Aureous

Methinks the sales figures for the last quarter must be looking pretty poor for Codan/Minelab. The massive price increase in the face of increased competition strategy apparently doesn't work......whoda thunk it?????

Good to see that the designer is given credit right on the front...eh @Geotech??? 😉

@phrunt Winter is as close as you'll get to an ice age in Queensland, as you probably remember. Nice and dry (usually) and plenty of flies and snakes @Gold Ryder there too....cant have you missing out on all the Aussie fun 😉

You may recognize Palmerville.... its a pay per stay location for prospectors and attracts a lot of detectorists during the Winter. Only Steve Graf is crazy enuff to go in the Summer. But yeah, I get ya....good results like that attract the dickh%#ds who ruin it for everyone else. Was the same in Vic and WA back in the early 80's and mid 90's that resulted in a lotta grief....cut fences, dead livestock, police involvement, punch-ups etc. Gold can certainly bring out the worst in humanity 😞

I thought about it....and decided to wisely spend 139 hours doing something else.... 😉

He somehow knew about 'ex minelab engineers' making something new but didn't have any idea as to when. He was hinting at it for months... actually maybe early last year even. Have to run thru his myriad of videos to find it again lol

One of the boards he showed was related to the ground loop detector field amplifier, but the other one he's more excited about is the variable timing/gain PI unit that he's been working on for years. I think He has finally gotten some engineers to come on board with him to realize the dream. 'Later this year" I think was the inference.... Its the no-brainer concept PI that should have replaced the GPZ7000 if Minelab had hurried up. See who comes out with their 'super detector' first...

Flat wound coils benefit from a vacuum compression after winding....keeps the wire in place (look at the 6000 coils from beneath after removing the coil cover). This is a lot more effort and will require a vacuum forming machine to get it perfect. A minimum gap of 5mm from shield to wire is necessary. As Chet says, 100ohm per sq inch is a great ballpark figure, but can often be higher. Use graphite paint, not nickel spray....although it works, it can get bump sensitive. Litz can be problematic due to the enamel coating...its a bast*rd to remove efficiently to enable soldering. I use a Litz type wire that is not enameled but needs loom compression to lower resistance due to its different insulation thickness. Couple extra minutes of work but reduces the endless swearing & start-overs from a failed enamel removal. If you want the wire specs and where to buy, PM me @Norvic

In major Chinese manufacturer cities (Shenzhen for instance) there are numerous small sub contractors working from tiny facilities, some even as small as a car garage, all vying for a tiny section of any industry. This sort of re-manufacture of a single assembly is right up their alley. Super easy for them and often just a side-business from their usual product. This manufacture concept is extremely common in most Asian economies, as well as India and Pakistan, Bangladesh etc.

I concur Chuck.....the size gold I chase???......ALL. I've had numerous days with over 50 bits found, sometimes just an afternoon only. IT ALL ADDS UP.

My preference is off-road camper. Caravans are top heavy and have more things to go wrong with them. The serious 4x4 caravans are huge $$ whereas the used off-road camper can be bought for $3K or less. Set up is often less than 5 minutes after practice. Quick getaway if rain threatens to isolate you for weeks. Just my preference, others have good experiences with vans....I don't. Tent....forget it, been there, done that...it sucks.

I have deconstructed Coiltek coils from over 20 years ago and their screen is perfectly attached via masking tape. if a quality tape is used, its a terrific and simple way to secure the screen wire....saves $$ and time and does a great job. On the other hand, Ive seen Korean made Commander coils with heat-affected tape already peeling after only a couple years 😞

Wow, OK....this is the info I was missing. I am also a 'coil winder' and have built dozens of SD, GP and GPX coils over the years. So the screen wire is soldered to a dedicated pin on the coil cable plug?...and therefore finally terminated on the PCB? Wonder if the Aliexpress 6000 cable and plug has this wire correctly installed 😒 Im sure you'll let us know lol. Nothing wrong with using tape to secure screen wire onto the coil shield, Ive been using super strong automotive painters masking tape for over a decade. Sometimes when I deconstruct a coil to re-use parts, I see the tape still holding strong. There are graphite pastes available which bond well (prob what the Plexus coil sub-contractors use) but cost a heap more $$ to buy than quality tape.

I dont quite follow you Chet, is the shield wire supposed to be connected the same way as legacy GPX coils and this one was a 'fail' at the factory? Or is the actual method for the screen wire on the 6000 coils totally different?

Yeah, me....but I was quoting the ex Minelab Sales manager, Ian Aitken.

Re the tracking versus fixed-ground grab GB, remember that Alex and co got a patent for a 'different method' of extracting the metal signal from the overall receive signal. I suspect this has a lot to do with the reduced need for tracking and that the ground grab GB is all thats required in most instances... Its all in the code.

Quite a few people have commented that it has near-6000 sensitivity and can sometimes hear specimen gold or flat, thin bits of gold better than the 6000. Its when you get to larger, thicker gold that the Minelab's peel away in terms of sheer depth performance. It certainly has bang for your buck, versatility and light-weight. I'm sure that Alex and Co will bring more detector models to the market before too long. Or perhaps just software/firmware changes....the higher-end ARM-7 processors are capable of so much by simply tweaking the code. Time will tell....

@phrunt Hey Simon, ya thinking you should have never left Queensland? Steve seems to like the insane heat up there, a Kiwi who only seems to prospect when its 35c or higher. I'm outta there when it gets above 28c, I dunno how he does it....

As I said previous, nobody gets it all.....some ppl are very pro, some are sloppy. Take a look at Joe Legendre's Youtube videos, his recent few are very instructional on this very topic: Prospecting 101

Crikey Dickin's! ....Steve is at it again at Palmerville

Hmmmm, lets see it with a small coil and a .1gm bit of gold. Made by Eastern Europeans for deep coin/relic hunting so I cant imagine it would be any good for gold prospecting.... but who knows? Just have to wait for Simon @phrunt to buy one and he'll let us know lol

Ya never get it all. I can recall such instances where kilos of gold has been recovered later, on the tenement itself or on nearby exploration licenses. Where X marks the spot, the Y's and Z's can still provide results.

Cheers mate, The current big fire is about 50km from me, its likely to flare up into something bigger today and we're expecting more dry lightning today too which is a bigger worry, sparking further fires. Will be keeping a close eye on it all for sure. Check your pumps and hoses and keep your water supply full. Fingers crossed, it doesnt evolve into a disaster day....

Just a general reply, thanking the others for their feedback, tests and trials so we don't have to 'do the hard yards' ourselves. They should all be awarded the 'Order of the gold guinea pig, 1st class' for their efforts 😉

@Ethan in Adelaide , the point being, if a 'dead tenement' has mines or not, there will be a paper trail outlining the work done previous. Smaller tenements will pinpoint the likelihood of alluvial gold being present ....like someone found a patch and decided to peg it to work with machinery.