Not happy with my 15" coil for my 800

Is it overkill?

amc rulz said:

Is it overkill?

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It will find deeper targets. I took it to a soccer field that I have hunted before and a couple other local guys have hunted a lot. With the 15" I found deep nickels that I and others I guess have overlooked.

But for my type of hunting I will stick to the 11" stock. Mainly for the comfort. That extra weight and bulk tires you out quicker even with a harness.

I cannot get used to hunting with a recovery speed of 4" which is recommended for the 15" coil for some reason. I forgot the reason you have to use the slower recovery speed. Maybe someone will help me out with the answer.

But again, this is just a personal preference of mine. I am sure others who have a need to go a couple inches deeper will put up with the extra weight and slower swing speed.

I have the 15 inch coil and have never used it in a year because of the weight. I recently purchased a counter balanced shaft which does much better than the harness I have. Every time I see a post on how the Equinox is such a light detector I want to scream. It isn't the weight.....It is the balance and angle. A very poor design. My arm never hurt so much in 45 year of detecting as it did after my first beach hunt with the Equinox.

I cannot get used to hunting with a recovery speed of 4" which is recommended for the 15" coil for some reason. I forgot the reason you have to use the slower recovery speed. Maybe someone will help me out with the answer.

Ok, will answer my own question with help from vferrari quoted below.

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.


And that exactly what was happening. I was getting too much chatter at the same settings, but the varible I changed was using the larger 15" coil and thus covering a larger area. And of course I was probably having a lot targets masked which could have accounted for the lack of targets in an area that should have had targets. Plus I could not get consistent numbers when sweeping in a 90 degree cross sweep.

So from this, the conclusion is that the 15" probably will do well in fields with targets that are not close together and maybe the same reason for beach hunting. If you don't have close spaced targets then the lower recovery speed ( and hence depth) will be desired and not subject to chatter.

When I was having trouble on site, I dropped a penny and swung over it in cross directions and it was consistent VDI reading. But when searching the smaller area of the yard I was getting multilpe targets under my coil and hence the chatter and probable masking.

The 11" at a faster recovery speed seems to be the optimal for this type of hunting. eg fairly clean home site with a moderate amount of trash that you would expect. Not super trashy like a heavily used county or city park.

maxxkatt said:

Took my Nox 800 and the 15" coil for a spin on my good permission. It is a relative low trash site. Not real happy with the 15" for my purposes.

1) it is heavy and even with my Detector pro harness it is not much fun for me to swing.
2) it seem rather chatty compared to the 11" stock coil using the same settings and same site..
3) they recommend you have your recovery speed at 4-5 and this is so slow.

I am thinking for my type of hunting home sites and some fields and volley ball courts the 15" is not worth the expense and trouble.

I find the 11" stock coil just about perfect and use the 6" in tight places and trashy areas. I probably will sell my 15".

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In now exclusively run large coils.

Remember that when using a larger coil, the amount of data being processed is higher. It also means that the same "power" level used (sensitivity) is actually taking a much larger chunk of the ground. Instead of getting 11" deep, for example, you're getting 15". This accounts for some of the additional chattiness.

This means that if you lower your sensitivity, you'll have the stability back to normal, and you'll still get more coverage per swing.

Personally, I've found that I can notch down sensitivity (and get the same depth as stock) for every 1.5" of additional size on the coil. This means you could notch down 3 full notches and still get equivalent depth. Seriously.

This will significantly:
-Reduce the chattiness
-Increase your target separation ability (especially with a DD coil)
-Improve your swing speed (because less data to process means faster/accurate responses at full swing).

I've found I can use my 14.5" DD coil on 2 sensitivity and get a full 6" of depth. Sensitivity 3 and I can get 8-9". Granted, this is an AT Max, but I have to run on sensitivity 5-6 to get 9" on the stock.

Bottom line is that because the larger coil is digesting more info and depth, you don't need to run the sensitivity so high as with stock, UNLESS you're really searching the depths...and then yeah... you'll need to slow down!

Skippy

goodmore said:

I have the 15 inch coil and have never used it in a year because of the weight. I recently purchased a counter balanced shaft which does much better than the harness I have. Every time I see a post on how the Equinox is such a light detector I want to scream. It isn't the weight.....It is the balance and angle. A very poor design. My arm never hurt so much in 45 year of detecting as it did after my first beach hunt with the Equinox.

Click to expand...

Whoa.. nobody is talking about this... I wonder how bad it is.

I run the AT Max, which is already "end heavy" and not balanced, adn then I threw a 14.5" DD coil on it. It's certainly a brick to swing around... but at the same time, it only took a couple of weeks to get my arm strength up. I can swing for 4 hours without issues, now.

The first couple times I went out with the new 14.5" coil, though, I couldn't detect more than 30 minutes the first time, 45 the second, etc... My arm just DIED. Keep this in mind, if you decide (with ANY detector) to toss a heavier coil on for beach hunting than you're used to. It's like learning to detect all over again. I remember my arm hurt after 30 minutes of swinging the ACE 300! the first time I went out! LOL

Skippy

Probably the only detector that benefits with a larger coil is a Minelab Excal if it is mounted on a custom long shaft with the electronics mounted behind the elbow.

The overall ergonomics is better and the longer shaft will create a slower swing speed which seems to be in sync with the electronics performance. Great for covering large expanses of beach.