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GPX 6000 Emi Test


Chet

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The thing that puzzles me Jason and you probably recall me saying it is mine went nuts quite often when I sat it down on the ground, in my case I don't think it was the control box sitting close to the ground but my faulty 11" coil going crazy because the lack of movement, it didn't like just sitting there looking at the same piece of ground 🙂

The problem with the GPX is there are so many possible faults and they haven't all been worked out yet.  Usually a detector you get your known faults so it's quite easy to narrow down if you've got a faulty one.  With the GPX its a challenge to work out if you've got a good or bad one as the same behaviours a bad one exhibits a good one does too, just not as severe or as often and I guess people have different tolerances for the behaviour. 

I haven't tested sitting my detector on the ground with my replacement 11" as I've only played around testing it out near my house, haven't taken it prospecting and I'm not sure I ever will as I prefer the aftermarket coils but it certainly didn't care with either the 10x5" or 14x9" Coiltek. 

 

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Using the 10x5 and the 11 doesn’t have the ground sensitivity for me that others mentioned.  I also keep my iPhone on in my front pocket, have filmed with it, and even taken a call with no issue. Jason may have a good cause for a warranty return, I would at least do it before selling it.

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2 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

. In theory somebody with any large metal in a pocket, right next to the control box as it swings, could be generating false signals in every swing.

Now that is interesting....Car keys spring top mind. So too does my cell phone which is in my rear right pocket turned off, though that might not matter that it is turned off. I swing my detector with my right arm. Early in the days of having my 6000 I noticed every time I put it down & picked it up that it made a grumble. I just put that down to the coil cable movement as the coil sat on the ground & the coil cable movement as the shaft pivoted with cable connected to it & the coil detecting that cable motion. Both setting it down & lifting it up.  I have not encountered any crazy noises with the box sitting on the ground & I am coming up to one year of using it. So far, touch wood, I have had no issues with coil or detector. I do tremble with fear every time I go out just waiting for something to happen with all I have seen about others experiences. 

D4G

 

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I saw this on PA, I was thinking of buying one next year, surely Minelab must know about these problems? yet there is know comment from them! the amount of money we pay in oz it's not good enough Minelab.

I'm holding off until next year and hopefully these problems will be sorted out.

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Poor guy has another faulty GPX, this time its got to be the detector as it does the same with both the 11' and DD.

Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
And another one gone, and another one gone
Another one bites the dust
Hey, I'm gonna get you, too
Another one bites the dust

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And there's probably a lot out there that we don't here about? I know Minelab are good with warranty returns but that's not the point, it's happening far to often for me.

Haven't Minelab ever acknowledged that there is a problem with this and that? And what they are doing about it. I hope that they have it sorted by next year when I would like to get one. (or an Axiom) wait and see.

I know they are good when working, have worked beside 4 machines and was very impressed.

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1 hour ago, Jennifer said:

And he’s no where near any power lines….

Sounded like it was trying to do Morse code… but in jibberous.  Switching transformers do that, or maybe a buried underground cable. Definitely an internal issue if nothing else was around, and it’s a different sound from what power lines do to my mono coil, like between 0:35 and 1:00 here:

 

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9 hours ago, WesD said:

Interesting, mine goes crazy too, when set on the ground, but I always assumed it was because the coil was no longer being held perfectly level with the ground. 

This here is part of the problem I'm having trouble understanding. Is it normal operation? Does this not happen to anyone? Most 6000's I've used or been around do this to some degree - worse in some areas than other areas. I can't tell if this is supposed to be normal, or if this is indicative of a problem since so many other 6000's have the same issue. 

My coil is flat on the ground when I set my detector down though, same as if I were detecting. Just force of habit, since I need to run the scoop over it for target recovery.

In my case the problem arises and gets worse because it does this when detecting too, otherwise I could just ignore it if it only happened on the ground. It seems to depend highly on location, some places purr along like a dream and other locations make the 6000 lose stability every 5 minutes, just as if I had set it on the ground.

2 hours ago, Jennifer said:

Mine was doing this as well, yours as well ?@jasong

Mine isn't quite that bad. That video sounds like a bad coil or a board/connection fault?

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36 minutes ago, jasong said:

some places purr along like a dream and other locations make the 6000 lose stability every 5 minutes, just as if I had set it on the ground.

 

Same here Jason, I think thats just the nature of the beast??  Here in CA Motherload country, some areas just drive it into fits from some unknown emi. When its running smooth though, its a killer detector for cleaning up on the small bread and butters. No way would I sell, but if Minelab had a fix, it sure would be appreciated!

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I'm back home now, I uploaded the videos I was going to post a week or two ago but decided to wait until I could get a Coiltek and see if it helps before uploading them, now I've gotten the Coiltek and it doesn't help. I'm going to post them here now both so people can see what I'm talking about just in case we all have slightly different problems, and also so I can give the ML guys a link to everything in one place if they want to take a look.

These were all shot on the same day, 3 different locations. The 6000 works just fine. Until it doesn't. The location seems to affect things greatly. But even sometimes in the same location it will be erratic. For every location it works great, there is another location it's unusable in.

For reference, here is my 6000 running great, in a location it always seems to run just fine no matter how many times I revisit. I am always in Auto+, no threshold mode. If it always ran like this, it would be my favorite detector to use by a huge margin. Smooth as butter, other than a few EMI blips here and there. Totally acceptable. 

Conversely, not even very far away, it does this constantly, even when detecting and not just setting the detector down. I can't detect here at all because every 5 minutes it loses total stability like you hear in this next video.

(apologies for heavy breathing, it was 100 degrees out and I was just digging through clay hardpack).

3rd location, running smooth for an hour. I set the detector down to film just how stable it was in certain locations, even while setting the detector down, which leads me to believe my detector has no faults, the 6000 just has a shielding/EMI problem in general by design.

But as if on cue, I turned my phone back off to get back to detecting and as I bent to pick my 6000 up, it decided to go absolutely crazy in the same place! Even though it had been perfectly fine for an hour. It stayed crazy after a few noise cancels and I had to stop detecting there and leave, I was about to crack the freaking thing over my knee because I already had to stop detecting the other area earlier due to EMI and I'm tired of wasting so much time and gas just to find another place the detector won't work.

So I turned my phone back on and took this video. (apologies, not sure why it is forcing portrait mode here)

Yet some days, in some locations, I can detect all day with no problems.

It just seems like there is some design/build flaw with the 6000's in general, and it isn't obvious until you get into places that just happen to have whatever frequencies really mess with the 6000. I was doing great in Arizona most places, aside from a few spots where I thought my coil was going bad but I now know it was just this shielding/location problem.

If I get out again I'll take a video of my phone interfering with the control box when off, just so people don't think I'm crazy saying it. But I'm back in town and working for a week or two now.

 

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