Sheppo

How do you go with lower tones? I found lowering the tone to about 40 on the detector helped a great deal.

Also using a set of quality noise cancelling earbuds was a huge help too. I usually run the volume on about 10 without a booster and between 6 & 7 with a booster to lift the threshold and any potential target noises.

That explains why the Axiom I was having a go with the other day wanted absolutely nothing to do with the .5g nugget we’d found on the nose or tail of the coil. It was the same in the scoop aswell as in the ground. Not ideal having it use the centre of the coil to reduce a scoop of dirt.

This popped up on my Facebook news feed from the Minelab page this morning.

I don’t know where this idea comes from that the 6000 is simply not a deep machine… 1.2 grammer, Georgetown QLD last year in a heavily mineralised area, with the standard GPX11 coil @ 10 inches on 3/4 manual sensitivity. Nearly the entirety of the coil was in the hole on edge while I was pintpointing. While it may not have the depth edge of the 7000, I still found this very acceptable for a nugget that size and depth and the area I was working in. 

3 hours ago, Rob Allison said:

We are only getting one size on the next shipment, I believe the 12x7 GPX 6000 coil.  

The only coil available at the moment from NF for the 6000 is the 12x7. The 16x10 shouldn’t be to far away though. I look forward to the 16x10, the tester I used was a fantastic coil.

As posted by reputable sources on social media.

Limited numbers of the 12x7 XCeed coil have been released, this should increase over time. I expect to pick mine up next week.

Surprised no one’s jumped on it yet, but the 12x7 XCeed coil has been released in limited numbers. I expect to puck mine up next week some time.

On 10/28/2022 at 10:24 PM, phrunt said:

Some bad news for Nugget Finder and of course for those like myself waiting on their GPX 6000 coils.  It appears Miners Den an Australian Minelab Dealer has told customers that the GPX 6000 coils that have been made already were all wired incorrectly, I heard hundreds of them were made months ago waiting on the chips to be programmed so they've had to start again as they couldn't re-use the ones they've done, it must be the wiring of the coil cable inside the coil to the security chip or something that they got wrong as if it was the plug end you'd think they could just put a new plug end on them, unless that makes the cable too short or something, so weird of a mistake to make.  This explains the ongoing delays though.

Another guy has backed this up saying he knew about it but was told it in confidence but it's out of the bag now with Miners Den telling people on the waiting list.  People are discussing it on the GPX 6000 facebook group.

A sad situation for Nugget Finder, seems they're having a bad run lately and this only makes it worse.  I hope they bounce back from it, the costs of a mistake like that must be huge for a small family business.

I need to say this… all this information is third hand information that is very likely incorrect. While these people may have said it on a facebook group, they haven’t backed it up, and hey, no one lies on the internet.

I’m sick to death of seeing all this bologna posted all over facebook and forums. It does irreparable damage to a company, and especially a small business like Nugget Finder. If Rohan shut up shop tomorrow over all the negativity that’s been posted, I wouldn’t blame him in the least. It seriously needs to stop. 

They’re working towards making sure there is a quality product on sale (and there will be, I’ve had the privilege of using a tester coil, and it was great), but seriously, for there to be a quality product go on sale, this parroting third hand information and negative posting needs to end. I’m saying this to everyone, not just phrunt. 

I apologise Steve, I needed to say something.

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.

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.

8 hours ago, afreakofnature said:

Really liking these early reports!

If you have the repair done can you list the serial number and date of purchase too.  Atleast DOP if not comfortable giving serial #.  Maybe we can find the range on our own 🙄

I purchased mine about 4ish months after initial release. When I rang up, I asked about this and was told if your machine had been bought or manufactured in the last fortnight, it will have the update, if not, it wont. That was on the 28/9/22 (9/28/22 for US readers). So in essence, any machine manufactured before mid September is affected.

An update on getting my 6000 back from receiving the update. Took it out for a swing for an hour or so while I was in Clermont this morning on other matters. 

Definitely an improvement. I ran the external speaker without issue and picked up two pieces in the process.

I set the machine down to test if the stability held and it did. I never had the issue of EMI while detecting. I ran the machine on full manual sensitivity where I normally only run between half to three quarters. I’m yet to use it with headphones to see if there is a difference as I didn’t have them on me (a friend of mine has one that had the update before mine and he reckons there is a difference even with headphones). 

If you are yet to get it in to have the update, I highly recommend it, it’s a totally different machine.

5 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

This is the coil size I thought Nugget Finder should have released first, followed by something smaller than the 12" round. Like a 10" round. The 12" is only an inch narrower than the stock 13x14 coil, so very little gain when it comes to being able to fit into tight locations. But 17" x 13" - that's a sweet size, and completely slays the Minelab 19" from a useability standpoint. This will no doubt become the new stock coil for many users in Australia, in particular.

And it’s SOOOO much nicer to use than the 19” coil too, especially being the same weight as the 14x13. I’ll be strapping one on myself when I head west.

13 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Where? I've not seen this, but maybe I missed it. Links please.

I doubt people started using their detectors any differently than they have in the last 20 years. Model designs are what change, and how they stand up to the use. Coils come with skid plates, and many Aussie posters over the years have told me how fast they wear them out. There are entire threads about skid plate replacement. That does not happen treating coils with kid gloves, and skid plates themselves imply an expectation detector coils may be in contact with the ground. I sure don't baby my coils, so I guess I'm one of the guilty parties here. Oddly enough, coil ears cracking has never been an issue for me on Minelab detectors, including the 6000. But that does not mean bad batches of plastic never get used in coil manufacture. It happens with all the companies, as they source their materials used in coil manufacture out of house.

One thing I would caution people about is not using excessive force when tightening coil bolts, no matter the detector you use. Just tight enough to keep the coil from flopping, no more. Some people way overdo it, and this can stress the coil ears. I have seen a few new coil designs lately that seek to change how the coil is tightened to alleviate this issue. The XP Deus coil setup comes to mind, but I've seen others, like the Fisher Impulse AQ, that use inserts that take the force, instead of the coil ear itself.

I apologise, I can’t find anything official, but it’s been mentioned on Facebook groups and here by others. I’ve also tested this theory myself and have found a stark difference between scrubbing the coil and not scrubbing the coil.

In my experience, scrubbing the coil induces chatter and unwanted noise, aswell as picking up the hotrocks you wouldn’t normally pick up.

14 hours ago, Gold Catcher said:

I think putting out serial numbers is a good idea. I seem to have more luck with my 6000, as I can't really say it's not performing well. Yes, it can be erratic at times, but nothing I can't usually manage. I always contributed the chatter to the enormous sensitivity, something I am not unfamiliar with being a sdc user.  In fact, I found it a very useful machine, although I hardly ever use the internal speaker. For me it is a nice addition to the Z/NF, especially when hiking. The only issue I have is that it is rather hot rock sensitive, something that is not related to the problems described here. Asked if I would buy it again, I would say yes, but only for my particular model of course. I feel sorry about all the other ones having serious issues. This truly sucks! I sincerely hope that the GPZ successor won't be in the same camp!

GC

What I would like to know is, how many people are using the detector to bulldoze instead of actually swing over ground. It’s been stipulated time and time again that the machine is not made to be scraped on the ground.

4 hours ago, jasong said:

They need to publish a range of affected unit serial #'s so the public can know.

When I rang them to send mine in (it’s been about a week since then) I was told if it’d been manufactured/bought new within the last fortnight (it had not) then it will not have the update. 
 

Going off that information, any machine bought before mid/late September of this year doesn’t have the update.

The 17x13 ZSearch has been released here in limited numbers, the same as the release for the original 12in ZSearch. The XCeed coils are waiting for Minelab to pull their finger out. 
 

Don’t forget that Rohan has had a recent death in the family aswell.

Absolutely going to call this out @phrunt and I apologize, I posted this 12ish ago on the coil cracks thread and this appears 3-4hrs  later as a spat against Minelab. Is this what it is? 
 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m thankful they’ve acknowledged this, but, I don’t think this post is called for. Many products that we pay alot of money for are updated regularly and it appears detectors aren’t out of that reach either.

No where near enough. I wish I had more free time to get out and go prospecting but I just don’t. I’ve been for 2 decent trips this year, one 5 day trip and another 4 week trip with a couple of day trips thrown in between.

Why is it that ML has designed two of their latest releases to have the speaker facing well away from your head? 6000 with the speaker on the back of the control box and this one with the speaker facing the coil???

Yep, and that one includes a date, presumably the release. 27/08/22.

48 minutes ago, phrunt said:

 

That is also a horrific coil cable winding job.

I was browsing my Facebook newsfeed when this little gem popped up from the Minelab page…

So for anyone wondering the price of Garrett’s new detector in Australia: As posted on Facebook by The Prospector’s Patch.

With a price like that I think they’ll be fighting an uphill battle here…