Just Wondering... What Exactly Are The Faulty Gpx6000 Symptoms?

[Aureous]

Seeing how this topic has numerous mentions across the internet, what are the range of faults exhibited? My nearest dealer is over an hour from me so I don't want to travel back and forth after picking mine up if I get a faulty one. So I know what to look for after collection and field test. 

[AussieMatt]

I've personally seen 2 x failures.

The first one out of the box would try to start up - the display would start the start up process & then just shutdown. Thought it may have been a dud battery but same thing with another brand new battery.

It went back & although it was a pain they said it was a 5min fix. Ribbon cable not connected/clipped on properly between boards due to a new manufacturing process (2 × boards in the 6k - others only have 1).

2nd one probably got about 10-20hrs max. without any apparent issue. We stopped for lunch one day then it kept coming up with a coil error after lunch. Changed it with 3 x other coils but still occurred.  

Reading between the lines, (I didn't talk to the technician about the 2nd one but did with the first one), it read like it was the same or very similar issue from the warranty repair report? That's just an assumption though.

To me it's more of a manufacturing quality control issue & not so much faulty parts etc. Either way it should be better for an expensive detector but can't fault the service here in Australia with both.

Good news is both are now well used & fingers crossed no further issues. 

[Aureous]

Thanks Matt!  😊 Good to know. I know the shaft connections are a bit loose but I can live with that.

[Gerry in Idaho]

I've sold more than most dealers in the US as I also offer 3 Days Field Training, so my Staff/I get to see, hear and handle many customers units.  Thats why I have seen more than most dealers.  It goes that way with all the detector brands and models as when we are in the field for 3 days we hear/see and know a good running unit from a bad one.

Here are the 3 issues, I know of.  1) Dead out of box and not powering up is one issue.  That will be easy to figure out.  2) Detector turning off when set down or bumped.  I think 1 and 2 might have to be with the length of pins on the batteries? 3) Error message on LCD Readout, sometimes coil error.

Here is what I know of so far.  The majority of people are not having issues and love their detectors.  A few of the folks are getting bad units.  The good thing for what I've seen is the bad units are right away or really close to being new.  It's almost as if the majority will be fine and then those select few are bad and you find our pretty fast.

In the US Minelab is offering a 30 day replacement policy so if you do purchase a unit, make sure to get it out in the field and use it a few times.

I probably have 100+ hrs on mine so far and dug 100+ nuggets with no issues.  Of my 5 Field Staff, none of them have had any issues that I am aware of.

Hoping you get a good one as you'll love it.

[phrunt]

I've seen a number of people on Facebook with abnormally bad EMI like problems in a way,  just a really unstable detector even reacting really badly to the ground, a few have put videos up of the problem  They get it replaced and the new one is much more stable.  

A few people have had faulty 11" coils too where just replacing the coil solved their issue.  Most of the reprots are on Facebook more so than forums, a larger pool of users.

There seems to be a range of problems, not just one.

[oneguy]

I was really fighting with mine in the beginning.  Read a few posts about the external speaker possibly causing some emi type issues? Started using both wired and the supplied wireless phones and the machine settled down considerably.....   It's just a wild sensitive sob but very effective and good at what it can do..... jmo

[Jonathan Porter]

I just tested two GPX11 coils for different customers who were complaining about touch sensitivity, both coils when tested were perfectly fine. The 6000 is an incredibly sensitive high end metal detector and in both cases the first thing I did was take a look at the skid plate and sure enough both showed large amounts of wear damage from hard scrubbing in highly variable mineralised dirt (especially deep contact scratches/gouges), both coils were also used when the ground was damp and just as another huge weather front came through which has now drowned the surrounding area. Both coils when tested could be bashed and knocked about with NO touch noise, so the noise being heard was from the variable ground signal not from touch falsing.

In variable soils that have saturation signals the particles in the gravels that cause the saturation along with clay particles become worse when wet so getting the coil right onto the ground will cause more than double the noise that was heard when the ground was dry, you combine that with high temperatures (36C and higher prior to the rain) where the coil cables become very soft the combination of increased salt signal and conductive signals in combination with more EMI from approaching weather and the constant ground signals created by scrubbing the coil will make the detector sound like it is touch sensitive.

Best bet when the ground is wet and the ground is conductive is to keep the coil up a bit and not actually contacting the ground, this will allow the Ground Balance to function correctly and more than halve the variable signals created by close to ground contact. Keep the coil lead a little loose on the shafts to prevent stiction especially in warmer weather to avoid cable noise, try to avoid rapid coil change of direction movements as this will exacerbate cable wobble noise (left right rapid signals as the shafts flex, but also up/down salt signals because the ground is wet).

Lowering the Sensitivity on the manual mode will not remove these problem signals, only good coil control and not contacting the ground will do that. If you actually want to reduce “actual” sensitivity then you need to use one of the two Auto modes, my recommendation when the ground is water logged and the ground is variable ect is to use the Auto mode and allow the sensitivity to measure the ground you are working without all the constant ground feedback, this especially helps if you do not have precise coil control. Auto and Auto+ are the only modes that actually change the ‘real’ sensitivity on the GPX6000, so in quiet soils the Auto+ can increase the actual sensitivity beyond the manual modes preset, whereas Auto mode is more conservative but in situations like we have here in Clermont at the moment it can make a huge difference to your ability to continue detecting after BIG rain events.

Right now because of the conditions I have three choices if I want to go detecting with the GPX6000, I can either use manual mode on a conservative setting and maintain very precise coil control, or I can use the Auto mode if the manual mode is too fatiguing (especially if I have to lower the manual sensitivity control to below 1/3) or lastly I can revert to a DD coil and use Salt mode in extreme cases. I suggest the salt mode option last because it has the biggest impact on outright depth compared to the 11” Mono coil option so is best used in extremely salty ground where the mono coil is just too noisy.

Hope this helps
JP

[Arky]

Out of the box mine was shutting itself off when it was set down or otherwise jogged a bit. After reseating the battery the problem went away and has not come back over maybe 40 hrs of use. 

[Lunk]

On 11/30/2021 at 1:36 PM, Jonathan Porter said:

Auto and Auto+ are the only modes that actually change the ‘real’ sensitivity on the GPX6000...

My apologies for going off topic here, but inquiring minds want to know. I don’t doubt what you said here, JP; just wondering what the manual sensitivity settings are actually adjusting? My guess - a filter for smoothing out the threshold, akin to the stabilizer function of the GPX 5000 and the audio smoothing feature of the GPZ 7000.

Back on topic, out of the box GPX 6000 faults I have seen  first hand are the coil error and system error.

[Jonathan Porter]

19 hours ago, Lunk said:

My apologies for going off topic here, but inquiring minds want to know. I don’t doubt what you said here, JP; just wondering what the manual sensitivity settings are actually adjusting? My guess - a filter for smoothing out the threshold, akin to the stabilizer function of the GPX 5000 and the audio smoothing feature of the GPZ 7000.

Back on topic, out of the box GPX 6000 faults I have seen  first hand are the coil error and system error.

My apologies also for going off topic. The manual sensitivity control on the 6000 is extremely complex (much more complex than the Stabilizer of the older GPX machines and the Audio Smoothing off the GPZ7000) but outright sensitivity is not affected for near to coil targets even on its lowest setting (they sound fainter but that’s to do with the design of the control not the actual sensitivity). It’s quite easy to check this with a tiny nugget on the surface of the ground.

The other way to get a glimpse of what is going on is to be in a quiet location and just raise the manual sensitivity from the lowest point listening to the threshold as you press the plus button until the sensitivity is at its highest point. Listening carefully to what is actually going on will soon give you a inkling into some of the cleverness of GeoSense. 😊 

Once you get your head around the way the manual control behaves you’ll soon realise there will be some situations where you will not be able to use it to control noise levels, EMI is a good example but also salt conditions, conductive soil conditions  and saturation. My general rule of thumb is once I find myself going down to below the 1/2 mark of the manual control I flick to the Auto+ mode and give it a few minutes to learn the ground, if that is too aggressive and has too much feedback then I will go to Auto mode and allow the conservative aspects of the mode to control the environment. I tend to find people cling onto way to much sensitivity for fear of losing depth and actually make their detectors way too noisy which then impacts on performance or more specifically your ability to find a target signal in amongst the overall noise levels.

Lastly you need to keep on the Quick-Trak button, the better you get at keeping the detector in spec with the ground you’re working in the better the performance. Good coil control especially sudden lifting of the coil can impact on the Ground Balance fine tune that savvy operators habitually achieve. 

JP