Coil questions and opinions wanted

[Ron (CA)]

I have these coils for the GPX5000 (image)

1. Is the 18" Green monster (Mono) worth keeping? I know it is older but is it a good coil on the 5000?

Also have a 14 x 9 NF elliptical and the stock coils that came with the GPX 5000

2. Is the NF 14" elip mono deeper than the stock 11" round mono in the red dirt in CA?

Sorry but still relatively new at this and trying to figure what coil to haul with me on the long hikes? The area holds some shallow nuggets in the washes but also has about 2 feet to bedrock.

What coil would be the best if I can only take one? Just looking for opinions.

Thanks

Ron

[nvchris]

Hi Ron,

I'd go with the stock 11" mono. It's a great coil and a benchmark for choosing aftermarket offerings.

If your in an area of deep grass, like the central foothills then get a Commander 12 x 15 Mono.

The 5000 is a bit finicky when it comes to coils so you'll just have to try your others.

A round will always go a bit deeper then a similar sized elliptical.

Good Luck and Happy Hunting.

[Ron (CA)]

Thanks Chris,

I appreciate the info. And I appreciate you taking the time to reply.

Ron

[FlakMagnet]

Ron,

I think NVChris hit it right.

The stock 11' mono coil is lauded both here and in Australia as a perfect coil for the GPX5000.

Especially in light of your other two coils, which may not work as well with the 5000 (although I have no hard evidence to back that up with),

I would be using the stock mono.

Best of luck

[beepinpete_WA]

G'day Ron

Mate i'm also with Chris & Flak on the Commander 11" Mono on your 5000, its my main coil of choice here in Western Australia,

it will run extremely smooth and give exceptional sensitivity on the 5000 and great depth also.

Because its such a stable coil you will be able to really bang up the settings on your 5000, and remember if you are only

running your 5000 in Factory Pre Sets you are virtually running a GP3500 - its only when we start to tweak the settings up

that the 5000 really comes into its own.

Pete

[FlakMagnet]

Hi Pete,

"...remember if you are onlyrunning your 5000 in Factory Pre Sets you are virtually running a GP3500 - its only when we start to tweak the settings up

that the 5000 really comes into its own..."

That's a great point and one I do not see being talked about much.

Hope all is well in WA,

[Ron (CA)]

G'day Ron

Mate i'm also with Chris & Flak on the Commander 11" Mono on your 5000, its my main coil of choice here in Western Australia,

it will run extremely smooth and give exceptional sensitivity on the 5000 and great depth also.

Because its such a stable coil you will be able to really bang up the settings on your 5000, and remember if you are only

running your 5000 in Factory Pre Sets you are virtually running a GP3500 - its only when we start to tweak the settings up

that the 5000 really comes into its own.

Pete

Thanks for the replies.

Being new to the 5000 I was running Fine Gold presets, Mode: General, Soil: Normal and GB: Fixed with Gain bumped to 15.

What tweaks would I need to consider to maximize the performance of the 5000?

Hunting the foothills of the Sierras, (Red dirt see image)

Managed this 22 grainer yesterday with the 11" Mono with the above settings in a wash area. I was digging some 5" 22 bullets but I know there is some stuff deeper.

Thanks for the info. I really appreciate you helping us new guys out a bit.

Ron

[Border Boy]

The nf coil you have is actually a 14x7 (not much depth) and would be good in rocks but to tell the truth the 11 comander mono is far superior.

Nice nug dude

[FlakMagnet]

Ron,

A gentle heads up - this is important for you to get:

To use "Fine Gold" in the Special menu on the back end plate,

the Soil Timing switch on the front end plate, must be set to "Special".

If you have it set to Normal as you indicated,

even though you have switched the special menu to Fine Gold,

you will not be using those timings.

Your Soil Timing switch has to be set to Special first.

Check out your manual if I am not wording this clearly, it's a biggie.

Best of luck, Happy New Year

[Ron (CA)]

Got it. Thanks! 95 page manual : tough to absorb all of it correctly

[lve2fsh]

Hey Ron

My 5000 instruction manual sits next to my chair/computer/TV and gets read a little everyday. I'm thinking if I read it 100 times I will at least understand the switches.

[beepinpete_WA]

Hi Ron

Nice Nugget mate, well done on that one.

I would suggest for the time being if you have the 11" Commander Mono that came with your 5000 to just use that for

a while buddy, it will run better than both of those coils in your photo and be more forgiving on heavy Mineralization.

The photo of the red dirt doesnt look to heavily mineralized, so you should be able to bang up your settings a fair bit.

Below i have added a thread i posted on a West Aus Forum with some good tips for the new GPX5000 User.

Here's a few simple Techniques to boost your gold intake.

You can think of the GPX range in the same way as a stereo equalizer, if one band is out of whack, its not running at

its premium ability.

There's no need to get overly aggressive on the tunings to start off with if your new to the GPX's, just a simple tweak up of the 4 main functional settings (Rx Gain,Stabilizer,Motion Speed & Audio) will put you miles ahead of the FP settings, but in real sense we really want to be making these babies really scream & sing, and an important factor to being able to do this is running a very well matched up coil for the GPX.

Also we do actually need to hear a bit of mineralization on our GPX's so we can realize when we can boost up the settings to get better performance, i know most blokes & gals these days are way to fixed on the "smooth threshold" theory and that can be a good/bad thing, reasons ? if you are able to run the machine as smooth &

quiet as a church mouse, you are not really forcing the best from your detector, if its smooth why not try to

tweak it up a notch or two, and keep tweaking with a good ground balance between each tweak until you just start to get some in-balance in the threshold.

The 5000 will cancel out nearly 95% of all hot rocks, the only major ones that get through are the hot rocks with very strong magnetic qualities and these are very few and far between.

We also need to be looking at a couple of other important factors also, and they are Swing Speed, Coil Hight from the ground and coil level (Horizontal).

The larger your coil is, the slower it needs to be swung, and the opposite goes for the smaller 14" and down size coils, the smaller sized coils can safely be swung with a 2 - 3 second swing and still remain stable and deadly on targets, the larger coils 16" and up need to be swung slower for two reasons, one is to allow the larger coil field more time to penetrate deeper and excite the deeper targets, and the other is because we are running a larger coil we are therefore scanning a lot larger area and amount of mineralization at any given time, so we need to swing slower to also allow the detector to be able to keep up with the processing of all this extra info that the larger coil will produce..

Its very important when doing a Ground Balance to have your coil fully horizontal in relation to the ground surface, this allows all of the coils windings to be presented to the ground equally and makes for a better Ground Balance and therefore a more stable detector which again allows us to tweak it up even more again..

Follow a few simple standard in field Tuning tips like these and you will get more gold.

Always ask yourself "can i get more outta this spot and how can i do that ?? there's only two ways to do that and one is bust a nut physically, the other is tweaks on your detector, of course when you combine the both thats when Magic...

Here's some simple settings you may want to try

Before you apply these settings - I always reccomend doing a Factory Pre Set when ever changing coils, or going to a totally

new area to prospect.

Its a good start up routine to get into because it ensures that no single setting is out of whack, and its a bit like when you

get into your vehicle, "ie" seat belt, mirrors etc..

Leave all other settings in FP and only adjust the ones listed below mate.

FRONT PANEL

Gen

Special - Fine Gold

Fixed

Mono

REAR SCREEN

Volume - to suit your own needs

Rx Gain - (14 - 17)

Stabilizer - (6 - 10)

Motion - (Slow)

Audio - (Boost)

Tracking - (Med) we are running in Fixed Tracking on the front panel, but by having the Rear Screen Tracking set to Med you

will get a more precise ground balance and so you can run higher settings at a more stable level.

When doing your GB only lift and lower the coil by 3" no more, this allows the coil to read the mineral content better and

gives a better GB...

MAY ALL OF YOUR HOLES BE GOLDEN

Pete - West Aus

[Ron (CA)]

Thanks Pete, Great info. I snuck out today for a bit and tried a few settings. Got a a couple pickers!

[notoriouskelly]

Pete - thanks for those tips!

[Big Ed]

Hi Ron,

I'm up in Trinity Co. CA, and like the stock 11" mono on the 5000. Also I think both of the UFO's I have run on my gpx 5000, and could only run the mini ufo on my gp 3500, so with playing with setting's your extreem coil might be a nugget slayer.

Good luck,Ed