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Everything posted by phrunt
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I was pointing out here I was getting the detector go nutty while sitting it on the ground, I haven't had that happen since the update. When it happened for me was when I sat it down to recover some gold, by the time I was ready to waive my scoop over the coil with the target the detector was going too nutty to recover the nugget, with the tiny nuggets we often get here you need a pretty quiet detector to recover them effectively. That was using the Torus too, so it wasn't speaker related. In saying this I haven't yet been back to the spot it was happening so I can't confirm 100% that problem is solved. I'll have to get my act together now and start looking for gold more that ski season is over. Something like a bee flying past and farting can set a PI detector off with an EMI wobble, it really doesn't take much. When we have an Aurora my radar detector in my car keeps going off with KA band so I think the cops are out in force, but it's just a warning to look to the sky that night as an Aurora is coming. Maybe even stuff like this makes the 6000 go a bit wild.
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Is Teknetics Dead?
phrunt replied to phrunt's topic in First Texas - Bounty Hunter, Fisher & Teknetics
That's really cool Rick, I guess in the UK you're more of a dig it all kinda guy where detectors like the T2 excel, what do you think makes the T2 more successful for you? I know it's quite good at sifting the good for the bad in junky areas. I have an original green and a T2 Classic, I didn't buy the sharpshooter for my T2, I bought it for my Gold Bug Pro, my only aftermarket T2 coil is the Mars Tiger. I have the 5" and 15" trash can lid for it though. It'd be great if they ever released a modern version of it. -
Is Teknetics Dead?
phrunt replied to phrunt's topic in First Texas - Bounty Hunter, Fisher & Teknetics
Yes, they could modernize it and justify the price a bit more.... maybe like this, oh wait, it's a competitors entry level detector sold for $279 USD with near identical performance but absolutely packed with modern features, that's right, $279, not $639. You're embarrassing yourself Teknetics. Specifications Retractable Shaft - Shaft retracts down to 63 cm (25"). Great for easy transport, storage as well as diving! Iron Volume - Turns off or adjusts the volume of the low iron tone. Notch Discrimination - Discriminates Target IDs of unwanted metals. Built-in Wireless Module for headphones Fabulous Lighting for Night & Underwater Use - LCD Backlight, Keypad Backlight and LED Flashlight. Built-in Lipo Battery - Easily charge it with a USB charger or powerbank. Online Firmware Updates - Stay up-to-date with firmware updates (via USB on PC) and get the most out of your detector. IP68 - Fully submersible up to 3 meters (10 ft) and protected from total dust ingress. Operating Principle VLF Operating Frequency 12kHz Search Modes 5 (Field / Park 1 / Park 2 / Beach / All Metal) Audio Tones 3 Notch Filter Yes Pinpoint Yes Vibration Yes Frequency Shift Yes Sensitivity Setting 6 Levels Target ID 00-99 Search Coil Waterproof DD Search Coil - 28cm / 11" Display Graphic LCD Backlight Yes Keypad Backlight Yes LED Flashlight Yes Weight 1.3 kg (2.9lbs.) including the search coil Length 63 cm - 132 cm (25" - 52") adjustable Battery 2300mAh Lithium Polymer -
THANK YOU! I was always worried about forcing them too hard and breaking them, I tried just then as hard as I possibly could by hand and I could still hold one piece of the shaft and the other and give it a little twist and around it went, so I got out a tool and tightened them up, now they're rock solid and will not twist. I either need to go to the gym or take a tool along with me and I'll be all good. When I originally bought it the first few days I could do them up by hand and they wouldn't twist no matter how hard I tried, over time it's got worse but now knowing I can force them as hard as I want without breaking them they will do up tight enough to stop it. Not ideal and certainly decent cam locks like the Manticore is getting would be better but at least I now have a temporary solution. This top one was the worst for the twisting.
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I think you'll be pretty happy with it, knowing the speaker fix is now on all new production detectors and the coil ear cracking has also been resolved on new ones that's ironed out most of the problems early adopters had for lack of a better term seeing it stretched out so long, just remember the shaft will twist, that's a guarantee, if not straight away over time. I believe you have a GPZ with a small coil for it so don't expect dramatic small gold improvements, as long as your expectations are realistic and you want a lighter detector to complement your GPZ you'll be all good, that's the key, keeping your expectations down to earth and if you do that you'll have yourself a pretty good detector. Maybe try before you buy too if you can, lend one off someone for the day, let them try your GPZ or something in exchange. In Australia I think you can even hire them, that would be a good idea.
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Has anyone noticed First Texas has bumped up the price of the T2 Classic which was USD $499 to $639? Are they insane? This has to be the most cloned detector on planet earth being decades old and well and truly well duplicated by the Chinese and in all reality the clones appear to be so similar to the original for a small fraction of the price there really is no justification for raising the price, it's a kamikaze mission. It appears they're trying to kill the last ever sales they would ever get. They're so far behind the competition now they really are obsolete yet they put up the price? https://www.tekneticsdirect.com/products/detectors/teknetics-t2-classic It's so disappointing to see this happening, I really like my two T2's but I'm not stupid, they're now an entry level detector in today's market with some brands entry level detectors being far superior so having them priced like this is so unrealistic What are they thinking!!!! I made the image Sepiatone to suit the era the detector was released.
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Used Silver Slayer Today, Works For Me
phrunt replied to F350Platinum's topic in Metal Detecting For Coins & Relics
I really appreciate you guys putting up your mission posts, I've been so slack on that lately and when people take the time to do them they're an excellent read, it's fun going along for the ride with you on your missions. -
Further testing today confirms even after multiple hours of use the 6000 remains stable while using the speaker, it just has it's usual EMI problems now which were never going to be solved with this update, they don't call them PI's for nothing, Pulse Interference detectors ? Happy with the repair, I'd recommend everyone get it done, even if you don't use the speaker ? why own a detector with an underlying fault. I'm quite happy with the 6000 now, still it's got nothing on the 7000 other than weight but at least it's a good product now, better shaft pending. <---Moved it back into my gear used section now.
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Minelab Manticore Update Today (oct. 18th. 2022)
phrunt replied to Gerry in Idaho's topic in Minelab Manticore Forum
they will not, that's very unlike Minelab to allow cross platform support, that's not how you make money ? -
The only problem I have with the fix is the way it needs done and that's why I assumed they would just replace the PCB's as generally with warranty repairs on anything like this it would be a replacement part, not a board level repair like this at least in service centers I've worked in, board level repairs were generally reserved for out of warranty repairs. Sure if you've got a good technician you have little to worry about however it was built by machine, repaired by person. They're going to be using a solder station with a heat gun and the heat gun is what they'll be using to do the repair to reflow the solder. I can only assume with the number of repairs needing done the cost became a factor and replacing every PCB was too high. The shipping of the parts from Minelab to service agents is negligible with the parts being absolutely tiny, they cost less than a cup of coffee per machine, and then it's just the technicians labour which they'd be paying anyway if they were replacing or repairing PCBs. Fortunately everyone getting it done at the moment is getting it done with plenty of warranty left on their detector, so If it were me I'd get it done as early on in the warranty as possible, it just gives you that extra confidence in the unlikely event that anything does go wrong from the repair failing over time it will be resolved for you. Other than that, it's crazy not to get the fix, it truly does appear to work at what it was intended to fix, and that is the speaker generating EMI, and there now seems to be no instability at all caused when using the speaker, the other factors people are reporting like more stable in general and not having the tilt axis stability issues with the 11" coil may well be improved too or that just might be a placebo, I'd go with the latter but time will tell. Jason and Jeff's case is different, it appears it has resolved Jason's speaker EMI, he just has some other EMI issue which is far worse, which might be something that can't be solved as it seems every 6000 in his area does this, not just his so an external factor in the area is likely causing it to lose stability, and for that you would guess it would mean a redesign of the detector itself or at least the software to mitigate the EMI issue he is having. Maybe instead of sending the engineers trooping around the world promoting and marketing the Manticore they should be sending them to Jason's area to try and establish the cause of EMI and if it's something they can fix, it might improve the 6000 if it's a firmware update resolution that can resolve it, or it may end up making the GPX 7000 a better product if they even bother to make another PI in the future which I would be surprised if they did. I know the people in WA using the older GPX models were troubled by the over the horizon radar there, very specific to the location driving the detector wild whenever it felt like it, at one point I guess they thought their detector was faulty too. People buying new detectors now are the lucky ones as the new parts are used on the builds and theirs are built by machine which it's very hard for a person to match that with soldering. They'll even get a new coil with the better plastic formulation for the cracking. The old motto of don't buy a new model as soon as it comes out seems very true for the 6000, only me waiting over a year wasn't even enough as they were so slow at remedying the problems.
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They should recruit you as a tester for it, what better person to test a product than someone unhappy with the previous version, if they can change your mind they have a successful product. Jeff seems to mirror your experience too, so it seems testing wasn't broad enough geographically to pick up these sorts of problems, if they could even be fixed. It could even be a simple thing like the Manticore noise cancel where you can hold the button down so it scans for a lot longer but also has the quick scan with a button press. I was always dubious after having older GPX's and the GPZ where a noise cancel really feels like it's doing something going through hundreds of channels and taking a fair while and it noticeably did work rather than this little tiny few second scan of the 6000 that can take a few presses and you wonder if it actually took some decent amount of time if it would find a cleaner channel, after all the less EMI the detector is being affected by the better it performs. When mine was playing up with the original coil the noise cancel usually made it worse not better so I had the impression the little mini noise cancel does nothing.
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Ok, so my 6000 is back from getting the "fix" done. Am I happy with it? I think so, it seems better. There is now no noticeable difference between using the speaker and headphones or Torus in my case in stability. I farted around for an hour flicking between the two and at no point was there a difference in stability between using the speaker and Torus. I tested tiny gold performance and my little 0.034 of a gram nugget I've been using to test it previously was detected the same as before, no change at all there that I could see. Small lead pellet depth was the same. This is my brand spanking new coil that they replaced not too long ago, I have yet to use it properly other than testing as my GPX was put away in the cupboard for Ski season and because I didn't want to use it, I went back to my GPZ the previous time I went looking for gold. A little video of it running behind my house, this is a high EMI area with high voltage lines, and I wasn't all that far from the lines although the phone recording it makes it seem like it was. I'm happy enough with the fix for my purposes, I never expected it to be fantastic around EMI after all it's a PI and I'm lucky I can just use the GPZ for that with no issues in my detecting areas. I certainly understand Jason's point of view having to do hard core detecting covering massive areas prospecting for gold just wanting the damn thing to work the way he hoped being the light detector more suited to that purpose and I agree with him 100% on that, but mine isn't near as bad as his, in fact I'm quite happy with it now. I indeed have been lucky to have a friend, JW show me some good spots to find gold locally which has been a game changer for me. All I need is a shaft that doesn't twist with a slight breeze and I'll be set. Who would have thought two parts worth less than a cup of coffee is all it would take to resolve their design mistake.
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I wonder if you just have locations with EMI the detector itself just can not handle, a good test would have been having the DD coil on it and seeing how it did in that area I guess as that might eliminate it being a detector problem and more the mono coil just struggling with the EMI in the area. I've never been a fan of PI's in an EMI environment especially with mono coils, my earlier model GPX's were pointless in areas with EMI that the GPZ and even QED operated perfectly fine in and it seems the 6000 is no different to earlier GPX's in that way. Places I can use my GPZ on maximum gain even with a big coil and it work perfectly fine the GPX 6000 is an unstable mess. It sounds like the EMI "fix" has done what it was intended to do and that's make the speaker work as well as headphones for stability not generating it's own EMI but it's certainly not a fix for EMI in general. I'm OK with that, I'm happy I'll be able to use the speaker and ditch the stupid Torus thing. It's interesting that in the US, Australia and NZ the included coils are the 11" and 14" DD, where as in Africa they get the 11" and 17", no DD for them. I wonder if that decision was because they don't have as many EMI issues there? I don't mind using the DD coil, it's sensitivity is still fantastic, I'd just prefer a different size DD than that big round sucker. I guess at this point Jason it's best you just get rid of the 6000, you've tried everything possible now, you'll take a hit financially because of it though which sucks. Hopefully the Axiom becomes the alternative for you and at least you guys can get it at a great price over there. In saying that as least you've got the best GPZ combination you can possibly get so performance wise you're not missing much if anything at all, you've just got the weight to deal with. With the Torus and Coiltek coils I was happy enough overall with the stability of my GPX knowing it's a PI and the limitations that brings with EMI, and it seems my replacement 11" coil has improved the stability of that coil so if I can just use the speaker instead of the Torus I'm satisfied with the GPX, I do regret buying it and if I had my time all over again I certainly wouldn't waste my money on it but now I've got it and a couple of aftermarket coils for it I'll stick with it, it will not be my primary detector that's for sure but I'll use it sometimes and it's great for locations the GPZ is too big bulky and heavy to take like bike rides or big hikes. I don't think it's better than the GPZ for anything other than portability and the GPZ is noticeably deeper, even on our small gold around here, but I'm lucky to have a good range of coils for my GPZ, if I was using the stock GPZ coil I'd prefer putting up with using the 6000 for the gold we have around here. Hopefully the courier drops my 6000 off today, if not it will be Tuesday as I've just been told Monday is a public holiday ?
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Sun Ray Gold Pro Headphones And GPX 6000
phrunt replied to billdean's topic in Minelab Metal Detectors
Makes sense, as I use a Lipo battery on my GPX 5000 I have no amplifier in it, but I use a power speaker on my GPX which eliminates the need for the Amplifier in the GPX battery but I wanted to make an audio cable that allowed me to use both the original GPX battery and the Lipo battery. To do this I made the 1/4" plug end that went into the batteries a mono plug to disable the GPX amp, if I didn't do this my little powered speaker went crazy from the amp in the GPX battery driving it too hard I guess. At the other end I had to put a stereo plug for my speaker to get full volume, if I had it wired as mono I would get half volume, by bridging the mono audio wires to make the plug end stereo I was able to get full volume. I hope that makes sense, but yes, if it's getting a mono audio for some reason it may well be half volume. -
Compulsive Exam For USA Prospector Entering Australia
phrunt replied to geof_junk's topic in Detector Prospector Forum
Because they don't like being beaten by New Zealand so alphabetically they picked a name starting with A to be at the front of the pack, although even Afghanistan beat them at that ? fortunately for New Zealand even though they picked a letter towards the end of the alphabet for their name they come out in front anyway as Australian's have difficulty speaking correctly and pronounce it Straya. A bit like the USA being right at the back of the pack, although they come out in front anyway with Murica, just edging ahead of New Zealand and Straya. ? -
It's a fine balance between weight and strength/durability. I think they took it a bit too far with the 6000 making it light but that's just me, I wouldn't even notice another couple of hundreds grams of weight spread across the detector making the coils plastic a bit more durable and not scratching so easily, and a few decent cam locks like the Manticore on the shaft, those weights would be negligible to me. I'm no plastics engineer and really have no idea but it seems they have kept the coil design the exact same but changed the formula of the plastic a bit to prevent the cracking. I guess I shouldn't stress about it, if my new coil is old and has the cracking issue I'll get it replaced again, I will wait until all the old stock coils are used up as replacements though so I know I'm getting a newer one with the better plastic, the 11" so far is the most sensitive of the GPX coils so it is one I really want to use the most.
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Minelab Manticore Update Today (oct. 18th. 2022)
phrunt replied to Gerry in Idaho's topic in Minelab Manticore Forum
yup, they have them in stock $17 each for the Manticore processor. -
My service agent was as always fantastic, I sent it to them on Tuesday, it arrived to them 4pm Wednesday, they contacted me at about 4.15 saying they had received it and booked it into their system. Then, by around lunch time Thursday they contacted me with a tracking number saying they've got it on it's way back to me, so with any luck I'll have it back today. I've never had a bad experience with the NZ Minelab service agent, they're always quick and reliable and do good work, so a little shout out to A&E Electronics in Christchurch. JW's arrived a day after me as he shipped it later in the day on Tuesday so he missed the flight, so he will get his back Monday as it's there now being done today I would say. I agree Scott, an email from them for all registered machines mentioning the problem would have been nice, but the workload on the service agents would be too much all at once so they're making the problem less well known so the repairs come in as a trickle and then the service agents can provide a better service. If it was done with that method of sending out an email to all owners imagine the queues to get the repair, at this early stage we can get our repairs done near instantly. I have full confidence in my repair centers work, they do board level repairs on cameras so replacing some inductors would be quite an easy task for them. I'm now looking forward to using my GPX again, it's been a closet Queen for most of it's life so it'll be good to take it out and stretch it's legs.
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Minelab Manticore Update Today (oct. 18th. 2022)
phrunt replied to Gerry in Idaho's topic in Minelab Manticore Forum
The latency will depend on the bitrate they send the audio, seeing it's not some device playing music and needing fantastic audio they'll be able to use lower quality audio without it being detrimental and use a much lower latency. We don't need deep bass or any such things that someone playing music through speakers might. LC3 also compresses the audio on the fly sending less data through the air meaning lower latency. LC3 scales from 345kbps right down to 160kbps. SBC, Bluetooth Classic’s mandatory codec, ranges from 345kbps to 240kbps—ut it takes a substantial hit to audio quality as a result. aptX Adaptive runs between 279 and 420kbps, while LDAC ranges from 330 to 990kbps. LC3 is by far the most compact Bluetooth codec used in consumer audio to date. But what effect does that have on audio quality? Part of the Manticores delay of release will be it's processor, it's basically not even released in any great quantities yet. https://www.hackster.io/news/nordic-semiconductor-announces-the-new-nrf5340-microcontroller-9014f5841168 I doubt we'll be getting our Mandymoores before Christmas, they must have just wanted to slow the sales of the Deus 2 and Legend by announcing the Muncheroo -
Minelab Manticore Update Today (oct. 18th. 2022)
phrunt replied to Gerry in Idaho's topic in Minelab Manticore Forum
https://www.nordicsemi.com/products/nrf5340 nRF5340System-on-Chip Dual-core Bluetooth 5.3 SoC supporting Bluetooth LE, Bluetooth mesh, NFC, Thread and Zigbee The nRF5340 is the world’s first wireless SoC with two Arm® Cortex®-M33 processors. The combination of two flexible processors, the advanced feature set, and an operating temperature up to 105 °C, makes it the ideal choice for LE Audio, professional lighting, advanced wearables, and other complex IoT applications. The nRF5340 is an all-in-one SoC, including a superset of the most prominent nRF52® Series features. Features like Bluetooth® 5.3, high-speed SPI, QSPI, USB, up to 105 °C operating temperature, and more, are combined with more performance, memory and integration, while minimizing current consumption. The application processor is optimized for performance and can be clocked at either 128 or 64 MHz, using voltage-frequency scaling. It has 1 MB Flash, 512 KB RAM, a floating-point unit (FPU), an 8 KB 2-way associative cache and DSP instruction capabilities. The network processor is clocked at 64 MHz and is optimized for low power and efficiency (101 CoreMark/mA). It has 256 KB Flash and 64 KB RAM. The nRF5340 takes security to the next level. It offers trusted execution, root-of-trust and secure key storage security features. Arm TrustZone provides trusted execution by implementing a division between secure and non-secure Flash, RAM, peripherals and GPIOs. The state-of-the-art Arm CryptoCell-312 provides hardware-accelerated cryptography, and together with the key management unit (KMU) peripheral, root-of-trust and secure key storage are implemented. The nRF5340 SoC supports an extensive range of wireless protocols. It supports Bluetooth Low Energy and is capable of all angle-of-arrival (AoA) and angle-of-departure (AoD) roles in Bluetooth Direction Finding. In addition, it supports LE Audio, high-throughput 2 Mbps, Advertising Extensions and Long Range. Mesh protocols like Bluetooth mesh, Thread and Zigbee can be run concurrently with Bluetooth LE, enabling smartphones to provision, commission, configure and control mesh nodes. NFC, ANT, 802.15.4 and 2.4 GHz proprietary protocols are also supported. The nRF Connect SDK is the software development kit for the nRF5340 SoC, offering a complete solution that integrates the Zephyr RTOS, protocol stacks, application samples and hardware drivers. The nRF5340 DK is the development kit for the nRF5340 SoC, and has everything needed for development on a single board. -
Minelab Manticore Update Today (oct. 18th. 2022)
phrunt replied to Gerry in Idaho's topic in Minelab Manticore Forum
Ok guys, let's clear some more up about the Mandymoore. It has Bluetooth LE LC3 Audio, a new version of bluetooth. This is why it can be used with the older Bluetooth headphones too, but the new ones will be LE headphones. So again, it has better audio than the GPX 6000 which had very dated bluetooth even when it was released, basically discontinued audio on the 6000 when it came out. You can see it here under test report https://apps.fcc.gov/oetcf/eas/reports/ViewExhibitReport.cfm?mode=Exhibits&RequestTimeout=500&calledFromFrame=N&application_id=YwdXmpsuaYfdk%2FQl6JsBDw%3D%3D&fcc_id=Z4C-0049 Manticore (project name: Sirius) is designed as a high-performance coin & treasure metal detector. The product is designed to detect metal targets buried at varying depths in the ground. The metal detector supports a low-latency wireless audio connection f or use with wireless headphones. This is the Bluetooth specifications from the Manticore. Radio: Bluetooth Low Energy (Nordic nRF5340) Frequency band: 2400 – 2483.5 MHz Number of Channels: 40 Operating Frequency: Low Channel: 2402 MHz (BT LE Advertising Channel 37) Mid Channel: 2440 MHz (BT LE Data Channel 17) High Channel: 2480 MHz (BT LE Advertising Channel 39) Modulation: Gaussian Frequency Shift Modulation (GFSK) Nominal Bandwidth: 2 MHz Data Rate: 2 Mbps Antenna: PCB Trace Antenna TEXAS INSTRUMENTS 2.4-GHz Inverted F Antenna (TI AP #SWRU120D) Antenna Peak Gain: 3.3 dBi You can read about it here https://www.soundguys.com/bluetooth-le-audio-lc3-explained-28192/ The new Low Complexity Communication Codec (LC3) is set to replace SBC in Bluetooth 5.2, and it will be capable of scaling between 345kbps to 160kbps both at a bit depth of 16. Alongside this, LC3Plus will boast a latency time of around 5ms, much quicker than SBC’s 100ms. As a result, the lingering issue of Bluetooth for gaming can finally be addressed, as the threshold for human brains to detect when audio is out of sync is as low as 30ms. So once again, it's all about the time the detector is being released, right as the new kick butt bluetooth is available, and the poor old GPX 6000 is released with crappy outdated Bluetooth aptX LL to go with it's twisting shaft when the Mandable gets the nice solid not twisting shaft.