phrunt

A news article about the Chinese buying gold like there is no tomorrow, helping keep the pricing up and increasing it.

China is buying gold like there is no tomorrow

There is no question China is driving the price of gold.

This is another article about the gold "beans" they are buying.

Gold beans all the rage with China’s Gen Z as deflation bites | The Straits Times

I don't think the export customs do the screening of stuff like the import customs do, at least here, as if I post something internationally it arrives at the mail centre and passes right through straight away to waiting on a flight and is normally off on its way a few hours after arriving, whereas importing stuff sits in customs for a couple of days where it goes through screening.

I would think if they were sampling the coil by drilling it like that, it would be done at import customs in the US not export in Bulgaria.

I don't think the export customs do the screening of stuff like the import customs do, at least here, as if I post something internationally it arrives at the mail centre and passes right through straight away to waiting on a flight and is normally off on its way a few hours after arriving, whereas importing stuff sits in customs for a couple of days where it goes through screening.

I would think if they were sampling the coil by drilling it like that, it would be done at import customs in the US not export in Bulgaria.

Outstanding, PVC's pretty tough, should work out well.

It looks like you've done it, I guess you could use one of them multi tools to cut the overhanging stuff off before removing it from the mold? 

I think due to the nature of the problem, Minelab would be kind enough to resolve this one even outside of warranty, while not officially a recall it is very similar.  They're very good with their warranty, and this is one I think they'd accept outside of that.

Ok, I see the confusion now, the dealer is misrepresenting the coil, it's not an Elite at all, it's a DD Pro. No such thing as a DD Pro Elite.

The DD Pro is the newer version of the now discontinued Goldstalker DD.

Neither are spiral, neither are an Elite coil, which is the spiral range name.  Goldstalkers are bundle wound.

5 hours ago, RONS DETECTORS MINELAB said:

If you get used to running only one setting and you have variable ground conditions there’s a strong chance you’re missing out on gold.

That video was a real eye opener, the guy was a bit baffled as he was obviously going over the nuggets for the first time, not some staged video, he'd not seen the results before doing it and difficult really shocked him missing that nugget, when such an easy target for normal.  I guess as Steve always points out, the more filtering, the more stuff you're balancing out there is a chance that gold could be in that balanced out spot.   Difficult handles bad ground and hot rocks better at the expense of missing some gold that would otherwise be an easy target.

As for the EMI fix, still never heard of one person who has had it done and noticed no difference, even headphone only people.

Good catch, I missed he thought the Elite was a DD.

I have the detectormods high-capacity rig on my 5000, and just use a Bluetooth LL transmitter, and the Avantree Torus, or my JBL Wind speaker on the detectors shaft.  I've been happy enough with it, charges with USB C.

I just kept my original larger Minelab battery pouch DD leather case and put my battery in that, pretty roomy for the little battery but doesn't matter to me, I store some snacks in there 😛

Goldstalker - Bundle wound / Elite - Spiral wound.

I'd go the Elite.

You seem to be very interested in a lot of coils, don't go overboard as many will sit in your cupboard never used as you gravitate to your favourites 🙂

1 hour ago, Lesgold said:

Thanks Chuck. I’ve got nothing to lose except a bit of time and a few dollars. It’s raining here and I can’t be out prospecting so I may as well do something even if it means at the end of the day it was a waste of time. At least I’ll learn something.

If you have success, you could start selling them! 

I really like people doing stuff themselves, the learning, the benefits of doing so and the feeling of the success when you get the job done.  Well done so far.

The original ones come in two types, the white ones that I have no idea what plastic they are, and heavy duty ones that are more transparent which are polycarbonate.  I have fixed an original white one that was bent in shipping with its boxed crushed by using a hair dryer.  

I learnt something with the Avantree Torus the other day, I've had difficulties with mine since the start, mainly with crackling audio but sometimes it just seemed unstable with the audio, I used to do things like turn the detector off and on to reset the Bluetooth, or turn my transmitter off and on to try fix it, never did do much in the way of solving it.  The other day my Torus was having a sound like a horse galloping though it when using the Avantree transmitter on my GPZ, and the Torus.  I thought it was my GPZ but when I went to using the WM12 it had no galloping sound, so I tried unplugging the transmitter, turning it off and on and the sound was still there, turned the Torus off and on and bang, fixed.  Later in the day when it started playing up again with a bit of constant crackle I did the same, just a quick off and on of the Torus and it cleared it up again.  

I wonder if it scans frequencies when power cycled to find a clean one, or something like that.

Let your ears rest: Prolonged use of headphones and earbuds, even at 85 dB, can still harm your ears. That said, practice the 60-percent/60-minute rule – if you set the volume at 60 percent, limit your usage to 60 minutes daily.

Hearing Health Foundation - Personal Listening Devices

I'm not sure but the threshold buzzing in your ears all day with headphones on can't be good for your ears, even if at lower volumes.  They don't recommend listening to headphones for longer than 60 minutes even at lower volumes, and we use detectors full days, some ongoing day after day with a horrible threshold sound irritating our ears.  At least with the GPZ you can adjust target limits to stop the big screamer junk signals being such boomers, you can't on the GPX 6000.

When using the speaker, the sounds generated a lot further from your ears, and not so harsh.  People like headphones as they hear more, which is because they're got speakers strapped to their ears.

I've never liked headphones though, so it's natural for me to be doing an anti-headphone post 🙂

Bit like the firmware 🙂

6 hours ago, Gold Seeker said:

The country of origin and shipping from is Ukraine, so could there be a issue on getting what is needed from this auction?

Doesn't look like it, his feedback is saying otherwise, even this dude in California buying some Rye malt off him, very weird thing to sell on Ebay, but I guess Ukraine are big grain growers, one of the biggest.

Now I'm hungry! 

Can't hurt to ask if they'll replace it out of warranty, being such a known problem.

A guy called CoilsNel on Ebay sells ear repair gadgets much like the 3D printed stiffeners sold all over the place from every man and their dog with a 3D printer, the difference is his are proper molded plastic.  I've bought Nel coils from him before, he was saying factory direct so I'm not sure if he's associated with Nel but likely is in some way being a big seller of their coils.  Maybe the ear repair thing is made where the Nel coils are, never heard of a broken Nel coil ear.

He does a version to strengthen, or to replace left, right or both ears so you'd just ask for the both ear version.

Might work alright for you,  Here is the link so you can have a look.

Might just need some decent glue to lock it down.

Your existing method maybe better though.

At least you're moving up in the world to a Manticore, you won't have these problems again, and if you do, it's just a lower shaft connector replacement next time.

They hurt their own Gold Monster and any future VLF gold machine by creating the Equinox 800 and Manticore with Gold Modes, so they are capable of unselfishly damaging sales of other detectors for the customers benefit. 

Someone wanting a general-purpose machine yet still wants to look for gold doesn't need to buy multiple detectors to do so, they can buy the Nox or Manticore and have detectors as good or as I and many others would argue better than the GM1000, and even waterproof for the creek gold hunters.  Even if all I ever looked for was gold, I'd prefer the Nox/Manticore over the GM for numerous reasons.

It's been a long while now and no Gold Monster replacement, I'm wondering if there ever will be as there is far less of a need for one now the multi freakers exist and much harder for them to make something worth buying to someone with a multi already.  They may have accidently killed off dedicated gold VLF's. 

I've been thinking their next gold machine release maybe a VLF, not a new GPZ, but the more I think about it the more I doubt it would be.  I think it will be a lower cost PI to compete with the likes of the Algoforce, pending Nokta PI and at a stretch with its higher price the Axiom Lite....  They just can't leave that part of the market unoccupied by their detectors allowing competitors to build up market share of customers in that price range.  Maybe its' why 5000 stock has suddenly arrived in the US again.

The Aussies never seem too fond of VLF's, I doubt a VLF/PI combo would excite them that much with their bad ground.

I got this marketing email three times to the same email address, the third time was many hours after the first two came in.

That's pretty cool, you've got some nice hunting grounds, it's good looking gold too.

The weights are pretty close, the 8" being about 835 grams with skid plate and the 12" Z-Search being about 950 grams.  You must be like me, I have two weights my arm notices, light and heavy, no in-between 🙂  I can't tell the difference in weighs of lots of coils on the end of my stick, some people are very sensitive to even a few grams.

I'm very fortunate I can cruise around with my GPZ in normal all the time so I really enjoy using the GPZ, it has a much more dramatic performance increase in normal vs difficult than the GPX does between its normal and difficult settings for some reason.

You wrote a very detailed good usage report.   Hopefully the coil helps you in the future finding some more bits you'd miss with a bigger coil.

Seeing it's not a detector with Target ID's and screen you need to look at why not just hip mount it like this guy has done? 

Would weigh next to nothing then.

Hip mount bag at Rob's Detectors

Minelab Hip-mount Bag (new style) - Rob's Detectors (robsdetectors.com)

Seeing your asking about the X-Terra pro and F75 the X-Terra seems the better option to me, much more modern detector and having multiple frequencies to choose from is beneficial, the X-terra would also work well on a beach for you even in wet sand whereas the F75 will only work well on dry sand.  

If you did want to spend a bit more the Equinox series or Legend would be better choices.

I think you'll find its most noticeable when using the speaker, it exists with headphones too to some degree.

There are no negatives to getting it done, only positives.  There was fear they were dumbing down the machine to fix the EMI problem, the fact is its a simple component change to a better quality component to improve shielding.

Two of this little innocent looking part caused so much grief.

This is the new replacement part type.  TDK Power Inductors - SMD 22uH 20% 0.71ohm 0.8A AEC-Q200

From the part specifications: Shielding : Shielded

It's quite possible the original part used was an unshielded inductor, or just a poorly shielded brand.

The part cost for me to buy retail, $1.53 🙂

I bet since the EMI fix is incorporated into all new detectors they've replaced a lot less suspect faulty coils.

I probably won't use the F19 for gold, although upon firing it up and trying it out with the Nel Snake I must say the 19kHz Fishers have always been pretty impressive and it's easy to forget after having the Bugs in the cupboard for a few years, detectors like the GB2 and Equinox 800 will hit smaller gold, but how small is too small? For me I love finding the tiny stuff for the challenge of it all, it virtually has no value so it's not something everyone would waste their time doing, I'm never bothered about that, none of my gold has value as it's never getting sold.  

They like our milder NZ soil too, and get pretty good depth on nuggets, Justin at the gold shop in Arrowtown talked highly of his time using Gold Bug's right from the first one and the masses of gold he found with them.   We have the advantage here of not having to worry about ground balance, the Bug hits the ground running and just works so losing performance due to the ground isn't such an issue.  

The key to the 19kHz detectors from FT and small gold performance is the threshold, it has a sweet spot, too high and you lose performance, too low and you lose performance, you have to get it just right, you quickly learn with air testing the just right position so it's not a challenge to work it out, but it's a necessity to get it right for best results.

Something we will never know is if gold we found with one model detector would have been found with another, I think I'd do alright with the F19 on gold and doubt I'd miss much that I'd find with the Nox or GM1000.

Yes, a database glitch caused Steve to have to reset reactions, nothing wrong on your end.