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I have had quite a few CZ's over year's but never owned a coinstrike. I was wondering how do they compare in depth and seperation? I know they don't make them anymore but they are going so cheap rite now it is almost a shame. I know there one achilles heel seems to be ready bottle caps as cion's is there a way to get around this? Also since there not made anymore are they fairly dependable? Thank's.
I like mine better than the CZ's I've had!
I feel they are about the same on depth! (No More anyway)
They may be a little more sensitive to EMI (electronic interference)
I like the the way the meter is divided up better than the CZ's (Iron only discrimination, notches for Foil, Nickles, Tabs, and Zinc.)
It's the same size and has the same take down as the CZ-7a Pro.
Runs on two 9v batteries.
The numeric ID is better (but takes some getting used to).
Its got WAY more headphone power (volume) than the CZ's!
I don't feel that its ANY worse with screw caps than the CZ's are.
I can't prove this but I'm pretty darn sure!! that the Coin$trike suffered from a bad batch of coils. I only say that because of my own experience. I got a used off ebay, it like most of them showed very little signs of use, and no signs of abuse!. The detector worked but seem to be SO different that I thought it was just a HARD machine to figure out (many people thought that). Well the Coinstrike manual SUCKS as far as setting or understanding the threshold, for this I found the Gold Strike manual to be a WAY better choice!. But the more I tried to understand the detector the more lost it made me feel! Couldn't air test in the house at all! and no setting could make it either. I tried it outside and it seem to work but DIFFERENT! Then the next day out it would read quarters as dimes, nickles were gone!, copper pennies were gone!?? false signals, kind of nuts you could say.
Well lets cut through a LONG STORY! I had read reports both good and bad about the Coinstrike, the good was pretty Darn good, but the bad was the WORSE!
Well It got down to where I started thinking that it was ONE pile of crap detector! but I was stuck with it by this time, So, I was about to send it off to Fisher to see if they could do anything with it, when!!! WVRick decided to buy one just a little after I did (we work together) Well, he said his didn't seem to do any of the stuff mine was doing, so as a last ditch effort I ask to to meet me after work and compare the two. His was fine! he tried mine and it was Fu** up as compared to his. So then we did one more thing, I put his coil on mine, and he put mine on his!!!! Story told! is turned into the piece of crap and mine was fine! The coil was bad. (believe it was defective)
I believe to this day that Fisher had a batch of coils that went out for the coinstrike's and in less you had another one to compare it to you would not have known the coil was bad. A lot of the bad reports I read about the detector sounded like a bunch of the trouble I was having with mine.
I found a forum member that had a used stock Coin$trike coil for sale and I bought it and I've never looked back.
If you get one, download the Gold Strike manual and read how to adjust the threshold in it, it makes more sense!
maybe that was the problem with the coinstrike I had. I just couldn't figure it out and finally had enough fighting with it and sold it. not gonna buy another one either just in case.
The Coinstrike was in production for about 10 years so it's not like it had no track record. In the big picture, it sucked, hardly anybody wanted it, that's why we had to discontinue it.
Actually, if you knew how to use it, it was a pretty good machine. The problems were that hardly anybody could figure out how to get it to produce, and that the high manufacturing costs that were built into it couldn't be eliminated through improved manufacturing processes.
I only wish that when we bought Fisher that the Coinstrike was the only grief we took delivery on. There was much worse.
With a good coil on it its not a hard machine to run at all! For coins I set it,
Iron Disc to 99
Threshold to -5
Sensitivity to 7
Salt off.
Notch out foil & Zinc's
Ground trac on (most of the time)
Sweep it a little faster than the CZ's
When I first got mine and while it still had the bad coil, I danced around with the settings and that screwed up manual thinking I didn't have the brains to run it, then when my co-worker got his he just pretty much turned his on and went hunting. Which is the way mine is now!
The detector keeps the last settings when you turn it off and back on (except for ground balance and ground track).
If I run into some EMI problems I just adjust the threshold a bit to a little higher minus number, like -25 and lower the sensitivity to maybe a 5.
But with a good coil its a pretty nice detector.
Mark
I have a memory of standing in a light rain on a dark and gloomy day at a combination park/athletic field waving my CoinStrike around in the air because it showed that all my ground was a solid sheet of iron but I was getting 73 id numbers with the coil in the air mumbling to myself that I was a crazy man for being out in the rain waving this thing around looking like a looney to the passerbys.
But with a little time I figured it out. Found my first two gold rings with a CoinStrike.
The ground balance was sweet. It would ground balance spot on and you could hear the ground minerals that were outside the ground balance as very light crackles and chirps of which the volume was not at all unpleasant. That light ground noise actually told me when my ground minerals had shifted, when I'd quit hearing the ground noise it was time to re-balance. The new Fisher visuals are nice but there was something about hearing it in a pleasant manner while in disc mode that I miss. The T2/F75 do the same thing but not nearly as fatique free.
It performed real well in magnetic ground. If you found a good spot (or made a good spot) to ground balance, depth was above average. It up averaged deeper objects so that you dug a bit more trash sometimes as compared to others. It loves round objects, kind of like the CZ3D but even more so. That was why it like the steel bottle caps so much. The way to hunt the Coinstrike was if it locked on, it was a round object and you needed to dig it up. Didn't matter what the TID number was, you cared more about if you had a lock or not. I ran my with Averaging On.
They hunt real well next to large iron. The Iron disc was pretty good too. If you go back a few years you will also find posts where it was hunted in some really bad ground where all the targets id'ed as ferrous targets but the CoinStrike still ided the targets properly but with negative numbers. Probably need to go back about 5-6 years to find those posts.
Plenty of power available. There were some places I had to run with a 0 sensitivity setting and -40 threshold setting and still recovered coins around 5" deep. Not many people can make themselves run with lower settings so lots had trouble with that. EMI was a issue but could be adjusted around it.
One of my favorite units. My big dislike is the old school user interface (only a little better than the Discovery models). The preset was too hot for most folks (me included) that were just starting out with it, and since many detector owners have little experience with running lower sensitivity levels, it was easy to get fustrated with it.
I thnk that may be one of the reasons I like the F5 so well. It kind of reminds me a bit of the CoinStrike.
The Coinstrike was my first detector, I wish I had picked up a Fisher CZ instead, the C$ was too much for a newb, and I found out that it just didn't work that great in California from other experienced users that did have it (didn't do well in EMI, didn't like mineralization, etc).
I had no problem learning the CoinStrike and still own it, actuality my GF has taken it over going from a F-2 to the CoinStrike. So how hard can it be for a new detector user of 3 months to be filling her finds bag every hunt. Dave J. you must work for First Texas and don't know how you could say that the CS was anything but the last of the "Good" Fisher line, I don't want to step on anyones toes that are happy with the current F line... we have a F-2 and its a fine detector but I hate what I seen happen to Great detectors like Teknetics and Fisher, I hate the one case fits all and swap a chip here and its a Fisher and one less IC and its a Teknetics... I really hate the flower pot cases of the bounty hunters. But that is what happens when one company gobbles up other company's. These views are my own on First Texas and If someone likes the F models or T models its what ever makes them happy. Same as my choices but I hate seeing a Great Company like fisher with a product offering "Lifetime" Warranty, and since they were bought out now don't honor the Lifetime Warranty... that speaks for its self, as for the CS... I'm with MarkCZ and would bet a paycheck that the only problem the CS had was bad coils that give it a bad name. My 1888 Avatar was found with the CS.
the Coinstrike brings back good memories for me as well. Modern trash or iron it was/is one of the better concentric coil fitted machines out there for coins. Hot on small low conductors as well.
Funny you mention the mineralization background noise, I noticed that as well in my mild ground but only at hot threshold (+) settings. My more typical setting was sens 8, threshold -10. When strictly coin hunting had to notch out foil because it reported every dang tiny little piece at modern trashy sites. With the foil notched out the high conductors down under the layers of trash came thru the mask with no problems using a ground covering moderate to fast sweep. I typically have very mild ground in my area but when encountering clays or glacial gravel beds the CZ's can't compete with the mineral handling of the Coinstrike. Yup, lots of good to say about the C$ from me as well.
It's no secret that the costs involved with the CZ-20 warranties were a biggie. The 1270 as good as it is is also a headache for FTP regarding warranty work.
The big problem with most of those grand old Fisher products was that independently of any question of whether they "worked" or not, customers had just about stopped buying them. Those products were killing the Old Fisher with massive financial losses, and we didn't intend for them to kill the New Fisher, too.
The Coinstrike works pretty good for a small handful of people who master its vast peculiarities and who got their hands on a unit with a good searchcoil. (That thing's searchcoils are just about the most miserable-to-make ones we've got.) The Coinstrike eventually led to the Excel and the Edge which were much more user friendly machines. But y'know, we can't just send some tough guys out there to twist people's arms and make 'em buy the things. In the end we had to get rid of inventory by darn near giving the things away.
The Old Fisher products that survive are pre-Cimino units that people keep buying-- the GB2 and the CZ. From a manufacturing standpoint they're a pain, but at least we can sell them once they're built.
* * * *
Those BH's aren't flower pots, they're "mufflers on a stick". Yep, they're ugly, but they sure have a lot of happy customers. The lowly TK4 is the only muffler on a stick product I haven't redesigned for improved manufacturability and performance. Several times I've told the boss, "Y'know, with a little redesign we could make the TK4 a lot nicer." And every time he says "It doesn't have any manufacturing problems, we sell schittloads of those things, and customers love 'em. That's a problem I don't want fixed."
Thanks, Dave. Consumers never think of the issues from your side. My father ran a company that manufactured gas log fireplaces and there was a constant battle between the sales people who wanted to sell for less than the cost to produce and management who had no clue about production issues. It is really helpful to be reminded we have to keep First Texas profitable or we will be carving dowsing rods to hunt with!
Thanks for what you and the team at FT do to make the best MDs in the world! IMHO!
Tom
PS Could you check with Felix about how my repair is coming? just kidding
Hi Jackpine,
Did you ever notice the "star wars light sabre hum" of the all metal mode? I used to get the biggest kick out of that The threshold would crackle and hum around the edges and sound just like the light sabres in the star wars movies. I used to hunt in all metal just because I thought that audio was fun.
Memories. Sometimes I think about getting another one but I know the user interface will bug me and I'll end up selling it.
Hi Dave,
Yep, that lowly Tracker IV was what got me into the hobby to start with and I still like it. Seems that I'm always looking for those same features with a little more performace. The latest one I'm comparing against it is Tesoro's Pantera.
Hard to believe that Coinstrikes were selling for $250 - $300 there for a while. You know the sales are down when the inventory is being dumped.
I will say that the C$ probably had the best pinpoint of any detector I've used, it was surgically accurate, you could easily trace a target in ground to determine what it was.
Also the depth readout, although odd at first, was actually pretty good once you understood it.
I will say that the C$ probably had the best pinpoint of any detector I've used, it was surgically accurate, you could easily trace a target in ground to determine what it was.
Also the depth readout, although odd at first, was actually pretty good once you understood it.
It don't have a depth readout!
In the pinpoint mode It has a signal intensity numeric readout. Yes, you can convert the numbers somewhat because the deeper the target is the lower numeric readout will. But this part of the readout is supposed to be used for pinpointing in that when the number is its highest your directly over the target.
But they're isn't any kind of depth scale built into the Coin$trike, nor does the detector have any system of converting the numbers for judging depth.
just kiddin
g
The threshold would crackle and hum around the edges and sound just like the light sabres in the star wars movies. I used to hunt in all metal just because I thought that audio was fun.