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My New GPX 6000 Is Faulty, Straight Out Of The Box


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If you are a big fan of smooth thresholds then I suggest you give Auto+ with no threshold a try. It's not exactly "zero" threshold, technically speaking. Might take some getting used to if you are a threshold guy though. It's all I use with the 6000, and I detect in places that are EMI central fairly often.

I have always sought to get the most stable, quietest threshold I could, while maximizing sensitivity as much as possible in those constraints. The perfect detector makes no noise on anything but targets to me - no ground, no EMI.

The difference between full manual and Auto+ is minimal in sensitivity, and in some variable grounds I think it's actually better since Geosense is keeping things optimized. But the lack of like 75% of the normal EMI and background drone - sooooooo much better and easier to pick good targets.

Auto+ with no threshold is basically like running the GPZ at a threshold of 5-10 with low smoothing on (incidentally the settings I posted/used on my GPZ and copped years of flack for). Except, there isn't nearly as much sensitivity hit as you would otherwise take running low smoothing on the GPZ. Best of both worlds IMO. I only use threshold for really detailed patch cleaning now - and at that point, I just use the GPZ instead anyways and the 8" or 17" CC X Coil. So, my 6 pretty much always stays in auto+ no threshold now.

I carried both detectors with me everywhere for the first month I had my 6000. I no longer take my GPZ at all anymore though, unless I'm specifically trying to ward off the skunk detecting old patches, or working deep washes. It's because the performance compared to the 8" is so close, the extra depth from the 6000 on bigger (1+gram? untested) nuggets is useful, and the 6000 is so much quicker to use and so much lighter, that it just ends up being what I reach for out of sheer convenience. That's why I was saying a while back that the concentric is the only reason I still keep my GPZ (and the 8" for salt). I'm curious if you end up finding the same thing. 

Glad you can see the EMI/speaker problem yourself now so someone outside the US can vouch for the issue now too.  It absolutely has everything to do with where you are located and how much EMI is in the air. And people that insist it doesn't exist are either not paying attention or in places that have very little EMI to deal with. I've been posting this since the 6000 came out, since I travel quite a bit and detect many different places I noticed the pattern quickly. I think I have a good idea why it does it and why the speaker affects it, I outlined in another post. I can't prove it, but I am familiar enough with MCU's and similar processors (FPGA or whatever they are using for Fourier analysis) that I just "feel" the 6000 occasionally does too much and confuses itself, gets overwhelmed, or glitches/bogs. I can't explain it, but it's the same feeling I get when I just know something is wrong with my truck because I'm so used to it even though I don't design trucks.

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Oh also meant to say, the smaller coils on the 6000 should help clear up a bit of EMI too (plus make the 6 even lighter still). Smaller coils are always better with EMI than bigger ones, and that's another reason the 8" is buttery smooth. Well, aside from the GPZ just being a quieter detector than the 6 too.

So anyways, give 'er a chance. You know my posts, I'm outright with every opinion and observation I have. And I think the 6 is a pretty good machine despite some really pretty bad flaws it also has as well.

Also - my headphones have some weird background noise too, even when I'm not close to the coil. 

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Thanks Jason, I always appreciated your detailed honest responses, and as someone with the same coils as me you're the best person for advice on this sort of thing.  Incidentally my GPZ is in low smoothing in the video, I always use low smoothing as I do like a smooth threshold.

I really want to like the 6000, and I do like it, It's just going to take some getting used to, it's a joy to swing, it really is. The usability is where its letting me down with the EMI, JW is better at putting up with that than me, although he owns an SDC and has been detecting a hell of a lot longer than me,  I can't say I'm overly impressed with it's performance I find is less than my GPZ on the small gold but compared to other detectors like the GPX 4500/5000 it's brilliant for small gold, which is most of the gold around here, I also know the little 8" is pretty damn good on bigger targets too like the 4 grammer I got the other day in our soils here so I'm pretty comfortable using it, I was quite happy with that depth for the 8" but of course no match for the concentric coils for depth and I've found smaller nuggets than that far deeper with the 15" CC, they're pretty good on the smalls too but not quite 8" performance though.

My dealers still not back from his trip, I'll talk to him when he gets back whats the best course of action, in the meantime I'm trying my butt off to decide what to do.  At this point sending it in to the repair center and not bothering to get him to swap it seems the best option, I want it checked not replaced with another one that could have a different fault or be no different anyway, it might need to go back to Australia for a proper check, I don't think our service agent does board level repair, they'd just swap the PCB where as the guy I posted the service form above they repaired a solder joint at the Aussie service center.

Gold Catcher, this video I show it on various sensitivity levels so if you could tell me if you think my threshold is OK and at which sensitivity level seems best? You'll also see in the video why I think the noise cancel doesn't scan channels for a clean signal, it just does a channel shift each time you press it, it's up to you to decide when it's clean, it doesn't search for a clean signal, this certainly explains why it's so fast, and with the detector going a bit funky with EMI often they couldn't possibly release it with the slow EMI scan of the GPZ that takes a minute or whatever to do as people would get sick of that every time they had to do a noise cancel so the quicker random channel shift makes more sense.

Again this is an unlisted Youtube video, only available to see on this thread so it's not taken out of context.

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I definitely agree, best to send to Minelab service and get one back that starts fresh with no issues. It's not fun 2nd guessing equipment in the field, leads to second guessing yourself eventually too.

I owned 3 GPZs. The 2nd one I sent back to Minelab service with some detailed videos about what seemed pretty major to me but was probably a subtle thing to most, they were unable to replicate the issue there but gave me a new GPZ anyways. Just being able to get my mind off the question about wether some problem might be my machine was worth the wait since I never had to question that machine again.

Re: EMI, I've had my 6 go completely unstable while it was just laying immobile on the ground running doing nothing. There is something happening with them where if you exceed a certain number of EMI sources in the air, it can't cope or find a proper channel anymore. The speaker is one of these EMI sources and so running it means this threshold number of EMI sources it can deal with before losing stability is reached quicker, I believe.

I think the noise cancel is actually searching for quieter channels, but I don't think it takes a large enough "noise snapshot" sample for a long enough time span (which is why it's fast) while analyzing channels, and thus sometimes it ends up on a very noisy channel again where/when EMI is somewhat intermittent (even on the millisecond time frame), and the scanner just happens to intercept a "quieter" period on that channel and chooses it.

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Yup, in the video where I found the nugget my 6000 is just sitting there on the ground while I'm filming and it starts to go mental, and if I was to pick it up and start swinging again it'd likely calm down, it's something to do with Geosense, not EMI.  If only it had a way to disable Geosense.

I can imagine when it gets a small coil on the 6000 it's going to be much better on the small gold than the GPZ, as realistically if I was to put an 11" coil on the GPZ the GPX would likely be winning the small gold tests, I should do that and see.  I'll go compare my 12" coil on the GPZ vs the GPX 11", can't get more fair than that.

 

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People should take these videos with a grain of salt, it's possibly a faulty GPX, that I'm waiting to find out.

Also a disclosure to those that don't know me, I'm friends with the guys that make X-coils, and they have provided me with this 12" spiral coil and also the 12" Concentric coil at no cost.  Both coils are NOT available for purchase, you can not buy one even if you wanted to, the 12" spiral is discontinued about a year ago I guess and the 12" Concentric is a prototype that is not a final production model that needs changes made to it and may not ever be released anyway.  Also, they require an adapter to run and if the adapter is made incorrectly and shorts or fails over time after being made wrong then kaboom goes the detector and it's certainly not a warranty with Minelab.

At this point I am truly hoping my GPX has more faults than just the turning on problem, I desperately want it to have a performance fault too or it falls well below my expectations.  I am hoping smaller coils improve it, I'm sure they will, now I don't care about the EMI problems anymore, I'm more concerned about the performance.

Now, this is the GPX with it's 11" vs the GPZ with 12" Spiral on that same little nugget I used with the 8" coil.  (UPDATE: THIS NUGGET WAS 0.044 OF A GRAM) The 12" surprised me.  I realise these are basically air tests and the PI machines tend to do better on targets in the ground so maybe that's a contributing factor to the performance, it sure helps with target recovery with the much stronger air test responses though.

Again these videos are unlisted on Youtube, only available to see on this thread, as with the possibility it is a faulty performing detector I don't want people to see them without having full context of what's going on.  I really think it must be faulty in performance too, and Jeff and Sheppo both commented they think it's under performing, fingers crossed that's right.  These videos are raw footage, I haven't even watched them back.

Now the GPX 11" vs the Nugget Finder Z-Search

No surprises there for me, and now the 12" Concentric.


Hopefully Minelab allows other manufacturers like Coiltek to start making GPZ coils now that they've allowed them to make GPX coils too and I really look forward to all the brands coils coming out for the 6000 and see what innovations they can make to the coils for it.

Fingers crossed my GPX is faulty with performance too. 

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Is that the same 0.03g piece of gold? I can try a similar test on Tuesday with a 0.03 grammer. I definitely don't think my 12" spiral is that much better than the 6000 on that small of gold(it definitely is on bigger stuff) but I'd be interested to see, definitely good to know if so.

Only thing I can think may be unaccounted for, given the tiny size, is how specific pieces of different geometry/composition might hit harder on the GPZ than the GPX and vice versa, since they are different tech and different coils. You found that piece with the GPZ, so I'll try one I found with the 6000.

I say that because there are absolutely nuggets I could hit with my 4500 deeper than the GPZ, odd shapes. I sent a video of one such nugget to Minelab back in 2015 to demonstrate such an effect.

It's just so hard to tell from videos what is or isn't happening with each swing, but easier to understand in person.

I'd do it sooner but my trucks transmission is out and my WM12 is in my truck at the shop which is closed tomorrow and I got an MRI on Monday. Ford is "no ETA" on tranmissions, might be a YEAR!! Speaking of parts shortages and company warranties...new truck under warranty and their only advice to me is buy another new truck, unbelievable. I haven't been able to prospect for 3 weeks already due to it and may lose an entire season.

 

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Yup, same nugget, It's worth a shot checking as I'm trying to determine if my GPX is playing up with performance too so I'd appreciate if you could test a couple of very small nugget sizes and compare.  I'm using the rocks so I can show I'm not manipulating heights and so on, there are always skeptics and rightly so, I'm sure a lot of people rig videos to make them how they want them to appear.   If I don't end up giving the GPX back tonight for whatever reason I'll do the tests again tomorrow with a different assortment of nuggets as I already know the results.   I only have one nugget I found with the GPX so far and it's that 0.08 of a gram so it's a bit big for a small gold test.   I could drop down to a 0.02 of a gram nugget and take the scales down and prove the weight also I guess, make it even harder.  I'm really not fussed, I've got nothing to hide.  I know what I'll do I won't hold the camera I'll sit it on the ground zoomed in so you can see from side on the coil heights better.

By the looks of it those with a Nugget Finder Z-search for their GPZ can have confidence knowing their detector isn't much different to the GPX 6000 on that particular .03 of a gram nugget anyway and they don't need any cable modifications.

The dealer has contacted me now, the balls starting to roll.  If I end up with another one I'll redo the tests above.

Sorry to hear about all of your troubles, hopefully everything comes right for you 😞  I hope you don't lose your entire season, that'd be terrible.

UPDATE: It's not the same nugget sorry, I mixed them up, this nugget is the 0.044 of a gram I found just the other day that came up 0.03 of a gram on JW's scales, I accidently mixed up the two little containers, either way it makes no difference as I ran the GPX over this slightly larger one again anyway.  My apologies, they look the exact same size but it has a bit more meat on it.  The only video with the 0.03 was the first video comparing the 8" coil to the 11" GPX, all the rest of the filming was done with this 0.043.  The 0.03 is a 0.039 nugget so very similar size but less thickness.  It all comes down to how accurate peoples scales are, the 0.0X of a gram scales tend to be inaccurate on small targets, mine are 0.001 of a gram scales.

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I can't believe Ford are telling you to buy a new truck when your existing one is still under warranty with a bad gearbox, tell them to rip the gearbox out of the new one and put it into yours 🙂   Sorry to hear things are that bad.

I've no concerns about Minelab's warranty, I've virtually had to claim warranty on every product I've ever bought from them from minor things to major and they've been fantastic every time and I'm sure it will be the case with the GPX too.

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15 hours ago, rvpopeye said:

It sounds like a cold solder joint is a possible to me but other faults could display the same symptom..

A tech checkup would make sense.

So maybe it just comes back after or maybe they send you a new one.

Have somebody run it and check it out before shipping if it is the new one option though.😏

And then no worry about if it's working as it should. 

 

What a novel idea! (tongue in cheek), That sounds a bit like that old fashioned, outdated notion of Quality Assurance! :thumbsupanim

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