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Finally Minelab Take Responsibility For Screwing Up The GPX 6000 Speaker


phrunt

The GPX Audio Fix Poll  

17 members have voted

  1. 1. Have you had the audio/EMI fix done to your GPX 6000 - if you plan to get it done please don't answer the poll until you've got it back and tested it

  2. 2. Did the fix improve your built in speaker EMI stability

    • Yes
    • No
      0
    • Not sure, possibly
    • Not sure, I don't think so
      0
    • Don't care, not getting it done
  3. 3. Did the fix improve overall stability or improve the detector in some other way?

    • Yes
    • No
    • Not sure, possibly
    • Not sure, I don't think so
    • Don't care, not getting it done


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Sounds plausible enough to me. I bet if the fix required a whole board change, Minelab would not be so willing to fix the issue.   If its just a wire shielding thing, its relatively cheap to correct.

 

 

 

 

 

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I will ask those in the know what the pinky red wire on the coil cable is.   It certainly seems like the speaker wasn't isolated but really, would the engineers really make that mistake? They'd be embarrassed. I'd be very surprised.  A hint is Tom's repair form that said 1.7 hours labour, either the tech doing it is very slow (it happens) or it's quite a big job.

When I was in service agents some techs were slow some were fast, the owner of the business didn't care about having slow people as they charge out their time anyway, but had to have a balance with faster ones too or the jobs would build up 🙂

They also need parts for the fix, the US service agent seemed to already have a few of the parts sitting there, the NZ one is waiting on them to arrive as they don't seem to carry GPX 6000 parts with so few of them in the country, they had to order the replacement coils from Australia.  Minelab are supplying the parts and are obviously slowly the rollout of the information about the fix to other countries as they need to build up parts supply at service agents, if it was just some minor electronics components the service agents could just source them locally to save a lot of time and money and not need to wait on Minelab to ship them.

It'd be interesting to find out what they replace and do, I doubt we will.  The great thing is every single report being done is quite dramatic with the improvements so it's pretty cool, I think it's going to make all the difference for me and just in time now that skiing winds down after this week I'll be detecting a whole lot more.  I wasn't going to give up on the 6000, and now I'm starting to think I'll be glad I didn't.

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It would definitely be pretty interesting to be able to open up a control box prior to the fix, and after. Just to get a clear picture of what exactly is being fixed and what the problem was. But I doubt we'll ever know unless someone wants to void their warranty.

If it's an issue along the lines of what I posted, then it's definitely a design flaw. Which also brings up the question that if they are replacing main boards, does our warranty get extended too? Or do we get to find the problem for them, find the fix ourselves, and then also get to beta test a fix for them too with problems that might take longer than our existing warranty period to discover for them again?

It is a great detector when it works right though.

*One potential change that might occur and be visible is switching speakers out for something that has built in shielding around it. Though if the cone looks the same as the old ones, it'd be hard to tell. 

 

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No extra warranty, that's not how warranty works unfortunately, it continues on from the date purchased regardless of the reason for the repair.  The only way that would change is if they did an extended warranty offer out of the kindness of their hearts and that's not going to happen when virtually every GPX is needing a repair and a new coil or two at some point.  We are not even far into the warranty, they've got a bucket load of coils to replace yet.

Keep in mind Minelab don't make the coils so they just like we are will be claiming warranty from the manufacturer of the products.  It's not a total loss for them with each failure,  whoever else they use to make the coils will be paying the price too.  The detector fault is a different story as it seems a design fault, that's all on Minelab.  The cracking ears are likely Minelab, they specify what to make the coil out of, that's likely not the manufacturers fault.

Yea, I'd love to know what they have to fix, but I just want the detector to be the detector I hoped it would be, so I'm super happy this is happening.  I guess the lesson to be learnt is if you're an early adopter which now extends well out over a year after release there is a chance they will have problems that need to be resolved.  If you wait a couple of years into the cycle you should be pretty safe.  🙂   I waited this time with absolutely no benefit to waiting so for me, I'd rather be an early adopter as long as I know they do resolve the problems found, and it appears like they are doing just that in this case, except for the shaft problem.

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Hey Guys,

   Talked with Max (Minelab Americas Rep) today about this issue and asked what is the process here in the US.  He is going to check and see, but I'm sure everything will have to go through Detector Center in PA, USA as  they are the repair/warranty center for Minelab Americas.  

I have tried to contact Detector Center direct about it, but I'm sure they are getting calls so I haven't heard anything back from them.  

Hope this helps a bit,

Rob

 

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1 hour ago, jasong said:

It sounds like the Axiom was already more or less on par with the 6000 months ago. Unless they are still tweaking hardware, I would think it'd be in their best interests to get the Axiom out before that. Do some firmware updates as needed via air drop to customers.

A lightweight 8000 showing up out of the blue would take a lot of attention and sales away, especially since the prerelease excitement of the Axiom was burned and gone early.

I hope the changes and tweaks are worth it. Seems like now would be the time to release if at all possible, as time is not on Garrett's side here. The 6000 fix is already going to lose customers for them if some people can make do with what they have.

I know you are on the inside Steve, and your opinions are more than opinions in matters like that. But from the outside, I wonder why the delay. AZ nugget season will be over by spring too, making 2 seasons missed by the Axiom since it's announcement, if it's not released until then.

Jason, have you received your updated 6000 yet?  Interested in hearing how it works out for you. 

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It's going to take time, this sort of thing floods a service center for work, I don't know how many people they have working in the Service department at Minelab in SA but it's probably only a three if that due to workload, no point having staff sitting around twiddling their fingers, I've always had either Brendon or Jason at ML Australia when dealing with them. Their new Miners Den service agent has one person doing it, Nathan and so far people are reporting he's pretty good.  The US service agent isn't likely to have many either, they just have enough doing it to keep up with normal day to day repairs.  We have one guy in NZ doing it.  When something like this comes along they have to do the normal day to day repairs along with all these extra machines flooding in.  Expect delays and big ones especially as word gets around.  It's really not easy working in a service center when something like this happens, and you can't just pull new staff to help out of nowhere so go easy on the people doing the repairs, don't expect too much out of them I am sure they'll be doing their best.

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1 minute ago, phrunt said:

It's going to take time, this sort of thing floods a service center for work, I don't know how many people they have working in the Service department at Minelab in SA but it's probably only a three if that due to workload, no point having staff sitting around twiddling their fingers, I've always had either Brendon or Jason at ML Australia when dealing with them. Their new Miners Den service agent has one person doing it, Nathan and so far people are reporting he's pretty good.  The US service agent isn't likely to have many either, they just have enough doing it to keep up with normal day to day repairs.  We have one guy in NZ doing it.  When something like this comes along they have to do the normal day to day repairs along with all these extra machines flooding in.  Expect delays and big ones especially as word gets around.  It's really not easy working in a service center when something like this happens, and you can't just pull new staff to help out of nowhere so go easy on the people doing the repairs, don't expect too much out of them I am sure they'll be doing their best.

You know, as I wrote that first post I rechecked my email inbox and just saw that I received a reply back from the AU Service Center. So my detector is in the affected lot and needs the mod. They said they’d confirm when I could get it repaired and get back to me with information about how and when I can send it to their US service center.
That’s a great start, and they’ve always been very good whenever I’ve sent them a question. 

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2 minutes ago, GotAU? said:

You know, as I wrote that first post I rechecked my email inbox and just saw that I received a reply back from the AU Service Center. So my detector is in the affected lot and needs the mod. They said they’d confirm when I could get it repaired and get back to me with information about how and when I can send it to their US service center.
That’s a great start, and they’ve always been very good whenever I’ve sent them a question. 

hot tip, they're all in the affected serial number range unless they're under 2 months old 🙂 Great they got back to you quickly.  I just noticed we are in the wrong thread with this conversation.  Whoops!   Minelab service in Australia is outstanding, they're always quick to respond to queries and very helpful.

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Im quite busy scratching my head on this.....my 6000 has worked well from day one, Ive always used the supplied headphones with zero issues and although the EMI is sometimes a pain, mostly it is not. I'm now sitting at 622 bits of gold for the year, 90% with the 6000. If the NF 12x7 Xceed coil is quieter than the stock 11", I will consider my experience with the 6000 (almost) faultless. I had to buy the 'Critta's' lock stem to solve the BS 'no lock' stem supplied by ML. Electronically and in-field, I am quite happy. Should I send my 6000 back to ML???? :unsure:

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