Latest Minelab Detector upgrades. To mod or not.
Today is Sunday the 13th of December 2015 and i have just been having a bit of a look at the various prospecting forums. I am amazed at the amount of lies and rubbish being posted up on the forums by “guest” and many other anonymous user names that are used for a couple of postings and never seen or heard from again. I see that if anyone asks a question about modding detectors the usual suspects get in with with the no do not get woody to do any mods, you are better off going to xxxx and here is the number xxxxxx.
It is plainly obvious that the person doing these types of postings has an agenda to try and direct as much work to himself as possible. There are a few back-yarders doing work on detectors, i know as i have been sent the detectors to repair. The other thing is that the upgrades we do are the best, i do not mean they are 5% better, i mean the mods we do are 100% better. Here are some facts and i will state that these facts are proven, tested and 100% true.
Can a GP or GPX perform as good as if not better than a SDC2300 or a GPZ7000 ?
Here is the data, a detector that has “Link Technologies” (Woody’s) newest mods will find small gold at greater depth than a SDC2300... This is a fact of the ability of the front end variable gain and fully variable frequency that was developed by “Link Technologies”
The secret is in the adjustment of the front end gain in relation to the frequency (especially the off time) between the transmit pulse output from the detectors. All ground is different in the way that it decays after being pulsed with a magnetic field from the coil, the ground decay is the main factor that dictates when the receiver in the detector turns back on, if it turns back on while heavy minerals in the ground are still giving up their energy from the previous detector pulse it will mask the signal from gold by causing a higher noise floor across the whole decay receiving range of the detector.
Note... You cannot manually adjust the pulse width or off time in a “standard” minelab detector. When we add the variable frequency you have full control. Then add the low noise dual digital front end gain control to amplify the gold targets while using greater off time with the variable frequency and you can hear gold targets that were before just lost in the noise.
In benign soils like pipe clay you can use the variable frequency to hear targets that a standard detector cannot even hear, you can also increase the low noise gain to hear the most faintest target come in like its 10 times the size. The Variable frequency and variable gain work in all detecting modes on the detector, our system give a far better overall signal to noise ration than a standard detector.
The same mods can be used for big deep gold such as the GPZ7000, be aware that the small gold performance of the GPZ7000 is due to the coil behaving like a DD, it is not a DD but an DOD coil, it has two receiver coil windings, this is why it goes bleep bleep on targets close to the coil and one bleep on targets further away. There have been cases where a target is detected with a GPZ7000 but a GP or GPZ detector cannot hear the target, Why! The reason is that the GPZ7000 is using a DD derivative type of coil and 95% of GP GPX users are using a Mono coil, you must remember that on a small target the GPZ7000 coil is similar to using a 14 X 10 inch DD now put the same DD on a GP or GPX and more than likely you will hear the target signal. Take into account that with a
modded detector you can increase the gain while using a DD and the targets are loud and clear. If you go back through the old advertising from the SD series detectors to the latest the one thing that stands out is the claimed extra depth, if we added all the percentages with the models we should be digging 10 ft holes with 11 inch coils. The trick is to understand that we are at the near limits of technology trying to get more depth, there is such a thing as the inverse sixth square law, if you feel inclined have a read up of what it means to metal detecting.
Warranty warranty warranty.
This is pointed out all the time, mods will not damage your detector, we put our own 5 year warranty on our work, current detectors are very tough, out of a couple of thousand detectors that we have worked on the amount of problems could be 20 odd detectors, but we have rectified every detector. I have a complete electronics design and development workshop and repairs are quiet easy for me to do. We repair the older models that other companies refuse to repair. So yes, we give 5 years fully transferable warranty on all out work.
So will the mods get you more gold or in some cases your first gold? If you look at the pictures and stories on my website detectormods.com you will see first hand what some customers have found with their modded detectors. I can show the differences very easily out in the field or in the workshop, we do the best upgrades for the detectors and we are always looking for more ways to get improvements. The rules are , more quiet, less noise, greater stability, getting more depth and getting more sensitivity.
We are now installing our third generation of variable gain boards and these combined with the fixed AD 797 input op-amps give full low noise control to be able to handle the worst ground with full depth on that type of ground. A bit of a secret, many of our customers have been using both the ML and Detech DD coils and getting fantastic gold finds by using “Sharp mode” on the GPX 4500 5000.
Sharp mode is something that most people do not use as it has been too noisy but with the mods and a “good” DD coil the guys are cleaning up on previously detected ground.
So how good are the newest mods? Our first tester is J Porters (yes the Minelab guy) brother in law who lives in Charters Towers in QLD, he uses a GPX5000 with our latest mods and out detects all comers, he has a test site and only his modded GPX5000 can hear all targets. His name is Robert (Bobby) White, he is a detecting legend, maybe you could get lessons from him, he discovered that by using the mods at high frequency , trying the ML back menu gain to 1 and running our front end variable gain to 8-10 he was able to pull a lot more gold from previously worked ground, he used “Enhance mode” with the “Stabiliser” on 5.
Also on detectormods.com is the pic and story about the fellow who had not found gold for a year, he sent his GP-3500 to get the upgrades and the day after he got it back snagged a 30 Oz lump at good depth on a previously worked over patch. There is a write up from Jack Lange who knows the prospector personally, Jack actually told him to send the detector down to get modded. Then there is the fellow (who is very secretive) who found 60 Oz of nuggets in 3 weeks detecting with his modded GPX5000 Pics are are on detectormods.com Many people who get their detectors modded will not say anything to other prospectors, they all want the edge.
Regards, Woody (Detectormods) (Link Technologies)
