Need Help on Fisher F5 depth and Modifications

I have a F5 with the DD currently and unless I am in areas that don't produce deep finds I feel my F5 is not that deep. I live in an area that has been populated since the mid 1800's and have hunted sites with homes, farms and schools dating back to 1885-1900 so I would suspect there is deep coins that are present, but I never seem to get deep signals that are not large iron or pop cans burried in the ground.

I have been looking for an old CZ unit as I hear they are really deep, but I would prefer not to have multiple detectors if possible. Is there a mod that gets the F-5 deeper that i could look into? I am not worried about warranty issues and I am very good with solder if needed. If anyone has done any such mod I would love to hear about it or any mod for the F5 for that matter. I have never done an air test maybe I will try that as well maybe I just am thinking it isn't deep.

On a side note I can't seem to pull nickles for the life of me, a friend I hunt with has an Etrac and he gets them all the time, is there a way to tighten this up as well?

Help me out if you have an answer I would appreciate it. Thanks!

The nickel coin issue is mainly due to the 7.8KHz operating frequency, I think. It will find them, obviously, but at depth, they are more likely to ID as iron. A higher freq machine, 12 - 18kHz, eg. Tek T2, should in theory be better on nickels.
There are several larger aftermarket coils for the F5 / Tek Greek series machines, they may get you the extra depth you are after.

Yep. I find way more nickels with my T2 than I did with my F2. I figure it is the higher frequency.

The F5 is not known to be a deep seeker, mine maxes out at about 8" depending on conditions and set up. Mike Hillis has posted that he gets more depth from his F5 by maxing out the threshold pot, its not a defined spot on the pot but he maxes the knob(+9) and gets it to "slip" into this mode. I think he says it boosts audio of the weaker signals . If it is depth you need then a good CZ will get you there.

I used a F5 as my primary or backup detector for the better part of three years.

Depth is good but not great. There are numerous machines that will get better depth. But in its price range, the F5 does well. And you're right neb, the detector is not particularly good on nickels.

A big key to getting the best depth is to run the detector as hot as you can and still have it stable - with the coil in motion.

A F5 at its full depth potential will be annoyingly EMI sparky when the coil is not moving, but it will quiet down when you swing the coil.

As for mods, I've never heard of any to increase depth.

Mike Hillis is the guru of the F5, you definitely should look into his posts for most of what you want to know.

Thinking of the best way to help........

I'd recommend you watch Bill_S's F5 videos. Look at his settings. Watch how the deeper targets are hitting on the display and audio. Look at his ground readings. I think that will help some.

Ground cancel at the settings you will be hunting at. If you change your Gain, ground cancel again and confirm it.

Keep your threshold away from zero, either below it a few numbers below it or a few numbers above it. Keep the deeper targets 'ping' ing and not whispering.

Regards nickels....nickels conductivity is one of those that change based upon ground minerals and corrosion and depth. They'll drop down into foil or rise up into tab ranges. I've even seen nickels hit like zinc pennys on some detectors. You just don't know what they are doing at a site until you find one.

No mods.

HH
Mike

Its tough to follow Mike but no unit can do it all and its certainly a light, large metered accurate unit with decent depth....tough to compare with a CZ which certainly coil for coil will go as deep as any. As far as nickles my local parks are loaded with tabs that read close to a nickel but if its a 30 almost always a nickel. Keep in mind older nickles such as V and shield will read lower in the foil range on any metered unit...Guess that's why most of us have several units to cover most situations...Used a lot of units and accuracy wise with a meter large enough for a blind guy to see hard to beat in parks situations where extreme depth is not needed. Of course then out comes the CZ for deep silver situations...

Thanks for clearing some issues up and getting me some resources. Maybe I will just have to add onto my fold of detectors and find a CZ6, 6a, or 5. Since there seems to be a bunch of info out on them I will pick through and see which I want more. I am thinking the 6a since it is water resistant and can use all the coils except for the 6. On that note has anyone ever put different connectors on a coil and control box so they could use a 5/6a coil on a 6 or vise versa? If so can you use anytype of waterproof connectors to do the mod?

For your info original CZ6 came with a 4 pin connector that was molded and could not be repaired and as they had some problems with this connector loosing contact they went to a 5 pin on the CZ6A and all the CZ models that followed. Personally would stay away from the CZ6 as its circa 1992 and doubt even Fisher has any 4 pin connectors. Do yourself a favor and pick up a CZ6A on with a five pin connector and you won't have any problem finding acc. coils. I see some CZ6 units come up on classifieds that look good but should they go down Fisher will charge you a hundred dollar bill or so just to change the over to a CZ6A before they work on them so cost prohibitive unless some one gives you one or you can pick one up quite cheap.

Hello, I'm Dan from Romania and i love metal detecting as you are.
I have a fisher f5 with 11DD coil and i'm not impressed of it's depth findings. max depth on a coin was 6", but i have it from march and i still have alot to learn. i read all Mike Hillis's post i found but i'm eager for more info. so i have a few questions:
1. the battery charge state influences depth? i mean a full 4 bars vs 2 bars.
2. sometimes in all metal mode the device says it "sees" something and signals it by a repetible sound at every swing but with no number on VDI. it's worth digging or is falsing?
3. a larger aftermarket coil gives a visible increase in depth or is jus a tiny boost? i refer to a detech ultimate 13".
4. Mike sayed something about the "sweet spot" o the concentric coil related to pinpoiting. with de 11 DD i find it somewhat difficult to accurate pinpoint in 40% of my diggs the target was in the sidewall of the hole. so can you tell me where the dd coil "sweet spot" is?
thank you alot!
GL&HH



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/22/2014 06:59PM by ktlzhr.

The power from the battery is regulated to almost all the electronics, so battery condition will have no influence on performance, until they are really flat. The only non-regulated function is the audio drive (loudspeaker / headphones) which may result in a slight drop in volume as the batteries discharge.

The coil sweet-spot is exactly in the centre, as you would expect. Not every target pinpoints correctly - flat items like coins and buttons can easily be several inches away from their 'magnetic centre', and false signals from iron are even worse.

The 'thing' you see in all-metal but with no ID value is possibly an iron-containing rock. I have dug a few before, mine were a red colour (rust) and a magnet was weakly attracted to them. Try and dig one of these targets, and see.

thank you for your quick reply! i will try to dig a few non ID-in targets to see and i'll post the results here.
GL & HH to all!
L.E. : Mike says to watch Bill_S's F5 videos, where can i find them? I searched but nothing...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/23/2014 05:48AM by ktlzhr.

ktlzhr Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> thank you for your quick reply! i will try to dig
> a few non ID-in targets to see and i'll post the
> results here.
> GL & HH to all!
> L.E. : Mike says to watch Bill_S's F5 videos,
> where can i find them? I searched but nothing...

his channel is dirtfishing

hello! it's me again. i was detecting only one time since my last post and i didn't found those signals without VDI in all metal, so nothing to say. the only thing i realised is that i need a little more depth, so i ask again: it worths puttting money in a detech ultimate 13" coil?
thank you!