Minelab's next gold machine

XLOOX said:

The now unobtainable Whites TRX is one of the only true pinpointers - it only detects in the forward direction from its nose.

Most other pinpointers also detect strongly to the side of their head - sometimes upto 50mm up the side . So if you are not aware of this you can still go off track for a while - you poke it down the hole and it goes beep at the bottom & you think ok I need to go deeper and keep digging down instead of across.

They still work fine but it pays to play with some targets and see the field shape and effective distance of your pinpointer so you can visualise what it is telling you.

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Exactly, I chased a target down 6" to find a .22 casing on the edge of the hole, the pin pointer was angled toward that side as I put it down the hole---pinpointers fault? Nope, operator error, like most detector problems.

I have tried both Minelab and Garrett pinpointers in the holes with big nuggets and they have not helped, relics I cannot comment on.

It is very frustrating to spend an hour on the demolition hammer and the nugget is in the side of the hole I suppose if I had a small coiltek coil to put on it would help.

The next gold prospecting model might be the FGD (Flour Gold Detector) since there is still plenty of that to be found in the goldfields.

Dean Mortimer said:

The next gold prospecting model might be the FGD (Flour Gold Detector) since there is still plenty of that to be found in the goldfields.

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Whatever it is Minelab may need to become more price competitive.
With the AlgoForce E1500 gaining a following, & a willingness to address customer concerns + engage on enhancements, with future machine development they could be a real player. Australian too.
Throw in the release (mooted to be soon) of the Nokta Gold & Relic PI's, another company very willing to listen to customers + keep prices down, then things could get a shake up?

The 6k has good ground handling, good depth, insane sensitivity to tiny bits and is light.

All those could be improved slightly but can they be improved significantly enough for me to want to pay for a new detector? I dont think so.

Unless my 6k is auto programmed to self destruct at 3years and one day, I am hard pressed to think of any feature that I would shell out another kidney to ML for except genuine reliable iron discrimination.

I think a lot of detectorists feel the same.

The 6000 is good, picks up 0.1 at 10 inches. But also missed a 20g at 18 inches and a 9.48g at 15 inches with standard coil. I just wished minelab allowed option to have low tone threshold like they did on the SDC (holding down volume button and turn on SDC to switch it to high or low), for the price of it you'd think it would have that feature, but it doesn't. I guess minelab think they know what the market needs, not actually what the market wants.

This is something we rarely do, testing our detectors.



It was just that we had a bit of rain and didn't want to move about on wet tracks so I placed a few nuggets out on a clean patch of smooth dirt.

The biggest was (the biggest we found) 5.5g that I placed in a zip bag and covered with a bucket of wet soil at a depth of about 125mm.
The others, a 0.12g, a 0.3g and a 1g all lying in the surface.

We used the GPX6000 fitted with the Coiltek 10"x5" and the original 11" mono.
The GPZ7000 with the NF 12" and the original 14" coil.
The GPX4500 with Woody's frequency modification fitted with the original 11" mono and the Coiltek 14" Elite mono.

The ground was wet but not heavily mineralized. The standout of our very basic tests were the two Coiltek coils. Both these coils have exceptional detection at edge of the coil. The small Coiltek coil could detect the 0.12g nugget 40mm before it reached the target. The big 14" Coiltek on the GPX4500 detected it as well but it had to be within about 25mm above the tiny nugget.

All coils detected all the nuggets with the GPZ7000 with the standard 14" coil being the winner overall but not the best in all situations. The NF was disappointing and was removed from service. It's edge detection is virtually non-existent having to pass about 30-40mm over the target before detection. That makes it useless in anything but open country an even then it's like a small coil in a large housing.

The GPX6000 with the 11" mono performed well in all situations but couldn't match the small nugget performance of the little Coiltek coil or the large nugget detection of the GPZ7000 and the GPX4500. This 5.5g nugget was under a pile of muddy dirt from the bottom of a nearby gully.

We never used the SDC2300's at all on this trip. All these detectors did a great job in their original configuration but the GPX6000 performance on small gold was enhanced by fitting the little Coiltek coil, the GPX4500 performance was greatly improved by fitting the Coiltek 14" Elite coil and the GPZ7000 performed best in it's original form but don't ever ask me to try to carry one around. The GPX4500 with the Coiltek coil is still the winner on bigger gold at depth but looses out on anything smaller.

This was not a comprehensive test, just a bit of time spent to keep us busy on a wet morning.

Dean Mortimer said:

The 6000 is good, picks up 0.1 at 10 inches. But also missed a 20g at 18 inches and a 9.48g at 15 inches with standard coil. I just wished minelab allowed option to have low tone threshold like they did on the SDC (holding down volume button and turn on SDC to switch it to high or low), for the price of it you'd think it would have that feature, but it doesn't. I guess minelab think they know what the market needs, not actually what the market wants.

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Dean was there anything special about the 20g and 9.48g nugget that the 6k couldnt see it ?

My 6k ( and others) can see 5g at 400mm no prob in reasonably mineralised ground.

ML could prob do that H/L tone via a firmware upgrade if they wanted to...if.

I would like to see them give 2 more steps between Difficult and Normal soil as I find I can run Normal Auto + nearly nowhere and Difficult Auto + in about 80% of places.

The 9.48g was flat alluvial (really nice pendant piece once cleaned up) the 20g was chunky alluvial piece. The ground however is extremely mineralised the farmer grows potatoes in it.

Dean Mortimer said:

The 9.48g was flat alluvial (really nice pendant piece once cleaned up) the 20g was chunky alluvial piece. The ground however is extremely mineralised the farmer grows potatoes in it.

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I got a solid 11.2g alluvial piece at ~600mm so it's a bit all over the place.
Were you running in difficult?
Appears there is a dead zone/s when running difficult.

I don't know that using normal is really an everywhere solution? Gives weight to what XLOOX says about the need for another step or 2 between difficult & normal.

XLOOX said:

I am hard pressed to think of any feature that I would shell out another kidney to ML for except genuine reliable iron discrimination.

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That's a problem that may be solvable within the next few years, using AI signal analysis.

grubstake said:

I agree completely, but bearing in mind that Minelab's biggest gold detector market is now in Africa and the Middle East (as was very evident in the marketing material for the 6000), I'd have expected that a model more angled towards durability than the 6000 has proved to be, would have been the best approach. Maybe utilising the ex-mine detector SDC body (solid and easily backpackable for carrying on a trail bike), would have been the way to go.

The fragility and unreliability of the 6000 and its stems and coils, has unfortunately become legendary and is a serious anomaly for a company with Minelab's wealth of experience in Australia's demanding conditions, much less Africa and the Middle East. I'm amazed that we haven't already seen the announcement of a heavier duty 6000 Mk II, accompanied by a generous trade-in regime for the existing model.

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interesting points there mate, i wills say we dont have many issues with 6000s, there were coil issues in the early days and an anode issue from a supplier change on a small batch but we dont really see many come back anymore so id say they have knocked that on the head, i know alot of 6000s were being built here in Adelaide so quality control is good. the African market free meal ticket dried up a while back. i'd love to see some more PI machines in the $2500-$5000 mark think we all would. i haven't got a sniff of anything being released though we can only wait

grubstake said:

That's a problem that may be solvable within the next few years, using AI signal analysis.

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i agree mate Ai may be the next step to a gold only machine

mbasko said:

I got a solid 11.2g alluvial piece at ~600mm so it's a bit all over the place.
Were you running in difficult?
Appears there is a dead zone/s when running difficult.

I don't know that using normal is really an everywhere solution? Gives weight to what XLOOX says about the need for another step or 2 between difficult & normal.

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Like every serious prospecter when you find a patch you go over it in all setting modes of the detector. And try to cover a patch with different machines. I tried the quietest block 1 found heaps of tiny pieces, then tried mid way and got some more, then tried auto + with and without threshold go more, and auto ++ last setting and got more i ended up with over 40g of fly$h1t, my share. the biggest being 3.9g. Yes tried normal and difficult settings too. Then tried the gpx and got two signals marked them, let my mates have a go and they got with there gpx4800 and 4500 but the 6000 and my mates 6000 couldn't pick them up either, my mate tried the 14 DD too, trying all modes settings etc. In the end we just decided to dig the targets to see what they were. Under different ground conditions maybe the 6000s would have seen the larger gold. I am hearing they do well in WA.

I'm not sure if this is the right place for this post but I think everyone will find it interesting. My old mate from Magnet sold me his 7000 a few years ago and he sold his 6000 a few months ago, he had his old 4500 moded up by Detrectonics at Dunnolly in March this year and he was trialling it out when I was staying with him in April, he was going over some of his old patches that he'd done to death with the 7 and the 6 and he was finding some very nice pieces including a great 12 gram piece that was down about 2 feet, he reckoned that his moded 4500 was better than a 7 and 6 combined and with the results he was getting you couldn't argue with him, well he sent me this photo last night of this beautiful piece he found yesterday.