auminesweeper

Well Mate, every time you start to have doubts go and read Steve's list about Gold detectors just to remind your self how good they are, That alone will give you the driving force and keep you focussed, You Own some of the best gear on the planet looking at your list of gear, So believe it. ML did not rerelease the 4500 by accident, As for JW finding a nugget 0.23 grams I bet if he tried harder he could find a smaller one with the Equinox if he tried, With yours I would be testing it out using fired Bricks and buckshot working on your settings until you can get out because you will know the machine much better by time you get out in the field, There is no substitute for really knowing your machine before you go out detecting, Searching for Gold is hard enough which is why you don't want to be learning the machine when you should be detecting then you can concentrating on looking for Gold listening to every little squeak and chirp as well as using your eyes to follow the geology that will lead you to the gold.

Many folks chop and change machines search for that magic machine but it does not exist, The machine a person should stick with is the model they had the most success with which is why I won't change my VLF, some folks have bought and sold at leased 10 maybe more machines this past year and they are back to square one, If people would finesse their skills with the machine that they were most successful with then they would not need to keep wasting money on machines that are a repeat of what they already have I won't change my VLF, because if I want to find tiny nuggets I use the 5.3 coil and if I want to go deep I use the 14x10 or the 15" Concentric which works like a VLF version of a Mono, A GPX 4500/5K would be next on my list and another GMT because both of these two are bench marks and if a person has no success with these two then it's down to their skill level, Makes and models can only help do so much. the rest is down to doing the hard yards. We can only blame the machine for so long and chopping and changing is not the answer.

I hope Whites always keeps that GB system because it is so good and fast, I would like to see them add a see through mineralization feature to that GB and then depth would be improved along with target ID, But I would like to see Whites add 2 extra push pads to the MXT for manual GB.

No GB it is the Detech Excelerator EQ2 Pro 14x10, I have one on the machine and a brand new one still in it's box as a spare. This is It, https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DETECH-14-x-10-DD-Elliptical-COIL-for-Whites-DFX-MXT-Series-M6-and-MX5/273363022240?hash=item3fa5b4b1a0:g:5bEAAOSwQz1bKBgR

I have a 14x10 on my VLF and next to the 5.3/6" coil it is my favourite and it is the same weight as the standard 10" DD but it adds a few inches depth on coins and on larger items it goes really deep.

It's not just you, that is the world we live in now, $1000 for an Iphone and they bring out a new one 6 months later, and the new comers to the hobby who work for these companies are trying to do the same to detecting and we have had quite a few machines put on the market that are less than Inspiring even on a good day, I would much rather they spent a couple of years getting it right than blow my hard earned cash and regret it a week later as we have seen in the past,

Thanks, I came to thinking/wishing they would sort out the ground issues when I was testing my coils and someone posted about how far their machine could air test a coke can, Well the coke cans over here are smaller at 330mils and when I did his test I Dare not publish my results because it would of started a war, even more so when I used my favourite coil, But I thought if I could get that depth then I would need a JCB and leave the pick at home, As it is I have a coil that can see Cans at up to 3 feet and maybe a bit more in the ground but it Air Tests at ridiculous distances, I have always thought if I loose 70% of that distance in the ground then I am still going to be digging 2 or 3 feet holes on a coke can, Perish the thought ?. Good ground balancing is one thing and the MXT has the best GB ever made but that is only a small part of the story because as we know the ground minerals can just destroy a detectors depth, but regardless of the GB system until a detector can wipe out those mineral then we are not going to see any improvements in depth, Because they have the same effect as Headlights in the Fog and when it gets too bad we have to turn down the gain so it can see, A bit like switching from High beam to low beam in the fog, We have detectors with multi frequencies that can ID a coin in a bucket of Nails with maga sweep speed and even faster separation speeds yet we still don't have a VLF that can see through the Mineral Soup that we face on a daily bases. We have everything but the Ability to see whats down there.

Well looking at as an observer from the out side looking in, Back when the MXT,GMT and the GB II were made field testers and engineers us to work hard together and would not release the machine until it was All it could be, but around 2010 that all changed and machines have been released when near enough is good enough and if there is any problems they will put it right at the Owners inconvenience As we have seen this a lot in the past couple of years with some machines going back 3-4-and 5 times, that sours on lookers and drives people away, And although these 3 machines are old tech they can still run with the pack. The trouble with machines that are phased out within 2 years means that if there is a problem they won't work on a fix for everyone but they will fix individual machines as they go wrong, They came up with the Idea of the MXT in Late 1998 when work first started and it was released in mid 2002, people wonder why they are so good well that's what you get when the best Engineers and Prospectors combine resources and work together for over 3 and a 1/2 years to make sure it's all it can be, And 16 years later they are still good, The future of VLFs will not make any huge leaps but instead of major depth increases what we will see is smarter detectors that can unravel the ground noise and allow the machine to send and receive its signals hopefully in the same sort of ranges as they Air test because If they could only get that signal to go in the ground and return a signal then they would match a PI 90% of the time, I would say that the VLF technology has not reached it's peak but I would say it is in a state of confusion where it has stalled and if they can unravel the Gremlin that stops a VLF from putting it's power in to the ground then the person/company who does that will make billions, We don't need better coils or more power, what we need is the power we have but be able to get it in the ground in all conditions not just mild to medium high soils, Do that and you would have a GPZ with the Disc of the MXT and you would be unstoppable.

I don't like short term machines, for a simple reason if it is built right and up to the task then the only reason to change would be out of boredom, The GB II is a first class example of that, It still has all new comers whooped when it comes to specks and is still very much a world beater.

I just found this video of Toms about the 24K and it looks impressive and it is a first class instructional video on Toms behalf too. John.

It was between 12 and 1300 bucks, closer to 1270 I think at the time, maybe ? I did see it but it got took down just after I started this thread. and I can't remember, Either way Whites has one heck of a beach machine.

No not yet, I still like the metal box construction of the GMT's but So far I am liking what I am seeing with the 24K so maybe there is one in my future,

I have been telling them over there for the past 4 years that every good prospector should own a good VLF, It just makes good sense, when the Dirt is shallow and bedrock or the junk is thick and fast then there is not substitute for a good VLF. I have soils here that are murder but I always try a VLF just for a quiet life and no wasted time digging junk targets, There is just no point in using a PI if the ground is low to medium High mineralization, and the chances are the VLF's and LF's will see smaller bits anyway, A lot of Aussie's get tunnel visioned when it comes to ML PI machines, They are the best no doubt but sometimes have too much power can work against you, But people in Aus are changing their minds because ML have bought out an LF machine they are now prepared to except the fact that VLF's work which is crazy because they have been doing things the hard way all these years because they just won't listen, Regardless of the brands In skilled hands a VLF is a very powerful tool when deployed in the right environment and with the new Coil technology from the past 5 or 10 years even big Coils can hit real small Gold down to about 0.02 grams on surface Gold using VLF's and with LF's they can be even smaller. The hardest part about buying a VLF is choosing which one with so many fine offerings available it could drive a person crazy.

Well JW if you put that 6" Concentric on the GMT it will be about as hot as the GBII, When I fitted the old GMII 6x10 Concentric to the GMT it made it a lot hotter to the point that I had to buy some scales with a 5 digit read out 0.0001oz or 0.001gm and the GMT with that coil could see bits on the surface that were so light that they would not register on those scales, What the GMT 2D coil see's at 1" in the Air the old Goldmaster GMII 6x10 Concentric will see up to 3" which makes it perfect for sniping tiny Gold from Bedrock etc, The 14x8 DD and the 14x8 Concentric are blind to tiny bits and they are the worst of the larger coils and have slightly worse sensitivity than a 14khz machine with a big coil, It would be good if the GM-1000 coils would fit the Equinox but I think the new coil for the EQ should be pretty good, time will tell. Try and buy the old GMII coil for your GMT, If you can't find one I will see if I can track down a 6" GMT coil for you.

I found out by accident how hot the 6" concentric is for my Whites purely by accident because I bought a 6x10 Concentric for my GMT so I started testing all of my coils and with this new 6" coil for the Equinox it comes as no surprize that it is going to be a real winner for fine Gold and on larger items like coins it should be pretty deep too, But the real bonus will be in hot ground because the detector will not have to process so much info so in hot ground it will really excel.

They are tricky little devils to find so JW must be doing something right,

Thing to remember with the SL is to leave the GB switch "ON" unlike the Pro which works better with the GB switched off. I hope White's makes it available to us all.

Today I re-watched Chris Ralph's series on the GM-1000 and it does not matter how skilled a person is those video's are relevant to folks young and old, for me they bought back to life the things I had lost in the back of my mind but also I was very impressed with how the GM performs, I am a bit overwhelmed with the amount of LF machines that are on the market which is pushing me further away and makes me want to buy another GMT and or "IF" the 24k is up to scratch then it is on my radar, The GMT shares a lot with my main detector but the GM-1000 has fuelled the fire in me but the Equinox leaves me in no mans land, just not sure what to think about that one, Another thing that stopped me from using my GMT was in the prospecting mode the MXT just sounds nicer and when paired with the 5.3 Coil it becomes such a hot combination and the lower frequency helps it run smoother in hotter ground and all of these things are just driving me away from LF detectors.

JW, you always spoil us with your finds, That's Skill finding them tiny ones, thousands of people don't poses that level of concentration that you have.

Thanks for that I will have a read ASAP.

Some one found a nice little nugget with the EQ 800 using the 11" coil, John. See Post 978 on this page. https://www.prospectingaustralia.com.au/forum/viewtopic.php?id=23409&p=40

I think that Whites was waiting to release it at some point but some naughty person posted it on their web pages and now this video plus the manual being on Whites site means it is real, I really wish Whites all the luck in the world and thank them for raising the bar even if the Cat should of stayed in the bag, I am also pleased that they have listened to folks and put a TDI in a Wet Suit, lol. Well done Whites.

Yeah GB I think your right, according to the manual this one takes the same battery as the SL being 2200mah P/N509-0036.

Well I guess you could say that this one is a TDI without all the fuss, You can still off set the GB to wipe out unwanted targets and cherry pick so this might be the best TDI for the beach yet and it is waterproof, So you have a machine that lets you get on with the job and no second guessing which is one of the main things that made the MXT such a success. It's all about the detecting and I like that Idea. John.

Actually the conductivity switch is a pain because you never know if you have used the right setting so you second guess your self all the time, So in away I think this might be a better idea, The crazy thing is I set mine to "ALL" all the time anyway, Lol I posted a video showing how the SL is deeper than the CTX on the beach on fine Gold Rings so I think this could be a winner.