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Merton - You Get Your Gold Racer Sorted Out Yet?


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6 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

You all do read the warranties, right?

Right? :huh:

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Dilek emailed me that the Gold Racer coils work on the AU Gold Finder.

However, the little GR19 coil I received today was defective straight out of the box.
Super noisy with intermittent overloads when held in air. Yuck!
I think something is wrong with the connector cable wiring.
When I hook up my 5" round coil in the same spot, everything goes back to normal. (Quiet operation)

Nokta/Makro needs to get their act together on quality control.

-Don

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Been busy and have not checked mine yet! Better get on it.

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Steve,  I just have not used my GR enough to say too much about it. I have some initial impressions of its performance and they are very positive. The reliability issue may not be an issue at all. Two machines breaking does not constitute a recall issue. All manufacturers have some problems and Makro is not an exception yet I have been very pleased with the design of the machines they make.

I hunted in the heavy iron at a railway siding for only a couple hours and I was very impressed with the speed and discrimination. Of course we both know Makro's menu tree/display is one of the best available. I can make no determination about depth on relics/coins as I was in machine gun iron at the RR siding.

Next I took it to a hard rock tailing pile that has a fair amount of the tiniest of detectable gold. The type of gold where it's so small if one guy has a GBII he gets 40 pieces and the dude with a GMT ends up with 6 pieces. Not bashing the GMT, just seen the scenario play out before. Ran the GR and GBII side by side comparing targets. I usually won't do this as I am not into testing but detect to have fun. But I needed to satisfy myself as to the performance of this new machine versus the GBII so I could hunt with confidence in the future. The GR did not disappoint. I could not discern a clear winner. This was only one snapshot of what occurred on one tailing pile with tiny gold at a certain level of mineralization. But if the GR performance I saw that day is equaled at other locales in different detecting scenarios Makro has a big winner on their hands.

Just when I was really having fun with the GR it broke. The fitting the coil wire screws onto came loose in the housing causing noise problems. I happened to be in the area so I took it to my dealer, Chris Porter @ Detectoraid.com and he confirmed my diagnosis of the problem so I then called Moe at Detector Electronics. He gave me an RA number and off it went. Before it was returned to me I had to leave for work where I have been the past month. My problem was dealt with in a timely manner and I was very happy with their service. The comment about their return shipping being on a slow boat may be accurate though I did not pay close attention as I was away. Detector electronics sent me a new control head so I am hopeful I have no more problems with the GR because I think I am really going to like this machine. I hope to have some time with the GR soon to put her through the paces.

On 5/24/2016 at 5:37 PM, Steve Herschbach said:

For anyone who already has a Gold Bug 2 and who is just wanting to chase tiny gold nuggets I do not know that there is any specific advantage in going to the Gold Racer.

I may have to disagree with you on this later. We all need much more time under a variety of detecting situations before any advantages become clear but the ease which the GR can be GB'ed and the improved iron discrimination are two very large advantages in my book. I always thought the 3x6 coil on the GBII was what made the machine. I would usually disdain use of the 10" coil as I felt it degraded the performance. I tried the 14" coil on the end of the stick once and won't bother with a comment. I am sure both those coils have their place and some people will love them, that just wasn't me. On the GR I used the 5x10 relic hunting and the 5R on the tailings. My initial impressions of both coils were they are really good on this machine. Since then I have purchased the 5x10 concentric and the 4x7 DD and am anxious to see how they perform when I get the chance. On the strength of your review I plan on  buying VANURSE PAUL's 13x15 (cheaply too, LOL). I guess I am trying to say the GR initially looks to be a good performer with a variety of coils where as the GBII wasn't in my opinion. This wider coil selection to me means increased performance in a multitude of detecting scenarios where the tiny 3x6 on the GBII sucked.

I look forward to trading notes and tips with you and others on this machine as we get some swing time on it.

Merton

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All good news overall Merton, glad to hear it!

These days no manufacturer of metal detectors can be bragging too much about quality. We have the White's MX Sport still going on, there was the Fisher 75, the Garrett AT Pro, and the Minelab 4500. All with problems. Makro has been no worse and has gone above and beyond in satisfying people's issues.

On performance I was strictly referencing tiny gold. The Gold Bug 2 detects gold as small as is practical to find and it is basically impossible that the Gold Racer could be much if any better on tiny bits. However for overall performance and gold finding ability it is no contest. I thought I would NEVER not have a Gold Bug 2. Yet when I first laid hands on the prototype Gold Racer I immediately sold my two Gold Bug 2s and have not regretted it one bit. There are too many more features on the Gold Racer; I really like having a full screen system with excellent discrimination options plus a good range of DD coils and a concentric coil. There in no way the Gold Bug 2 with the 14" elliptical concentric coil can hit larger gold as deep as with the 15" x 13" DD coil on the Gold Racer, especially in bad ground.

I would not use a Gold Racer if I thought a Gold Bug 2 would do better for me. Yet the Gold Racer can do very many things a Gold Bug 2 cannot do.

I love detecting gold but comparing machines head to head is fun also. I like learning new stuff about detectors and the Gold Racer is truly unique. I look forward to hearing any thoughts Merton good or bad you have on yours as we learn more about them.

Anyone else with a Makro Gold Racer or Nokta AU Gold Finder feel free to join in the fun!

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Will join the fun because it does not seem fair not to. Read every single post on this forum and most on Dankowski's. Some very smart people to be found here and there. People that forgot more about metal detecting than I am ever likely to know, knowledge I make good use of so it seems right to return some. Posting there on Dankowski is me looking for others with a passion for micro jewelry. But not many are sick enough to like it in the same way, even there.

My new Gold Racer went down in a week, but in the short period of time it worked, what it could do was amply demonstrated and what was possible proven. The GR performs well when it works, and it is perfect for micro. Very little iron need be dug yet the operator gets to know it is there if they wish. That is very valuable, because knowing every single little thing that is there whether it is dug or not is about the best defense for target masking there is short of digging everything.

That screen on the GR is why. Micro jewelry is not a hard target, it is a large range of targets. Larger than the range for any other class of desirable target. The range for larger jewelry is different, more predictable, the rules change when it gets very small. With the display in all metal you get to see a target number on everything while hearing everything. The exact number does not matter much for micro because it runs from actually in the iron right up into copper pennies. Any target discriminated out in that range has potential to be lost gold and any target lying near a discriminated target is likely not to be heard. Fortunately, the cherry pickers help out there, the coins and large targets are mostly gone. If the small foil is there then the micro is too, it is the indicator of the pay streak for the urban prospector. The really big value of that display is that you get to see how the number behaves.

How the number behaves is the big deal for hunting micro with the GR and the one thing this detector does better than any other this sensitive to small gold. Numbers above 21 that lock on, repeat well with good sound, and stay tight without wild jumping are worth looking hard at and anything tight above about 33 gets dug if it sounds good and sometimes even if it doesn't. No other high frequency gold detector has a screen that even comes close, and this long winded post is why I think so and why it is a great thing for what I like to do.

My GR went down in a week. Frustrated at that because it was all I had that would do what I want, and now I am waiting with nothing that does what it does. Lost time.The dealer gave me the number to Detector Electronics and told me he was only the middle man, his exact words. Emails to Makro corporate did not bring speedy replies and most were not replied to at all. A little more frustration. Detector Electronics answered the phone and sent authorization, but not a peep since. So it is not known what is wrong or how long it will take, and no one is saying anything. There is likely a whole bunch of good reasons why. The dealer, the manufacturer, and the distributor are all thought to be pretty good folks. It is what it is no matter what the reason is. Lost time.

Not giving up on the Gold Racer, it is potentially too good. Going to trade off the AT Gold and get a GBII to back it up so such issues do not cause the frustration of lost time again. The Gold Bug 2 is proven to find the small gold and has proven itself durable and reliable over the years so is a good hedge against lost time, and Fisher answers my emails in a day. Lost time is the big deal here, trouble with technology is always a problem to some extent . Lost time is an actual cost and should not be viewed otherwise. There is every confidence that Makro will fix this, but lost time cannot be made up and there is no compensation for it. The GBII seems a good backup for the future, even at the loss of the display, and it will be interesting to see how they compare for my application.

Thanks to Goldbrick for the GBII/GMT/GR comparison. Most interesting. I evaluate my detectors by following one with the other on the same site. Less scientific than some but telling for me. If one finds good stuff behind the other, something is learned. We will see what the GBII finds behind the GR.

Thank you all for knowledge gained, sorry this is so long. It looks a little crabby, but it is what happened only.

 

 

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Detector Electronics contacted. Turns out to be a bad circuit board they are hoping to have replaced this week. Gold Racer should be back in 7-10 days, perhaps sooner.

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I'm also having problems with my Gold Racer.  It tested out fine at home when I first received it.  Got out the first time this week to the gold fields in N. California.  Ground balanced, then immediately started chattering.  This is in the All Metal mode.  Held the coil steady at waist height.  Still chattering and displaying ID numbers as if I was moving the coil over trashy ground.

Tried the 5" coil, same thing.   Tried all shorts of on screen adjustments including all the different frequency levels.  No change.  Got my Racer 2 out, it worked fine in All Metal, so not the environment.  Did this at several different sites miles apart, including back at home.

Will be calling Detector Electronics first thing tomorrow.  I know they will get it corrected, just disappointing results after making a long trip.  I also wish I would have kept the GB2 as a backup.  But as seldom as I can get out, it made more sense to sell it.  Wrong again.

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We do not seem to be getting the same level of failure with the Racer 2. The fact the machines work and then later fail points to a weak component, but then the failures seem to have no clear pattern. High frequency units require higher tolerance components and maybe that explains why it seems the Gold Racer has more issues. Or is it just that we hear about failures more and people with good running units say nothing? I don't know, but NokMak needs to get a handle on it quick. I really like my Gold Racer but right now if a person were looking for a mission critical unit the Gold Bug 2 and GMT appear to be safer alternatives. Both are super proven, and relatively bulletproof.

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