Shortening the Tornado coil cable.

[Ism]

Has anybody here shortened their Tornado coil cable? I can't think of a reason besides warranty and resale for not shortening it.
I don't hip-mount my box and probably never will. If you have shortened the cable, was there any cable shielding?

I don't like winding 15 turns of cable around the shaft. If the cable isn't shielded, then that makes an inductor.
I can't imagine it helps performance in any way. Experts care to chime in?
Thanks
Ran

 

[borntofli]

I shortened mine, and all you do is solder a new connector on..... No shielding...

 

[Critterhunter]

I thought about shortening my coil cables but decided not to as sometimes I water hunter and when I do I chest mount the control box so I need the extra length, at least on my 10" Tornado which I use for water hunting.

 

[Rick(ND)]

I didn't on a Tornado coil, but on my 8 inch coinsearch coil and reused the connector, I cut off the connector with a little of the wires on so I knew what colors went where.
I was told it shouldn't make a difference by Minelab and Ralph at Sun Ray about performance, but I feel it made a difference for me as it seem to be more sensitive, quieter and even slightly deeper. Maybe in theory it don't, or maybe it was just me, but this was the coil I was using when I was going real slow with and picked out over 70 older coins and 15 new out of a well worked park I was challenged to find 1 old coin in. I got some dimes and pennies at 10-12 inches deep. I sold that Sovereign with the coil on it and wished I would have kept the coil as to me it seem to make a difference. I am not sure how much I cut off the cable, but I know I only had to do about 3 wraps of the cable to reach my S-1 control box.

 

[deepdiger60]

I did not on my Tornado,s but i did on my Sun Ray S-12 coil i just didn't need all that wire going from the coil to the search probe which is mounted mid poll i took off 30 inches in the middle i soldered the wire,s back together and used heat shrink tubes on each wire and encased all in a larger shrink tube plus a few rounds of electrical tape it works prefect , i do hip mount from the sun ray search probe to the GT box so i asked Ralph at Sun Ray to put a 50" wire on my S-1 search probe he did a great job plenty of wire to swing the coil and i got it back fast to it,s a trade off lost some wire gain some wire so far it works great HH Jim

 

[Ism]

Thanks for your quick helpful replies everybody!!
I will shorten it. I have connectors and a nice electronics work bench.
It should improve performance removing 4 inductors from my coil.
lets see.... around 8uh/inductor and two are on transmit.

I'll letcha know
HH
Ran

 

[Critterhunter]

Shortening the wire should lower resistance and thus slightly more voltage will get to the TX coil. Shortening the cable would also lesson introduced noise into the received signal. Whether those two factors are even a large enough of improvement to increase performance is anybody's guess. In theory you'd have a ever so slightly stronger transmit signal and would be able to increase the gain (sensitivity) without as much distortion. I just don't know if those two things would even be enough of an improvement that it could even be measured.

 

[Ism]

It may not be noticable, but I suspect that shortening the cable can only help. I learned a lot about the Sov making my own meter and studying the cable.
First is that pin #5 (the meter wire), comes from the box, not the coil. So I found the signal that comes from the coil (Pin #4) and looked at it with the scope.
I noticed a change in the signal quite a bit before I get an audio indication of that change. I have read about an aftermarket amplifier available in
2008 that connected inline with the coil. The claims by people that owned them were that it added a couple inches of depth and was stable.
It seems to be off the market now but as I put two-n-two together I'm starting to wonder....

Just thinking with my fingers...grin

 

[MHirschmann]

I have been told by a couple of guys who change a lot of excal coils for others that you ABSOLUTELY SHOULD NOT shorten your stock coil cable. They both said that they have done tests and have found that shortening the cable is harmful to performance. They told me that the Excal was designed and built to the length of coil that it comes with and apparently shortening this length has noticeable negative effects on the machine. This information came from 2 guys that I truly trust on anything having to do with Excals. Anyone who disagrees with me, feel free to do so as I am no expert, but these two guys I know absolutely are. Do what you want but my vote is not to do it. Good luck and HH -Marc

 

[Ism]

Mark,
Your opinion makes sense and is welcome here. I also thought of the engineered aspect in the cable length.
That's why I asked the question. I haven't shortened it yet but if I do, I will share the results with the group.

If there is any other location for info that you could offer, PM me

Thanks
Ran

 

[OldBeechnut]

Have Excal & Sov..One short, one long cabled. Performance, Hard to tell, very little gain or loss if any. Been working on Excalibur's for the past year now and have noticed on several, a shorter cable would mean... less area to be influenced by outside conditions. One of the Biggest...Cable wrapped around the shaft, stress/tension on the outer part of the cable, if you leave it in that state over a period of time it will causing it to crack if not properly maintained, and this is 99% in Saltwater surroundings. My Vote is with Critter, If your never going to Body mount the excal, I think a shorter cable would be to one's advantage..Just my Opinion....................joe

 

[deepdiger60]

This is what Coiltek had to say about shortening he coil cable .

10. If the cable is too long for me can I shorten it? Does this improve its performance?
Yes, shortening a coil cable is fine however there will be a minimum distance required from the control box and headphones. If you are too close to these parts then there can potentially be an increase in noise through your detector. We really only notice performance issues when the coil cable is too long. The increased resistance of the length of cable affects the coils ability to transmit and receive within the frequency of the detector. The standard coil cable length is perfectly adequate for the detector to perform its magic and we have noticed no performance increase when shortening the cable below this length.

http://coiltekmanufacturing.com.au/faq.html#q10
Jim

 

[Rick(ND)]

It should make no difference by shorting the cable, but for me it seem to make a difference whether it does or not but I had better luck with my 8 inch coinsearch after I had shorten it up.The only reason it is so long is for those that want to hip mount their Sovereigns as one size fits all.

 

[Ism]

I just read through the geotech coils forum.
A couple people make their own Sov coils there and make no mention whatsoever about cable length.
So I asked and a well known detector electronics engineer said no negative effect on Tx or Rx.

I will give it a go....
Thanks for all responses to my question.

 

[joe(maine)]

[size=medium]I have a XS-2a pro with the minelab meter and a Sunray probe. I cut 5 ft. off of the two stock coils that came with this detector, and there's no difference I can see in their performance. And I still have to wrap the coil cable around the shaft 6 or 7 times. I rarely hip mount my control box, but when I do, the cable on the meter is plenty long enough for me (I'm 5'6"). I bought connectors and made an extention cord out of one of the pieces I cut off the coils. So, If I took the meter off and wanted to hip mount, I could use the extention cord.[/size]

 

[elki1052]

Hi, I work on electronics and there shouldnt be a problem on shrinking the cable for as long you protected agains the weather using like shink rap on the connection.
thx.
Abel

 

[Ism]

I shortened the cable last night, no problems with functionality. Now on to finish the meter...

 

[Critterhunter]

I remember reading a while back some blurb about a guy who repairs Excals for people and he said something about shortening the cables on them to improve performance. Look at it this way. Shortening the cable won't hurt anything and MIGHT help increase performance. Slightly less resistance (due to shorter wire length) means possibly more voltage (power) at the TX coil, resulting in a strong TX signal being transmitted into the ground. Also, shorter wire means it's going to pick up less noise as the RX signal received is being sent back up the wire to the control box. Less introduced noise means less distortion, so you can run sensitivity higher.

Again, whether these two factors above are a large enough improvement to show increased performance is the big question. If anything, less wire mess wrapped around the shaft (and slightly less weight) is reason enough to do it. Then there's the extra cable length on the DigiSearch meter which really adds to the mess. That means even more possiblility to pick up noise, etc.

 

[Ism]

Took it out in the yard today after the rain and tested it. It seems the same if not better.
Thanks everyone for sharing your knowlege on the Tornado coil so I could make an informed decision.
Ran

 

[Critterhunter]

Just make sure anybody considering shortening their cable length never plans to hip or chest mount the control box for things like water hunting. On the other hand, if you are using a meter mounted on the shaft it wouldn't matter if you shortened the coil's cable because the meter has enough length to reach the hip/chest mount.

Another potential problem with shortening the cable is resale value. You might have a harder time selling it if somebody wants to hip or chest mount without a meter for things like water hunting.