Issue With Axiom And Ground Noise

[Steve Herschbach]

23 hours ago, Gazza gold said:

Hi all...

I too have just come back from the Cue -Meeka area with same problems.

This new Axiom could not be used with either the mono nor DD coils. Just way too noisy and continuous GB. I was also digging not just kicking aside hotrocks which previously I could "hear" and ignore with my other machines. I took videos of the unit working the area in ALL  modes and settings. Also made a test area for comparisons and recorded results. Am hoping I too have a dud unit otherwise it's no good to me. I used both my 2300 and 4500 to actually find the gold I came back with. Too be clear I am not bagging this machine before Garrett has had the opportunity to look at it.

90%+ chance you have a dud. The Axiom will ground balance to a wider range than the 6000 or 7000. Not sure about 4500 or SDC though. But that in itself is not good being a dud - quality control lacking? I hope it gets sorted out to your satisfaction. At the very least, you already have machines you know will work.

[Gazza gold]

Gone bush are you still around? Just wanted to know if your Axiom was repaired or replaced... mine is in for similar problem as yours  ... its been a month with no contact from prospectors patch until I called them today. I believe they sent it to Garrett Queensland. They said there was no issue but I know there is. 

[peterinaust]

Gone Bush had his machine replaced, and was happy with the replacement. Hasn't been on here since!

[dirtman]

7 hours ago, peterinaust said:

Gone Bush had his machine replaced, and was happy with the replacement. Hasn't been on here since!

That's Great news !

[Steve Herschbach]

4 hours ago, dirtman said:

That's Great news !

It’s all covered earlier in the thread so not news really. But I do wonder where he wandered off to, has not logged in since Feb 27 - he apparently has “Gone Bush” on us. 

[Gazza gold]

Only interested because knowing he works the same area as myself I was going to quiz him on his settings with the do's and don'ts with the Axiom....

[Steve Herschbach]

Some weird settings that may or may not help…..

 

[afaitken]

Hate to say it folks, but having exactly the same issues, but happens randomly. Had one faulty 11x7 coil replaced. The whole detector has already been back to Garrett QLD once for poor sensitivity (GPX 6000 was 130% better depth). Was returned with "No Fault Found" after about a month. Massively frustrating, worked for a little while (half hour) in the morning. Then troubles all day. Sometimes it just sounded off screaming all by itself. Yes, tried all different settings and coils. Ridiculous piece of junk in my opinion. Tried Maryborough South, ground too hot for it and wouldn't settle. Tried Dunolly, ground to hot for it and wouldn't settle, ended up going to Talbot at a sandy-clay place for lower mineralization, same again. After multiple noise cancels, it worked perfectly for about an hour, at the end of my day. Pretty much every strong signal target I got when it worked was hot rocks or hot ground. Found a few lead shot on the surface but that was it. Would not hold ground balance for more than a few seconds, if at all (most of the day it was if the machine didn't have a ground balance function). Sometime the noise cancel would work, but not for long. Wife was with me swinging her GPX 6000 and had a great day landing some good gold. I'm sick of this junk Axiom and am buying a GPZ 7000 again. Because I have back issues, the Axiom was great for its weight and I could swing it one armed all day. But now I'm going to pull the control panel and 2 inside circuit boards and make a custom battery. Gut the Axiom, throw the electronics in the bin, and morph the GPZ into the Axiom body with some custom crafting and custom coils from X-coil. I have a mate, John, who has the same problems with his Axiom and now leaves it at home and uses his 25 year old F1A4 which kicks the Axiom's arse!

[phrunt]

12 hours ago, afaitken said:

Hate to say it folks, but having exactly the same issues, but happens randomly. Had one faulty 11x7 coil replaced. The whole detector has already been back to Garrett QLD once for poor sensitivity (GPX 6000 was 130% better depth). Was returned with "No Fault Found" after about a month. Massively frustrating, worked for a little while (half hour) in the morning.

You've had a big turn-around afaiken, there was once a time you were happy with your Axiom, sadly this is what happens when a customer receives a faulty unit, I was in much the same boat with my 6000 when I got a lemon, hated the thing for the first 6 months or so of ownership! 

I think you should persevere with the warranty process, not take the massive loss butchering it to make some sort of hybrid 7000 in an Axiom shell.  I doubt this will ever work the PCB's probably won't even fit, and you'd need to fit the GPZ screen in the Axiom housing too which is probably unlikely.  I see the appeal to that though, the Axiom being the better design.  

Perhaps if you try warranty again you might get a different person dealing with it, or you may end up with the same person that puts more effort into diagnosing it rather than no fault found seeing its returned again.  The people at the service agent will be as new as the users are when it comes to the Axiom, they're not instantly guru's with it and have probably only seen a handful of faulty ones in their life and some of them would be obvious faults, the random ones are the hardest to deal with, and just don't take no for an answer, demand they replace it or you want a refund, use that Australian consumer law to your advantage.  They have no choice but to replace or refund it if you demand this be the case.

If you get it replaced and still aren't happy with its performance at least you can sell it knowing its a new unit so you're not ripping someone off.

[afaitken]

Yes, unfortunately - that's the way the cookie crumbles, and my detector certainly has. The problem though is I've had a bad coil, so was over a week without my detector before they sent me a replacement. Then when I sent the whole Axiom and coil in it was over a month. I know it sounds a little petty, but I'm on medical retirement/disability mainly due to my mental health. And this is what I do once a week to keep my head in check - gold or not, it's basically the only time I leave the house. It use to be surfing but I have degenerative neck and lower back issues now and rattle around with more medications than I'd care to mention. So you could see how happy I was initially to get my hands on the Axiom moving away from the heavy GPZ 7000.

I went out a couple of days ago and it was the worst experience with a detector I'd ever had, 90% of my day over 3 different locations the Axiom just wasn't usable at all, then for no apparent reason it worked perfectly for the last 20-30 mins of the day? And I mean like all the advertising claimed it would (though still a little less powerful than my wife's GPX 6000). Just so random, ground balance=terrible, EMI=terrible, hot rocks=the worst ever sounding like true nugget targets. It was a long challenging day but I spent some time on the 6000 which was a lot of fun and more rewarding.

As far as a refund/warranty is concerned, I had previously spoken to management at Garrett Queensland about refunds, who quite abruptly washed their hands of me with a definite overtone once they heard it was a second hand purchased detector. I was directed to:

Returns/Warranty

Garrett detectors purchased from an authorised Garrett Australia Dealer are covered by Garrett’s 3-Year Warranty* 

So I saved $800 off a new Axiom detector price and have ended up with a lemon. Fortunately, when speaking with their much friendlier "Service Department" I got a different story and they even supplied a pre-paid return for the detector. I'm not happy about being without a detector for so long, and the wife, though she does share her GPX 6000 with me, would prefer detecting herself.

This leaves me with a conundrum - and the ball is in my court. I have a little money coming to me soon so am going to wait and pick up a used GPZ 7000 then I will send in the Axiom for assessment. If the Axiom comes back again as "no fault found" I will butcher it and with some creative construction will lop off the Axiom panel and install the GPZ 7000 display, remove the Axiom electronic (basically cut it close back to the frame and either 3D print or use a aluminum enclosure to take the GPZ boards with custom battery). All within my abilities having years of experience in electro-mechanics and repair industries over the years. Of course it will be weighed up first to see if it's a viable solution.

I have stripped down a GPZ many a time for inspection, repair or modification so am very familiar with them. X-coils can make a custom one off coil for me at a cost, or I can just use spacers and 3D print adapter for the coil. I'm not fussed as I wont ever sell it. If the Axiom gets replaced - then it becomes a backup detector for when we travel to W.A. and just in general as it is a great go-to design for all occasions (if only it worked). I'd feel guilty selling it to an unsuspecting buyer as I now have zero faith in it.

Yes, then I still would convert the GPZ 7000 into one of the aftermarket detector bodies I have found coming out of China which are light weight carbon fiber, plenty of parts to choose from or custom design. Either way - the GPZ 7000 running X-coils is the only detector I ever had 100% faith in and it alone found most of the gold I have ever found. As per the recent rumor of a successor the the 7000 coming out and being $18k??? well, Minelab Australia have yet to confirm this, and I doubt it was reliable scuttlebutt anyway.

On another note - the 11x13 DD coil acts very much like a concentric but I find little if any detecting ability off the front/back/sides unless you can do a full swing - so I have one highly sensitive noisy 7x11 mono coil and effectively a 11x13 concentric - which is good, but means I really can't have a decent coverage stable DD patch hunter in hot ground.

There is little room to improve overall penetrating power over the GPZ 7000 with Woody from Detector Mods (see YouTube channel, the guy can ramble, but knows his stuff) also explaining that the areas of improvement with today's technology are going to be in the form of higher quality filtering and lowering noise levels when processing signals to effectively "gain depth" through a cleaner signal. Unless someone can claim they have something better than ZVT?