phrunt

I've just got the Nugget Finder heavy duty solid Equinox 800 skid plate on mine, fits fine. The inventory of the genuine 11" Manticore skid plates remains elusive here too. Minelab have no idea the sales they miss by their stock issues.

They also make a 26" Concentric, I think @jrbeatty has one, and a 32" Spiral mono for the older GPX series. They've sent a few 26"s to Australia although a difficult process, but they're not a coil that is easy to ship because of its size, and 32" is for their part of the world only because of that, the size is just too big to ship. These big coils are good sellers in their area with the big deep gold and artifacts they can find.

That's very kind of you Doc, that would be fantastic, yes, I have a spare GPX 5000 lower shaft. The little rubber clip thing seems great quality and so quick and easy to use. It might be worth looking into if you don't already have something better. I believe they made it so you can attach a pinpointer or torch to your shaft but it works great for a swing arm.

I always felt sorry for people that have to run in difficult because of their ground except they tend to have better gold in their ground than I do, the GPZ is such a different detector in difficult even in my mild soils it just feels gutless compared to norrmal. If the GPZ 8000 has normal performance in difficult ground people are in for a real treat. If the future pending release of a GPZ 8000 can provide Normal in mild soils results in difficult soils, they're on a winner. We have some ground here normal is noisy but we put up with it to stay in normal, as going to difficult you may as well go home. I've had comments on some of my videos you should be in difficult I can hear the ground reacting etc, yet the same nugget I'm recovering using normal in the video I would not find in difficult. Are you normally able to run in normal in this ground or is the concentric helping with that? I've heard a few say the Concentrics allow them to run in normal when they otherwise couldn't which is odd to me as the Concentrics are spiral coils and usually more sensitive would mean they need toned down but they seem different.

I agree, you're right in my opinion. I never use my 11" coil as all I care about with my CTX is deep silver coins in mild soils and the 17x13" is the clear winner. The CTX with 17x13" is the superior deep silver machine in mild soils on the market today, even though it's ancient.

It will be for the Manticore and Equinox 700/900, a lot of people complaining about the lack of a WM08 module for the Manticore and new Noxes especially now with their modified Bluetooth LE that only connects to Minelab headphones, this opens up a lot of possibilities. Great news for those that liked that particular audio method on their Nox. Thanks for the find Jason although I don't think enough people are seeing it in this part of the forum, generally this would encourage a lot of excitement. No need to be excited about new detectors, they're a long way off according to the investor reports 🙂

Velcro was too time consuming so I thought of an upgrade for that and after some hunting in my junk collection I found what I needed. Just pushes into the rubber clamps in seconds, easy to get in and out and a perfect fit. This is the gadget here if anyone wants to get one, they're very cheap.

I've never been overly impressed with the swing arm design of the GPZ 7000, it does its job of course but the rubber part on it is always doomed for failure. I've never really used my swing arm but JW who I often detect with always uses his, he's a real coil control person and I'm wilder and crazier however I've decided with gold getting very hard to get I need to up my game. I've seen JW break his swing arm I think 3 times it is now since I've known him and I can't be bothered with that and trying to deal with warranty and the costs associated with sending it in all the time. I figured I'd have a go at making my own for my 6000 and use that as a starting point, the idea to do so came out of nowhere, I was going through stuff in my garage having a clean out and found some old alloy pipes that looked like they were off a tent and had just the bits I needed to give it a go, I wanted to do it all out of junk I was getting rid of. So, I dismantled the pipes, drilled out the rivets holding the plastic bits I wanted on and salvaged what I needed. I also had some old ski poles I was throwing out which gave me an idea to use as a handle, they're made of super light fiberglass too so added no real weight to it. I used old electrical conduit PVC pipe for the main shaft of it. I might make a carbon fibre version next with a black ski pole handle 🙂 My bits and pieces. The black connectors were off the tent poles, the PVC pipe and my ski pole that I've cut to size. I wanted a bit of the fiberglass up inside the PVC for strength and for more grip when gluing. Oddly the ski pole was quite a tight fit inside the PVC so it worked out perfectly, just some good epoxy and they're now stuck together for life. I removed the strap out of the ski pole handle. Just a little Velcro strap to hold it up next to the detector when not in use, doesn't really need it as it stays there by itself pretty well. I used a nylon nut and bolt to hold it on, I might get a bigger tougher one if that one causes a problem. I had to heat the PVC pipe to get it over the little black connector as it was too tight of a fit, once heated I was able to squeeze it in with some epoxy on it, very tight fit though. and my ski pole handle, worked out nice, comfortable to hold too. So, I'm open to ideas, has anyone made one? Made a better design? This was just a quick 15-minute job and I have lots of the parts left to make up more so I can adjust my design, I've a few more ski poles laying around that are old junkers too that I can rip handles off if I rebuild it differently. I'm going to make one up for my GPX 5000 too once I'm completely happy with it'.

Good video, its great they fixed up the small gold sensitivity, I was so disappointed when I first got it with the previous firmware, now all is well in Manticore land for prospecting, if only they'd hurry and release the M8 coil to the general public. My warranty is ticking away without it being used as I don't have the coils I need.

@cobill Yes, his bungy seems good, no idea who makes it but looks like a hip stick from JP on there, his video just popped up at the right time as he just posted it yesterday while this discussion was going, he only bought his 22" inch recently so he's still learning the ways with a Concentric coil as they are different with a 1/3 of the swing overlap being about ideal, less than 1/3 if you're lucky enough to be able to run in normal but it seems he's on top of it already finding that bit which was very faint to start with. I'm not sure of the 14x13" weight these days, haven't used mine since I got it really but I believe the 22" isn't all that much heavier than the 14x13", maybe 200 grams or so as the 22" is 1500 grams. I can't easily google the stock coil weight for some reason. I talked to them once about weight and there is a fine line between meeting durability requirements and weight, too light and it will be less durable with thinner plastics.

Here is a guy that's just put up a live dig video of the 22" on a 10 gram nugget in Western Australia. I don't know if that's deep for the nugget size or not, I'm not lucky enough to find such nuggets 🙂

Hopefully on the Accupoint 2 they incorporate a bluetotoh mobile phone connection and app, once you've had that, nothing else really compares. Basic functions on the pinpointer, enhanced configuration on the app, well beyond what you would ever do on a pinpointer itself. I'll follow this one out of my love for pinpointers, so far it's not showing any reason I need to own one, that 20kHz is interesting though, if it's a very sensitive pinpointer on tiny targets I must own one so I'd appreciate any tiny target feedback from someone that has one vs other pinpointers on the market that were sensitive to small targets such as the side of the Garrett Carrot AT and the XP MI-4/6 and especially the Whites TRX.

I have no idea about cost Jeff, I'm sure they'll work that out soon although I'm not too sure they'd be the price of the standard coils. They tend to be the coils people who really want them buy them even though they tend to cost more. They are shipped from Belarus but originally come from Kazakhstan, it became difficult for them to ship direct from Kazakhstan a few months ago after it being flawless and fast for a couple of years so they now have to transport them to Belarus for shipping and it's usually about a 2 to 3 week ship time from there to anywhere. Nothing is easy in that part of the world at the moment.

I really considered getting an Axiom for a while there, and Garrett's local distributors were going to get one for me into the country but the price ended up GPX 6000 pricing, I think it was slightly more in the end and I really didn't want to spend money like that on something I really don't need. I don't often even use my 6000, I just prefer the 7000 for my needs. I'm sure once they are sold some people might pick one up that can do good solid information sharing about them, X-coils were really good when the GPZ coils were released sending a few people a coil to try out, and they may send a couple of Garrett coils out if people are lucky but I won't be getting any as i don't have the detector 🙂 I'm going to sit this one out, I'd love an Axiom but can't justify buying another detector when I don't need it. The discrimination is a cool feature, I was out using my GPZ today (skunked unfortunately) and that damn discrimination kept popping into my head wishing I had it whenever I hit a big booming target 🙂 The spot I was detecting I was defeated before going to, just the closest spot to home but there is so much junk. I had to go to shops nearby so took the opportunity for a detect. The interest of X-coils with the Axiom was the discrimination, as that can greatly benefit them where they hunt. With this 8" coil it sounds like the Axiom is going to be real solid competition for the 6000 on small gold.

They will mean a lot to the service people, however they're unlikely to put out a public list of error codes. The fact it even has an error code means the water got inside more than just layers in a screen, it got to the electronics, and although it may come right for you now and you think it's OK the salt will continue to eat away at whatever component it's touched and render it useless at some point in time. Don't even try fix it, it's best to give it back to them in the worst state possible with water still inside it to make the replacement process as smooth as possible.

At least it's still under warranty, don't even try fix it, let them swap it over, they need to take responsibility for their poor waterproofing on the earlier Nox series.

Yep, if you watch the video you'll see he goes over a nail showing the discrimination working.

The windings of a ᗡOD are much like the letters, there is an inner transmit winding which is the O in ᗡOD, and the two outer D windings which are the receive windings in the ᗡOD So, it's not a Mono, Concentric and not a traditional DD coil. A similar type coil is used with the GPZ except on the Axiom the design allows for using discrimination. As for what makes X-coils so good for me it's they are able to make the size and type of coils that benefit me, types that have been said can't be done are done, and they have the freedom to do the designs they want to do. They mostly make spiral wound coils which are often the most sensitive type rather than the more traditional bundle wound coils. Even their coil cables are made in-house with the shielding they want to use and not just off the shelf cables so they can make everything to their own specifications. In this case because Garrett didn't security chip their coils and allowed aftermarket manufacturers to make coils for the detector, I think we will end up seeing very good things happen with the Axiom over time and this little 8" is just the start but a very good start. They've said it's a very sensitive coil, I really like this size on my GPZ it's super sensitive coil on that detector so hopefully once they start to appear we can all hear some feedback from new owners as to what they think of it.

I know quite a few people have been wanting this, and many have been asking X-coils if they were going to do it, and it turns out they have been working away on it in the background experimenting with sizes and types of coils, and the first to be introduced is the 8" DOD coil compatible with the Axiom. 8" would be the coil I'd want the most for sure. A big bonus and something X-coils in particular wanted to take advantage of was the Axiom's discrimination abilities and by being a DOD design this makes that possible. It also detects along the entire length of the coil being a DOD. This coil is just plug and play, no adapters required (THANK YOU GARRETT). It's currently not for sale, I can't imagine it will be long until it is.

This is the information I could get, "Minelab is expecting a restock at the end of October. That would be to hit their Aus warehouse, so if any makes it to NZ, it would be early to mid-November."

I've discussed this with people who make coils as they've indicated it's just not possible to get a GPX coil working on it properly. It's better to start from scratch making coils designed for it.

Yes, that would be a good deal, if it were a Vanquish price it would be a sensible purchase choice. My thoughts are based upon the GM1000 here which is more expensive than an Equinox 600 and not all that much cheaper than an Equinox 800 so it just seems crazy to buy a GM1000. It does come with an extra coil which justifies the price a bit however a GM2000 with just a 5" coil for a Vanquish price and some better performance than the existing multi-IQ machines on gold might even tempt me. I much prefer the Vanquish shaft than the GM1000 shaft, the Vanquish shaft is a very good design. It makes you wonder if a multi-IQ GM will be the next detector release in a year or so, I'm not sure how well it would sell with many satisfied with their multi-IQ machines prospecting modes already.

I'm surprised Minelab have taken so long to release a prospecting multi frequency VLF, perhaps it's just too hard to justify the time and expense when the Nox 800 and Manticore already do the job just fine and the likelihood of high sales is pretty low, most would just settle on the do-it-all design of the Nox/Manticore than buy a dedicated machine. I think people are crazy buying a Gold Monster when the Equinox is so much better in many ways and virtually on par performance wise on smaller gold although I personally think it's better, better on bigger gold and has all the features required to make it even better for prospecting than the Monster, even being waterproof for creek gold detecting. So, a GM 2000 would just be a cut back Equinox 800 with a solid design coil and near to the Nox price... waste of money when you can buy the full featured Nox, they'd be better off investing their time into making a gold prospecting range of coils for the Nox and Manticore, they would sell well, a little Snake 6.5 x 3.5 type coil, and a nice 10x5" solid, a 5" round solid would go down nicely too. I wouldn't be at all surprised if a gold prospecting range of coils far outsold a GM 2000. Dedicated gold machines in VLF's have seen their day I think, I certainly wouldn't buy a 71kHz Gold Bug Pro. While a great idea 10 years ago not so much now.

Let's bring this back to the top, I am honestly looking forward to seeing how this evolves in the near future.

I found this document interesting, it has the changelog of the firmware updates, but it bunches the Axiom in with the Apex which is kinda weird, like putting the VW beetle in with a Porcher 911. INFORMATION This release brings your Apex and Axiom up to date with all improvements made since its introduction. Some of these enhancements include: Improved overall stability Faster and more accurate ground balance in saltwater More accurate pinpointing More distinctive tones to better differentiate good targets from iron Backlight powers on temporarily while making Menu change See the document at the link below, not sure what's going on there with the Apex updates being included on the Axiom? I guess some of those improvements could be done on the Axiom also like improved stability and backlight adjustments. Download-Guides-Axiom-and-Apex.pdf (garrett.com)