phrunt

" I could have fabricated some extreme situation and made them all look bad " Far too much of that goes on and its rather easy to do also.

yes, that's something I wasn't factoring in as I've not had it but I can imagine the effects on a workforce and it causing inconsistency in build quality for the man made and assembled parts of the detector. I'm not sure how things go in Malaysia and if people would fake they don't have it to go to work if they needed the money and don't get enough sick leave time or something or go back to work too early at least and with this brain fog I've heard people talk about anything could happen. The paint was just a demonstration of something that is so simple that could explain inconsistencies quite easily, there are likely others too.

The GPX box is shielded using conductive shielding paint, I used similar stuff to improve the shielding of one of my Gold Bug Pro's and also modified a Teknetics T2 using it. It actually does work although I doubt it works as well as a nice solid aluminum box like the older GPX series has. If you look at this photo especially zoomed in you'll see the black paint in there. I'm wondering if inconsistencies with some GPX's over others are how well this paint is applied. All it takes is some person in the factory having a bad day and not caring how well they apply the paint. By how messy the edges of the paint job are it looks like it's applied by hand. Multiple coats work better than one too so human error could easily play a part in how well one detector performs over the next in relation to EMI. Small things like this could be why we see inconstancy between detectors though and play a part why some people are happier than others.

There is nothing better than having choices, each and every one of these detectors is obviously good so now people can choose which suits them best by features or attributes they like not having to worry one lags well behind the others in performance. We are in a really good place for general purpose VLF's now so it's happy times. i agree about Nokta, what an achievement and they should be quite proud of themselves leaping well ahead of well established rusted on old detector manufacturers, hopefully they can do the same with their gold prospecting PI.

I think I'd like to own an Impulse Gold, there are a few things that matter to me though one of which is coils, it would need a good range of coils seeing it's not likely to be a GPX coil detector with both smaller and larger sizes. It'd need to have no protection from aftermarket coils being made for it as of course I'd be begging X-coils to make coils for it so it would be a well traveled detector, from USA to NZ to Kazakhstan and back to NZ ? If it ends up just a better build quality QED and handles EMI well also I'd be interested enough to see it viable for me. I was never unhappy with the QED's performance, yes it's no GPZ or GPX but it does a decent job in the areas it excels. It makes sense for First Texas to focus on the gold detector over the beach, yes the beach people won't like that but how big is that market, and how many of those that wanted one have one of the beta versions already and if 40 more of the beach versions are coming that'd satisfy the demand I would think. It's a shame for them the final product may not come to be but it was always going to be a very niche market small sales volume model. The Gold version should be able to be used as a relic detector too so captures a good market size and if its anything like my QED it was great on the beach, beaches my Nox struggled on with black sand the QED worked well and gave good depth, just gotta keep the price realistic for what people are getting and it should be a good seller. The QED had mode 11 to turn off it's ground balance, for me on the Impulse Gold this would be essential, the difference in performance between ground balanced modes and GB Off (on QED called beach mode) was huge, so much deeper and in my soils I could use it like that fine as long as there were not too many hot rocks around. So essentially, it should be a general purpose PI, the more it can be used for the more appealing it will be to the market. First Texas need to keep in mind a Nokta is coming in the future, so the quicker it comes to market the better, they've got a big head start over Nokta.

You know someone finds a decent amount of gold when they find something like that, and smash it up ? I'd treasure that thing!

If only gold prospecting PI detectors had this same level of competition, sadly I don't see it ever happening although there are attempts in the works by a couple of manufacturers so fingers crossed things start to happen. For me a 4th contender is in the list of these 3 good VLF's for general use and that's the CTX, I've never found a better machine for silver coins in my soil, so perhaps a CTX 4040 might come in and take the shine away from some other detectors in the future if they can improve on the technology especially the recovery speed and ground handling I guess, two things I don't notice being a problem but others point out are its flaws.

The QED could ground balance in any mode, it just had what I consider a failed attempt at a ground grab using the AGB button that got you somewhere in the general vicinity of balanced but you really had to adjust it further to get the balance right, often it was just easier to balance yourself completely and not even try use the AGB button and it caused people quite a bit of confusion. I think it's pretty exciting that the project is coming along, the key to success is going to be pricing, hopefully Fisher isn't going to try get too much for it.

The reason I think tracking or at least a ground grab would be good on this detector is the market it needs to go for. The weekend warriors or occasional use prospectors, it's clearly not going to be a Minelab killer so the appeal of it to the "professional prospector" might be rather limited. It's target market needs to be more the new to prospecting types and the occasional users along with the people that simply just can't afford a GPX or GPZ and I'm sure this market would be really big if it was done right, good pricing and good marketing on a good performing detector. Sitting on the shelf next to a GPX 6000 to someone that knows very little the GPX will look so much more superior with it's Geosense complete automatic operation or even the SDC which is also a simple to use detector, I wish I could turn the Geosense or at least the tracking off on the 6000 though, it's nothing more than a pain in the backside to me ? One of the biggest problems I see with QED users especially new to detecting ones or new owners is they get confused how to ground balance it and find it too hard to use and understand, so making it a bit more simple than the QED would probably be worthwhile if it must be completely manual. I think for people that have been doing these things for years it comes as second nature and they don't understand how difficult it can be for someone new to it all and Minelab is taking advantage of that on the 6000 saying they turn everyone into easy experts. So that's the problem I can see, the target market needs simplicity, yes there will be exceptions to the rule where some experienced people buy the detector but it's not likely to be the norm and I can't see people selling their Minelab's to buy it, it needs to appeal to the masses and turn people that would normally just buy a VLF to tinker around on some weekends attempting to find a nugget or two into buying a PI, and a step up for existing gold prospecting VLF owners into the PI world.

That's awesome news Geotech, sounds similar in many ways to the performance of the QED and with the same manual ground balance method only available. QED's struggling to ever get auto ground balance off the ground. Now when you say manual ground balance is it like the Gold Bug 2 where you have to configure it completely yourself or is there some sort of ground grab to get the balance like the Gold Bug Pro for example? I think with something like a ground grab then tracking isn't as necessary at all, if it takes quite a while to adjust to get it right like the QED does then tracking is more beneficial. By the sounds of it the detector needs its own coils and will not run GPX coils which is a bit of a disappointment and could possibly hinder sales a bit although if priced right that shouldn't be a product killer.

No, I hadn't seen that, yours appears to run much nicer, I was happy with my DD as compared to my mono threshold that DD threshold on mine is fantastic but now hearing yours I'm not so sure, could be the different power networks though. I've never had such little confidence in a detector as I do my 6000 I just see it as an unstable detector that finds gold if you're willing to put up with it. ? Hopefully I start to like it more when I get my aftermarket coils I've ordered.

Have you tested it elsewhere after that Jason, maybe it has died or it's coil? The symptoms you're describing are similar to other people who's have their coil die on them. I'm sure everyone will win the GPX lottery at some point. The things are dropping like flies. As EMI is one of my biggest challenges where I go looking for gold I am really hoping the smaller coils will improve the stability of the detector as its completely illogical to use it now when I can use my GPZ perfectly fine in the same places without the need for measures like using the GPX DD coil, lowering sensitivity or doing anything at all to mitigate EMI. The 14" DD while it does virtually completely resolve EMI problems it's so big and awkward it's not really suitable for me to use it much, it seems very good on the small gold though. It's a shame they didn't release it with an 11" DD and 11" Mono. I hope at least one manufacturer comes out with something like a 10x5" DD. Here is the 14" DD under some high voltage power lines from some windmills I wish the 6000 had the DD threshold with mono coils. I like the build quality look of the NF coils, and they have the little gore vent, stronger looking ears and just appeal to me more than the Coiltek's which is why I decided to get 2 NF coils for my 6000, I'm considering dumping my plan of the 14x9" Coiltek and getting the larger NF instead for my big coil as in videos I've seen of the Coiltek its not looking impressive to me at all, although it could just be the way the videos are made finding small shallow gold and describing it as deep for the size putting me off and the detector running quite unstable in the videos, especially the latest one it was going off with EMI all the time sounding terrible. Nenad's NF video was much better and showed the coil running well and stable while performing well. To me the GPX is a small shallower gold detector and that's where it excels the most so I mainly will only ever use it with smaller coils, the GPZ with 15" CC is what I'd be using if I was using a detector in deeper ground.

Yes, I tried reset to factory defaults on the faulty first one, it didn't resolve it, it just had about half the depth of the other two. The second and third one are fine they do go off in the air though if you swing them around on highest sensitivity, Carl told me this is normal. The sometimes can start falsing on the ground in the same way but they're perfectly usable. When it starts you just press the button and continue on using it. If the ground balance on them was improved enough to handle the ground in the gold areas yet retained its sensitivity they'd be a great prospecting pinpointer, they're just a bit too sensitive to the ground in highest sensitivity. I think it's a shame they're no longer being developed as a TRX v2 would likely have been a really good pinpointer.

haha for a second there I thought you were talking about the detector itself until the video popped up ? I thought you'd joined the faulty club. Not a bad junk collection.

The little Nugget Finder is an 8.5 x 6" Quite a handy little chart you've knocked up there.

Nenad put up a video using the 12x7" It's sounding like it's a lot more stable than the 11", Nenad even points out it's running smoother allowing him to bump the sensitivity up a couple of clicks. I like what I see with the size/shape of it and certainly the smoother running which you can clearly hear in the video. I am looking forward to getting this coil. I've always liked Nenad's videos, he shows it how it is junk and all.

Well, I'm on my number 3 Whites TRX now, the first one was a dud and seemed to really lack sensitivity so I bought a second one from Centerville Electronics in the USA, cost me a fortune to get here but it worked a lot better although it had a habit of going off in the air just holding it and seemed very unstable so I had to run it in sensitivity 2 to keep it stable but then the performance was worse than most other pinpointers I owned. I've just always wondered if number 2 was faulty as well as if a stable TRX was ever made that could be run in sensitivity setting 4 it'd be a killer gold prospecting pinpointer as in sensitivity setting 4 it is easily the most sensitive pinpointer I've tried and I've tried a lot of them. So when one popped up for sale in NZ I couldn't believe my luck, these things are rare as hens teeth in NZ and I thought it was quite possible I was the only owner of one in NZ, the guy who owned it bought it in the US and rarely used it so it was a killer buy, to add to that was the price he wanted for it. Yes, $80 New Zealand dollars! That's right $49 USD! I'd seen these things selling for around $400 USD not long ago as they've become quite the collectors item. It arrived this morning and I've had a tinker with it already of course, it's performance is the exact same as the one I bought from Centerville Electronics in the US, so at least it puts it to rest for me if my second one was a lemon or not, the 3rd one runs the same as the 2nd one with the same problem of it going off if swung around in the air, especially in higher sensitivities and also the same falsing on the ground randomly but overall, still the most sensitive pinpointer I've ever used. So, I'm happy, got a deal on another one for a spare and even with it's falsing issues it's still a very good pinpointer and a shame it's no longer made, it is the only pinpointer I own that will hit on a number 9 lead pellet. My first one that I'm confident is faulty I gave to my daughter and shes lost it, probably buried in a box of lego somewhere but I'm going to try find it as I may as well get it back and use it for a spare cover for my other two. At the time I didn't realise you can remove the guts of them easily and replace the cover.

There is a reason most gold prospectors are weirdo's ?

Depends where you live, a guy that used to use this forum Davsgold is in Western Australia at the moment for example with his GPZ, he's getting many grams a day and only doing a few hours detecting most days and will come home with many ounces for a month or two away and he's always got the possibility of a multi ounce nugget so for someone in that situation they'd be disappointed getting the smaller amounts, for me however the amount Aureous has done is a great achievement, and I wouldn't be able to do the same in the hours he's spent doing it here with my skill level and places I go to. I think in many places to enjoy gold hunting you've got to expect you may not make a profit and you do it for the fun of it and the thrill of the finds, Australia in some areas is likely the main exception to that rule. Coin and jewellery hunting is the one where the finds are easier, without a doubt.

Nope, I've got a long way to go to pay for either of them ? Although I've broken the two ounce mark, If I was to take into account fuel costs I'd likely be in the negatives again ? This is with the plastic bottle zero'd out. 64 grams, I put the little guys on there too that are not in the bottle as I've been using them experimenting but they didn't change it at all from the 64, these scales aren't accurate enough but my little accurate scales can't weigh in the ounces. Don't know how many hundreds of nuggets that is, a bulk of them are very small. The Equinox was the only detector to pay for itself, and it did it easily four times over and that was with ring finds more so than gold although it's done pretty well on the nuggets I think. One ring it found was worth $5630 NZD, a Lord of the Rings Elf 18k Elfish ring which my wife claimed. If I wanted it to I'd say the Equinox would be the one to pay for the detectors by using it for coins and jewellery as that's a lot easier than gold nuggets! My best week with the Nox for modern money, even found a note flapping in the wind stuck in a fence that week ? That rings probably worth near my total gold nugget finds, fortunately for me it's not about the money, I like having my collection of nuggets but they're more about the memories and the finds themselves than their value, they'll never be sold. I would say for someone with my skill level and time spent gold detecting that coin and jewellery would be where the easy money is, even my silvers add up to some decent money, a few rare ones among them and this is only about half of them now, never took a recent photo of my coins or jewellery finds but I've broken 6 kilo's of coins now and haven't even checked through most of them to see if there is any rare ones except the silvers. That gold sovereign I gave away to a friend, not sure it was a real one but pretty sure it's a fake, it wasn't the right weight. So I guess if I wanted to pay down detectors I should start looking for coins and jewellery far more and less for gold, however I enjoy looking for gold a lot more and don't care about the money side of it.

I knew you'd do it Aureous, well done and you did it so quickly. Unfortunately for me it will take a few years to pay for mine but probably a decade if I ever do pay for it by using it as I'll be using my GPZ a lot more than the GPX so I'll be using my GPZ to pay off my GPX ?

Thanks Jeff, I was under the impression and from what I'd seen in videos the Legend wasn't as sensitive to small gold as the Nox, so that's what I was getting at there, tweaking it up to be a touch more sensitive. Perhaps that was the overly aggressive iron bias messing with it a bit and as you pointed out that's being fixed up in this 1.08 update. If it can equal the Nox in small gold sensitivity then it's a must have for me, the bunch of features these multi's have over single frequency detectors is always handy and the Legend should end up with a better selection of coils especially if concentrics start to hit the market for it.

yea just trying to follow the rules ?

Yep, I'll be giving them all a workout with some videos. At this stage I'm keeping my order as is with the 2 smallest coils from the other Aussie brand and the 14x9" Coiltek as I really like the 14x9" size on my older GPX, I'll only change off the Coiltek if it becomes later in delivery than the other brand. So far the videos of them in use have been very disappointing I think but that can be down to the video more than the coil. I have high hopes for them all, and at least I'll have more confidence in the coil, their failure rates can't be anywhere near Minelabs. I've had good luck with my Coiltek 10x5" Joey for my older model GPX which is waterproof and my creek coil now, great little coil and I'm glad I've got it as they discontinued it, so sad to see Coiltek discontinue the 11" AI coil as well, another good coil gone but at least I got one before they were gone. I'll end up getting the Coiltek 10x5" at a later date as I do really like that size. For me even if there isn't much of a performance difference with the aftermarket coils the size difference alone is the performance difference I want. The 11" round is pretty big in bushy and rocky areas, if you can't get your coil to the soil no matter how good it is it's not going to keep up with a smaller coil.