RONS DETECTORS MINELAB

Looks like we will be seeing some new innovation coils, so glad this has come about. I look forward to doing some testing of the new technology when it’s available.

I wish these were not an endangered species on public lands or I would have a whole family of them in a hydraulic zoo cage for them and keep them feed well 24/7.

Can’t wait to get the new 12x8” for the 5000 and give it a try. Hearing it can handle more front end gain on the mods.

I Sell more Evo coils than the Z-Search and Xceed coil’s combined, so it’s not a low demand issue by any means. A sad day for the 5000 users.

Minelab offered dealers stock on the Xterra Elite before it was released, best move ever from a company. If they could get the accessories also ready then they’ll be a top company for transparency. The Algoforce was also quick to hit the markets in Australia. The rest or majority of these competitor companies live off of hype and marketing strategies that in my opinion is just a waste of energy and just gets people excited to frustration when nothing happens. Goverment saying hurry up and wait reminds me of we are here to help and just let us hold your prepaid deposit until we have stock in. Really frustrating when this happens, please keep your money in your pocket until dealers have one to sell.

I agree the Minelab’s patents are holding strong for now on the ZVT, but aftermarket modders are passing Minelab up with coils and deeper options on several playing fields. The 7000’s new replacement with geosense and some newer technology coils would be a good start. These improved spiral coils is definitely something that any company could produce and probably would beat the older outdated Minelab stuff.

All the PI’s released in the last three years have been checking off a lot of boxes mainly ergonomics & small/medium gold sensitivity/depth which most nugget hunters were wanting in a PI. Now we just need a 7000 match or better and the market will start to look like the VLF markets for choices.

Yep, the audio does need to be boosted somehow without the inbuilt boost from the Minelab battery. I have a Bluetooth LL Transmitter on the detector side I have tried several versions of GP/GPX battery systems. The 7.4 voltage can run all these legacy detectors, but to get this voltage you need a good quality buck converter. The first picture shows the battery system for both 4 & 5 pin systems. If just using the GPX series then no need for the buck converter, just run 8.4v or less. I recommend using an older Detech signal enhancer as seen in the second and sixth pictures. These have a bypass switch that turns the amplifier off for when using the Bluetooth transmitter preventing over modulation. I only use the transformer enhancement side of the booster when using an external speaker. Has anyone found a good audio enhancer that matches the Detech ones, as I cannot match the sound quality with others I’ve tried. Wish the SP01 had a battery system added to it. The third picture is using Four 18650’s in series for a longer run time, also in a metal case for durability. I use 1/8” & 1/4” jacks for external speaker and for Bluetooth options. In the fourth picture the Samsung 3.7v 18650 batteries are what are in the orange Vermico camera battery case. The camera battery has a protective board that prevents damage to external electronics so is a safer way as I would not want to reverse voltage on an expensive device.

The lowering sensitivity down to manual 3 or 4 does loose a little bit of sensitivity/depth but it also helps my brain hear through all the EMI chatter better allowing me not to miss a target masked by the instability of the lack of noise filtering. The 9” Goldhawk does better on 3 grain and smaller bits for depth but has a slight loss in depth on larger nuggets when compared to the stock 11” coil. So basically the 9” is a good all around coil but the 10x5” picks up smaller bits deeper and the 11” picks up bigger nuggets deeper over the 9” , so no need for it in my arsenal as the other two coils cover everything the 9” does and even more so. The 14x9” is more of a patch hunting coil but will not hit the larger nuggets any deeper than the 11”, hopefully you got a good 11” as many had noise problems in the beginning.

Jeff, these top end SMF detectors are pretty close in frequencies ranges and probably explains why there are so many close comparisons results on them, be interesting to compare how watered down if any the SMF frequencies are on the newer mid-level models. Hopefully in the end it will be a close race and it will be more about the price point than performance. I'm sure enjoying the lower prices we are seeing in this battle of the companies though.

Steve,Thanks for the link 😃 Great information as I’m more curious about the TX frequency versus the return weighted processor’s final output. I am guessing a 40 klz frequency is not as good on a deep high conductor just like a 4 klz is not as good on a grain sized bit. So am just glad to see what frequencies are being sent into the ground at this point with these SMF detectors so I can see what all these new models coming out have for a true mode comparison. Just because one has single frequency of 15 and another has single of 25, what frequency is the SMF really pushing out as it could be a lot higher. I first saw this when I tested the Equinox 600 in its highest single frequency and found a big improvement when it was in Multi when using a small test bit in Park 2 mode, so I was thinking it ran one of the frequencies higher when in this multi frequency mode.

Has anyone with the capability tried to check the TX frequencies Klz ranges on the different SMF modes for Garrett, XP, Minelab, & Nokta SMF detectors. Curious to know what they run as I believe this will show which ones excel on small and bigger targets better. Attached is a chart someone with an oscilloscope put together showing only two frequencies outputs on the Deus 2 SMF modes.

The White’s Vista or V3i had three frequencies 2.5, 7.5, & 22.5 that ran simultaneously through a microprocessor, I wish I knew if this Vortex was a similar frequency platform in multi as it would hit on small items like small coins very well.

Geosense controls simplicity on the GPX-6000 is outstanding and makes the 6000 a turn on and go detector and it works. Is it perfect, No! So I really don’t need anymore controls when wanting to just get out and do some detecting, but when I do comparison’s on the 5000 and it’s settings options allows me to outperform the 6000 in several ways it makes me want more option on the 6000 also. I would like to have it both ways and have a switch on the panel that turns the 6000 basic menu screen into something like the Gold Racer 2 menu for the more challenging tasks.

Mineralized ground probably means needing a pulse induction detector as VLF detectors struggle in mineralized ground. Might check with someone familiar with the area you’re interested in on this. VLF’s do excel on on quartz gold in low mineralized areas though. Two PI detectors come to mind at that price point and are lighter than the older models. The Algoforce is not available in North America as of right now but could be coming soon. The Axiom-lite comes with a mono coil, so getting a DD coil would help in adding the ability to reject surface iron also. Some more information below: