Ok, I'm a tad disgruntled with two new SEF coils I just purchased and I'm wondering if it is something everyone experiences, or if perhaps the latest batch Kellyco received in was slightly out of spec. To start I've owned and loved detecting with my 12X15 SEF coil for the past year. Because I had so much success with it, I decided to treat myself for my birthday and order the 6X8 and the 10X12. There are a couple sites I felt would benefit with the use of the smaller coils.
Everything was fine until I had to send my X-1 probe back to be repaired this week. As you may or may not know, owning an X-1 allows you to wrap your coil cord around the shaft of your detector rather than feeding it up through the shaft. I have grown quite accustomed to the quick coil change over. So Monday night the kid is in bed early and I get the green light from the wife to hit a local silver mine for a couple hours. Great! I had only tried the 10X12 out once in a new location that had hot rocks. (either that or there was something wrong with the coil, because every swing brought that ugly hot rock signal.) I was a bit concerned that perhaps I had received a bad coil so I wanted to test it out in a familiar site where I knew there were no hot rocks. Fine, except when I went to run the cord up the lower shaft, try as I might I could not feed it up. I tried twisting so the cord spiral was tight, nope still too fat. I tried twisting so it was loose, nope still too fat. I tried pulling the coils out a bunch (and I cringed doing it) still no dice. 20 minutes into it I'm screaming on the inside as the light is starting to fade. I eventually grabbed my hands free ear piece, tied the jack end to the end of the coil wire, and was able to pull it up through the lower shaft. I then again had to repeat that same procedure to feed the coil through the upper shaft. What a pain in the arse. I wasted close to 30 minutesdicking around with this.
Luckily my anger was curbed by a silver rosie and a nice old sterling silver ring. So the coil works great but I 'm not impressed with the thickness of its cord.
All of your SEF users that don't use X-1 probes, is this normal? Do you basically have to tie a string to the end of the cord to get it up the shaft? Fine if that's the SOP for the SEF coils, though I lent my 12X15 (which is a year old) to a friend without an X-1 and while he said it was tricky, it was not impossible to feed the coil up the shaft. I'm wonderig if I should report it to Kellyco, perhaps the latest batch had out of spec cords?
Also, the cord is so thick, big, and long, that I cannot collapse the shaft at all. I drive a nice 39MPG Honda Civic coup, and I need to collapse the shaft to fit the detector in the trunk. I COULD NOT DO THIS with the 10X12 with the cord on the inside. WTF. I ended up having to open up the camlock and just pull the lower shaft away from the upper shaft and basically fold the detector in half to fit it in the trunk. Really not the best thing to do to the cord IMO.
Anyway, today I took the 6X8 out for a test spin, and started right off with the hands free wire to assist me in threading it through the lower and upper shaft. I was done in under 10 minutes, I guess knowing how is half the battle, GO JOE! I still ran into the issue where I could not collapse the shaft at all, luckily the 6X8 is small enough and I could fit it in my trunk. Still pretty ridiculous all in all. I hope I didn't bust my hands free ear piece!!
I can't wait to get the X-1 back so I can avoid all this foolishness. In the morning I'm going to compare the cord on the 12X15 to that of the ones I just received. I'll let you know if there are any major differences.
/rant
Thanks for the feedback.
Jai
Everything was fine until I had to send my X-1 probe back to be repaired this week. As you may or may not know, owning an X-1 allows you to wrap your coil cord around the shaft of your detector rather than feeding it up through the shaft. I have grown quite accustomed to the quick coil change over. So Monday night the kid is in bed early and I get the green light from the wife to hit a local silver mine for a couple hours. Great! I had only tried the 10X12 out once in a new location that had hot rocks. (either that or there was something wrong with the coil, because every swing brought that ugly hot rock signal.) I was a bit concerned that perhaps I had received a bad coil so I wanted to test it out in a familiar site where I knew there were no hot rocks. Fine, except when I went to run the cord up the lower shaft, try as I might I could not feed it up. I tried twisting so the cord spiral was tight, nope still too fat. I tried twisting so it was loose, nope still too fat. I tried pulling the coils out a bunch (and I cringed doing it) still no dice. 20 minutes into it I'm screaming on the inside as the light is starting to fade. I eventually grabbed my hands free ear piece, tied the jack end to the end of the coil wire, and was able to pull it up through the lower shaft. I then again had to repeat that same procedure to feed the coil through the upper shaft. What a pain in the arse. I wasted close to 30 minutesdicking around with this.
Luckily my anger was curbed by a silver rosie and a nice old sterling silver ring. So the coil works great but I 'm not impressed with the thickness of its cord.
All of your SEF users that don't use X-1 probes, is this normal? Do you basically have to tie a string to the end of the cord to get it up the shaft? Fine if that's the SOP for the SEF coils, though I lent my 12X15 (which is a year old) to a friend without an X-1 and while he said it was tricky, it was not impossible to feed the coil up the shaft. I'm wonderig if I should report it to Kellyco, perhaps the latest batch had out of spec cords?
Also, the cord is so thick, big, and long, that I cannot collapse the shaft at all. I drive a nice 39MPG Honda Civic coup, and I need to collapse the shaft to fit the detector in the trunk. I COULD NOT DO THIS with the 10X12 with the cord on the inside. WTF. I ended up having to open up the camlock and just pull the lower shaft away from the upper shaft and basically fold the detector in half to fit it in the trunk. Really not the best thing to do to the cord IMO.
Anyway, today I took the 6X8 out for a test spin, and started right off with the hands free wire to assist me in threading it through the lower and upper shaft. I was done in under 10 minutes, I guess knowing how is half the battle, GO JOE! I still ran into the issue where I could not collapse the shaft at all, luckily the 6X8 is small enough and I could fit it in my trunk. Still pretty ridiculous all in all. I hope I didn't bust my hands free ear piece!!
I can't wait to get the X-1 back so I can avoid all this foolishness. In the morning I'm going to compare the cord on the 12X15 to that of the ones I just received. I'll let you know if there are any major differences.
/rant
Thanks for the feedback.
Jai
