phrunt

It will be their SMF AT replacement for sure, likely an entire lineup replacing the AT Pro, Gold and Max. It's pretty exciting to see what they have done, plenty doubted they'd do much in the gold arena, now they've got the 24k which is awesome, and the Axiom which really is right up there with the best of the best in the class. I still think the Pro Pointer AT is about as good as pin pointers get and I'm a bit of a pin pointer addict. I'm really excited to see what they've achieved with their SMF.

The Axiom seems really good, and now with the new lower price in Australia it's becoming increasingly a viable choice. I quite like comparison videos although they rarely end up being similar results to the ones I get due to my milder soils. They still give a bit of an understanding of how things are going. Something I find meaningful is when they're just waving the littlest nuggets over the coil, the process you would do when you're recovering a target, it can be very telling then how well the detector is performing on small nuggets, you can see in some videos they're saying its hitting it well yet they have to really rub their scoop on the coil to get a response, so easy to throw the gold away in that scenario if it's not on the bottom of the soil pile, others they don't even need the scoop to come close to the coil on the same nugget to get a good response, that's what I like in a detector.

yea, I'm glad they fixed those early cables in later coils, it's a few years now since the coils had those cables on them, my 12x6" GPX coil has a similar type of cable although due to not having curls it makes no difference really just a bit more difficult to wrap. Sounds like you may have a solution Jin, Chet's idea of replacing the cable is a good one too and the path I'd take if your trick doesn't last, you can buy the cables here If you're not confident to do it give David Gibb a call and get him to do it for you, won't cost much it's only joining 5 wires and you'd supply the cable which costs you something like $40. I'd be lucky if that happened to me thinking about it, as I could just cut the curls off and put a plug there, as I have a Chet style adapter too which uses the original curls. Some ready to be turned into Chet style adapters. You guys may find this interesting, it's an original GPZ 14" coil that the security chip had a soldering problem, and would come up coil error. It was able to be repaired by pulling the plug end apart and resoldering the chip. It shows the tiny little chip that has caused everyone so much grief by limiting coils.

Yes, there is no way in the world that is a 0.01, 0.1X somewhere would be more realistic, easy mistake, I do it all the time, it gets confusing 🙂 No surprises in that video for me.

I'm just as thrilled finding a bit the size in the photo below as I am a 1-gram nugget, where as it appears some people wouldn't even bend over to pick up a bit a hundred times the size of this one I do it for the fun, the challenge, so finding a bit like this is often harder than a much bigger bit. So for me, the smaller the better, always a great feeling finding the tiniest bits. I have no interest in selling any gold I find, even if I was fortunate enough to stumble on a lot, I'd keep it all, my little throphys have value to me far more than their money value.

Yep, there are a few by the Garrett sponsored people or associates/dealers. Some examples. They're actually pretty cool to watch, and see it all take place. I'd love to go to a metal detector manufacturing facility.

That's a very thin wire!

I'm sure that shield wire is meant to be connected as it was just a mistake on that coil, perhaps that's why some get worse coils than others for noise, their shielding method at the factory might be a bit questionable with attachment of that wire, and in this case went missed entirely. I hope they're not just masking taping it on. That's designed to fail, might last the warranty period but not a long-life product. There was rumour floating around the chip in some way configures the detector to the coil, and that rumour was only enhanced by the fact in the info section on the GPZ it displays the coil you've got connected. Then again, probably more than half of the X-coil users had their adapter made out of 19" coils, as they never intended to use it so didn't care about getting it cut, and their coils of all shapes and sizes work fine off the 19" coil plug. I did the same, mine was made out of a 19" coil, and I run the 8" coil the most and it works a real treat. As I bought the 12" Z-Search and didn't like it I also got an adapter from its cord, this was going to be the big test for me, will my 8" work differently off a 12" coils cord than it does a 19" coils cord. Absolutely no difference! With the 6000 though, the DD chips are different to the mono chips, that makes complete sense. I have my doubts the Mono chips are different between coils sizes when it comes to "calibrating" the detector, I think the only detector doing that so far is the Algoforce and it makes good sense for it to do it with the large range of GPX coils from various manufacturers it supports, may as well get the best out of the coils.

It would be unrealistic to expect all electronics components to be made in the USA, it sounds like Garrett assemble their own PCB's in USA though, that's about as close as you can get to homegrown electronics in this day and age, like most things in every country, made in "place country here" from local and imported ingredients.

Yes, X-coils did these experiments early on and told me the 5000 coils will not work well with the 6000. Sounds like a problem with no solution, Chet?

A lot of people favour one brand over another, but realistically the 15" will likely be slightly deeper being the bigger coil, the 14" will be slightly more sensitive being the smaller coil. Be happy with your 14" Elite, there won't be all that much of a difference. A Nugget Finder 15" owner will tell you it's better, a Coiltek 14" Elite owner will tell you it's better. 🙂 I doubt many if any have both seeing they're so similar. The Nugget Finder is a bit lighter though.

I think more the Gold Bug Pro sensitivity.

Is that based upon price or some sort of performance thing?

That's why I think someone with an earlier model GPX could team it up with an Algoforce and have a great team of detectors, they complement each other perfectly and to top it off share coils. Where one is weak the other excels, such as the pricky gold, the tiny gold and the Algo, or the really good EMI handling with mono coils it has, it leaves the old GPX for dead there. A cheap boost for an early model GPX owner. Then the GPX will find the bigger solid gold deeper, so they pair very well.

What annoys me is I didn't use metal detectors in the 5 odd years I lived in Victoria and the 20 or so in Queensland. How much wasted time did I have, in the prime of prospecting time too. I missed my best chance of finding a nugget over a few grams! 🙂 I handled the heat a lot better when living there, you get used to living in hell 🙂 Never did like the heat but I was able to live with it, it's once I left the heat now, I can't stand it and have become quite the opposite, 25 degrees is now too hot for me detecting.

That's probably about what it should be, based upon the lite package. I've not added up the extra's the full package comes with over the lite with the extra coil, battery doo-hickey and the headphones, but if they total $1400 AUD then you paid about what the full package should now be that the lite exists. You got a really good deal, was it a special or just a dealer selling it cheaper than RRP? I've noticed one dealer on Facebook lately offering the full package really cheap before the lite came out, now I know why. On 13th of February this dealer in OZ was selling the full package on a special for $6385, it was just to clear out his stock of the full package. Facebook link to advertising video. Just before the lite package came out, now I know why 🙂

This is how X-coils did it, they removed the chip from the coil, and made the adapter then put a patch over the coil so it could still be used off the adapter.

He also sells GPZ cables and so on, I've bought a fair bit of stuff from him.

You can buy the 6000 coil cables from China Applicable to metal detector: gpz7000 sdc2300 gold monster 1000 (aliexpress.com) The 7th item across on the list.

You're on the right track there Ron, you can open up a whole market of new customers with it, and bring people in that otherwise wouldn't bother due to the crazy high pricing of the gold prospecting suitable machines. It's basically what the QED tried to do in Australia, the Algo is capable of doing it properly with a more professionally built detector. Think of it like the Equinox, plenty were swinging that, the Vanquish came out for cheaper, still pretty damn good but not at Equinox level, so Equinox owners had no need to buy one yet the Vanquish opened up near to in many situations Equinox performance at a far cheaper price, people could find a reasonable percentage of Equinox targets while spending less money. The Vanquish became a good seller, not everyone wants to or has a fortune to spend on their hobby. This is where I see the E1500 sitting, and for this reason it will become a good seller, that's a given, maybe not too many of the prospectors on this forum as they tend to be the high end buyers that already have the best, but the general market the E1500 is going to be a hit.

You can turn that chip into a nice adapter, such as the one X-coils made here for testing prototype coils.

I think with any of the high frequency VLF's they're so close it's more a choice of which you prefer for whatever reason, thinking one is going to be significantly better than others is asking far too much, so buying another one when you already have one isn't necessary or beneficial. With the Algoforce PI now on the market for similar pricing to the high-end VLF's, once that hits the US market it might be a better choice for these hotter soils you're talking about than buying another VLF.

Yup, the full package is a rip off and should be discontinued or heavily discounted to be closer to the lite package, it makes no sense at all, if the lite is that price, the full needs reduced too. Maybe they don't want to anger people that bought it at the full price, some people have already taken a 2 grand hit when they bought the first ones released.

It's been a hot dry summer inland where I am so I've not wanted to dig many holes for coins as it does damage, the grass is a bit browned off so digging will just kill it. Autumn if it gets a bit more rain will allow for digging without damage so that might be my peak coin time. That's what I've been waiting for really, some rain to allow me to do proper coin hunting. I've been intending to do some beach detecting but then at the coast it's been the opposite with regular showers and just not the weather I'd want to be detecting in, when they're getting the nicer weather, I haven't had the chance or motivation to go.

I've only taken it prospecting for two half days, I was going to say a day and a half but forgot the first day I left early too as I had some sort of medical issue after a rose thorn got me. 🙂 I did find gold; I would have found the same gold with my 6000 or 7000 though of course. My next intentions are to try it out for beach detecting, I've been dabbling around my local area with it for coins and it's quite impressive with its target ID. I should get around to doing a post on that I guess, just didn't think people would have much interest in a PI as a coin detector.