GPX5000 and Nuggetfinder Coil

Is anyone having problems using their GPX5000 with nuggetfinder mono coils (previous and the new advantage).
I have been using both and have experienced instability in ground balance, starts off quiet but within minutes gets noisy, false signals when bumping ground/objects (like some of the symptoms in the recent Minelab coil recall), false signals if lifting coil on side.
Have got 2 5000's and a 4500 so have switched coils and machines amongst them to eliminate coil problems.
The issues seem consistent with 5000 and the older 18' nuggetfinder mono and 16' advantage.
It was also mentioned to me by a pro not to use these coils as he had heard they are blowing up the new machines.

Hi mate and welcome to the forum.
One of my favourite coils is the 14" NFA and no problems as all. I also use the 16"NFA with no problems aswell as an older white 17"NF.

As for these coils blowing up 5000's...your mention of it here is the first I've heard of it and I'd imagine it would be all over the forums and probably a warning from ML.

Usually you'll find if someone blows up an expensive machine they'll try and point the finger at something, possibly the coil they were using at the time, when it may have well been other factors including operator error and carelessness.

Cheers!

hi nfinder, welcome to the forum.
I am using a gpx 5000 and a NFA 12" elliptical coil and they work fine, maybe it's the detector playing up, just a guess. Anyway, hope this problem of yours gets fixed as it's a bummer having problems.
uncle bob

I've never once heard even a rumor that any coil (other than Chinese fakes) can harm a Minelab detector. If anyone makes such a claim, my first instinct would be to tell them to see if their coil is authentic. I've used a dozen different coils over the last few years of all of the GPXs (from the 4000 to the 5000) and have never had a concern. A fake coil would potentially be wound differently and might hypothetically create a "short circuit'' due to the pin terminal positions being incorrect.

Any "Pro" that tells you not to use these coils is LYING to your FACE. And for that matter, he's clearly not a "pro" ... but I imagine you know this.

A mate of mine has been having the same problems as you describe with his 5000. Starting
off quiet but then getting uncontrollable after a short time.
He's sent it back but been told its OK.
My wife and I have used N/F coils on our 5000's with no trouble.
18" white plastic. 20" fiberglass,25" fiberglass, 12" NFA. Goldstalker 18x12 too (5000 loves that one!)

I bumped into a guy 2 days ago having all sorts of trouble trying to
control the standard 11"DD' his first day out with his 5000.
I let him try mine with the 18x12 and he was impressed.
Left him changing coils so dont know how he went after that.

Have heard of others in the Kal area complaining of noisy 5000's so
maybe there is a problem somewhere.Maybe warmer weather??

1st post here Nfinder, hope you are not a stirrer from another place..

Alan

Thanks, I'm not a stirer from another place, first forum - first post.
Interesting. My experiences have been in the Kal area, so interested others may be having issues. We have been using 3 coils, 18' nuggetfinder, 18' nuggetfinder advantage and 16 inch advantage. All genuine coils bought from a reputable dealer some time ago and used with 4500's. What confuses me further is 18' advantage is fine on both 5000's but standard 18' and 16' advantage are causing some issues.
With respect to the pro's I talk to, its what they hear not their opinion.

Gday Guys
Further to Alans last post. I don't have a 5000, I run a 4500, but I can tell you that Nov/Dec in WA is absolute hell for detecting. Can't pin down exactly what it is, but a combination of the ground heating up and numerous thunderstorms throughout the state at this time of year makes detecting problematic. Early mornoing not too bad but as the day progresses it deteriorates badly.
Loading a smaller, say 8", coil helps a fair bit though.
cheers
Brett

It could be because the 5000 calls for a coil with much finer parameters then the 4500s did.??

The older NF coils were a tad noisy compared to the ADV range also.

Sorry nfinder, but there are a few who just like to push the bad.

Just after I made that post I got a call from a mate out there now.
He says most people he's meeting are saying the same.They are all finding gold
but complaining about the noise and as far as he knows my wife
and I are the only ones happy with them.

He said that the older 16" NF (not the Advantage) has one less winding and thats causing
over heating.ML do say in their book that after market coils may cause problems.

It sounds like a problem I had with my Extreme years ago when using the 17"E DD Pro (Coiltek) in Enhance.

Mulgadansa has a point too.
Particularly in greenstone country. I look at that type of ground as being 'quiet ground' in VLF days and
I thought the PI's just didn't have enough to do ,if you know what I mean, so they tend to drift around.

Alan

Thanks all for the constructive feedback, its very encouraging being a first poster.

Conditions certainly make a difference, anyone in the Kal region late last week should attest to that. Taking this into account my concern is that the machine operates as it should after first turning on but then gets progressively worse till a point when unusable. Trying to eliminate as many factors as possible in the field the common factor seems to be the coils used.
My initial post was a bit of put it out there to see if its me or are others having some issues.

hi nfinder
have spoken to two different dealer about this and both told me. that some find NF to be noise and at the same time, some are finding coiltech to be noise on the 5000.they only put it down to the 5000 being so sensitive, and the slites mismatch between 5000 an coil being used can make noise. this is made worse by conditions weather etc

just my 2cents
Allan

DAMN this topic has taken me off my high.

just finished unboxing my new 5000 and setting it up with all my nugget finder coils to test out tomorrow.

didnt really want to hear all this ... kev

Hi all,

did a bit of detecting yesterday out on paddingtons leases, tryed to use the 18" n/finder advantage, no go the noise was incredable, thru a 1 gram nugget on the floor would not pick it up, changed to the 12" n/f still noisy but could still detect.

I reckon many people have more trouble with their new detector than Barnaby Jones at an IQ test.
There's a myriad of reasons for this.
Inexperienced operator.
Wrong settings for the area.
Settings too high or too low.
Incorrect Auto tuning.
Incorrect ground balance.
Faulty equipment.
I deliberately place "faulty equipment" last as I believe that is where it belongs.
There are far less things to alter and reset in a car than on a detector yet we have to have many lessons to learn how to use a car.
Some folks are very good drivers and some should stay home.
You're not going to master a detector in the first week. Even the REAL pro's experience a learning curve with a new machine.

Now I'm not saying anyone isn't having problems with faulty coils. Just look at the Commander mono recall.
What I am saying is that in most cases it's the inexperience or inability of the operator that is the problem.

I've had a 4000 and currently use a 4500 and a 5000 with NF coils without any dramas (I don't use Coiltek coils but only due to personal preference and not because of problems with them)

I too have been told by dealers that Coiltek coils are a problem on the 5000.

As for the 5000 being "blown up" by a coil, I agree totally with Nero. There are those who troll the forums just looking for a chance to denigrate minelab products so I'm sure they would jump on that sort of happening and crow loud and long about it.

Robert (retreating to my bunker)

gim wrote:Hi all,

did a bit of detecting yesterday out on paddingtons leases, tryed to use the 18" n/finder advantage, no go the noise was incredable, thru a 1 gram nugget on the floor would not pick it up, changed to the 12" n/f still noisy but could still detect.

As Goldnomad has just pointed out, there's a LOT of reasons that can be attributed to instability, No.1 of which is almost always operator related. I'm very happy with the GPX-5000 so far and I have not experienced any problems with coils that could not be easily explained by weather and soil conditions (recent weeks of ongoing storms and abundantly wet ground). One of the first things that I wrote here when first using the 5000 was that it was more responsive than the GPX-4500.

Gim, I'm guessing you were just using a figure of speech when you said that you "threw" that "1 gram nugget on the floor". Obviously the PI detectors won't work indoors at all... especially with a large coil in the 18" range and a 1 gram nugget. I was using the Nugget Finder 18" Advantage mono with the GPX-5000 less than a week ago and found it to be pretty stable, even with the Gain cranked up a little higher than usual. It wasn't absolutely dead quiet but it was close enough. I'd rate its stability in that location at about 8.7 of a scale of 10 (with 10 being perfectly quiet and 1 being unusable). Even switching to a DD coil resulted in a 9... which wasn't perfectly quiet but close enough. Again, I'd cranked the gain up on the DD as far as I could before instability kicked in.

I always expect some interference with a larger coil and I sometimes wonder if people have forgotten that the 18" coils are indeed large coils... with so many supersized coils around these days, I suppose it's easy for some people to overlook this. Some people used to say that they preferred to buy a non-Minelab brand coil because they felt this might give them more depth. Well, I think the trade-off is more noise. Noise from ground minerals in hot weather, noise from atmospheric conditions in wet weather and noise from poor tuning on behalf of the user. Especially with monoloop coils and more so with large monoloop coils. The Minelab-made coils are usually quieter, especially the DD coils. The more quiet and stable the coil, the better the odds at hearing an otherwise concealed target in the ground. I'm sure everyone's experiences are going to differ when it comes to coils. And the subject of coils is almost always hotly debated. But what I notice about the GPX-5000 is that it's more sensitive... and therefore it seems to respond to a large number of external influences. A larger coil is going to be the conduit for many of those influences. The reason that some of these larger coils were less chattery on older machines is probably because the older machines were less sensitive than the 5000. There's really good reasons to consider using different coils to suit your detecting location. But larger coils are always going to be more unstable than smaller coils.

Again, if there was any truth about coils blowing up detectors, I have no doubt we'd all have heard about it by now and there'd be a warning issued to owners. The biggest influence on any person to buy a particular coil to use is that their friend or someone they know has recommended it or uses it. This is not always a good thing as I have seen people seek out unsuitable coils just so they could emulate the experiences of their detecting partner.

Further to the comments about "operator error"....I was reading an old Gem & Treasure mag recently where BRUCE CANDY had written an article on the SD 2200.......he commented "I am convinced there are a lot of people out there that are not operating the 2200 properly".......
If they could'nt operate the the 2200.....fat chance of those people operating the 5000 correctly.

Hi guys, I am using the 5000 and the coils that I usefor it are the 12"NFA elliptical, the 18"x12" coiltek and a couple of others and the coils mentioned work fine and yes the detector is more sensitive and needs adjusting according to the conditions. So the big 18" round coils would only be used if the conditions permit and very hot days when the rocks heat up anywhere will make the detector very unstable with the larger coils.I hope this bit of info will help some of you out there.

uncle bob

Hi Nero,
if you read my reply properly you will see i was on a lease NOT in doors, i carry a 1grammer in a film container like most people, and use it just to check if the detector is working.

gim wrote:Hi Nero,
if you read my reply properly you will see i was on a lease NOT in doors, i carry a 1grammer in a film container like most people, and use it just to check if the detector is working.

I did read your reply and assumed this is what you meant. Although when you used the word "floor" I had to assume there was a chance you were indoors. That 1g nugget should have triggered a response from your coil.
.

hi Nero
no worrys, i could not believe it, it worked last time i used it the noise was terribull will try the commander coil it came with [ the one that is being recalled ] see how that goes.

Kev, dont be alarmed, I wont be putting my 5000 to one side any time soon based on its performance to date.

Although some of what I think is my coil issues have me questioning suitability of coil.
And as Uncle Bob states,more adjusting. From my experience more adjsutment throughout the day as compared to the 4500.

What coils are people changing to/from throughout the day to deal with conditions. On a typical WA day I get a cool morning that heats up and by mid to late morning the temp's up and so is the effect of mineralisation.

The 5000 seems to like slightly closer attention than previous models.
I am finding this is a good thing; I have to pay closer attention to the Ground Balance,
the mineralization and the choice of coils etc.
I also wind up paying more attention to what I am doing and as a result my ability has improved.

Before the bashers grab onto the phrase "slightly closer attention," that is really what I mean, it is a small increment.
Good detecting is made up of many incremental adjustments and refinements.

fwiw,

Flak

nfinder, when you say that your machine runs quiet after auto tuning, then slowly gets noisier (This is speculation) but your tuning could be out slightly. As the day progresses, and EMI levels start to become an issue, I tweak the man tune on my 4000 either up or down by two or three numbers either side of the current number (whichever way is quieter) to make it run quieter. Depending on location, I may do this half a dozen times for the day. That small edge is all it takes to make the difference between getting gold, or not.
cheers

Gday Goldtimer, I generally only auto tune in the morning then manual tune for the rest of the day, and yes slight adjustment thoughout the day makes a difference.

Ive now heard
- that the Nfinder Advantage coils have the same winding as the commander coils - so probably not a coil issue.
The older NFinder coils may cause problems due to their winding, its different to the advantage coils.
- and the problems of noise and instability seem largely limited to WA, and I hear theres plenty of it going on here.

So whats different about WA compared to other states, heat?, mineralisation?, EMI?
Just to clarify, this is what I've heard as I ask more questions, Im just trying to get to the bottom of it.

Gday NFinder
I think you've hit it on the head with the "mineralization".
How many iron ore mines are there in Vic/NSW?
Our WA goldfields are just about entirely composed of alluvial soils with very high concentrations of hematite and magnetite as a result of erosion of massive areas of high iron mineralisation. Iron heating up and charging from electrical storms is not a good recipe for detectors.
Tough for detecting sometimes but loaded with Au in places.
cheers
Brett

Probably should do more testing in summer before releasing them.
I think they are developed in airconditioned labs and field tested in winter.

Hi All,

Tried a new spot the other day and could only get 50mm on my test piece no matter what i tried, 11" mono in all the settings, then a DD and even cancel to no avail, so i went on my way thinking i have been beaten.

My turn to prospect 2 days later and back i went to that spot but this time i used an anti-interference coil and bang 5 steps from the car a 1.4gr...., it seems as though the past winter has shed a lot of water and left behind a lot of salt affected ground, so if you are experiencing similar prob's chuck on your A-I coil and have a swing

By the way i would normally get 150mm+ with my test piece which is a lead shot of .3gr, why so small?, because this is affected most in changes of ground structure compared to one of say 1gr in size

Regards Ron

authere wrote:Hi All,

Tried a new spot the other day and could only get 50mm on my test piece no matter what i tried, 11" mono in all the settings, then a DD and even cancel to no avail, so i went on my way thinking i have been beaten.
My turn to prospect 2 days later and back i went to that spot but this time i used an anti-interference coil and bang 5 steps from the car a 1.4gr...., it seems as though the past winter has shed a lot of water and left behind a lot of salt affected ground, so if you are experiencing similar prob's chuck on your A-I coil and have a swing Regards Ron

OR leave the mono coil on your 5000 and select the "salt gold" setting in the "special" menu for probably a better result in depth.

Yeam my first 5000 ended up in the river.

The second one is running sweet. I had the siren of death from the first one and it was a faulty battery straight out of the box, then i had to replace the curly cord so it stopped all the siren of death.

Then i had the cannot find gold syndrome with test pieces and in the field anything under 2.5 gramm it would not detect but the sd 2000 and sd 2100 and 4000 picked it up no worries.
I reset to factory and tested every setting for hours and hours still no avail so it went flying like a broken rotor off a helicopter.
I have a feeling it wasnt the control box as I put the old coil on the new GPX and it has the same trouble but the new coil mono and DD dont do it so beats me im over it now but like i said the new machine works well.

cheers

Um, call me cynical if you like, but if it was a doggy coil then how come it wasn't on the detector when it went swimming........