the original purchase price of an ATX. With a manufacturer suggested list price of $529.95 discounted to $450 this coil unfortunately will probably go underutilized by ATX owners.

From page 27 of the Garrett ATX Owners Manual: "Coil covers: Use a coil cover to protect the coil from abrasion and damage and prevent false responses that may occur when the coil abruptly impacts a rigid object such as a large rock, etc." I agree, especially when coils have an MSRP over $500, that you want to protect them. Nugget detecting in particular subjects coils to a lot of abrasion and hard knocks. Standard Garrett ATX Searchcoil 10" x 12" (25 x 31cm) DD Coil Part Number 2234600.....$529.95 Optional Garrett ATX Searchcoil 8" (20cm) Mono Coil Part Number 2234000.....$529.95 Excellent depth on small targets. Enhanced maneuverability in heavy scrub and tight areas. Optional Garrett ATX Searchcoil Deepseeker® 15" x 20" (38 x 50cm) Mono Coil Part Number 2234100.....$599.95 Use for locating larger and more deeply buried objects. Includes surface debris elimination. Garrett has been playing catch up, as even existing coils like the round 8" mono do not have a scuff cover available yet. Still, Garrett is on it, and at least two coils are now being made for the stock DD coil, a closed and an open scuff cover. Here is a picture of them but I have not been able to find part numbers yet. Hopefully Ken or one of the other dealers can chime in with part numbers and pricing. Scuff covers for Garrett ATX 10" x 12" DD Coil For those of you without a scuff cover do not be overly concerned. I have been using my ATX full bore without scuff covers and the end result is that the bottoms of the coils are scuffed and lightly abraded. My 8" mono in particular got a hard go of it in Hawaii. The epoxy bottom is tough and it will take a lot of use to have an appreciable effect so I would not worry too much about it from a service aspect. The main concern is when you go to sell the detector, a scuff cover means the coils look closer to new than well used. They are a good investment for that reason alone in maintaining the resale value of the detector.

I recently purchased a new product and found that it works so well I thought I would share. For those of us that use a Minelab we all know how sensitive the coil wire to the box attachment is. There have been a number of attempts to solve this and most use the handle mount to add something that grabs the coil wire. None of those approaches solves the issue of shaft flex and will help but still allow some falseing. This new approach mounts directly to the control box and stops the coil wire from moving when the shaft flexes. I used it for a full day and had zero falseing on my 4500. Too bad Minelab does not put a much better connection on their machines, but this will work till they do. Bill Southern at Nuggetshooter.com sells them and they retail for $42.00.

The Gold Bug Pro had turned into one of my favorite prospecting machines, especially for trashy areas. Ray Mills and I have been bugging (get it?) Fisher to put the machine out with the 10" elliptical coil as stock. In my opinion it is the best all around coil for the detector and also makes it look like it should as a prospecting detector and cousin to the Gold Bug 2. Right now you can only get the coil as part of a package or as an after purchase accessory. The coil works on the Fisher F5, Gold Bug, Gold Bug Pro, and Teknetics G2.

After using a GPX 4500 for a few years I was reading and watching videos of the new Garrett ATX. I was most impressed by how quiet it was dealing with hot rocks. I ordered one from Arizona Outback and received it in a couple of days. I always get excellent service from them. Through the holidays practicing in the yard and a quick trip to a gold location I noticed something didn't feel right. Thoughts came to me like maybe i should have kept my 4500. The ATX handled the hot basalt cobbles and boulders a lot better than my 4500, but the coil was awkward getting around and in between them. After getting home reading some posts on here about using a garrett 5"x 10" infinium DD coil on the ATX, I ordered one. Next came how to mount it. I wanted to use the same rod so i had to come up with a way to have a quick release so i could use both coils. After some engineering problems, I have modified my ATX. So if i want to go back to the stock coil all i have to do is undo the coil quick disconnect then connect the other coil. The last thing that i did was sew a control box cover to protect it. The weight is another issue I'll work out before i head up to Randsburg area next weekend.

Any procedures to determine if a coil is bad?

If anyone has a Garrett ATX and needs a coil cover to protect the coil until one is available, you can use the covers for the Infinium coils, they do leave a small overhang in the front and rear, but its not bad and they do snap on for a snug fit.

This was mentioned on another forum, was wondering if anyone has knowledge this aftermarket coil for the GB Pro. 12" x 14" Excelerator SEF Pro coil.

Hi, I have a Garrett ATX and have done some nugget detecting with it. See Gold Nugget Detecting with the Garrett ATX. However, the weight and the stock coil had me wishing for options. I wanted a smaller coil with no openings to hang up that could get into tighter locations. As a past Infinium owner the 10" x 5" DD coil immediately came to mind. See Detecting with the Garrett Infinium in Hawaii and the first picture will tell you what was going through my mind as I hunted gold nuggets. So I have some Garrett Infinium coils I am trying on the ATX. The full story and photos are at my new Garrett ATX Accessory page. I will be updating it as I experiment more with the concept. An obvious alternative would be to make an adapter to mate a standard lower rod assembly to the ATX (it has already been done for the Recon) but I wanted to go hip mount for the least weight on my arm possible. I want to note here I am advocating nothing and recommending nothing. This is just something I am doing that may answer some questions for some people. If nothing else it will save somebody else making a duplicate effort or wasting the time and money on something that may or may not work out. Bottom line is I just have to know for myself so I will find out and report back as I go along. This thread will be the official question and answer thread for the experiment.