E-Trac Questions

shellhouse · Aug 16, 2020

Happy Sunday.

Picked up a new-to-me E-Trac and have been getting used to it. I was hoping that someone may have advice on coil options out there as well as general advice about the below.

The first big question is about coils and what may be a pick.

Do the Sun Ray X-8 coils offer many or any advantages over the stock 11" pro coil other than the smaller diameter and maybe a little less weight? I currently have a 6", the 11", and a Detech 15x12.

Thinking an elliptical like NEL sharpshooter or perhaps the round X-8 may do better due to mountainous terrain here and around where I have property in Maine. Then again, I could just use the 6" but it's tiny to me.

The main coils I'm looking at are:

Sun Ray X-8 8"
NEL Sharpshooter 9.5x5.5
NEL Hunter 12.5x8.5

Update: Settled on NEL Hunter and Coiltek Joey 5x10

Have seen concerns here and there about the NEL and CORS coils not ground balancing, but is it an issue with FBS models? Would anyone happen to have experience with the various models and their quality & performance? Still reading up on these but ground balancing is something that stuck out for NEL/CORS.

For a second question,

I really appreciate the FBS CO and Fe display as well as 2D disc. mapping, yet it's tempting to sell a unit or two since I have too many and not a lot of hunting time. There's overlap with other models as-is. What would you do?

XP ORX with 9.5 HF elliptical and 13x11 (Seems like a keeper)
Equinox 800 with 15x12 only
Makro Multi Kruzer with stock elliptical, 11", and 9.5x5
E-trac with 11", 6", 15x12

Update:
Swapped the ORX for a Deus only because it worked out financially. Settled on the 9.5HF and 13x11 x35
Swapped the Multi Kruzer for Anfibio for no particular reason. Still the stepchild of the bunch as nice as it is.
E-trac has the Hunter as primary and a Coiltek Joey 5x10 secondary. Going to part with the 6" round sniper.
Equinox is gone.

Will go to beaches once or twice a year, and there's uncertainty about what to take along on road trips. Likely the XP in its compact case and perhaps the E-trac for wet sand. The Nox isn't quite so portable the way it is with 3 piece shafts or even with most of the carbon shafts (except tele-knox?), although it would be a waterproof unit and cover lots of ground with the 15x12. Planning to hit a beach either this week or this fall.

With other hunting in woods, parks, and old home sites, the XP seems really good and MMK has nice coils as well. E-trac could technically be the do-all, even if it's not as fast or light as some others.

Short summary is that I have a few detectors, a good selection of coils, and not as much time as I'd like, so it'd seem to make sense to consolidate and spend more time mastering one or two. It's a shame that a small elliptical coil isn't made for the Nox, as one of those along with a tele-knox shaft might round things out and narrow it down to ML.

Thanks for reading!

woodbutcher · Aug 16, 2020

The stock pro coil on the etrac has always been the best all around coil for me. Had the x8,wasn't impressed with it. The def 6x8 is a great coil tho, very good depth and seperation. So good I ran it most . I've always used Andy's coin pattern and goes forevers settings with 2 changes to them. I ran manual sensitivity and I ran ferrous tones. Everything else was the same.Good luck

shellhouse · Aug 16, 2020

woodbutcher said:
The stock pro coil on the etrac has always been the best all around coil for me. Had the x8,wasn't impressed with it. The def 6x8 is a great coil tho, very good depth and seperation. So good I ran it most . I've always used Andy's coin pattern and goes forevers settings with 2 changes to them. I ran manual sensitivity and I ran ferrous tones. Everything else was the same.Good luck

Awesome, thanks. I'll check out those programs, too. Have been reading up on Andy's Explorer & E-Trac Handbook.

Apparently my ground balance concern isn't much of one since there only appear to be a couple of ground type settings and then there's sensitivity. May lean toward a NEL Sharpshooter coil to fill out the range and maybe be more handy than the 11" DD round while covering more ground laterally than the 6" round. Nice that there are so many choices with the FBS units.

Firstly, let's see which one(s) get the axe. :viking:

randy · Aug 16, 2020

The E-Trac is a magical machine once you get used to it. I use the Detech Ultimate 13 coil most of the time, and do quite well. At trashy sites like 18th century farmhouses laden with iron, the stock coil works fine for me. The trick is to go VERY slow.

I don't know about other programs, but I built my own program, and the secret sauce is a setting I think called "tones long" or "response long" or something like that. That setting lets you run the machine very hot even with tons of EMI chatter, and still hear the coins as the signal comes in longer. This chatter will annoy many people, but it does work once you get used to it.

Also, run with a wide open discrimination pattern (FE to the mid 20s at least), as the silvers can bounce around, and the first hit may be in the FE 20 zone. If you get one of these, scan it a few times and it is repeatable, especially bouncing into the low FE numbers, and it pinpoints where you think it is, dig it. You will dig alot of iron this way, but you will also dig silvers that others have missed.

Finally, noise cancel alot in difficult dirt. Contrary to the manual, I noise cancel with the coil against the ground. In some dirts, noise cancel channel matters (I have proven this with various wild target tests). You want the best channel for the dirt you are in.

I actually do have a Nox 800 on order, and can't wait to do some field testing to see if it is better than the E-Trac for my style of hunting. We'll see.

HTH and YMMV

Trashfinder · Aug 16, 2020

Don't sell the Nox 800 as it has a couple of advantages. One being depth, the other, if you are in say an old turn of the century home site where there is mainly iron objects for trash to deal with, the NOX is vastly superior to the FBS models. I have dug 14 inch coins that my CTX and Etrac with full sensitivity would not sound off on, not even with big coils.

Now when i pull out my CTX or Etrac it is for sites where i run into a lot of high conductivity trash. Like recently i hunted an old house site where i guess the owner must have done some car repairs at some time. I was using my NOX and i kept getting 26-28 ID's nice high tones and everything i was digging was pieces of piston heads. They were everywhere, i went to the truck got my etrac out and found these to register 8-46 to 9-47 on the etrac. The 46,47 great numbers but the 8 and 9 fe numbers tipped me off to not dig these. I also ended up in a lot not long ago where i guess the guy was a hobby electronics repair man,,, i dug countless resistors and capacitors and other electronic components with my deus and nox. Whipped out my CTX and again the Fe numbers were key on whether to dig or not.

As for coils my favorite smaller coils are the Mar's lion ( good luck finding one) and the NEL sharpshooter, i have the 8x6 sef as well but in my test garden the NEL does better on masked targets. Could be just my particular coil, no idea? The detech 13inch is my favorite larger coil.

Randy said run mostly open and i agree, very slow hunting with the FBS is the key to success, you cannot use it like a deus whipping it around or you will miss a lot of targets. Open screen in trashy areas will unmask better,even though it will tax your mind to listen to all the sounds and process the information.

Biggest advice is go really really slow and you will be amazed what turns up that was masked to other machines.

shellhouse · Aug 16, 2020

randy said:
The E-Trac is a magical machine once you get used to it. I use the Detech Ultimate 13 coil most of the time, and do quite well. At trashy sites like 18th century farmhouses laden with iron, the stock coil works fine for me. The trick is to go VERY slow.

I don't know about other programs, but I built my own program, and the secret sauce is a setting I think called "tones long" or "response long" or something like that. That setting lets you run the machine very hot even with tons of EMI chatter, and still hear the coins as the signal comes in longer. This chatter will annoy many people, but it does work once you get used to it.

Also, run with a wide open discrimination pattern (FE to the mid 20s at least), as the silvers can bounce around, and the first hit may be in the FE 20 zone. If you get one of these, scan it a few times and it is repeatable, especially bouncing into the low FE numbers, and it pinpoints where you think it is, dig it. You will dig alot of iron this way, but you will also dig silvers that others have missed.

Finally, noise cancel alot in difficult dirt. Contrary to the manual, I noise cancel with the coil against the ground. In some dirts, noise cancel channel matters (I have proven this with various wild target tests). You want the best channel for the dirt you are in.

I actually do have a Nox 800 on order, and can't wait to do some field testing to see if it is better than the E-Trac for my style of hunting. We'll see.

HTH and YMMV

Much appreciated. Will try those settings and the noise cancel on ground to see how they fare here. Hope your 800 comes in quickly and proves to unmask a lot of new targets. Eager to compare these units as well and get some time in the field.

Trashfinder said:
Don't sell the Nox 800 as it has a couple of advantages. One being depth, the other, if you are in say an old turn of the century home site where there is mainly iron objects for trash to deal with, the NOX is vastly superior to the FBS models. I have dug 14 inch coins that my CTX and Etrac with full sensitivity would not sound off on, not even with big coils.

Now when i pull out my CTX or Etrac it is for sites where i run into a lot of high conductivity trash. Like recently i hunted an old house site where i guess the owner must have done some car repairs at some time. I was using my NOX and i kept getting 26-28 ID's nice high tones and everything i was digging was pieces of piston heads. They were everywhere, i went to the truck got my etrac out and found these to register 8-46 to 9-47 on the etrac. The 46,47 great numbers but the 8 and 9 fe numbers tipped me off to not dig these. I also ended up in a lot not long ago where i guess the guy was a hobby electronics repair man,,, i dug countless resistors and capacitors and other electronic components with my deus and nox. Whipped out my CTX and again the Fe numbers were key on whether to dig or not.

As for coils my favorite smaller coils are the Mar's lion ( good luck finding one) and the NEL sharpshooter, i have the 8x6 sef as well but in my test garden the NEL does better on masked targets. Could be just my particular coil, no idea? The detech 13inch is my favorite larger coil.

Randy said run mostly open and i agree, very slow hunting with the FBS is the key to success, you cannot use it like a deus whipping it around or you will miss a lot of targets. Open screen in trashy areas will unmask better,even though it will tax your mind to listen to all the sounds and process the information.

Biggest advice is go really really slow and you will be amazed what turns up that was masked to other machines.

Great advice. Will plan some hours with open screen and hang onto a Nox or 540 for the cellar holes and maybe beaches to compare there too.

I'm kind of curious if the 15x12 has much advantage over the V12 coil on the 540, and the V8 coil is something that I wish the Nox had available. There was a long thread about that on another board and I seem to recall some Russians doing something with adapters or chips. Will check back into that for the Nox.

shellhouse · Sep 2, 2020

Picked up a NEL Hunter and a Coiltek Joey 10x5 to run on the E-Trac.

Interested to compare the Hunter with stock Pro coil.. and Joey as well once it comes in.

https://app.photobucket.com/u/shellhouse4/p/96f9d3e1-6f88-4e2e-9079-19cd0947d291
Will try resizing and uploading if anyone has issues with linked image. Too big to attach.

Hunter is same general weight as the 11" Pro on my digital body scale anyway.

Upgraded the arm cuff to an Anderson aluminum part and added electrical tape to the bottom of it to help prevent it rotating.

shellhouse · Sep 9, 2020

Did some indoor air testing today with the following coils: Stock 11" Pro, Detech SEF 15x12, NEL Hunter

The results were as follows for the coils (depth in inches). I was expecting more but hey this is what came out after noise cancelling. Channel was 9 from what I recall.

Coins

Wheat Penny
Zinc Penny
Clad Quarter
Silver Quarter

Pro Coil

6
6
7
6.5

15x12

8
8
8.5
8.5

NEL Hunter

7.5
7.5
8
8

Hunter was pretty close to the 15x12 despite being dwarfed by it in size. Just sold the 15x12 tonight so that's ok.

zeemang · Sep 9, 2020

I have the NEL Sharpshooter 9.5x5.5 on my etrac, great coil, fits nicely up under bushes and between tightly packed growth, can't say anything bad about it.
Etrac having the FE CO readout gives you WAY more info than the nox, especially useful if you are hunting a site riddled with a certain type of trash.
I hunted a site that was carpeted with bottle caps, which rang up 2 38 on my etrac and would just ring 38 on my nox. The things I was really looking for, aluminum tokens, rang up consistently as 12 38 on the etrac but with the nox I
would have had me bent over digging bottle caps all day.
People can say the nox is deeper, fine, but I would rather have better disc than more depth any day of the week!

randy · Sep 10, 2020

You should get more depth in the dirt. I just pulled a copper at 9 inches and it blew my ears off. I've tape measured them to 12 inches; granted, they have had 200 years to form a halo. I've gotten thin barber dimes at 8 inches, but they can be iffy.

The Detech Ultimate 13 was my coil for the above. I noise cancel with the coil flat on the ground.

Trashfinder · Sep 10, 2020

What sensitivity were you testing at? My etrac is much better than that in air.

shellhouse · Sep 12, 2020

Sensitivity was at 22, couldn't recall if I lowered it due to EMI but may be able to conduct better tests outside. Probably something like that limiting depth. Need to measure out a test garden too as I had just eyeballed and buried some things outside for function tests, hard to use those for depth check. Gotta get more time in and see how the new coils do in real world conditions with halos and all.

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