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Gold Racer Updates?


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A big hello to everyone. I've had a great season so far this year, and I've found lots of nice smaller nuggets, with the largest ones coming in around six grams, so nothing big, but a good collection this season with nice overall weight regardless.

I'm curious as to what has happened with the reliability and product quality issues with the Gold Racer, as I haven't heard much lately. I'd love to hear an updated report from people that are actively using it to find nuggets.

All the best, and thanks for your time,

Lanny

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  • 4 months later...

makro-gold-racer-with-1-gram-nuggetl.jpg

Presumably they have been ironed out - you never hear about it anymore. Or maybe nobody buys them anymore! Mine just keeps chugging along, and it is a late prototype or early production unit.

The Makro Gold Racer in my opinion is first and foremost for somebody who wants a real hot VLF that has multi purpose capability. It keeps up with the GMT and Gold Bug 2 down to about grain sized gold but those two machines do better on the sub grain stuff. I am betting neither can match the Gold Racer however for depth on larger gold, but that is largely because the Gold Racer can run a 15.5" x 13.5" DD coil and neither the GMT not Gold Bug 2 has a coil anything like that available. Since nobody has took me off the hook on this issue I did pick up another Gold Bug 2 and will be doing an in depth comparison later on this summer.

But right now I would say if you want a prospecting machine get a prospecting machine, with the Fisher Gold Bug 2 being a personal favorite of mine. White's GMT for many others. The Gold Racer question mark is how does that big coil really play into things? I ditched my Gold Bug 2 and GMT when I got my Gold Racer because frankly I use my GPZ for 98% of my nugget detecting. I did not really need a prospecting specific VLF enough to have one but with the Gold Racer being a fun in town jewelry machine and even decent coin machine I found I was using it more than the other two, and I always toss it in with the GPZ when I go nugget detecting. It's just fun to play with. I do like that big coil also and have visions of running it on the cobble piles in California looking for big specimen gold while avoiding most ferrous junk. If White's had made a 50 kHz MXT or put a full target ID on the GMT the Gold Racer is sort of what you end up with.

How the new Minelab Gold Monster 1000 fits into all that we will see. And the DEUS V4 HF coils. You will be hearing more about all of them from me this summer.

makro-gold-racer-with-15x13-dd-coil-2.jpg

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The GMT of course has the Variable SAT control. On the Gold Bug 2 you have three SAT settings controlled via the Mineralization switch. Low mineral is the slowest SAT setting and High mineral the fastest. Normal is in between. Low mineral also engages a secondary boost to the Gain circuitry in addition to the main Sensitivity control. The addition of the iSAT control during Gold Racer prototyping was a major improvement in the machine.

Sorry, my Gold Racer is not leaving my sight!

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If increasing SAT results in no depth loss then it would not be a functional SAT control. SAT stands for Self Adjusting Threshold and is the rate at which the automatic threshold is attempting to come back to where it has been set by the user. A fast retune brings the threshold rapidly back but does attenuate signals. The intent is to smooth ground responses. Slower retune rates enhance signals but allow ground signals to become problematic. The control by the nature of what it is doing is a trade off. Otherwise there is no point in having the control.

I am not disputing what you are observing - the Makro notes below say "may cause" not "will cause". So there may be no observable loss of depth on many or even most targets. The iSAT is less aggressive overall than the White's V/SAT control. Like all things detecting it just depends on the situation. At the end of the day however the SAT control is a smoothing control and so there will be a tendency to smooth the faintest gold signals, typically the deepest one, right along with smoothing the ground signal.

Steve's Guide to Threshold Autotune, SAT & V/SAT

The equivalent control on the Minelab PI detectors is the Motion setting Details on Minelab GPX Motion Setting and GPX Sweep Speed by Nenad Lonic

From the Gold Racer manual:

"For the All Metal mode to perform accurately, a stable threshold sound is necessary. Changes in mineralization and soil structure may cause a rise or fall in the background hum and disrupt the threshold's stability which will result in losing target signals of certain metals such as small gold nuggets. iSAT feature maintains the steadiness of the threshold by adjusting the speed the device recovers its threshold sound.

iSAT consists of 10 levels . The device will start at level 6. It is recommended that iSAT should be increased in high-mineralization and decreased in low mineralization.

In the All Metal mode, search is performed with a continuous humming sound in the background, also referred to as the threshold sound. The loudness of this hum directly impacts the detection depth of smaller and deeper targets and it is adjusted by the threshold setting. If the threshold is set too high, the target signal may not be heard. On the contrary, if it is too low, you give up the depth advantage this setting offers. In other words, weak signals of smaller or deeper targets may be missed. It is recommended for average users to leave this setting at its default value and for experienced users to adjust to the highest level where they can still hear the weak target signals.

You cannot search in the All Metal mode without ground balancing. Changes that occur in the ground effect after ground balancing cause false signals or disruption in the threshold hum . iSAT adjusts the speed that the device recovers its threshold hum and eliminates the negative effects of mineralized soils. Increasing the iSAT in high mineralization will enable a more stable operation by avoiding false signals. This, however, may cause some loss in depth and it is normal.

Note: In high mineralization, if you receive too many false signals without disruption in the threshold hum, lower the sensitivity first before increasing the iSAT. If the false signals continue, set the sensitivity back to its original value and increase the iSAT.

If the mineralization is low, you can decrease the iSAT and sweep the coil more slowly for a deeper search."

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The real equivalent of iSAT is the White's V/SAT control. iSAT has ten settings while V/SAT is a true variable control. 

From page 21 in the GMT Owners Manual by Jimmy Sierra:

"GAIN and VARIABLE SAT (Self Adjusting Threshold) Speed: The (-) and (+) Ground Balance pads compensate for common ground minerals in the area. The VSAT control compensates for the consistency of that ground mineralization. The greater the degree of inconsistencies, the more SAT is needed to quiet ground noise. If the THRESHOLD becomes too erratic or noisy, it might be necessary to use the VSAT feature and/or reduce the GAIN control. This noisy behavior will make it difficult to recognize a true target (possible nugget) from pieces of mineral, commonly referred to as "hot rocks". It is not wise to keep a high level of GAIN if the detector will not operate smoothly. This is a false sense of security. Recognizing a true target is the most important part of detecting. This is an example of when less GAIN will produce more nuggets. You must be the best judge of just how much noise you can tolerate and still identify nuggets, as well as the combination of V-SAT and GAIN which produces the desired results in your area. Therefore, if you have been operating your GMT at the full level of GAIN (10) and you determine that this is too high because either the threshold is erratic or the detector is giving false signals; always begin by reducing the GAIN toward the Initial Setting triangle of (7 to 8). If this does not correct the problem, start adding some SAT speed by turning the SAT control slowly clockwise. If this does not correct the problem, go back to the GAIN and reduce it a little more and add a bit of SAT. As I mentioned earlier it is sort of like seasoning a pot of soup. Some salt and some pepper. Remember any drop in GAIN below (7-8) will result in some loss of depth. Any increase in SAT speed above the Initial Setting of (3-4) will also reduce overall depth. However, every ground condition has its optimum setting. Overall depth is not the ultimate goal. Finding nuggets is! Unless your threshold is constant and as smooth as possible. and free from false targets which confuse the picture, you will never be able to tell the ground from the gold. We like to use the analogy of driving on a straight road versus a curvy road. The object is to get from point A to point B. 65 mph might get you there on a straight road, but you will have to slow to 35 mph if the road is curvy, or you will end up off the road. The straight road is like low mineralized ground and the curvy road is like heavy mineralization. High Gain and slower SAT will not get you the Gold in heavy mineralization as well as lower GAIN and a bit of faster SAT."

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Love the gold racer. In the right ground it is quite lethal. The GR19 is permanently strapped to mine, and it gets double duties sniffing out shallow coins in grassy areas (no digging allowed), and also sniffing out jewellery in tot lots. 

iSat needs to be set correctly for best results, which varies a lot depending on location. The explanation by Jimmy is spot on, but to put it simply: too much iSat and you will be reducing the response to borderline targets, but not enough and you will miss gold due to an erratic and dropping out threshold. So yes, sometimes a higher iSAT is better. Any setting that enables YOU to better hear the targets in YOUR location is the right setting. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

My thanks to all of you that have taken the time to respond! Thanks for the input and the feedback. It's good to know what the machine is capable of, and I didn't get any negative feedback, which is a bit of a surprise, not what I was expecting considering the early teething problems.

All the best,

Lanny

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