a little help please about coil chatter

[digitaltim]

Hello. I recently sold a Tesoro 5X10" elliptical widescan coil, 4 pin , works on vaquero, cibola etc.


Buyer believes the coil may need a retune, because it "isn't stable above 9 on sensitivity."

I know sensitivity / chatter can depend on the area etc.. I spoke to a Tesoro tech and he said it may need a retune if its missing targets and losing depth.

Any thoughts on this? I only used the coil for about 30 mins and it seemed normal to me, but I'm not an expert. Does this sound like there's some thing wrong with the coil?

Thanks in advance

 

[allcav]

I talked to you on the phone. Have the guy go out of his house and away from a housing area and electrical lines. He really needs to try it in the conditions he will be hunting. Also, when he called me he told me he couldn't get to 7 on the sensitivity and now he is telling you 9. He also stated that other coils on his machine didn't do that. I think the guy needs to be truthful on the conditions or you will never solve this problem. Is he using this on the same machine as you are or on a different machine. The Elliptical fits the Tejon, Vaquero, Cibola and the Lobo. If he is trying it on his Cibola, then he would need to send it in to us to re-tune the Cibola to that coil. The Cibola has a factory preset ground rejection and changing the coil will put the machine out of tune.

 

[digitaltim]

He says Vaquero, same machine I was using ... Not the exact same one ;-)

My worst fear is I sold something defective, that only shows up after 9 on sensitivity..

Thanks for replying!

 

[SpiritRelic]

Test away from any electrical source.What detector do you have.I have no ground balance on my golden and i trade coils all the time with no problem.I ain't sending no detector of mine in for no coil change. :O I can not test my detectors in my small apartment,to much electrical noise.

 

[digitaltim]

This is all he wrote: "I got the coil and put it on my vaquero and it was not stable above 9 on sensitivity, check it on another vaquero, call Tesoro they say the coils out of tune and needs to be sent in, any suggestions."

I replied with what you've told me.

 

[digitaltim]

is this normal for a widescan coil?

"When super tuning the Vaquero one would turn the sensitivity all the way up and the threshold also. I had to turn the sensitivity down to 7

 

[SpiritRelic]

When i try different coils in my apartment i get electrical noise.I hunted the elliptical coil on my tejon today and i could cut my sensitivity past 10,i was in the woods.A small DD coil like that with a small foot print you should be able to crank the sens up in good ground.:O Sensitivity setting has nothing to do with supertuning .The threshold all the way clockwise for supertune setting.You have to adjust sensitivity,depending on coil and ground conditions. :O

 

[tvr]

"When super tuning the Vaquero one would turn the sensitivity all the way up and the threshold also. I had to turn the sensitivity down to 7 8 range to make it stable and also noticed that the coil became overly sensitive to iron objects. The area that I am hunting I am finding small flats at 6 to 10 inches. The ground is sandy loam and is some of the least mineralized soil I hunt in here in NC. With my standard 10inch concentric I can max the sensitivity out and dig flats at 10 inches plus. With the 5x10 I struggle with iron that I cant discriminate out."

Like Alcav alludes, I don't think all the pertinent information has been presented and the testing conditions may not be apple to apple comparisons. Maybe they are, but if so, details are missing.

Sounds like he max supertunes for the 5x10 but not sure if he is running the standard coil with max supertuning. My experience has been that maximum threshold settings (max supertuning) hurts discrimination of iron; sometimes very badly. I can run partial supertune and still discriminate out iron pretty well but not with maximum setting of threshold.

On the H.O.T. series detectors I've used, I find the concentric coils discriminate more cleanly than the widescans.

A 5x10 widescan is not as deep as the standard concentric coil running similar settings in mild soil. Widescan may have an advantage in heavily mineralized soil, but it's effective loop field size is much smaller than that standard concentric.

Some days I can hunt the same spot with the same detector and same coil and have to run around 8 or 9 on the sensitivity where other days I can run into the red. There are environmental variables. If I take multiple coils and run tests back to back on the same day around the same time of day there is more consistency between comparisons since, at that time, the environmental variables are fairly constant over the test period.

On the surface, I don't see a reason yet to think the coil is faulty. I think maybe the buyer should run some tests side to side, take some careful notes about the settings and observations and talk to Robert (alcav) about the observations. Robert is a helpful guy and he is trying to help here and via phone already!

Cheers,
tvr

Oh ... and make sure the ground balance is properly set for each coil and each test run!