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How did u go with that switch did you end up working out what it was ?
Minelab SD2000 tips, settings, questions
- Thread starter DavePerth1990
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Awesome ?? Ive literally got the same machine modded by Johnson aswell and wasnt to sure me self ??
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My cook has DD's! :lol:
G
Guest
G'day
Just wondering if anybody on here has had any experience with the deep low frequency mod done on the SD2000 by Detector Mods, I see that they are saying that the deep mods can only be done on the SD2000 and not the SD2100, and if so how have you found the machine to perform?, Its easy to see that as minelab detectors have progressed they have become much better on small gold and can handle the noisy ground much better than the early ones, but I keep hearing the same thing, and that is the depth they can all achieve has not really changed much.
I am a firm believer in the right tool for the job, and use my gear to that end, using a GPX4500 detector with larger coils for depth and ground coverage and then using the SDC2300 for areas where there is known to be small gold, I think there is a use for a detector that is not so sensitive to small targets but can simply achieve better depth, in situations where you are not looking for small gold anyway but just making sure that you have not left much behind and covered your bases so to speak when working on a patch or some ground that you may think is a bit deeper than usual.
cheers
stayyerAU
Just wondering if anybody on here has had any experience with the deep low frequency mod done on the SD2000 by Detector Mods, I see that they are saying that the deep mods can only be done on the SD2000 and not the SD2100, and if so how have you found the machine to perform?, Its easy to see that as minelab detectors have progressed they have become much better on small gold and can handle the noisy ground much better than the early ones, but I keep hearing the same thing, and that is the depth they can all achieve has not really changed much.
I am a firm believer in the right tool for the job, and use my gear to that end, using a GPX4500 detector with larger coils for depth and ground coverage and then using the SDC2300 for areas where there is known to be small gold, I think there is a use for a detector that is not so sensitive to small targets but can simply achieve better depth, in situations where you are not looking for small gold anyway but just making sure that you have not left much behind and covered your bases so to speak when working on a patch or some ground that you may think is a bit deeper than usual.
cheers
stayyerAU
I had the frequency done on a 2000 it had a 4 position switch on it ,testing in the field it was better than the 2100 i had .One target the 2000 just gave a whisper on it and the 2100 nothing after several times swapping the machines over i dug it up and it was a 25 gram nugget so the 2100 was sold. This was many years ago Ken Roberts did the mod ,these days if i was getting a 2000 done i think it would be going to WA i think his name is Isam Jones or another person is the mechanic hope this helps also run a 7.4 battery set up :Y: regards john
old hand said:
I believe you mean Ismael Jones of MinelabMods:
http://www.minelabmods.com/joomla3/index.php/contact-us
Yes thats the man thanks
G
Guest
G'day
Thanks for the replies, yep madtuna I have thought about the NF DDX 25", on the 4500 I use a 20" NF SL mono, the old lightweight light grey style one, I have found them to work very well on the early 4500's particularly but not the later version 4500 or the 5000, but was thinking that the NF DDX 25" would be a heavy beast of a thing, but for limited use it might have to be the other option rather than have to carrying another detector.
There are a few spots where we have found some good widespread gold, but not particularly large bits, but also some parts of these spots have some deep areas that I suspect might be where the better bits are hiding out, so depth is the thing not so much the sensitivity on the small stuff.
I don't know if Ismael is still in the mods game or not now, but I know he's now the WA dealer for the Qed detector, saw it on Gumtree.
cheers
stayyerAU
Thanks for the replies, yep madtuna I have thought about the NF DDX 25", on the 4500 I use a 20" NF SL mono, the old lightweight light grey style one, I have found them to work very well on the early 4500's particularly but not the later version 4500 or the 5000, but was thinking that the NF DDX 25" would be a heavy beast of a thing, but for limited use it might have to be the other option rather than have to carrying another detector.
There are a few spots where we have found some good widespread gold, but not particularly large bits, but also some parts of these spots have some deep areas that I suspect might be where the better bits are hiding out, so depth is the thing not so much the sensitivity on the small stuff.
I don't know if Ismael is still in the mods game or not now, but I know he's now the WA dealer for the Qed detector, saw it on Gumtree.
cheers
stayyerAU
From Ismael's website he no longer does mods
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I spent a fair old amount of time on the 2000's and even more on the 2100's...compared to todays detectors they were crap. I'm not a fan of modded detectors and have only ever seen one mod that raised my eyebrows. A good size coil on the 45 would always be the better option in my opinion. Main point I would make is the bigger deeper gold has to be there to be heard and I can assure you that most of the time it is not!!
G
Guest
Goldtalk Leonora said:
G'day
Its been a long time said that the early Sd detectors were the machines that opened up the goldfields all over again, and still considered by many to be the ducks guts when it comes to depth, I agree that later detectors are far better at handling the ground conditions, and that the gold has to be there to be heard that's a given, but as you would also know the detector you are using only has to penetrating the ground a few cms less than another detector can and you can easily miss the change in threshold that will alert you to the presence of a target, and you also need to add it to the mix that some detectors are far better than others of the same model as well, all things are not equal.
You know sometimes when you have been around for a bit that you can also develop a feel for certain areas and terrain types and in some places you might simply just feel that there is gold there but just out of the range of whatever machine you are using, using a modded detector like the sd2000 might either be wrong or right, if you are wrong so what sell it and move on but if you are right then you have a win, the only way to truly know is to experiment and find out, if nothing is achieved then you can just get that notion out of the mind and move on believing that what you are already using is as good as it gets.
cheers
stayyerAU
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The Sd did open up the goldfields Stayerau....but after years of VLF detectors the gold WAS there...these days that is rarely the case. To get Au enrichment below 500mm or so is rare (only in my opinion). I agree with you in that detecting is very much a mental game...I have said it many times....when people ask me if they should upgrade my standard response is...'if you think you do then you do'. My electronic expertise is restricted to 12v and even that I struggle with...but as I understand it the electronic dookickeys that are pumped into the ground basically do so vertically...the new technology will see these thingamajigs shot in at differing angles and that is when the goldfields will be 'new again'.
In 2014 I purchased my first PI machine, the SD2000. It was all I could afford at the time. I was under no misconception that there were much better detectors out there and I was willing to buy the cheaper. The first thing I did was replace the electrolytic capacitors on the boards as these are the things that deteriorate over time. It wasn't an easy task as it is a two layered board and de-soldering the capacitors broke the connection between the 2 layers. It required exposing the tracks on both sides and then soldering a piece of wire to the tracks to bridge the connection again. After that I put it back together and placed one of the tuning controls UPSIDE DOWN and that caused much confusion. A trip to the Mechanic, as in Mechanic the detector fixer, and it was all fixed. I used it that way for a couple of weeks before doing the next mod which I found on Ismael's website.
Ismael's mods are good, but, some of the original components he used are considerably larger than newer ones available now and they take up a lot of room inside the box. I performed another couple of mods on it and managed to melt a capacitor with the soldering iron, and as with any circuit board, too much heat and you can lift the tracks. Thankfully Mick the Mechanic was able to help me with locating where I should bridge the break and complete the mods.
I did one mod successfully and that was the VCO. This is a 4 frequency switch. It was the easiest mod as it was all soldered to a very small circuit board and then soldered to the detector circuit board and the switch. Mick did the final mod for me when I sent the detector to him for repair after one of the transistors blew.
I set up a voltage regulator on the battery and ran the detector on 7 volts all the time.
I used this detector for 18 months before moving on to a 5000, then the GPZ.
The coil I used almost exclusively was the Minelab 8" mono. I found almost an ounce of gold with it during the first 12 months. The smallest piece I found would have been approximately 0.06 gram. The coil that replaced it was the Coiltek 14" Elite mono and it worked just as well.
The SD2000 is used primarily with DD coils, but I rarely used the one I had and as I used it almost exclusively around Talbot in Victoria, there was only 1 spot I found it unusable.
So, compared to the latest detectors you could say the SD2000 is crap. It certainly has it's limitations, but the modded machine is more than capable of finding gold both large and small, if it is there so long as the soil is not overly mineralised.
I took a chance by purchasing the SD2000 and without Mick the Mechanics help with the mods and repairing my machine it would have ended up as junk. When the transistor blew it was only sheer luck that a replacement was readily available, as some of the transistors are no longer manufactured.
I did detect a nugget with the 7000, that was inside a large ironstone boulder. I checked it with the SD2000 and the 5000 as well. The 2000 could not pick it up.
I have thought about giving the 2000 another go, but that would mean purchasing a new battery and it wouldn't get that much use. If I was new to prospecting and looking for a detector, I would go with the best I could afford, and if that means a SD2000, then so be it. But I would look at purchasing one that is already modified.
Regards Axtyr.
Ismael's mods are good, but, some of the original components he used are considerably larger than newer ones available now and they take up a lot of room inside the box. I performed another couple of mods on it and managed to melt a capacitor with the soldering iron, and as with any circuit board, too much heat and you can lift the tracks. Thankfully Mick the Mechanic was able to help me with locating where I should bridge the break and complete the mods.
I did one mod successfully and that was the VCO. This is a 4 frequency switch. It was the easiest mod as it was all soldered to a very small circuit board and then soldered to the detector circuit board and the switch. Mick did the final mod for me when I sent the detector to him for repair after one of the transistors blew.
I set up a voltage regulator on the battery and ran the detector on 7 volts all the time.
I used this detector for 18 months before moving on to a 5000, then the GPZ.
The coil I used almost exclusively was the Minelab 8" mono. I found almost an ounce of gold with it during the first 12 months. The smallest piece I found would have been approximately 0.06 gram. The coil that replaced it was the Coiltek 14" Elite mono and it worked just as well.
The SD2000 is used primarily with DD coils, but I rarely used the one I had and as I used it almost exclusively around Talbot in Victoria, there was only 1 spot I found it unusable.
So, compared to the latest detectors you could say the SD2000 is crap. It certainly has it's limitations, but the modded machine is more than capable of finding gold both large and small, if it is there so long as the soil is not overly mineralised.
I took a chance by purchasing the SD2000 and without Mick the Mechanics help with the mods and repairing my machine it would have ended up as junk. When the transistor blew it was only sheer luck that a replacement was readily available, as some of the transistors are no longer manufactured.
I did detect a nugget with the 7000, that was inside a large ironstone boulder. I checked it with the SD2000 and the 5000 as well. The 2000 could not pick it up.
I have thought about giving the 2000 another go, but that would mean purchasing a new battery and it wouldn't get that much use. If I was new to prospecting and looking for a detector, I would go with the best I could afford, and if that means a SD2000, then so be it. But I would look at purchasing one that is already modified.
Regards Axtyr.
G
Guest
Gday Axtyr
I have used early sds with the four frequency switch, this was known as the hot chip mod where two more higher frequency chips were added to it to give it more sensitivity as the first thing people realised with the sds was they were not getting the small nuggets as they were with the later vlf detectors, the mod that I was talking about is the other way round it is to give the detector lower frequencies so that it can achieve greater depth, probably combined with a gain control so that sensitivity can be adjusted to suit the ground conditions better.
All detectors even the later ones can have issues with ground conditions, even though they will run relatively quietly on hot ground the electronics will be working overtime to keep the machine stable, and its in these situations where its probable that the depth of the machine has also decreased, sometimes as you would know some overly sensitive detectors are a pain in the ass to use and that can be quite tiring, many times a change of coil size or shape can make all the difference to your finds in some areas, as we cant literally see whats going on under the ground with the detectors signals so the only way we can gauge our success is by our gold finds, One spot where we have plucked quite a few nuggets out (some 8 oz in all) that were all over the ounce mark but were no more than about ten inches down, and one was a sun baker, from the surface they only gave a very slight warble of the threshold and could very easily have been missed, in another spot they would have blown you out of your boots, these nuggets were solid and large so hearing them should not normally have been an issue, so the only logical reason for this is the ground conditions, with the detectors electronics struggling to keep the stability and the machine running quietly enough to still use, at the cost of less overall detection depth.
Its in these sorts of places that I think a deep modded sd with a large dd coil will be useful, or as mentioned a gpx with a large new model dd coil, fact is no detector built to date has the ability to handle all types of ground and as I said the only way you can gauge this is by trail and error, and by your gold finds, the best gold I have found has been in spots that looked like nothing and that you would walk through to get to somewhere that looked more promising, hopefully some new technology for gold prospecting is on the horizon as minelab have been very quiet since the release of the brick.
cheers
stayyerAU
I have used early sds with the four frequency switch, this was known as the hot chip mod where two more higher frequency chips were added to it to give it more sensitivity as the first thing people realised with the sds was they were not getting the small nuggets as they were with the later vlf detectors, the mod that I was talking about is the other way round it is to give the detector lower frequencies so that it can achieve greater depth, probably combined with a gain control so that sensitivity can be adjusted to suit the ground conditions better.
All detectors even the later ones can have issues with ground conditions, even though they will run relatively quietly on hot ground the electronics will be working overtime to keep the machine stable, and its in these situations where its probable that the depth of the machine has also decreased, sometimes as you would know some overly sensitive detectors are a pain in the ass to use and that can be quite tiring, many times a change of coil size or shape can make all the difference to your finds in some areas, as we cant literally see whats going on under the ground with the detectors signals so the only way we can gauge our success is by our gold finds, One spot where we have plucked quite a few nuggets out (some 8 oz in all) that were all over the ounce mark but were no more than about ten inches down, and one was a sun baker, from the surface they only gave a very slight warble of the threshold and could very easily have been missed, in another spot they would have blown you out of your boots, these nuggets were solid and large so hearing them should not normally have been an issue, so the only logical reason for this is the ground conditions, with the detectors electronics struggling to keep the stability and the machine running quietly enough to still use, at the cost of less overall detection depth.
Its in these sorts of places that I think a deep modded sd with a large dd coil will be useful, or as mentioned a gpx with a large new model dd coil, fact is no detector built to date has the ability to handle all types of ground and as I said the only way you can gauge this is by trail and error, and by your gold finds, the best gold I have found has been in spots that looked like nothing and that you would walk through to get to somewhere that looked more promising, hopefully some new technology for gold prospecting is on the horizon as minelab have been very quiet since the release of the brick.
cheers
stayyerAU
Moneybox
Philip & Sandra Box
Goldtalk Leonora said:
Imagine the EMI we'd detect once we did that...
stayyer you are right in the way our detectors are not seeing everything clearly down there. You only have to look at the depth we can pick up a can, be rusty or a beer can, it can be near a meter down and come through as a clear signal and then a decent chunk of multi-ounce gold is barely detectable at 400mm. I guess the received signal from gold is too much like the surrounding soil to clearly separate the two.
Your plan might work. Building a detector with one goal, detecting big lumps at depth, might be the answer. That's not the type of thing we expect to get when we buy a detector. We ask it to find the tiny stuff on the top as well as the small and big chunks down below. I think Minelab are doing a pretty good job of supplying the tool for the job.
The good gold you've found on ground where it looks like it shouldn't be is most likely there because we all think it shouldn't be there and don't put enough effort in in those places. Most of the decent nuggets you hear about are not at new depth in old ground but in these spots that were missed in the past. In many cases buried under old workings, rusty junk or the roots of a tree.
Some people swear by the GPZ7000. They claim to have revived old patches and they most likely have because the technology is different and much of what previous detectors couldn't see has been exposed but when it comes the big gold deep I doubt their claims of any improvement. One big difference is the multiple settings allowing one coil to perform the same role as the range of coils we have to fit to earlier machines the do the same job.
When it comes down to it it's the guy swinging it that makes more difference than the detector itself :lol:
Just my opinion anyway and I'm often told how much that's worth.... :|
