First Outing With The Coiltek 10x5" And 14x19" On The GPX 6000

[phrunt]

Yesterday I was meant to be cleaning up my garage, I'd made a mess of it and the boss told me it must be returned to normal but fortunately for me JW contacted me first thing in the morning asking if I wanted to go for a detect.  This was enough for the "boss" to tell me I can do the garage today instead... yet here I am 🙂

We took the coils to a spot we've both detected a lot, a huge amount really but it was a good testing ground for the Coiltek's due to the high EMI envrionment, powerlines, buildings, airport, it's got them all 🙂

I knew from my initial testing at home the Coilteks were working A LOT better for me than my 11" coil, and I now suspect I've had a faulty 11" coil since I got my detector and it explains why I didn't like the 6000. 

I went over ground I'd done with the 11" coil as a bit of a test for the 10x5" Coiltek, I'd done this ground to the best of my ability and JW has been hammering it too, he's got quite a bit out of this area too.

I didn't take many photos as I think most people are more interested in how the coils behave more so than photos of them.

We arrived at about 10am, mostly the ground wasn't frozen except in shady spots which was handy as it's been frozen a lot lately.  JW put on my Coiltek 14x9" and I used the Coiltek 10x5".  It wasn't even 10 minutes and JW comes walking up as he'd found his first bit of gold with the 14x9", right near where we put our bags down, off to an incredible start, I'm guessing it's about .2 to .3 of a gram.  Down in the bedrock too.  Off to a good start for an area we've done so much.

My first target I was sure was going to be gold ended up being a shot pellet, I really have no idea how pellets get into places like this, but they do.  I had to move giant rocks by levering them with my pick and dropping them off the cliff, it took a lot of effort and I'm amazed how strong the Davsgold picks are, the jobs I do with them moving and lifting rocks is pretty incredible that they don't break.  JW had lost his pick on a previous visit to this area, left it behind somewhere when he left, we were hoping we'd find it but as someone else had been detecting there too ( we could tell by dig holes ) there was a likelihood it was gone.

I thought I'd upload this video as it shows the pains of detecting 🙂 

The next target shortly after was only a few steps away from this one and it turned out to be a nugget.  I'd missed this one in the past as it was well hidden, I had to smash out some of a bush to get the coil under there to even detect the ground, I'd not done that before but when you're in an area you've flogged to death you need to do these things in the hope of finding something.

Here is a bit of a video of the find, as with most of my videos just raw footage, I don't like editing as to me raw footage is more informative than a chopped up and edited video.

I was happy with the performance of the 10x5", a real game changer for me as I'm confident my 11" is faulty, it's away at the moment at the service agent to be checked, they can't look at it until next week so I'm eagerly awaiting their results, if it's not faulty its a piece of junk and will become a sacrificial lamb to get the one part of it I find valuable, it's chip, if its faulty then maybe I'll be happier with the replacement, soon find out.

I switched the detector on and even though in a very high EMI environment and with JW detecting close by with his 6000 I had no significant EMI issues, I didn't even need to noise cancel although I did do one, I didn't need to regularly noise cancel and factory reset often like I did with the stock coil either, in fact unless right near the power lines a noise cancel was never required.   Not once during the entire day did my detector go nutty, no police sirens or UFO sounds, nothing! Such a contrast to my stock coil that literally drove me mad, I was so frustrated with the detector I wanted to smash it.    I was able to tilt the coil and go up and detect cliffs and nothing, no problems, if anything slightly higher EMI when off the ground due to the interference in this high EMI area from the power lines mostly.  Nothing that I'd consider an issue that's for sure.  This is the first day prospecting with the 6000 I actually found it enjoyable and started to like the detector.

Here is a video showing my experience around and under the power lines with the Coilteks, this is a very high EMI area with houses nearby, power lines obviously, an International airport very close by, I mostly dedicated this to the 14x9" as we all know the bigger the coil the worse the EMI and I think it handled the situation very well, not quite GPZ with small X-coil or Concentric capability as I can run that maxed out under the same lines and keep it stable but for a GPX it did remarkably well I think.  These Coiltek's for me are soooooo much better than my possibly faulty 11".

My second nugget of the day was one I was more impressed with, it was in a little bedrock area JW and I have both hammered with our 6000's, in the video I said I did this spot with my 8" X-coil on the GPZ but I was in fact wrong, It was my GPX and 11" I did it with, and found a bit of gold within about 15 inches of this nugget using the 11" so we both missed this bit for some reason, The piece of gold I found the last time I used my 6000 was so close to where this one was, in the same line of bedrock only and only about 15 inches away, JW jogged my memory by reminding me the bit I found next to this one in this video was the bit where he came over with his GPX 6000 and 17x13" and even as we dug it out further the 17x13" was completely blind to it until it was near touching the coil.

So, after a day of using between the 10x5" and 14x9" I am much happier with my GPX 6000, the majority of problems I had with it are resolved by changing to these coils, if it was that I had a faulty 11" coil then that's great news but if not and these are just that much better than the 11" coil then that's fine by me.    The major complaint I had from the day was the shaft twist, especially with the 14x9" coil, not the coils fault by any means but something to be aware of.

JW ended up with 2 nuggets also, very similar sizes to mine, one smaller and one bigger one.  Getting any in this particular area is very much a challenge these days but a good testing ground.  My 6000 went flat so it was game over for me but I went over to JW who had a signal in some bedrock he was trying to smash out, quite close to the power lines and his 11" was working to an acceptable level there I thought but he said some days his is better than others, my 11" would have been doing police sirens and all sorts of strange noises in that same spot.  It was a very faint signal and he couldn't smash it out with his pick, the rock was too hard so he's going to have to go back with some heavy equipment, I had the 14x9" on at the time and turned on my detector and it lasted long enough after a rest turned off to go over that target and it got no signal, but that's not a surprise I already figured out the 11" was slightly more sensitive to tiny gold than the 14x9", we are confident it was a tiny bit of gold, so he'll go back and get it.  I'm more confident the 10x5" would have had a signal on that target than the 14x9", it's significantly more sensitive to smaller targets.

So yes, I now like my 6000 except a few things about it like the wobby shaft and questionable reliability, but it's not going to replace my GPZ, not even close, I still much prefer the GPZ but I'm lucky in that I have a great range of coils for it.  And JW ended up finding his lost pick! So a good day for all.

[GR Guy]

Simon,

 

Great feedback on the Goldhawks and you haven’t even tried my personal favourite the 9” round.

[jasong]

Very encouraging write up with regards to the EMI and improvement with Coilteks, thanks.

I'll be curious to see what the repair shop says about the 11". Mine does basically exactly what yours does, except only in certain locations, but mine also purrs along just fine in other locations. Please update with results when you get it back...

[phrunt]

I forgot my junk photo, what's a gold post without the junk 🙂

Smallest non magnetic (likely lead) pellets were .11 of a gram, pellet guru's will be able to translate that to pellet size.   I do find #9 lead pellets in this area with the VLF's, but not the 6000, it's simply not capable of hitting one.

These weren't from the well hammered area where gold had been found before, these were mostly with the 14x9" wandering around exploring deeper ground in hope of something good.

[GotAU?]

47 minutes ago, jasong said:

Very encouraging write up with regards to the EMI and improvement with Coilteks, thanks.

I'll be curious to see what the repair shop says about the 11". Mine does basically exactly what yours does, except only in certain locations, but mine also purrs along just fine in other locations. Please update with results when you get it back...

Jason, any theories why your coil does that? Geology, weird EMI at different locations, even elevation changes (Mentioned by Coiltek hence their pressure relief valve)?

My cousin in France used to live in an upstairs apartment in Paris.  Her TV had lines go across the screen and the radio had screeching noise every 10 seconds or so. I had to laugh and make jokes about it (silently in horror about it) when we stayed with her.  It was later when she realized it was due to Orly Airport’s radar which was some distance away.  Is there a chance that your bad sites have something like that going on like military radar or telecom?

If you are mapping out the sites you are visiting with EMI, are there any patterns to it?

[jasong]

35 minutes ago, GotAU? said:

Jason, any theories why your coil does that? Geology, weird EMI at different locations, even elevation changes (Mentioned by Coiltek hence their pressure relief valve)?

Not sure. Only explanation I've heard that makes any sense is coil shielding.

But my 6000 acts about like the other 6000s do, in the same areas. So if its coil shielding, that either means quite a lot of other coils are bad too, or it's some design problem inherent to all the coils or the 6000 itself. 

I'm over it though, I'm switching to the Axiom when i can get one in hand. Wasted too much $ on gas and time already to waste more. I do need to sell my 6000 though to fund the Axiom, so if Simon's coil is bad then as a responsible seller I'm going to have to send my 11" coil in to be checked also before I sell it. I want to sell it as a working unit, not one with potential problems. So that's why I'm curious how his turns out. Mine works just fine, except some areas it just won't. And these are remote areas, not close to infrastructure so I don't even have a good guess what is causing the problem. Buried nuclear missile silos?? No clue.

I have suggested almost from the start there is some issue with the 6000 getting overwhelmed with too much sensory input and losing stability. I still suspect something like that, because I can make it loose stability by running over lots of hot variable ground when it sounds like it's verging on unstable from the EMI already, but not quite there yet. Also can force it to go unstable sometimes by turning my phone on, and even turning it back off again, the 6000 will stay unstable. That suggests a problem with the programming or hardware to me. But again, this isn't unique to my 6000 either. 

 

[jasong]

Hmm actually, hey Simon? What phone do you have? 

I keep mine off when detecting, but after realizing the Garrett pointer interferes with my GPZ even when off I'm wondering if certain phones might interfere with the 6000 when off?

I had an S20 down south this winter when I didn't have as many problems. I broke it and got an S22 a few weeks before coming back north where the problems got bad.

That's the only thing on my person that changed. 6000 went unstable even when I kept my phone at the ATV though too I'm pretty sure, but now I can't swear to it, so figured I'd cross one final potential problem off the list if I can. If you have an S22, I'll have to wonder.

[phrunt]

I have my phone on the entire time in these Coiltek videos with wifi and bluetooth enabled, its filming the videos, it's not my phone causing my stock coil problems as I'd tried with my bad coil leaving my phone in my car and it made no difference to its performance, it was just as crazy.  It's an Iphone.

I'd ruled out phone early on as its an obvious cause of interference.

As for my long running joke about the 6000 coils being made out of recycled Ice Cream containers.... pretty funny really.

Some common NZ Ice Cream brands containers

The back of the container with the plastic indicator

Another one

and the back with the plastic indicator, harder to see this one in the photo, but again PP5.

And another one

and the back 🙂

And the Minelab GPX 6000 skid plate which has the plastic details on it

and the bottom of the skid plate, the other interesting thing is the date code on the 11" skid plates for the 6000, maybe they used the same skids for the earlier GP/GPX skid plates.

It's right there, PP5 🙂  I can't check my coil for the details as it's off in the post, I would check my 14" DD but its buried in a box in the garage I'm meant to be cleaning.

 

[geof_junk]

Simon the size of your coil 10" by 5" is the largest coil I would use chasing your NZ bits. NB: I did not say nuggets mate 🤣 as some of those shotgun pellets are larger. Good write up and to me I would say you will get a replacement 11" coil from ML.

[Norvic]

Nothing much new here Phrunt, ML dont make very good coils, been that way with a few exceptions since year one, would they protect their coils with chips if that was not so? But I`m dirty coz I have neither the ordered 10x5 Coiltek coil nor the NF Sadie for the 6K.😡