How to use a smaller coil?

pryan67

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So this is a stupid question (I know, there's no such thing as a stupid question...but this one IS stupid)


With my Nox 800, how do you use the 6 inch coil differently than the larger coil?


I'm assuming (and follow this myself) that you swing it a bit more slowly to separate the targets better. Of course, that begs the question am I swinging my stock coil too fast?


Is there a trick to it, or am I making too much out of it?
 
I wonder that myself. Even though you can adjust the recovery speed ( at the expense of depth ) I second guess it. I experiment alot.
 
I wonder that myself. Even though you can adjust the recovery speed ( at the expense of depth ) I second guess it. I experiment alot.


Thanks...I was worried I was the only one LOL

I do the same thing, I want to make the most of it. I love the coverage of the stock coil, but the small one certainly has potential.
 
with the smaller coil you slow your swing speed down
the purpose of the small coin is to get in highly trashed areas
and cherry pix or find the good stuff..
also for tight areas that a large coil can;t get in to..:cool3:
 
I have wondered if you should lower the recovery speed on the Nox 800 6" coil to improve depth? It's pretty deep for a 6" coil as it is though. Not sure what the best recovery speed would be.
 
Coil sweeping technique is discussed on page 16 of the Equinox user's manual. It states:

"Practice sweeping the coil over the ground in a side-to-side motion while slowly walking forward at the end of each sweep. Slightly overlap the previous sweep to ensure full ground coverage. An average sweep speed is 2 to 3 seconds from right-to-left-to right."

Hope this helps...
 
Personally, I find swing speed between the 11" and 6", relatively comparative. My other machines do require an obvious adjustment with small coils. Those with the smaller coil needs a much slower swing speed.

For some reason, the Nox is very forgiving.
 
The 6 inch coil is easier to swing. It is easier to pinpoint with. It just doesn't find much more than the stock coil. It also likes to call iron a good target more than the stock coil. My opinion.
 
Coil sweeping technique is discussed on page 16 of the Equinox user's manual. It states:

"Practice sweeping the coil over the ground in a side-to-side motion while slowly walking forward at the end of each sweep. Slightly overlap the previous sweep to ensure full ground coverage. An average sweep speed is 2 to 3 seconds from right-to-left-to right."

Hope this helps...

Tex is correct, I continually tell myself to "slow down and take smaller sweeps". Keep your coil very close to the ground, even at the very end of your sweep. The lack of the extra weight with the small coil will more than make up for the extra effort needed to swing the big coil. I find little to no difference in performance between the two except for area covered. The small coil will make up the difference due its ability to see down into the cracks between trash.
 
My experience with both coils in the same site, a park.
I have major issues here with masking, we have red clay/dirt mineralization, severe trash and so much extra iron in our soil because of our location and history that there are still some great treasure buried that nobody thinks is still there.
They are there, usually not all that deep but just hiding extremely well.
Using some total cherry picking settings in this place that is so hunted out nobody hunts here anymore...except me.
I have found 3 silver coins here over the years but they are few and far between but I keep coming back looking for more.

I accepted only 3 numbers in nickel, 11-13, and added 14 in there because here I found if a 12-13 nickel jumps up to 14, even just a little, it is usually going to be a tab.
Also only 24 and up, these settings are for hunting in total trash and iron pits looking for old nickels and high conductors only.
The goal was to dig good targets only and avoid most of the trash.
Using the standard coil and these settings I went into this site hoping to find just one silver coin that was too masked for anyone to find over the decades.
On that hunt I didn't find any silver coins but I did find a honking silver ring I kept for myself, 11 nickels plus a ton of high tone copper cents, dimes and quarters.
I was a little surprised that all this was still there but that is why I got a Nox, here in the devil dirt I am forced to hunt in that thing just does better, it deals with my masking issues in a way my other detectors never could as good as they were.

rr1kea.jpg

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Okay, so I went to this site with the Nox and the bigger coil and all of this popped up and that was cool and unexpected considering how many times I have hunted here.
The next move was to go back and do it all again with the same settings and the sniper coil and see if I can squeeze anything else out especially something old, shiny and great.
No silver this time but all of these targets did make an appearance.

el1gk7.jpg


This was shocking to me.
Hunting the same small areas I hunted before with the Nox all this was hiding better than I thought possible.
Some were obvious signals, hard to believe I missed them before but if I noticed them I would have dug them...but I didn't.
Most others were barely noticeable including a lot of those quarters, really short, tight signals that I only was able to get a piece of and hear by slowing down my swing a bit.
My speed is set at 6, sure I lose some depth but depth is not the big problem here, masking is and I need the extra speed more than crazy depth.
Most of these coins were 4" or less in depth but still hiding better than well because they were either on edge or masked by something else.
Didn't matter, the Nox and the big coil did surprisingly well but the sniper did even better.

No matter what I hunt with here the snipers have always been my go-to choice of coils because of the masking and even though the Nox works fantastically well in my challenging dirt and sites the sniper just takes everything to a new level...for me.
You can take all my other coils away from me but just leave me my snipers and ya know what...I am gonna do just fine.
 
The reason it is calling iron good is because of the Halo effect on iron objects in multi freq mode. If you switch to a single frequency you will be able to ID iron better and avoid it and it will not false as much. Single frequency in my experience is better in high iron areas than multi is.

The 6 inch coil is easier to swing. It is easier to pinpoint with. It just doesn't find much more than the stock coil. It also likes to call iron a good target more than the stock coil. My opinion.
 
The reason it is calling iron good is because of the Halo effect on iron objects in multi freq mode. If you switch to a single frequency you will be able to ID iron better and avoid it and it will not false as much. Single frequency in my experience is better in high iron areas than multi is.

Interesting. Going to check this theory out.
Thanks.
 
Will do. Thanks.

Also in iron I run in field 1 with the recovery speed of 3 on the eq 600 in 10khz. Now this is with the standard 11" coil. I am sure you will have better luck with the 6" coil in heavy trashy areas than I do with the stock coil.

I hardly use multi freq option on the equinox. I know it works in high mineral ground conditions but I hardly ever come across that here where I live. I know the minelab eq manual says multi is the best overall option but I find it less stable and will false on iron more from my experience.
 
Hi, from experience in moderate to high mineralization, the stock 11" coil will hit coin sized targets down to around 12" and the 6" coil will hit coin size targets down to 7". The only reason I use the 6" coil is to separate targets in heavy trash or when going after really small targets. I don't expect it to go past 7" so adjusting recovery speed to get more depth with the small coil that I'm using in heavy trash seems counterproductive to me. I am trying to separate targets better not go deep. The footprint of the 6" coil is smaller in circumference and down the center of the overlapping DDs so I want it for separation and unmasking.

Keep swinging like Tex suggested and just overlap more. I can move the 6" coil using tiny 2" sweeps in heavy trash and it will lock on good targets in range.

If people are having trouble with iron in multi frequency Park and Field modes when using the 6": it will hit every little (.177 cal. or smaller) piece of iron in the ground whether it is human made iron or natural iron depending on how high you crank up the sensitivity and if you are hunting with no discrimination, minimal iron discrimination and a threshold tone for disced out iron or by using default settings and toggling the horseshoe button.

Jeff
 
ok, this info from vferrari explains a little more about coil sizes and recovery speed. I am quoting vferrari.

Every coil has an optimal recovery speed for max depth. You can never a achieve max depth with any coil at the highest recovery speeds, that's just physics. But the larger, deeper coils may naturally work best at slightly lower optimum recovery speeds because of their depth. If you need high recovery speed for separation in thick trash, you will also be giving up depth regardless of coil size.

The larger coil will work just fine at high recovery speeds, just don't expect much depth. Also, the large coil is less suited to situations where high recovery speeds are used (i.e. thick trash) because you will be getting too many targets under the coil, creating a lot of chatter. That is why the 6 inch coil is better. HTH.

I was getting a lot of chatter on my 15" coil and wondered why. I was in an area with lots of metal trash of all kinds. So now my 15" coil is reserved for larger open areas the metal trash more spread out. Never occurred to me that bigger coil size reports on more targets under the coil. Duh. Sometimes I amaze myself on overlooking the obvious.

In the park where you can dig up a shovel full of dirt and find 4-5 pieces of metal trash, I use the 6" coil with a higher recovery speed since most of the trash and good targets are mostly in the surface to 4-5 inch depths.

hope this adds a little bit to a good thread.
 
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