ID-EDGE Coils

[redthetech]

I recently purchased an ID-EDGE and was checking to see what coils were available for it. I found a couple of dealers that were listing a 5" coil, but I could not find any listing on the Fisher website for the 5 inch coil. Has Fisher stopped making the coil and would it worth picking one up for trashy areas ?

 

[BarnacleBill]

Information on the "Fisher" website can be spotty. And yes the coil is excellent in trash and well worthwhile. But there is a caveat here, I would look for one that is NOS(New Old Stock) that was produced by Fisher California before the buyout. And there is no better place to start than Mr. Bill who is a dealer/sponsor here and owns http://surfscanner.com/.

Give him a ring and he can probably kit you right up.

HH
BarnacleBill

 

[Nortonics]

But there is a caveat here, I would look for one that is NOS(New Old Stock) that was produced by Fisher California before the buyout.BarnacleBill

Could you elaborate? For a 5" coil??!!

 

[BarnacleBill]

Fisher was purchased by First Texas and the quality of product has been spotty. Therefore if I were going to purchase a product that was produced prior to the buyout, I'd seek out those produced before the buyout, rather than after.

HH
BarnacleBill

 

[redthetech]

Thanks for the heads up. I'll be sending out some e-mails to see if I can locate one made by Fisher California. I'd eventually like to get the 10 1/2 inch spider, but the 5 inch would be handier because some of the areas I hunt are trashy or brushy.

 

[Nortonics]

Fisher was purchased by First Texas and the quality of product has been spotty. Therefore if I were going to purchase a product that was produced prior to the buyout, I'd seek out those produced before the buyout, rather than after.

HH
BarnacleBill

I was aware of the buyout, and that a CZ-3D from the earlier days may be a better choice, but a coil? Really, how much flubbing up could take place in a coil? Has there been any evidence of this, or are users complaining of coil problems with newer units? I dunno' - just sounds like that's an unfair assumption.

 

[BarnacleBill]

I'm not assuming ANYTHING! Anyone that has followed this and the F75, C$, Edge forum for the past 2 years will confirm that there have been significant issues with coil failures on all of the newly released F series. Before the buyout coil failures were virtually unheard of, with the exception of the Cz20's, where the coils and their connection points are put under high stress.

HH
BarnacleBill

 

[Mike Scott]

Hi BarnacalBill,

Failures before the buyout were unheard of because no one was buying the product so there were so few out there the failure rate seemed extremely low. The buyout happened because no one was buying Fisher products and the ship was sinking. I was working for the largest Fisher distributor and what little Fisher units we were able to sell also had the occasional coil and bad detectors same as most other manufacturers. We were also the largest Garrett, Minelab, and Tesoro distributor so I know where Fisher fell in line with the others in terms of sales. Let

 

[tony (Orlando FL)]

n/t

 

[BarnacleBill]

Hi Mike,

I hope that you've been able to avoid any of the nasty effects of that big blow you all had down that way, and I imagine it's been quite a geographical adjustment you've had to make in taking your new position.

I agree that the later Fisher California products were better than their sales indicated. However that was a failure in marketing and not of design or manufacturing. The semiconductor manufacturing equipment company that held Fisher California obviously didn't understand what they owned or how to run it. One fallacy I see continuously bandied about on these forums is that Fisher California was in danger of bankruptcy. Simply not true, because I looked at the balance sheets of the parent company and they had plenty of cash which they could have injected, had they desired to do so. Obviously there was not such a desire and they looked to unload the company as they had lost interest.

In regards to the small coil for the Edge. Having field tested the Edge, I recall the marketing individual responsible for releasing that information had been out for a medical reason, possibly maternity leave. I learned this via Richard Howe whom I'm sure you will recall.

As to the mistake in wiring of the small coil. I believe that was an issue of the C$ & Edge coils being released at the same time which caused a mix-up. That was a one time event of an accessory coil that is not shipped with a detector unit.

As to current failure rate as a percentage of numbers sold, that would be one thing if units sold were a very high number with a singular failure per customer. But that is not what is being reported by many users. Individual owners are having multiple failures of a single unit, with coils being in that mix. As is being related by a current poster on the F75 forum, his unit is going back for the third time. As far as I am concerned this individual has the patience of Job.

If I may be so bold as to suggest that addressing these QC issues via customer service action is not what is needed. That keeps the individuals in Customer Service & Sales constantly putting out brush fires, which has to be very stressful. It needs to go back to Engineering & Manufacturing to take the onus off of the front line people, or the front line people are going to get burnt out. Mike you shouldn't have to be spending your weekends responding to posts on Internet forums!

Recently I have seen posts relating that Fisher product is now being made in Mexico, which brings back very bad memories for me personally. ABC(name altered) corporation for years supplied my company with switches from their manufacturing operations in the Mid-West. The failure rate at that point was in the low single digits percentage wise, which was manageable. They decided to "improve their bottom line" and moved all the machine tools to Mexico. Suddenly failure rates out of the box zoomed to 80%+ and they cost us tens of thousands of dollars on our manufacturing line. And no, the products never left our factory, everything is 100% QC'd and if there was even any glimmer of doubt, the products were re-worked. We then told ABC to stuff their switches where the sun don't shine, and redesigned our circuit boards to accept a competitor's switches. Fast forward a couple a of years and we find ABC once again darkening our doorway begging to be re-considered as a supplier, since we had been one of their largest customers for that particular switch line. They informed us they had learned their lessons with Mexico and moved manufacturing to China. We determined to take a sample of switches from them, which when tested had a failure rate that was actually better than the original U.S. based operation had been. Sad to say but most companies have moved their switch manufacturing to China, and that's just the way it is. But Mexico my amigo does not give me warm & fuzzy feelings!

Regards,
BarnacleBill

 

[oneton]

I have never seen recalls on the id wdge,coinstrike,or the czs.These units were sold all over the country and outside the country with no problems,recalls or etc,Many many of these units were sold and proven to be great detectors.Infact many people are selling the f75 and going back to the czs and other proven detectors like the id edge that bill ladd helped designed.The edge is a gerat detector.The czs are top of the line and will hunt without much falseing, and the tid is right on the money everytime and does not jump around like the f75 or the f5 for that matter.The old fishers were built like a tank and had a lifetime warranty.Fisher must had put everything they could into their detectors to give a lifetime warranty.To answer your question, Try to buy your coil that was made by the old fisher company,or you may get a bounty hunter coverup.

 

[deerman]

The Edge is a great detector at seperating targets even with just the stock coil, but if the areas really trashy you would do well to get the smaller coil as it will hit deeper targets almost as well as the stock coil its size is 5.75 so its not really a 5 in coil and it works well around playground areas too

 

[deerman]

The coils i have gotten work really well for me in the areas i hunt and thay were all from calif. with no prob. at all the only diff. i see is in the larger coil in that in will I'D' on the edge one number higher then what i get with the stock coil as for building over seas and mexico I Think you are right on in your assesment of things coming out of mexico and in some other countrys too as a person who works for
all the auto companys in the area i live (I do press repair /rebuild) i see a lot of things getting shipped off to another country INCLUDING the presses we repair for other companys with the cost of manufacting in the U.S. going up all the time becouse of rising gas,living ect the companys can't afford to pay people here in the states 25.00 to 30.00 dollars an hour plus heath care too just to sit and watch a press punch out parts when that can go to -------------------(fill in the blank with who you think has the lowest cost) at a cost of 5.00 an hour and that includes shipping to and back!!, the people making things over seas are really just starting to learn what works and what won't china and japan are really good at electronics and are VERY picky about what gos out the door there qc is at or better then the U.S. We need to improve our way of doing things too so we as a country can reap the rewards of that thinking and get back on our feet God bless the U.S.A. and all the people in it...

 

[oneton]

I agree japan has great qc,but china is another story,china will get by qc as much as they can,Look at all the toys that comes into our country which are bad for the health of our children.,watch the tv it tells us plenty about china,look at the qc of china's new cars.The us crashed test their cars,What a laugh.

 

[Keith Southern]

It's one of the finest detectors I've ever owned actually I have 2 of them and I'm on the look out for a 3rd one.The Designer of the edge Dimitar I belive I've spelled it correctly did some quite impressive design work on the Edge.Its a truly amazing digital machine.Its also a deep seeker and no electrical interference problems dead on target response and one of the (no actually it is the best at pulling low conductors out of iron you will ever run across)..If you hunt trashy spots this thing is dangerous.

There's people over seas who have seen the value of the Edge in the centuries old iron and have made some great finds with it.

As far as the coil problems on the 5.75's there was no real problem just someone stuck Edge decals on the coinstrike coils. all of them were not like that just some had the wrong sticker. As a matter of fact the only difference between a coinstrike coil and an edge coil is the coinstrike ground's to the connector via a bare jumper wire the edge does not I believe its pin 2 . I've took coinstrike coils and used them on my edges just by clipping the ground lug. But the coils them-selves are spot on no problems typical old school fisher quality.

Not trying to cause any problems but I would'nt Discount the edge.

Its more like everything else nowadays in this attention deficit disorder world we live in.Fisher did'nt use to have to come out with a new machine every year or change the name at least.they were making a quality product and people new it and they bought one and it lasted and lasted and when they decided to get a new machine they would go to the dealer and fisher was still selling the model they already had because it worked .There is only so much you can make a metal detector do till you just start rehashing to make sales .

Lets face the facts the only way to sell detectors is to gimmick you into buying it.its too dang hard to find quality finds any more for the majority of the detecting world because the well known places to hunt have been hunted for 40 -50 years.So people buy machines with lots of bells and whistles thinking they will have a better chance to find all the goodies the brochures show people finding with type x machine.(10% of the detectorist make 90%of the finds)

I believe the internet played a big part in fishers demise it got where there were detector wars broke out on the forums most of the people on the forums are up and comers in the detector world and they cut there teeth on target I.d. machines that were programmable and they were into the computers and fancy detectors
and fishers were easy to use turn on and go simplicity but got over looked.I know alot of old school hunters and they would'nt part with a 1265-1266 for any thing they just find stuff ( I'm talking about relics that most people dream of) and stay away from the internet actually they don't even know about internet forums..

I might of made this post longer than I wanted to but old fisher was great and I like the new fishers .I just hope there not the flavor of the month in this no loyalty type world in which we live in..

Keith