jasong

Here is a bit of an update for any curious: Kellyco replaced my detector with a new one, though it took quite some time to get it. The first detector had firmware issues right out of the box which I didn't know were not normal until I received the second detector, it didn't have to do with the rain. Also the "+" switch malfunctioned which I didn't mention before. Unfortunately the second detector also had issues right out of the box too. The volume control did not work, it would adjust in the software but the volume stayed stuck at full blast, which is far too loud for headphones for my ears. It also ran ratty, like I was detecting over hot ground but only in the mild soil of my front yard, the coil also seemed very sensitive to touch. So I've got my 3rd detector today and thankfully everything seems to work! Unfortunately, I bought this detector in July to prospect a few specific high alpine locations where my PI's don't work for various reasons, and it is now September. No bueno... I had been waiting for the Gold Racer but I needed a good VLF with a VDI immediately for a couple areas I can only prospect in a very limited time window which is now expired... It appears to me there may be some kinks both on the QC and customer service side to work out. Though I will say that Kellyco did make it right to me and next day air out my 3rd machine after I finally got someone to return my call and explained my frustrations. But there were also 8 or 9 calls that went completely unreturned before that too and many many weeks of waiting on nothing, so no gold star... Anyways, there it is. Another person told me he had the same issue as my first machine had and returned it too. I know these can be great machines, and from what little I've used mine in my front yard I'm impressed with the depth, speed, and target separation. But its just too excessive to lose that much prospecting time trying to get a working machine IMO for me to give it a good review overall. I'm sure for 99% of other people it will be a great machine though.

Great info, thanks for posting Coota. Do you ever get nasty hotrocks down in that cemented layer or is it pretty much always gold if you get down that far? I wonder if it's like the caliche we get out here, or maybe even harder stuff by the looks of it.

The "A" gives it away for me, but I'd never notice if someone didn't say one was different.

Do you remember what sort settings you were running with the 7000 Coota? Ground mode/gold mode/sensitivity/smoothing? And what timing/sensitivity/stabilizer setting on the 45? I've got a 4500+7000 too and I've been really hoping someone would post with some field experience on that new Coiltek Elite compared to the 7000, great to see your post. Nice gold and shooting too. Video works for me if you click and download it. Easiest way to post or embed vids is to just make a youtube account and link to your video there. I'm right there with you on the 45 as a patch hunter, same thing I do. So much faster to swing. Find em then bring the bulldozer (7000) in to clean em up.

Flavor to taste, but what I do is hit a patch two full times then start searching for patches again, when you have days that come up dry then head back to your patch for a few hours before the sun goes down so you can grab a couple nuggets and not be skunked for the day. Eventually you'll have a good handful of patches to work that always have a nugget or two left, within driving distance to wherever you are exploring and most days you will always come home with something in the poke. Also, coming back to a patch after a month or so often brings a new perspective, or maybe you just swing the coil at a different angle and hear new things. Keeping spirits high is to me the best motivator to keep looking for new patches. For me, if I am able to go home every day with at least 1 or 2 nuggets then I wake up the next morning ready to go right back out, avoid those 2 week slogs with no finds. It's good to always keep a few patches in the back pocket that haven't been hunted out totally.

Fisher just charged me $95 to replace two small switches on my GB2. Now, I didn't weigh them before I sent it in, but gram for gram thats gotta be close to spot. If the 7000 battery is only $150 then I find that surprisingly reasonable for a ML product, I hope that's right, I'll take 2.

I'm betting a lot of the data was related to coring, one of the partners is a 3D modelling program and the other does drilling programs and 3D modelling as well. Probably the trick is going to be compiling everything into one single 3D model representing their underground property and relating that to whatever sort of gold deposition method occurs on that property and finding any underexplored segments. Might be a fun challenge for a team of people with specialties in various different areas required. I joined just for fun and so I can see what a 6TB mining database looks like, when's the next time I'll ever get access to something like that... Be nice to see what these big mining companies are working with.

A mining company called Integra is offering a $1 million prize to process their 6 terabytes of data and make a new big gold discovery in a hard rock property they purchased in Canada. https://herox.com/IntegraGoldRush If anyone is into mapping, exploration, geology, hard rock mining, and data processing with computers then this may be something you are interested in. We're obviously all interested in gold already! Seems like there are a few mining engineers and geologists that post on various gold forums.

I'm more curious how the 2015 full year report looks for Codan, Seems like the half year report captures the initial release of the 7000, but it doesn't seem like there is a lot of interest in the 7000 at this point in time now months after the release, at least not in the US. There was a bunch of chatter about the 5000 for some time after the release by comparison, and it was far less of a leap over the 4500 than the 7000 is over the 5000. Gold has been down to due to the strength of our dollar too so maybe in general there isn't as much interest in prospecting as in years past in the US. Australia's dollar has declined relative to ours so gold is relatively higher there and it seems like their activity hasn't dropped like ours has compared to a few years ago. Anyways, trying not to sway the subject too much. But I suppose it's all related. Feels like maybe times are a changin' a bit in the detector world across the board. About time IMO, I was posting about how far behind companies are in technology usage 10 years ago, and it seems like until the last few years they didn't even try to get current until we started seeing machines like the XP and 7000, and detector prices until very recently haven't been going in the right direction either so it's a welcome change.

Looks like competition is finally leveling the playing field a bit and that's something this industry has needed for a long long time. Detector prices are so arbitrary... Only in detecting is it normal to pay full price for a machine released 20 years ago (GB2, etc). I know there is at least one other manufacturer new to the PI game developing a 5000 competitor right now too. Should be interesting to see if the PI field gets leveled a bit too, maybe the 4500 reintro pricing has something to do with that. Hope it doesn't stop, bring on even more competition and a healthy market!

Cool good luck with it, I'm like you and waiting to get it out into the goldfields as well! What was in the folded shell?

I am starting to doubt we'll see a coil big or small anytime soon. And honestly I almost don't even want to see one because I know the price is going to be off putting to me on a machine that honestly is still a love/hate relationship for me at this point. I'm saying that as a loyal ML user since the first day I started detecting for gold. If they come out with the coils where people have been predicting in the $1500-$2000 range I think I'm probably done buying stuff from ML in protest to their arbitrary pricing in the clouds. Anyways, what I can't ignore is that it was almost 3 months after the US release until I saw a GPZ in the field not owned by a Minelab dealer, their associates and friends, or someone related to Minelab in shape or form (except my own machine), and I was out detecting basically every day in probably the most popular general area to run GPZs after the initial release. I could be completely off base here since I know dealers are saying they sold like hotcakes, but I am starting to suspect they haven't sold enough units to make an add-on coil profitable to manufacture. Again, just me speculating, nothing more. If they drop the price on the 7000 and sell a bunch of units I think we'd see a coil come out fairly quick though. Doesn't explain why you can't buy a battery though, actually until I read this post I assumed you could since I haven't tried yet, kinda surprised you can't.

Thanks Flak and Jim, I like talking about tech related stuff, my first thought when I encounter something new is generally "how can I use this for prospecting or mining". Always glad if it's something others find interesting too.

tvanwho: In FPV you fly using a HUD (heads up display) in a similar fashion as pilots use them to fly aircraft (or military drones) with limited or no sight. It gives you roll, pitch, bearing, elevation, distances, etc and you can navigate by that without seeing anything else. They are pretty useful even within sight range, and actually kinda fun to learn and fly with them, it's like a flight simulator except more real. You usually have to add the HUD yourself, DJI makes one.The video monitor is more to just give you a sense of what you are around, you can point it in any direction you want though, and its not high enough resolution to make out fine detail with. Though you can fly by it but its easy to get disoriented. Some quadcopters come with this setup, but it's was much cheaper to build it myself when I bought mine, dunno about now though. To fly 20 miles out you'd need to go to custom radios, antennas, and high power FPV tx/rx's that operate on lower frequencies like below 1ghz. Again, not legal anymore in the US. But on the frequency subject, usually what legitimate setups use today (and what my personal setup contains) are 2.4GHZ for your radio and 5.8ghz for your FPV system. Two things: those are also frequencies that many consumer devices use (routers, phones, etc) so you get a lot of reduced range and noise near cities. Second, these high frequencies are basically line of sight, especially 5.8ghz, so in forests or areas with lots of trees your range could be greatly reduced and you'll lose your drone. I'm lucky in that all the areas I prospect and live are either praries or deserts without trees. But if you are standing in the forest and flying up and out then you won't be going very far. Different powers of transmitters and different styles of antennas all greatly increase the ranges as well. A good antenna is the cheapest way to boost range, but most of the high gain ones are also highly directional, so keep that in mind. Some have quite narrow like 5-10 degree fields, fly out of that and your HUD is gone, bam. This is one reason why the FAA enacted line of sight flight only, it makes sense, we don't want drones falling out of the sky onto our heads.

Amazing if real. Will it be sold or any details released? I'd love to see a higher res photo of that monster.

Well I am happy to say that Minelab is now mailing me a ferrite today. Maybe they read this thread or realized I was getting a bit impatient and frustrated in my last email to them, either way this time it got elevated to a manager and took about 5 minutes to get one after that, no more canned responses and everyone was very helpful this time.

Dang, glue a magnet to the bottom of it and it's the GPZ of the meteorite stick world. Kidding aside, that thing is stylin', Gatsby would approve.

That hole looks like a veritable excavation. Nice job on that piece.

If nothing else you'd think they'd express mail 2 rings out to the 2 guys posting on this thread who haven't got them. $20 bucks versus ongoing bad press on probably the most visited forum when it comes to the 7000... They had this exact same backorder problem on accessories for months when the GPZ was first released, I can't imagine its that difficult to count how many units you've sold and plan accordingly but apparently this will be an ongoing issue. I just don't get it at all. 3 months and still waiting for something they could also just have sent from Digikey or Mouser right now if they are really unable to get them from wherever they have been backordered from. It would sure be nice if Minelab would explain this in either the 4 emails I've sent them or at least a short post on here. Murphy being Murphy, here is exactly what will happen this fall 1200 miles from home when I run into balancing issues and want to send the machine in for repair: "Sir, we are going to need to you to first test the machine with the ferrite ring before sending in for repair"

From Minelab Chris? They sent me an email this morning saying they were still on backorder...

The DJI you posted a link to is what I have, it's cheap and prefab but it does the job and is probably a good way to start. I installed a much more powerful RX with circular polarized antennas, plus patch antennas on my TX radio. Also put in an FPV (first person view) system so that I can fly by videoscreen. My only limitation on distance is battery, which you'd need to go to a DIY solution like the guy in that other thread was posting to increase. I've seen vids on youtube where guys are flying 20 miles out, so distance isn't really a problem if a guy is willing to spend the time and money building his own. But I should mention again for any reading this, out of sight flight is now illegal according to the FAA and they have ticketed some people. It makes sense because you don't want to be causing crashes with manned aircraft. But you can still make a nice little ultrahigh-resolution aerial layer of your prospecting spots just by flying patterns within sight range. With the GoPro you need to get a fisheye filter correction or take your photos in narrow FOV which decreases the resolution so requires more passes, you can batch process them in Photoshop. A 12MP camera without fisheye would be the way to go for Aerials. There is a Russian program which I forget the name of right now which will autostitch your photos much much better than the Photoshop stitcher, It also does 3D recreation of models, like you can fly 360 degrees around a mountain and recreate the mountain as a 3D model from your photos, which is pretty cool itself, you can do with with your own head too. After stitching you can georeference the aerial overlay in ArcGIS or Google Earth and then make a superoverlay from it and host it online or wherever you want if you don't want to share it. That DJI Phantom is easy to fly. Like, it takes no skill at all in GPS mode, the accelerometers correct and you can take your fingers off the controls and just hover there automatically without doing anything. You can also buy the Ground Station module, which may not be legally for sale anymore, and it literally flys the entire thing automatically for you in any predetermined flight path you want.

I've had one for 2 years now. Initially I was going to make my own high-res imagery and sell them as overlays, but the FAA made anything business related with them illegal. I just use it to scout now mostly, but even that's been crippled since out of sight flight is now against FAA regulations too so the usefulness is questionable now. I save myself hikes up mountains and use it to take pictures of ore piles up there to see if its worth the hike, that's about it anymore. As stock they wouldn't be much use for prospecting, but you can get aftermarkets parts for them so the radios go significantly further and so that you are able preprogram flight paths beyond radio distance, at least you used to be when it wasn't against regulations, not sure about now. Anyways, they are loud and annoying, the last thing I'd want is to go prospecting and have a swarm of those things flying everywhere above my head out in the wilderness. Sounds like the loudest swarm of really PO'ed angry bees you've ever heard.

Just curious how it does on depth and sensitivity. Has anyone tested the Elite with some specimen type gold that the GPX misses but the 7000 screams on? Is anyone even running one over here? Most of the comments I see are in Australia. NF looks to also be coming out with a similar coil. I'm just curious how much and what sorts of improvements they give.

For what its worth, the one you found in Rye Patch looks like a candidate to me from your pics even if this one in this post isn't. Hopefully that one turns out. Meteorites definitely aren't my area though, not until NYMEX creates a commodities exchange for them at least. I ran into zircon too when I kept coming up with a dull silverly looking powder in my dredge concentrates and was hoping for platinum. Finally got it XRF'ed and figured out what it was, and under the microscope you could tell it wasn't silvery powder but actual mini crystals.

I emailed Minelab and asked about ferrite material specs for potential 3rd party purchase, this is their response: "Minelab does not recommend using any aftermarkets items on any of its products. Thanks again for your inquiry, we look forward to servicing you soon." A bit confusing really considering I already had to buy 3rd party coil covers, detector covers, and a screen cover (which didn't work because the screen was already scratched due to not having one when it was new) because ML didn't provide them or make them available and in the case of the detector/screen covers they are still not available today. This is one of the most expensive consumer detectors in the world, and expectation of service and quality is inferred and I'm starting to get the feeling ML has ignored that part. If I purchase the penthouse suite at the Hilton I don't expect to have to furnish my own towels and TV. Even Motel 6 understands that for 1/10th the price. I get its a cheap ferrite of potentially dubious usage. But that isn't the point. For me, it's the continuing pattern that is frustrating.