phrunt

Can the GPX 6000 balance both 'G' and 'X' the same as GPZ 7000 does? The GPX 6000 does not track the Ferrite component of the ground. GeoSense-PI uses other techniques to remove the 'X' response that is invisible to the operator. You do not need a yellow ferrite to ground balance the GPX 6000. From the Minelab website.

I hope it fixes up your issues Jason and your problems are coil and not detector related or just how it is going to be in your environment, as you've likely seen I went from thinking the 6000 was pretty much useless to now thinking it's a decent detector all by changing coils. If only Minelab sold me a decent quality detector to begin with I wouldn't have had to go through all of that and they wouldn't have had me saying how rubbish their detector is for the past couple of months. It's a bit of a rinse and repeat situation though as there are many other people out there in the same position I was in, I see it all the time with them complaining how unstable their detector is. I went from blaming myself for being so fussy about how stable a detector runs after hearing everyone say yes its unstable but its an awesome detector to being so sick of it I blamed the detector and went against the grain of the others who liked it and finally once the aftermarket coils were released I was able to validate that it was indeed a problem with my detector, being a terrible coil. I've got my fingers crossed for you, as if you get the same results I have you'll be happy enough with the 6000 to keep it. My mission now is to try resolve the shaft twist as it really gets annoying as in our rocky rough bushy ground it happens a lot more than someone in nice flat open areas, just in the afternoon with my 14x9" on it happened at least 15 times, JW used sand paper on his shaft and his is now gripping much better but we both wonder how good and permanent of a solution that is.

The Aussie detector users

Thanks, I was a bit lost as to why I got the 14x9" too now I have a use for it along with the 6000, exciting 🙂 Bring on summer.

I guess you're setting a good example for me Jason, it's what I should be using my 6000 for, exploration, covering ground and exploring then bring in the big guns with the 7000 to find the gold once the first ones been uncovered with the 6000. I've been a bit lost why I'd use the 6000 over my 7000 and your example there is where it would be very beneficial. I need to get out there in the hills just roaming hoping to find something with it, some new ground.

Your coil sounds OK to me 1515Art, you're getting a bit of annoying EMI with it but other than that it sounds good. I'm not sure about your disappearing targets as I don't hunt in difficult ground. Its a pretty tough call for the GPX with 10x5" to find gold in an area done over with a bunch of detectors including the GPZ and 6000 with stock coils by various people though, yes it may find the odd bit that was missed for whatever reason but I wouldn't expect the ground to light up with new targets missed because of the other equipment. Did the Coiltek's find gold at the spot JW and I went to the other day because the other detectors or coils missed it? Highly unlikely, one target that was missed in the mostly heavily done bit of bedrock that turned into gold I cant really explain but unless I had a GPX with 11' coil there to go over it I'm not confident to say it was missed by the 11" and found by the 10x5". A working 11" coil is an exceptional coil for small gold sensitivity, it's the stability problems I didn't like and even people with 11" coils they consider good are finding the aftermarket coils are more stable. I think the more common thing to hear out of Coiltek users will be this line by Alaska Detector, "Besides the gold I was surprised at how quiet the detector now was, and I could even detect up the bedrock walls with out the detector freaking out. What a great experience. " And from what I've seen the NF test coils floating around in Australia are giving the same results with more stability and a detector that doesn't go nutty near as often as the standard coil.

At this stage they won't care about the Axiom, it's priced almost the same as the 6000 in the Australian market so it's no threat at all there, It was always going to be a tough nut to crack in Australia but pricing it so close to the same is certainly no way to do it, they may get a dip in sales in the US market but I doubt it will change their life at all anywhere else in the world and sales will continue to grow as they forecast. It may get a mention that it exists at their meetings but that's about it. For their next model detector I'm sure because of Garrett they'll put more effort into build quality though, that's one of the benefits of competition, they'll look at everything the competition did better and try and improve on it and even if they just look at photos they'll see the Garrett appears better build quality. They had a shaft engineer that understood how to design a shaft that won't twist for a start. Minelab perhaps had staffing issues due to Covid and used the delivery driver in their lunch break to design their shaft. If they're not going to do any firmware updates, which I genuinely think there must be something they can fix on the thing with firmware at least release a smaller DD coil, their current one seems good and surprising how sensitive it is, never heard of anyone having a faulty one although so few people probably use them much that they wouldn't even know it I guess. Coiltek hinted they may make one, I hope so. I see Minelab coils as reference coils, they give the blueprints then the aftermarket come along and build them properly. Doing a firmware update for the 6000 would reassure customers that Minelab care a little about them, and don't just see them as wallets. I thought they did quite well with the Equinox, updates came out, even updates that added new features, it was like the wind changed directions, albeit for a short time.

Yea, if I lived in Europe I'd have a vastly different view I think, times ticking here though. I'd struggle to get excited about relics unless they were very old like some of those finds they get in Europe. I'd really like to find some of their old coins too. The other thing I'd like to find are meteorites, they replenish, sometimes 🙂

If my pellet to gold ratio was anywhere near that persons I'd be happy! I don't think detecting has much of a future at all, gold almost gone, old coins nearly gone, new coins not being used anymore as everyone pays electronically, jewellery more often than not these days is cheap costume junk as people don't value it like they used to. What are we going to be detecting for when only the junk will be left.

I love the GPZ 7000, it's fantastic, reliable, good performance, built well, nice and stable... a really good detector. It's the detector I'm most happy with out of every detector I own.

Well, coming from someone that thought the 6000 resembled a pile of cow dung to someone that now thinks its pretty good all due to a coil change I think before going on a massive fire sale it's best to hold out, wait for more aftermarket coil results to come in seeing the Nugget Finders aren't even out yet and then make a decision what to do. I'd basically written my 6000 off in my head, was just going to put it in the cupboard never to be seen again and that's basically what I'd done not using it for a few months after only using it about 4 times for proper prospecting since buying it as I couldn't stand the thing, I'd not rip someone off selling it to them and now I'm going to use it, certainly not as my primary detector but at least I'll use it especially for times a lighter more portable detector is beneficial as with a different coil it's pretty decent and may have the ability to pick up some gold my GPZ misses, I'm just spoilt by having a detector and coils I really love with the GPZ, if I was coming from my GPX 5000 I'd make the cross over to the 6000 no problems based on performance. I've noticed sometimes if you do something to cause instability like walk under power lines and then you walk away from them it remains with the stability problem the power lines caused, sometimes putting my phone too close to the control box while filming causes it to become unstable and again, it doesn't recover without a noise cancel even once the phones well away and then sometimes nothing you try will fix it but a factory reset, this proves it's some sort of bug in the software. It's like you can throw Geo-sense off and it confuses itself and gets in a muddle. That's something I think a firmware update should be able to fix although I wouldn't count on anything. In saying that it ran basically flawless with the Coiltek on it for the entire day, nothing I would consider a problem, yes that's only one day in one location but a giant leap from where it was with the stock coil with a detector I thought was basically unusable. The big problem with the 6000 standard coils is it's very obvious there is inconsistencies, some people think they've got good ones, others think they've got bad ones and some are just unsure. My coil was at the obvious end of bad I guess, how many are ever so slightly bad and everything in between. If they can make coils so far out of whack they're nutty they can certainly make coils that are a little bit inconsistent. Minelab appear to only do what they have to do. If they cared about us they'd do something about the twisting shafts, it would cost them next to nothing to send dealers a solution that we can collect from our dealer, it's not like they don't make an exorbitant profit on the detector. The one thing I'd really like is the speaker to work as it should, that's one of my big disappointments with it but I can't see that being resolved with a firmware update, that's a design flaw so having to put up with that one I guess. If there is one update I'd really like, it's a way to turn Geosense off, or at least a way to lock it so it stops doing whatever it's doing, a bit like Fixed on the older GPX, a way to disable its ground balance would be grand too for my very mild locations. And last but not least a bug fix for the stability Geosense issue. I'm sure the GPX 6500 will come out one day with the Geosense problems resolved, a new more stable method for the speaker and a shaft that doesn't twist then I'll regret I bought the 6000, oh uhm...... 🙂 It's like the first generation of a new car, always has all the crap problems then they come out with a second generation with it all fixed up and the suckers that got the first generation get the lemon.

Yes, I'm sure they picked it for it's weight benefits, it's one of the lightest of all plastics and they made it extremely thin as it's very flexible which is why you press down on your coil and your finger sinks into it. It scratches very easily too, the biggest potential problem is it's bad with UV, so people covering their coils with stickers isn't such a bad idea. Polypropylene is often affected by UV degradation, making it not suitable for use in high altitude or places where UV penetration is high. I prefer the likely heavier (haven't tested weights and frankly don't care) and firmer plastics Coiltek are using than the ice cream container plastic. I think Coiltek have done something to improve their shielding over the standard coil, I guess it all comes down to what the service agent finds and then I'll compare results if a new coil comes, if the old one comes back................ It'll be interesting when the aftermarket coils start to get into the hands of many if they start to notice any EMI differences with them.

Thanks for your post 1515Art, well done on the meteorites, a real bucket lister for me but I'm unlikely to ever find one here. I think they're an exceptionally cool thing to be able to find, a rock from space! It's a shame you had such bad EMI at the start there, it seems to be the downfall of the 6000, the 14" mitigates it but there needs to be more sizes of DD, Coiltek alluded to possibly making DD's so fingers crossed there. I'm not really sure on its weight either, I don't really pay much attention to weights, I'd prefer a heavier but more solidly built coil though. The Coiltek's are thicker, you're right there, both the 14x9" and the 10x5" I've got are thick so I don't think it's the windings, something else about the design. I was a bit surprised when I first saw the thickness. JW's weights are in, the one he got with the Coiltek 14x9 only weighed .14 of a gram which to me is a surprise as it looked the biggest of the nuggets of the day, and the small bit he found with the 11" was .05 of a gram. It's getting so hard to find any nuggets at that spot, at least we both were able to come away with something.

I'm really looking forward to the NF coils now I've experienced the Coiltek's, I'm sure they will be good too, it's just excellent the 6000 has aftermarket options so I'm not overly fussed about the Minelab coils although it would be nice if my 11" was faulty and a replacement comes and works somewhat like the Coiltek's. I've got the Nugget Finder 8.5x6 and 12x7" on order, didn't bother with the big one as it won't be much good around here although JW was rather partial to the 14x9". It doesn't have as sensitive as a tip as I would have liked on the 14x9" though.

I have my phone on the entire time in these Coiltek videos with wifi and bluetooth enabled, its filming the videos, it's not my phone causing my stock coil problems as I'd tried with my bad coil leaving my phone in my car and it made no difference to its performance, it was just as crazy. It's an Iphone. I'd ruled out phone early on as its an obvious cause of interference. As for my long running joke about the 6000 coils being made out of recycled Ice Cream containers.... pretty funny really. Some common NZ Ice Cream brands containers The back of the container with the plastic indicator Another one and the back with the plastic indicator, harder to see this one in the photo, but again PP5. And another one and the back 🙂 And the Minelab GPX 6000 skid plate which has the plastic details on it and the bottom of the skid plate, the other interesting thing is the date code on the 11" skid plates for the 6000, maybe they used the same skids for the earlier GP/GPX skid plates. It's right there, PP5 🙂 I can't check my coil for the details as it's off in the post, I would check my 14" DD but its buried in a box in the garage I'm meant to be cleaning.

I forgot my junk photo, what's a gold post without the junk 🙂 Smallest non magnetic (likely lead) pellets were .11 of a gram, pellet guru's will be able to translate that to pellet size. I do find #9 lead pellets in this area with the VLF's, but not the 6000, it's simply not capable of hitting one. These weren't from the well hammered area where gold had been found before, these were mostly with the 14x9" wandering around exploring deeper ground in hope of something good.

Yesterday I was meant to be cleaning up my garage, I'd made a mess of it and the boss told me it must be returned to normal but fortunately for me JW contacted me first thing in the morning asking if I wanted to go for a detect. This was enough for the "boss" to tell me I can do the garage today instead... yet here I am 🙂 We took the coils to a spot we've both detected a lot, a huge amount really but it was a good testing ground for the Coiltek's due to the high EMI envrionment, powerlines, buildings, airport, it's got them all 🙂 I knew from my initial testing at home the Coilteks were working A LOT better for me than my 11" coil, and I now suspect I've had a faulty 11" coil since I got my detector and it explains why I didn't like the 6000. I went over ground I'd done with the 11" coil as a bit of a test for the 10x5" Coiltek, I'd done this ground to the best of my ability and JW has been hammering it too, he's got quite a bit out of this area too. I didn't take many photos as I think most people are more interested in how the coils behave more so than photos of them. We arrived at about 10am, mostly the ground wasn't frozen except in shady spots which was handy as it's been frozen a lot lately. JW put on my Coiltek 14x9" and I used the Coiltek 10x5". It wasn't even 10 minutes and JW comes walking up as he'd found his first bit of gold with the 14x9", right near where we put our bags down, off to an incredible start, I'm guessing it's about .2 to .3 of a gram. Down in the bedrock too. Off to a good start for an area we've done so much. My first target I was sure was going to be gold ended up being a shot pellet, I really have no idea how pellets get into places like this, but they do. I had to move giant rocks by levering them with my pick and dropping them off the cliff, it took a lot of effort and I'm amazed how strong the Davsgold picks are, the jobs I do with them moving and lifting rocks is pretty incredible that they don't break. JW had lost his pick on a previous visit to this area, left it behind somewhere when he left, we were hoping we'd find it but as someone else had been detecting there too ( we could tell by dig holes ) there was a likelihood it was gone. I thought I'd upload this video as it shows the pains of detecting 🙂 The next target shortly after was only a few steps away from this one and it turned out to be a nugget. I'd missed this one in the past as it was well hidden, I had to smash out some of a bush to get the coil under there to even detect the ground, I'd not done that before but when you're in an area you've flogged to death you need to do these things in the hope of finding something. Here is a bit of a video of the find, as with most of my videos just raw footage, I don't like editing as to me raw footage is more informative than a chopped up and edited video. I was happy with the performance of the 10x5", a real game changer for me as I'm confident my 11" is faulty, it's away at the moment at the service agent to be checked, they can't look at it until next week so I'm eagerly awaiting their results, if it's not faulty its a piece of junk and will become a sacrificial lamb to get the one part of it I find valuable, it's chip, if its faulty then maybe I'll be happier with the replacement, soon find out. I switched the detector on and even though in a very high EMI environment and with JW detecting close by with his 6000 I had no significant EMI issues, I didn't even need to noise cancel although I did do one, I didn't need to regularly noise cancel and factory reset often like I did with the stock coil either, in fact unless right near the power lines a noise cancel was never required. Not once during the entire day did my detector go nutty, no police sirens or UFO sounds, nothing! Such a contrast to my stock coil that literally drove me mad, I was so frustrated with the detector I wanted to smash it. I was able to tilt the coil and go up and detect cliffs and nothing, no problems, if anything slightly higher EMI when off the ground due to the interference in this high EMI area from the power lines mostly. Nothing that I'd consider an issue that's for sure. This is the first day prospecting with the 6000 I actually found it enjoyable and started to like the detector. Here is a video showing my experience around and under the power lines with the Coilteks, this is a very high EMI area with houses nearby, power lines obviously, an International airport very close by, I mostly dedicated this to the 14x9" as we all know the bigger the coil the worse the EMI and I think it handled the situation very well, not quite GPZ with small X-coil or Concentric capability as I can run that maxed out under the same lines and keep it stable but for a GPX it did remarkably well I think. These Coiltek's for me are soooooo much better than my possibly faulty 11". My second nugget of the day was one I was more impressed with, it was in a little bedrock area JW and I have both hammered with our 6000's, in the video I said I did this spot with my 8" X-coil on the GPZ but I was in fact wrong, It was my GPX and 11" I did it with, and found a bit of gold within about 15 inches of this nugget using the 11" so we both missed this bit for some reason, The piece of gold I found the last time I used my 6000 was so close to where this one was, in the same line of bedrock only and only about 15 inches away, JW jogged my memory by reminding me the bit I found next to this one in this video was the bit where he came over with his GPX 6000 and 17x13" and even as we dug it out further the 17x13" was completely blind to it until it was near touching the coil. So, after a day of using between the 10x5" and 14x9" I am much happier with my GPX 6000, the majority of problems I had with it are resolved by changing to these coils, if it was that I had a faulty 11" coil then that's great news but if not and these are just that much better than the 11" coil then that's fine by me. The major complaint I had from the day was the shaft twist, especially with the 14x9" coil, not the coils fault by any means but something to be aware of. JW ended up with 2 nuggets also, very similar sizes to mine, one smaller and one bigger one. Getting any in this particular area is very much a challenge these days but a good testing ground. My 6000 went flat so it was game over for me but I went over to JW who had a signal in some bedrock he was trying to smash out, quite close to the power lines and his 11" was working to an acceptable level there I thought but he said some days his is better than others, my 11" would have been doing police sirens and all sorts of strange noises in that same spot. It was a very faint signal and he couldn't smash it out with his pick, the rock was too hard so he's going to have to go back with some heavy equipment, I had the 14x9" on at the time and turned on my detector and it lasted long enough after a rest turned off to go over that target and it got no signal, but that's not a surprise I already figured out the 11" was slightly more sensitive to tiny gold than the 14x9", we are confident it was a tiny bit of gold, so he'll go back and get it. I'm more confident the 10x5" would have had a signal on that target than the 14x9", it's significantly more sensitive to smaller targets. So yes, I now like my 6000 except a few things about it like the wobby shaft and questionable reliability, but it's not going to replace my GPZ, not even close, I still much prefer the GPZ but I'm lucky in that I have a great range of coils for it. And JW ended up finding his lost pick! So a good day for all.

I think you'll be shocked at how much gold the 4500 misses, not because it can't pick up the smaller bits, it just misses gold reasonably big or small that is well within its size/depth limits, it's been discussed often. You may think you've dug up 90% of the gold in those patches, but I highly doubt you have.

It was nice to see the detector on actual targets with audio, the guy needs new scales though now he's using an Axiom and finding the smaller gold if he wants to see what it really weighs, he kept finding targets that were 0.00 of a gram not because that was their weight, they were more than that, his scales are just inaccurate 🙂 Still, picking up targets this sort of size which my guess-o-meter would say is a 0.04 to 0.05 of a gram is a decent small nugget so it shows the detector is capable of smaller gold. Seems a really nice detector from what I've seen so far. I really look forward to when general users start to do videos. I understand what he's saying that everytime he does film it's a pellet and every-time he doesn't it is gold as the gold he's getting is so close in depth to the pellets it'd be very hard to know when to turn the camera on. I'm a bit luckier than that with the gold being at more depth than the pellets so I turn on the camera once I'm confident it's not a pellet, I do get a few stuff up videos but more often than not my videos are gold on their first attempt.

New toy arrived! It arrived too late in the day to test it out. The water hunters will be pleased to see it has a nice solid base under the skid plate so it won't fill with water. Will give it a spin tomorrow and see how it goes on some test targets, then should be able to go for a gold hunt Friday, got too much to do tomorrow for that. Feels solid as a rock, really nice tough build quality. People won't need to put protective stickers on these coils that's for sure, such a different plastic.

Minelab currently have a competition with 10 prize packs available. Sometimes in these competitions their prize packs are pretty good, other times they're a hanky 🙂 It's only open to Aussies but here's the link if anyone wants to have a go, you just show them your favourite Nox find https://www.minelab.com/anzea/your-favourite-equinox-find

17" CC is spiral.

We always used shielded Cat6, what's the point using the cheaper twisted version when the price is so close to the same for the much better quality shielded cables. Even in a home situation there are many appliances and power cables running through the house to interfere, and fluro lights are killers for Ethernet cables. Shielding helps protect the data from any sort of electromagnetic interference from an outside source. This could alter or weaken the signal traveling through the copper in the cable. The shields of the two connectors in our shielded Cat 6 cables are electrically tied together via the drain wire. I never understand any place that tries to save a few cents by going cheap on things that are so cheap and easy to use an improved version.

I was hoping you would chime in Chet, thanks!

The braided ones certainly show, and some just show a solid mass. A couple of what looks to be a solid mass examples and Braided examples The cable you showed from the component looks possibly braided to me when zoomed in.