X Coil Questions

[Jonathan Porter]

Steve a good post and a golden opportunity for everyone to put a line under the whole sorry mess and move on into sensible discussion. No one will truly know EXACTLY what happened behind the scenes because the main combatants have largely gone away for a myriad of reasons with the main incentive being marketing and sales.  

I for one am not proud of my involvement because of the harm to those who do not know the whole story, that’s the price others are having to pay because of my stupid stubborn sense of injustice. I’ll own my part in the drama in the hopes that those who know me well enough can get an inkling of the true nature of what went on. I was already moving on on the subject before it all blew sky high on the forum anyway, in retrospect I should have had more faith in others and left it alone much earlier. 😔  

Here’s my ‘being upfront’ statement on the subject of X coils:

• I am not a fan of the Flat wound DOD coils in variable reactive soils but I have not used any of the latest ones, so they might have improved since my last experience. That is not to say they do not perform because they clearly do.
• I am extremely grateful to X coils for paving the way for us GPZ users having at least some sort of option over the “Communist Choice” option of the GPZ14 (pun intended but no offence meant 😂 ). If it wasn’t for X coils we would not be seeing NF providing the Zsearch coils.
• The adapter is still an issue for obvious reasons, I made one up yesterday and even though I like to think I know my way around a soldering iron and a Multimeter I still cringe when I power up my detector to test it.
• I still have good communications with my contacts at X coils, that should tell people a lot about the bigger picture.
• I have received a reasonable amount of X coils since their inception, some experimental and others being finished product (even throughout the forum coil wars 🤔). I have over time sold off most of those.
• I’ve currently used the 3 examples of the new Concentric coils 2 of which which were gifted to me during the shake up with the X coil company. (I am still not fully around the new business arrangement).
• I have found gold with all three concentric coils.
• All three Concentric coils have ferrite balanced well.
• All three CC coils have worked extremely well in mineralised variable soils.
• All three show signs of having less EMI.
• All three are incredibly sensitive relative to their size.
• I understand how they have achieved this performance with the Concentric's and take my hat off to them.
• All three have more depth and sensitivity over standard coils even in bad ground (taking into consideration size differences etc).
• The sweetheart coil is the 15” Concentric with the 17” CC coming in a close second (relative to my home environment, tight bush land, the 17” CC would be in front in the more open spaces like WA).
• I have not used the bigger coil enough due to grass and moisture content of our local soils to fully realise what it can do.
• I do not sell X coils but I have helped steer a few people towards acquiring them, people who are realistic and comfortable to take the risk.
   

I am more than happy to have a discussion on the subject of X coils because it is relative to what we do, so long as people understand there is also risk involved. Think of X coils like a remap of your diesel turbo charged engine, there is an inherent risk in modifying your car away from the manufacturers specs and if the engine blows then the responsibility falls on you the owner. There are millions of vehicles out there that are performing reliably every day with an engine remap, I am one of those people who has done it and appreciate the improvement in my vehicles drivability. X coils are basically a remap of your GPZ, but it requires a bit of risk and you need to find a guy who can do the mod for you so you can safely participate. 

JP

 

[Sheppo]

1 hour ago, Jonathan Porter said:

 

I am more than happy to have a discussion on the subject of X coils because it is relative to what we do, so long as people understand there is also risk involved. Think of X coils like a remap of your diesel turbo charged engine, there is an inherent risk in modifying your car away from the manufacturers specs and if the engine blows then the responsibility falls on you the owner. There are millions of vehicles out there that are performing reliably every day with an engine remap, I am one of those people who has done it and appreciate the improvement in my vehicles drivability. X coils are basically a remap of your GPZ, but it requires a bit of risk and you need to find a guy who can do the mod for you so you can safely participate. 

JP

 

That little snippet brought the whole X-Coils thing into perspective for me atleast and now you have me thinking 🤔

[DolanDave]

Hi Steve,

  Love my 22" X-coil for the GPZ 7000. Made my own adapter, was easy to make, hardest part on it is probably burning off the red coating on the wires to get the solder to stick 😉.. But so far love it...

P.S. the adapter Minelab has on their coils looks like a double high speed switching diode, part # PMBD7000, in a SOT-23 package. The diode has an SMD code on it W5CAG.  More than likely a crypto chip, as they make the Crypto chips in a SOT-23 format also.

Dave

[Gold Hound]

I have 15 and a 20in spiral wound DOD coils.

I ran them last year and im happy with their performance.

I did not have any problem with following the instructions to make the addaptor.

Edit add detail>

I have not ran the stock coils since.

Below is an example of Aussie lingo and how it can be missunderstood by foreighners

[jasong]

Purchased a 12", was sent the rest for free later on. My reports on them can all be found on this site. Have 2 concentrics that were sent to me as I was heading home from winter prospecting so I haven't had a chance to test them yet.

From basically day 1 I've explained what I paid for and what was sent to me for free. In fact, I was the first person to ask the same from others, including other products too.

I've gone out of my way to take as neutral of an approach as I humanly can and report on both the things I like and the things that need improvement. And while those reports can be found in prior posts, it's also no secret that now I still haven't put the stock coil back on since getting my X Coils, nor do I ever plan to.

[Northeast]

2 hours ago, Gold Hound said:

Below is an example of Aussie lingo

Teddy Long Legs - such a way with words  😆

I'm very surprised you let that stay up Steve.  I'm even more surprised you liked it  🤣

 

[Sheppo]

31 minutes ago, Northeast said:

Teddy Long Legs - such a way with words  😆

I'm very surprised you let that stay up Steve.  I'm even more surprised you liked it  🤣

 

That is exactly the way a good friend is acquainted here though. Much of our banter here would get a gun drawn on you in other parts of the world.

[jrbeatty]

16 hours ago, Jeff McClendon said:

As far as the QED, I have one. I paid for it. I did not pay much attention to what the now ex-dealer said before or after he became an ex-dealer.  The QED I have works quite well with smaller coils. Is it even close to a GPX 5000........NO. Is it better than a Whites TDI for me.....YES  so far. I don't have enough hours on it yet to compare it definitively to the SDC 2300 except to say that it is tons easier to swing and coil changes including DDs are easy.

If anyone wants to borrow it just let me know. 

As far as this forum is concerned, it is where I feel at home with people like Steve, Rob A, Bill S, Gerry, and many other detector lovers and prospecting friends here that I respect and trust. My day would not be the same without this forum.

Jeff and Steve: 

As a former QED enthusiast, it has given me no joy to witness the disintegration of the relationship between my friend (and former QED agent) Reg Wilson and Howard Rocky, the QED creator. 

What has amazed me is how long the relationship actually lasted - given that both these strong personalities are in reality chalk and cheese. I'm not going into boring gory detail, but suffice it to say that the casualty list of former QED supporters is now both lengthy and distinguished. 

Despite this, The QED remains a popular entry level PI detector. I have never maintained it is anything other than an excellent lightweight first assault prospecting detector, certainly not a world beater as some have incorrectly maintained. It has certainly added dozens of ozs to my collection over the years:

https://www.detectorprospector.com/forums/topic/4255-gold-found-with-qed/?tab=comments#comment-45878

To X Coils: 

I met X Coils Ilya Yalanzhi online through our common interest in detecting and ancient coins. It turned out we both had a rare gold stater of King Kotys 11 of the Bosporan Kingdom (124-133AD) Ilya is lucky enough to live in Kerch, where that kingdom was located and frequently sends me images of other ancient coins he finds as part of earning his living. We have been able to use that coin as a common test object for comparing different coils.

To date he has sent me one 22" GPZ concentric gratis, I have purchased a 17" spiral DOD and have ordered a 26" GPZ Concentric which I will also pay for. He expects nothing in return except honest feedback and that I have given.

I made my own adaptor. To me, it was an easy project since I have been soldering electronic circuits since they were powered by valves in the early 1960's

With both QED and X coil connections I'm apparently in the eye of the storm. If certain people wish to maintain their agendas and conspiracy theories, hissy fits, whatever, that's up to them. To me, the weather is clear and sunny.

Steve: I trust you have no problem with my posting on either topic. If you do, I'm sure you'll inform me.  

[Jeff McClendon]

The previous post by jrbeatty and the link he provided are the kind of posts and reports that I come to this forum for. I joined this forum after the linked post was started and honestly had never seen it before.

JR told his story without any bravado, bullshit, or opinionated ranting. It was factual and incredible at the same time. I don't know if there are still places in the US where gold like that can still be found, especially with an entry level, lightweight PI like the latest iteration of the QED........... amazing. I am happy finding sub gram gold nuggets at most of the places I hunt. Anything larger is a real blessing.

I enjoyed the great photos of Reg and the benign looking landscape where much of the gold in the photos was found. 

I also appreciated his calm and informative section on X Coils. I did not realize that they were available for ZVT and more traditional PI detectors. I will have to pay more attention to this brand of coils in the future especially in relation to PI detectors. 

[Jonathan Porter]

Looks like everyone has had their say now so hopefully this X coil thread can continue on in a positive direction moving forward. 😇 It seems to me two important things have happened in parallel, one was the major shake up with all the different entities and the other is the release of the Concentric coils. Both have had a profound effect on the situation and the many discussions around the subject. 🧐

The entities thing is less meaningful now than it was a month ago and will probably continue that way as all the friction points have been largely removed. My friction points were multi faceted and have been discussed ad nauseam, so with the personal character stuff now put aside I would like to examine the BIG changes in the form of the new Concentric X coils, because they really are a game changer especially when considering my concerns based around Ferrite balancing etc.

 From my perspective I REALLY have changed my opinion of X coils, Rick (Araratgold) first brought to my attention the differences in the new CC coils but at first I was a bit skeptical based on experiences with Concentric’s back in the early ZVT prototype days, but I was willing to listen because he has my respect. I will admit though I was a very skeptical because Rick had not complained about the spiral wound DOD Coils even without ferrite balancing, I’d say most likely due to the ground types he works. This is not in any way a criticism of the way he detects or the ground he works, (Australia is made up of a lot of different extremely diverse ground types) I was thinking the CC coils might behave similar over the ground to the Spiral DOD’s which in the ground I work would be problematic.

The video he put up of his 17” CC coil in action really made me sit up and take notice Meerkat style 😝 and also made me realise I might have to ‘Eat Crow” due to my cautionary comments when they were first announced, so fair enough I stand corrected because when I received a 17” I too was very surprised by how well they behaved.

All three CC X coils I’ve used ferrite balance well, not perfectly but more than adequate where the ground signal is far greater than the tiny bit of residual X signal I’m hearing on the ferrite, so its a big TICK ✅  from me on that score ( X signal was always a major pinch point for me). Secondly there is minimal saturation signal (unless the ground is really bad), amazingly even less than the GPZ14 so another BIG tick  ✅ from me on that as well. Next was touch sensitivity and even in General Difficult I was impressed, it was easily as good as the GPZ19 and GPZ14 coils. Amazingly the bit that really surprise was salt signal, that really came out of left field and I can only put it down to a few things but I need to ponder on it some more. 🤔 

So there you go, I’m eating some of my words, the latest Concentric X coils get my tick of approval on many fronts, they have very good sensitivity on even the tiniest of stuff at quite surprising depths. I have not dug anything amazingly deep yet or on the larger side of the scale with a 5 gram piece at 14 inches being the biggest so far, but all in all they have definitely improved a lot, to the point where there is probably no longer any need for the DOD spiral wound coils (unless they have improved a lot since I last used them as well). 

So is this a plug for X coils? No its just me being honest about what I’m experiencing and also owning my previous publicly expressed negativity. Do I sell X coils? NO I do not, if you want an X coil go to the web site and order one.
 

JP

Gold found on the first session with the 17” Concentric X coil in extremely variable ground