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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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On 10/20/2022 at 2:47 PM, jasong said:

Hard to know, if you look at the photo of the 2nd board, right above the FPGA you can see a date of manufacture at the beginning of 2019, or over 3.5 years ago. These pics are probably prototype boards that may have changed. But the toroid is probably a good guess, and that black component you point out does look like a tiny inductor.

image.png.1b45964f1d690cb39620907d8925457e.png

There are also 3 either inductors or inductor beads under the FPGA too, these are near the speaker. 

image.png.161d0a68cc7001b1aa3ded2a8defdeae.png

 

Turns out this one was right 🙂

Although not all 3 of them, just two.

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Ok, so my 6000 is back from getting the "fix" done. 

Am I happy with it? I think so, it seems better.  There is now no noticeable difference between using the speaker and headphones or Torus in my case in stability.    I farted around for an hour flicking between the two and at no point was there a difference in stability between using the speaker and Torus. 

I tested tiny gold performance and my little 0.034 of a gram nugget I've been using to test it previously was detected the same as before, no change at all there that I could see.  Small lead pellet depth was the same.

107165131_gpxtinygold.jpg.2713962c398da461eff5ce04f1b0b5f4.jpg

This is my brand spanking new coil that they replaced not too long ago, I have yet to use it properly other than testing as my GPX was put away in the cupboard for Ski season and because I didn't want to use it, I went back to my GPZ the previous time I went looking for gold.

A little video of it running behind my house, this is a high EMI area with high voltage lines, and I wasn't all that far from the lines although the phone recording it makes it seem like it was.

I'm happy enough with the fix for my purposes, I never expected it to be fantastic around EMI after all it's a PI and I'm lucky I can just use the GPZ for that with no issues in my detecting areas.  I certainly understand Jason's point of view having to do hard core detecting covering massive areas prospecting for gold just wanting the damn thing to work the way he hoped being the light detector more suited to that purpose and I agree with him 100% on that, but mine isn't near as bad as his, in fact I'm quite happy with it now.  I indeed have been lucky to have a friend, JW show me some good spots to find gold locally which has been a game changer for me.   All I need is a shaft that doesn't twist with a slight breeze and I'll be set.

Who would have thought two parts worth less than a cup of coffee is all it would take to resolve their design mistake.

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Looking good. Glad it's going to work better for a lot of people now.

The concern I have with the 6000 now is that there definitely is some further EMI problem with it that seems location specific, and since no testers appear to test in places I detect, now I'm wondering if the next GPZ - which I plan to purchase most likely - is going to be plagued with the same issues since the design and manufacturing of the two machines is likely to share certain similarities and that machine likely is already being tested, or done with testing.

I don't see any reason to suspect what I'm seeing is PI specific, but 6000 specific. Meaning, I think the people designing it may have overlooked some things that could be overlooked in other future detectors too. Not sure, obviously I can't even look inside, but that's how it feels. 

I think they are letting problems get introduced that could have detriment to other detectors in the future if it isn't pointed out. And I promise, if all global 6000 owners had the same problems with their 6000's that I know exist, there would be bloody murder screaming from customers all over. Because it simply just doesn't work at all in 50% of places I try up North here, and you just never know until you blow $150 in gas and 2 days of wasted time trying just to find another failed trip. After 5 or 6 times it's enough to make me want to crack this damn thing over my knee, and I'm closer to 12 or so wasted or semi wasted trips now as I've started to make sure I have other stuff to do in the field if the detector fails to work at least.

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They should recruit you as a tester for it, what better person to test a product than someone unhappy with the previous version, if they can change your mind they have a successful product.   Jeff seems to mirror your experience too, so it seems testing wasn't broad enough geographically to pick up these sorts of problems, if they could even be fixed.  It could even be a simple thing like the Manticore noise cancel where you can hold the button down so it scans for a lot longer but also has the quick scan with a button press.  I was always dubious after having older GPX's and the GPZ where a noise cancel really feels like it's doing something going through hundreds of channels and taking a fair while and it noticeably did work rather than this little tiny few second scan of the 6000 that can take a few presses and you wonder if it actually took some decent amount of time if it would find a cleaner channel, after all the less EMI the detector is being affected by the better it performs.

When mine was playing up with the original coil the noise cancel usually made it worse not better so I had the impression the little mini noise cancel does nothing.

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13 minutes ago, phrunt said:

I was always dubious after having older GPX's and the GPZ where a noise cancel really feels like it's doing something going through hundreds of channels and taking a fair while rather than this little tiny few second scan of the 6000.  When mine was playing up with the original coil the noise cancel usually made it worse not better so I had the impression the little mini noise cancel does nothing.

I remember reading your posts about that 6000 noise cancel potentially doing nothing more than selecting a different random channel or something along that line. I didn't think you were right back then, but now I think you might be right about that.

*I would decline being a tester. I was interested at one point, but at this stage in life I just don't have time to spend on things that don't pay me, especially with gas expensive now. And there are a ton of retired people who are willing to work for free basically, so they have no shortage of volunteers I'm sure.

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5 hours ago, Malleeboy said:

Jason Why don't You borrow another 6000 and same coil and take it out and do a side by side test with the same settings and see what happens.  Minelab could have stuffed something when they had it apart. 

All the best . Mike 

Good to see you around again Mike last time we spoke you were in a bad drought but I guess you must be unwater at the moment. I wish you all the luck you need. Your suggestions is an old and well used way to help find detector, coil and location problems which I have used many times and should be used more often. Jason have you tried seeing if the EMI is directional by having a horizontal shaft position with a vertical coil (90° to the shaft) and doing a slow 360° turn. If it is directional it direction it will be 90° from where the noise goes a lot quieter and will also occur at 180° further on.  If you have no success it might be your GPX6000. 

 

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It's good to see the repairs coming back already. Good luck 6000 crew ! 

And,,that pretty "tech" girl doesn't give me any confidence at all,,,,she's holding the solder iron on the HOT end !🙄🤪

 

 

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The only problem I have with the fix is the way it needs done and that's why I assumed they would just replace the PCB's as generally with warranty repairs on anything like this it would be a replacement part, not a board level repair like this at least in service centers I've worked in, board level repairs were generally reserved for out of warranty repairs.  Sure if you've got a good technician you have little to worry about however it was built by machine, repaired by person.  They're going to be using a solder station with a heat gun and the heat gun is what they'll be using to do the repair to reflow the solder.   I can only assume with the number of repairs needing done the cost became a factor and replacing every PCB was too high.  The shipping of the parts from Minelab to service agents is negligible with the parts being absolutely tiny, they cost less than a cup of coffee per machine, and then it's just the technicians labour which they'd be paying anyway if they were replacing or repairing PCBs.

Fortunately everyone getting it done at the moment is getting it done with plenty of warranty left on their detector, so If it were me I'd get it done as early on in the warranty as possible, it just gives you that extra confidence  in the unlikely event that anything does go wrong from the repair failing over time it will be resolved for you.

Other than that, it's crazy not to get the fix, it truly does appear to work at what it was intended to fix, and that is the speaker generating EMI, and there now seems to be no instability at all caused when using the speaker, the other factors people are reporting like more stable in general and not having the tilt axis stability issues with the 11" coil may well be improved too or that just might be a placebo, I'd go with the latter but time will tell.

Jason and Jeff's case is different, it appears it has resolved Jason's speaker EMI, he just has some other EMI issue which is far worse, which might be something that can't be solved as it seems every 6000 in his area does this, not just his so an external factor in the area is likely causing it to lose stability, and for that you would guess it would mean a redesign of the detector itself or at least the software to mitigate the EMI issue he is having.  Maybe instead of sending the engineers trooping around the world promoting and marketing the Manticore they should be sending them to Jason's area to try and establish the cause of EMI and if it's something they can fix, it might improve the 6000 if it's a firmware update resolution that can resolve it, or it may end up making the GPX 7000 a better product if they even bother to make another PI in the future which I would be surprised if they did.  I know the people in WA using the older GPX models were troubled by the over the horizon radar there, very specific to the location driving the detector wild whenever it felt like it, at one point I guess they thought their detector was faulty too.

People buying new detectors now are the lucky ones as the new parts are used on the builds and theirs are built by machine which it's very hard for a person to match that with soldering.  They'll even get a new coil with the better plastic formulation for the cracking.  The old motto of don't buy a new model as soon as it comes out seems very true for the 6000, only me waiting over a year wasn't even enough as they were so slow at remedying the problems.

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That’ll also be me waiting in the longer wait line for anything expensive and hot off the press from anyone for now on. Since I was never in the race to beat everyone with the best in the goldfields near me, I know now I really should have waited.  I did get a good deal on my detector and good service from my dealer, so I’m not upset or anything like that about it, just disappointed in the machine a bit. 

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Further testing today confirms even after multiple hours of use the 6000 remains stable while using the speaker, it just has it's usual EMI problems now which were never going to be solved with this update, they don't call them PI's for nothing, Pulse Interference detectors 🙂

Happy with the repair, I'd recommend everyone get it done, even if you don't use the speaker 🤪 why own a detector with an underlying fault.   I'm quite happy with the 6000 now, still it's got nothing on the 7000 other than weight but at least it's a good product now, better shaft pending.

<---Moved it back into my gear used section now.

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