Jump to content

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


Recommended Posts

57 minutes ago, jasong said:

Does anyone in Australia have an issue with the 6000 losing stability when you set it on the ground? Or does that seem to be only a US-specific thing too?

It seems to have improved with the speaker fix, but still exists on mine. If replacing 2 of the 3 inductors improved it (presumably with ones that included shielding to isolate the speaker), then again it seems to indicate some further shielding issue or coupling between Earth/detector.

I think this effect may be the key to understanding what is happening, why, and where. And may give some reason for the seeming locality-dependence. Either coupling with the Earth, some lack of shielding, or improper ground plane PCB design I think. Or all 3.

If it were satellites they would need to be geosynchronous, not orbiting, if this problem doesn't exist in Australia.

Jason, many correlation to solar activity?https://earthsky.org/sun/sun-activity-solar-flare-cme-aurora-updates/

Link to comment
Share on other sites


1 hour ago, jasong said:

Does anyone in Australia have an issue with the 6000 losing stability when you set it on the ground?

I believe there was a thread talking about this with Jonathan Porter mentioning that setting the machine on the ground or having the cable near the coil could induce some instability. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

29 minutes ago, Skookum said:

I believe there was a thread talking about this with Jonathan Porter mentioning that setting the machine on the ground or having the cable near the coil could induce some instability. 

Yeah... now that you mention it, I remember reading something like that too. I wonder how common it is in AUS though, or if it's just a really infrequent occurence there? I'm also really curious if the effect is better or worse in Alaska too. If it was just the detecting the cord then everyone should experience it equally?

I have some ideas, but it'd take me a novel to really explain them well. But I really don't think this has anything to do with effects coming from space like satellites or the sun. It's possible. But the evidence seems to indicate coupling to the Earth is the problem to me. (or coupling to itself - as in the case of the speaker, or potentially the cable?)

I think it's interesting that they replaced 2 inductors and not all 3 though. And 2 of them seem to be oriented in different directions. 

 image.png.27bcfa67aef9a10ecb7fc48c379512d2.png

I can't tell if these are inductor beads or wirewound though (LB04 or L804). But that makes a big difference here too. I thought they were beads at first but now I think they are wire wound. Pretty sure I can tell you exactly which 2 were replaced if I'm thinking along the right lines here (04 and 03). They both faced the speaker and were probably unshielded. Just like pointing our detector coils to a source of EMI, inductors are loops of wire thus EMI antennas when facing the wrong way.

I pulled the spec sheet of the replacement inductor and it very clearly notes it has robust shielding in all directions, not just 1 or 2. I'm guessing that is the reason they were chosen to replace the old ones.

I think what's happening is some kind of coupling to the Earth due to improper electric and magnetic shielding still. Could be as simple as that 3rd inductor which might be facing the Earth/Sky, could be other components or bad board trace design, or could be the entire box needs shielded better but wasn't to save weight. Or maybe the coil cable itself just needs replaced with something with better shielding? Hard to know, can only guess since info is held back. 

*Back to 50mph winds, just noticed snow tomorrow and thursday, wind+snow=blizzards and drifts, I guess it's all moot because it looks like my season is over now anyways.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was pointing out here I was getting the detector go nutty while sitting it on the ground, I haven't had that happen since the update.  When it happened for me was when I sat it down to recover some gold, by the time I was ready to waive my scoop over the coil with the target the detector was going too nutty to recover the nugget, with the tiny nuggets we often get here you need a pretty quiet detector to recover them effectively.   That was using the Torus too, so it wasn't speaker related.  In saying this I haven't yet been back to the spot it was happening so I can't confirm 100% that problem is solved.  I'll have to get my act together now and start looking for gold more that ski season is over.

Something like a bee flying past and farting can set a PI detector off with an EMI wobble, it really doesn't take much.   When we have an Aurora my radar detector in my car keeps going off with KA band so I think the cops are out in force, but it's just a warning to look to the sky that night as an Aurora is coming.  Maybe even stuff like this makes the 6000 go a bit wild.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Now I believe you fellows are getting on the right track, some clues are on DPs early 6K threads, as testers experience helped us early adoptees learnt how to get the best out of the 6K, such discussions occur as each new detector/coil hits the market, even long before 4Ms existed. The Z, X coils and to come the Axiom will be dissected, I recall some heated caravan park discussions over the A2B etc etc then the GM2 and GB2, well they were boiling discussions about interference, to me/others was just ground interference solved simply by adjusting the manual control carefully. You`d reckon they would have never found the gold they did as the 6K has for me and many others. You could indeed have a problem in the US, or ML has serious quality problems, satellites, the sun etc but then why didn`t the US testers and early adoptees acknowledge this. To me it is as if there are at least two different 6Ks.

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, tboykin said:

I bet your location EMI issue is due to Starlink.

Yes, we have Starlink in Australia, I’ll be getting it for my camper when it’s built, though I can’t say that’s been an issue as I’ve never had ‘random’ EMI spikes. It’s always been atmospherically induced (storms etc) or synthetically (other detectors etc)

 

I was having the issues of my detector going bananas when I laid it on the ground, the update seems to have fixed that aswell. My detector seems to have been a good one anyway, as it was running stable when using it, it just didn’t like being put down.

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, Sheppo said:

I was having the issues of my detector going bananas when I laid it on the ground, the update seems to have fixed that aswell. My detector seems to have been a good one anyway, as it was running stable when using it, it just didn’t like being put down.

Was yours going banana's using headphones and now the update resolved that? Just trying to clarify that as Minelab's notice is saying it's specially only going to improve speaker use yet it seems people are saying otherwise.  So far I haven't had mine play up when put down on the ground since the update and that's only using speaker, prior to the update it would go funky when put on the ground even when using headphones.  I'm yet to verify this in the same locations it went nutty though so I'm not 100% confident that problem is resolved yet, I'll find out next week sometime.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No, only the speaker. It does seem to have improved the detector overall though as I’m now able to run it with full manual sensitivity where as before I was only able to use it on about 2/3rds.

  • Like 3
  • Thanks 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I got an invoice back from the repair center and it shows the repairs and cost. Looks like a simple repair too- $2 parts a little over an hour and a half in labor. Too bad it wasn’t caught by Minelab before boards were made and installed. I wonder if the board manufacturer had to switch to an alternate inductor manufacturer due to supply and a type mismatch happened or something as simple as that?

This problem could’ve easily been overlooked by the people testing the detector like Steve; he probably got a very early version of it when the correct parts were still available for it…

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...