My New GPX 6000 Is Faulty, Straight Out Of The Box

[phrunt]

6 minutes ago, Jonathan Porter said:

Simon are you saying you’re going to be complaining about your faulty 6000 for the duration of your warranty?  🤔 😳The detector has a fault we could all see that, you should get it back to Minelab and at the very least have it looked at if you genuinely want to have faith in your detector and also avoid damaging others faith in them. 

Thanks JP, I have to call my dealer today so I'll see what he says once he's back from his helicopter mission.  Maybe I should get it swapped as I have video of the error on the screen to show him and Minelab, but now it's a dirty used detector so then if Minelab can't fault it what can they do with it? It's not like they could box it up and resell it.  It's too expensive of a product to get scrapped for parts, I guess I've got too much sympathy for Minelab and the dealer worried about what they'd do with it especially now it seems to be working fine?

[Jonathan Porter]

Just now, phrunt said:

Thanks JP, I have to call my dealer today so I'll see what he says once he's back from his helicopter mission.  Maybe I should get it swapped as I have video of the error on the screen to show him and Minelab, but now it's a dirty used detector so then if Minelab can't fault it what can they do with it? It's not like they could box it up and resell it.  It's too expensive of a product to get scrapped for parts, I guess I'm got too much sympathy for Minelab and the dealer worried about what they'd do with it especially now it seems to be working fine?

That’s for them to worry about, the key thing here is you are making public comment about a detector that obviously has/had an issue, in fairness to them and piece of mind for yourself that should be addressed first and foremost. 

[phrunt]

I think it's best I'll tell my dealer I'll send it to the service center to be looked at rather than him replace it out of his stock.  They might just fit a new PCB to it which really will cost them next to nothing, the labour cost to the service center and shipping will likely cost them more than the PCB costs.  I'd rather they look at it and repair it if necessary than have it swapped over, that's more fair on him and on Minelab.  I know my consumer rights say I'm entitled to a replacement and he's willing to replace it, but I don't think it's justified in this case when it started working and by comparison to JW's it seems on par except I've got the better shaft. 🙂

The headphones may need replaced too although I don't intend to use them anyway as I was going to buy that Torus over shoulder speaker so I don't really care about them.

[rvpopeye]

It sounds like a cold solder joint is a possible to me but other faults could display the same symptom..

A tech checkup would make sense.

So maybe it just comes back after or maybe they send you a new one.

Have somebody run it and check it out before shipping if it is the new one option though.😏

And then no worry about if it's working as it should. 

 

[phrunt]

Yes, that sounds like the best plan, and the most fair on the dealer.  I don't care if its away a few weeks, makes no difference to me and we're coming into ski season now so detecting takes a back seat.

I absolutely think it's going to be dynamite on small gold with small coils, if its this good to equal the 8" GPZ coil with it's 11 inch coil it's going to be nuts with a little coil.  That I'm looking forward to, the more depth I can get on small gold the better, it's often the difference between a skunk and finding gold around here.

[Jonathan Porter]

Little heads up on EMI with the 6000, if you are in a low mineral area the Auto + feature can actually ramp the sensitivity higher than the manual mode can go which can cause a jittery threshold because with greater sensitivity comes more EMI. Try going to Manual sensitivity mode and run it on flat out instead, this is the optimal sensitivity for the vast majority of conditions and will allow the detector to sound nice and smooth (as smooth as the localised EMI will allow anyway). If the threshold is still a bit jittery you do not lose a lot of target signal by dropping a couple of points on the manual control, if anything you gain if the threshold smooths out. The 6000 has a lot of headroom in its sensitivity control so don’t be afraid to be conservative with it. I mainly use the Auto + feature in remote locations well away from urbanisation. 

[phrunt]

A guy that sounds like he had the same problem as me sent me his repair form when he sent it back, his fault was the same where he tapped the control box but his developed over time.  I've hidden his personal details.

Sounds like it is a solder problem so I should do something about it.

I forgot to mention in my previous post yesterday JW was using the 14" DD yesterday, he found the smallest bit of gold for the day too, that coils seems very sensitive to small gold even though its quite large.  I hope a little DD gets made for it and the aftermarket don't just focus on monos.  And to the greenies out there the briar rose bush JW cut down is an invasive weed introduced by the Chinese gold miners for their rose hip tea and spreading throughout the area out of control, it's taking over a lot of the natural landscape.

I don't suppose anyone can put up a video of what a 6000 threshold that is "smooth" sounds like, I haven't heard it have a smooth threshold yet, or at least what I consider smooth except shortly after the noise cancel it's smooth for a few seconds.  That'd be helpful and I'd appreciate it as the best I can get out of it is like a 2 stroke with some stale bad fuel.

[Gold Catcher]

2 hours ago, phrunt said:

I don't suppose anyone can put up a video of what a 6000 threshold that is "smooth" sounds like

Hi Simon, when you dial back on gain to about 4 clicks and below the threshold becomes rock stable, almost like a smooth single tone with practically no variation. That is assuming "normal" ambient EMI conditions and no source on your body. For higher ambient EMI reduction to gain 2 or 1 will again make the threshold super stable.  I don't have a video of it but could make one. The good news, only little sensitivity will be lost and most targets will stand out without any problem. In those cases I increase the volume on the detector and decrease it on my headset. Conversely, when I run on full manual gain or on auto+ I dial back the volume on the detector to one and increase my headset volume. The latter case helps me to get the machine a tat more stable (or better: helps my brain to process the jittery ground responses better).

GC

[phrunt]

Thanks Gold Catcher, I'm not too good with unstable thresholds, I've always struggled with that sort of thing, I'll film a video at various sensitivity settings and you'll be able to tell what which is considered stable for the GPX to save you going out filming something.

I noticed it seems very little sensitivity is lost by lowering the gain a bit as long as you don't take it too far.

[Gold Catcher]

17 minutes ago, phrunt said:

I'm not too good with unstable thresholds,

I think the reason I might have some more tolerance for it is that I was (and still am to some extend) a heavy SDC user, and that pretty much right from the beginning when it came out. I then added the GPZ and bypassed and never owned any of the older GPX models. Hence, a smooth stable threshold was never something I was spoiled with (aside from the screeching GB2 tone that probably cost me my sanity after years of hearing it...). I totally agree with you regarding threshold jittery of hot 6000 vs "hot" GPZ. When I use the GPZ after having spent the whole day using the 6000 it is very much noticeable how much more stable the GPZ is in the same ground/location. And that is at HY/Normal/Gain 15/ smoothing off ( however using the NF-Zsearch which appears to be more stable than the stock coil). Added benefit: less microscopic trash 🤩

GC