BBS & FBS Coil Weight & Price Chart

[Critterhunter]

Most of these weights are actual numbers from users, not listed company specs...unless noted. I am shocked at the light weight of the 12x10 Sovereign (non-FBS version), not to mention the Sovereign 15x12 compared to some others. It appears the FBS versions of these coils are a good bit heavier. As you can see, the 12x10 is about the same weight as the well earned light reputation of the Sun Ray S-12. In fact, it's a good bit lighter than the S-12 without the coil cover on! Further, with so many people raving about the light weight of the FBS Pro Coil, you can see it doesn't really have any weight advantage over the 12x10 for the Sovereign.

Much of the improved separation and performance of the SE and Etrac I attribute to the excellent Pro Coil, and you'll see the same kind of performance advantages with the SEF 12x10 for the Sovereign. As I said before, if you handed me a mystery Sovereign with a 12x10 on it I would have bet money somebody sped up the processor with seemingly better separation, reaction, and response. Sound familiar to what is said about the SE or the Etrac over older Explorers? I bet much of the improve over prior Explorers on those machines has more to do with the coil than anything else. We all know the 10" coil on older Explorers was terrible in many respects. The Sovereign 10" Tornado version IMO is much better at separation, pinpointing, and stability. No wonder so many people love the Pro Coil, as well as the 12x10 and 15x12. All great coils in their own right.

With the listings of things like the stock 10" Tornado, old 10" BBS, and the Pro Coil for FBS machines, this would help people make judgement calls as to how much weight a coil they might be interested in should weigh compared to what they have now.

 

[Critterhunter]

Figured I'd throw a few coil tips in this thread.

First, if you ever strip the nut and bolt on the coil mount there's a handy fix for that. Paint some CA onto the bolt and then quickly spin the nut all the way on and off the bolt before it dries. You've got to be fast. When it hardens this creates more volume on the bolt threads as well as the nut's and so they will snug up without stripping down the road. Of course taken them both off the coil mount when doing this and don't put them back together for several hours so the glue is dried.

If you can't salvage the nut and bolt then head up to your local hobby store. They often carry these in this size, more so than home improvement stores from my experience.

Some people (particularly on the Explorer) will take coils that have more length at the tip rather than the back in relation to the shaft mount (it's more towards the back on the 10" Sovereign and Explorer/Etrac coils, causing extra length going towards the tip), and reverse the coil on the shaft for better balance. It makes the machine less nose heavy, and that alone can put stress on your arm. These SEF coils have the mount dead center so that's not an issue.

What people forget is that balance is just as important as weight of a machine. Proper placement of the arm cup (at about the elbow joint or higher), proper extension of the shaft so your back is straight while sweeping, etc. Also, ideally a detector should balance right at the hand grip, meaning if you balance the shaft on your finger it should be right under the grip. However, I feel slightly off balance from this is even better. If it balances about 3 or 4" in front of the hand grip (in the direction of the coil end) then when the grip is in your hand this means the detector will naturally balance so that it's in normal hunting position with the coil down towards the ground.

 

[synthnut]

Interesting chart Critter !!.....I can't get over how close in weight the 10" Tornado is to the 12 x 15 SEF wo/cover !!!...... Another tip ... If you guys need plastic bolts and nuts for your coils , you can go to the Plumbing dept at any Hardware store and ask for toilet seat nuts and bolts ...... Jim

 

[kered]

Hmm thought i sent you the 18x15 weight with the others, i'll weigh it again with the 14" Excelerator EQ2 gets here

 

[element]

Detech Penetrator (Excellerator) 12.5 no cover = 720g/25.65oz
Old BBS 10inch no cover (cover weights 70g/2.55oz) = 780g/27.55oz


My penetrator 12.5 is deffo an excellerator.. I compared them and they look identical just different name/sticker..

 

[Critterhunter]

Thanks for the weights guys. I'll update the chart with that. Kered, you never did give me that coil's weight. You had weighed the 15x12 for FBS machines. That number listed for the FBS version on the chart is yours. The ones for the Sovereign 15x12, 12x10, stock 10" coil, and S-5 are my own weights. Either way, thanks for that prior info and thanks for this new stuff.

I'm just surprised this kind of info hasn't been done before for these coils all in one place. When I was coil shopping this was the kind of stuff I wanted to know, so that inspired me to throw it together for others. As noted in that chart, almost all the weights are actually weighed by detectorists and not factory numbers (unless noted). We all know how those numbers can be fudged, so I'd rather list what people weighed them at.

Some bogus information that keeps floating around is that the S-12 is the lightest coil for the Sovereign in that size range. I always assumed that myself. I think they use foam for a filler core inside those coils instead of epoxy, or at least epoxy with micro balloons (a material used to reduce epoxy weight). Now that I've got my hands on the 12x10 and weighed it myself with the cover on it's only .3 ounces heavier than the S-12. In fact, without the spray on liner it would probably be the exact same weight, because the stock 10" coil gained .2 ounces once it was sprayed with bed liner. The 12x10 is also lighter without coil cover than the S-12. Not even sure if the S-12 has a coil cover anyway, as noted.

Regardless, I heard so many people complaining about the 12x10's weight (at least in the Explorer forum compared to the Pro Coil), or others on here saying they didn't want to buy one of these coils because of the added weight. Bad info, because the FBS versions of these coils are a good bit heavier than the BBS versions, and for that matter even the Sovereign 15x12 is lighter than the stock 10" Tornado if you remove the coil cover.

I'm loving the spray on liner so that's the only way to fly IMO anyway. No more dirt to clean out from under the coil or trapped water, and of course it makes the coil much lighter. Also looks real good on the bottom, like the plastic factory finish on the top of a coil. Wears a little down the road and doesn't look as good? Two or three quick coats of spray on liner on the bottom and it's back to being new again.

I'm real interested to hear any reports from people using the Joey, Platypus, or the 4.5x7 Detech coil. I remember hearing it was only made for a very short time in the UK and somebody on here bought the last one about a year ago. Those coils might be worth more used than they were new if they are that scarce, especially if they have SEF performance. What I might do down the road is start tagging each coil in the chart with a link that will then have further links to official reviews, field reports, and actual user remarks on them.

 

[Critterhunter]

Here's what I've heard on the round Excelerators- The initial ones they made weren't all that great. I seem to remember some people claiming they were very noisy and overly hot, causing a lot of falsing. No idea how long they made those. Then along comes the newer version of them. Don't know how long those have been made, either, but I would suspect about two years or so from what I've gathered. These are supposed to be better coils. The 12.5" with what little I've heard about it, not to mention any of these round Excelerators, is said to be about equal to the S-12 in performance. I always was curious about the 14" one. Why is it more expensive than the 16"? I have no idea, since the 16" would of course involve more materials. I suspect that the performance of the 14" was much better (should be in terms of sensitivity to coin/ring sized targets compared to the 16"), and so the jacked up the price of the 14".

I also have run across a small little blurb over the internet elsewhere that some initial coils (I think aftermarket ones) made for the Sovereign did not have RX coil pre-amp circuits inside the coil. I would expect rather poor performance if that was the case, and so I'm curious if these were those initial Excelerators. Either way, if anybody has any idea which brand coils out there didn't have pre-amps in them let me know. I've got a project in mind to design and build my own pre-amp inline with the coil cable on it. With a good quality pre-amp and low circuit noise it might be able to pull some rather impressive depth.

 

[kered]

Etrac/Explorer 14" Excelerator EQ2 arrived, weighs 743 grams/ 26.20oz with coil cover
SEF 18x15 For Etrac/Explorer (take a seat before reading on) 1053.18grams/37.15oz with coil cover, i must be fit as i've been using it without a Bungee

 

[Critterhunter]

Thanks again for those numbers you guys, as well as those in the past who have weighed certain coils for me. Oh, and all the numbers I've posted thus far include the coil cable resting on the scale. Did you guys weigh them that way? The only one I'm not real sure about is the reported weight of the Pro Coil. Don't know if he kept the cable on the scale. From experience I believe those can and another 4 to 8 ounces to a coil's weight, so it's important to include that in the numbers.

 

[Critterhunter]

Here's an update on the chart with your numbers. If you didn't weigh the coil cable with it let me know and I'll correct that.

 

[kered]

The cable is included in the weight on all my weights, coiled it up on top of the coil

 

[element]

same here... put the cable on the scales.. Always wondered how much a cable weighs.. also another factor to think about, stock cable length or chopped.. 6inches off could be an ounce?

 

[Critterhunter]

Got this in a PM. Name witheld since I didn't ask if I could post this...

I started to write a message to you and I accidently hit a key on my keyboard and the page disappeared so I am not sure if was sent to you...
Anyhow, I was reading one of your older post http://www.findmall.com/read.php?21,1303616s on coil weights and thought I would help you answer a question to the diameter of the excelerator coil. Well, after going to Kellyco, I realized there were two different 5" excelerator coils from two different companies? I have the Detech 5" Excelerator S Coil. I sell on eBay so I have a shipping scale that I weighed the coil on. With the coil, cover and cable it weighs in at 12.4 ounces. With just the cover and coil it weighs in at an even 10 ounces. The actual diameter of the coil is 4 3/4 inches. I am also providing pictures for your review. Since I am writing this to you and my wheels are starting to turn.... this coil I have is it a DD coil or concentric? I performed a search and can't find any info on this coil hmmmm I appreciate any help you can provide on this coil. If this thing is a concentric style coil, Up on the auction block it goes lol. If this is a coil that you do not want to add, that is fine. I completely understand now that altogether this is a total different coil and possibly a concentric coil on top of it. Thanks for your time.

Great info, thanks. As far as I know only one company has made that coil (Detech), and the only other coil in this size range is the S-5, which is 5.5" in diameter. At 4 & 3/4" that coil sure is tiny because the S-5 looks small and it's almost an inch bigger! Should be lethal in trash like the S-5! Yours is a DD too because as far as I know the only concentric coil ever made for the Sovereign was an 8" coil which I think Detech used to make.

 

[Critterhunter]

Critter here are some coil weights to add to your chart. I just did these. The WOT I have is a new one and is a little lighter than the one you have posted, perhaps they are using a lighter filler now? These weights are without the covers.

WOT......27.848 oz

10" Tornado .......23.132 oz

8" Tornado.......15.534 oz

8" Coinsearch......17.030 oz (didnt take a pic of this one on the scale)

Thanks Neil. Was that with the coil cable? The 10" Tornado is right on with the prior weight. I think your right and they might be using a lighter filler now. Sooner or later I'll update the chart.

 

[Neil]

all weights are with full length cables but no coil covers. cables are put on top of coil when weighed.

 

[BeachBat]

Critter,

I have a SEF 12 x 10 - arrived today (Wednesday 15th June), straight out the box and onto the scales.......

Without the coil cover 20.55
With the coil cover 23.15

Both weights taken with the cable coiled on the top. Scales are dead accurate.

This was a brand new UK purchase....

Will update with pictures once photobucket sorts itself out.......

 

[Critterhunter]

Looks like your weight is right on with my 12x10. Thanks.

 

[Critterhunter]

Bumping this thread up because there has been a lot of discussion lately on coil weights.

 

[Fire Fighter 43]

Does anyone know how much the stock 11" coil on the Etrac weighs in grams?

 

[Critterhunter]

The Pro Coil weight is listed at 19.75 ounces in the chart. You can easily convert that to grams if you look up online how many grams are in an ounce.

As you can see from the chart, the 12x10 for the Sovereign is only 20.2 ounces with spray on bed liner and no coil cover. That's pretty good when you consider people are always bragging about how light the Pro Coil is and it's only .45 ounces (or in other words about half an ounce) lighter than the BBS 12x10. Note that the FBS versions of these SEF coils are heavier than the BBS versions. Also note that the S-12 is heavier than the 12x10 and people are always bragging about how light the S-12 is.