Gold Monster 1000

Anybody have any experience with the new Gold Monster as yet, I bought one to try out on trashy areas on the goldfields and for working old sites for coins, have had a play with it in the backyard and it seems a capable machine and works pretty well, as yet I have not used it on hot ground so I was wondering if anyone has had one in the field yet?

Thanks in advance

au-fever

I have not used one but make of this what you will:
http://www.minelab.com/anz/go-minelabbing/treasure-talk/gold-monster-1000-first-impressions

Sounds to me like a Gold bug or GMT. Good on the small stuff but it does not get good depth in tough ground.
The Auto Ground tracking seems to be ok but the auto sensitivity is what keeps it singing in tough ground by winding the sens down a lot.

Just an opinion from my interpretation of a couple of Reviews.

I tried one a few weeks ago with Darren Kamp from Gold & Relics, just before it's release. We found it not a bad machine for the price. And it does what it say's it does, "discriminate". We found it fairly accurate on ferrous and non-ferrous targets when working in shallow. We tried it on medium to high mineralised ground in both settings (Sallow & Deep)and  noticed that you had to tone down the sensitivity a bit if it became un-stable. We put it up against my 5000 with an 8" Commander coil. The 1000 was getting most targets at shallow depth ( about 4-5") that the 5000 was getting. The 1000 did pick up one target that the 5000 could not. It was the smallest piece of rolled up tin foil, like what you would find in cigarette packets. We also tried it on my test gold piece 0.28g and it picked that up with no problems raising the big coil to about 6". One thing we both realised was you can swing this machine a lot quicker than you would with most other machines and it would still pick up the target. We found a small rusty bed spring that you would find on an old stretcher bed. The 1000 was telling us that it was ferrous and the machine could still pick that up at about 16" above the ground, still swing the coil fast. The only coil we were using on the day was the big elliptical coil. Of hand I think that is about 6" x 8". The small coil (5" round) would be great on mullock heaps. Also there is no threshold which may take some people sometime to get use to. You can either use it as an open speaker or use head phones. It has automatic ground balance and two battery packs. One sealed unit and one that takes 6 AA batteries. Two battery charger, one car charger and one 240 volt charger. The machine can be used either with Adults or Children as there is an very small shaft attachment that you can screw on to the upper shaft that then holds the coil. This will make the whole unit about two & half feet to three feet long including the controls and arm rest. Overall I think this may be a good introduction machine for anyone that was thinking of getting into gold prospecting but does not want to fork out the dollars at only $1099. Or who wants a machine that they want to use in trashy areas looking for coins and relics and possibly a nugget or two. I hope to borrow one again in a few weeks when our PMAV Branch has it's next outing and giving it a good going over on the goldfield up here in Maryborough.
wombat

Hi Adrian ss and Wombat

Thanks for the replies, seems like a pretty capable machine for the price, I always wanted something that would be good to use in high trash areas and can handle the hot ground, as stated I really wanted it for searching for coins and relics as we often come across old stock yards and camp sites that are of interest but ten minutes with a pi detector and the rubbish drives you nuts and you give it away.

Thinking about it later after testing the gold monsters discrimination which is a bit limited compared to something like the Sovereign Gt, I came to the realisation that in the goldfields there is far more ferrous trash than non ferrous trash, much more tin and iron than there is non ferrous stuff like lead, silver, copper, brass, gold etc., so even with a limited discrimination and as long as it can handle the hot ground conditions it should be a useful tool for the coin and relic hunter, and if it can snag a nuggie or two as well then that's a bonus.

In the suburbs in parks and on beaches its more the other way round where it seems there is a higher amount of non ferrous trash about like aluminium pull tabs, foil, screw caps, and a bit less tin and, iron, so I am thinking it would be more of a challenge to use due to the trash down here than up there, I occasionally hunt an area of park that was the site of a ww2 two up site, the worst of this spot is that the lawnmowers have destroyed lots of ally cans so the place is littered with ally fragments, so the gold monster would be useless in a place like that and my sovereign gt is able to discriminate out a lot of it.

Its a very adaptable machine and I like that it can be altered to suit your needs, I have already adapted mine to a standard minelab top and lower shaft, so that I can leave it assembled and shorten it by pushing in the lower shaft to store it or make it the length I prefer it at, as I noticed that the standard screw together shaft with the bigger coil on is quite long and makes it feel quite heavy after awhile, pushing the minelab lower shaft in a couple of notches makes it feel better and more balanced.

Will be heading off pretty soon so looking forward to giving it a bit of use.

au-fever

I have been reading about this VLF gold monster1000 and I may have the perfect spot to try one out
Lots of tiny specks in amongst the top of the granite sand

that is of course if my sdc2300 & zed has left any for the GM 1000
Will be trying one out next month

I've got a loan of one from next Friday for our next PMAV Sunday outing. I've got it for 3 days to try out and then our branch members will be able to try it out on the Sunday. All PMAV members are more than welcome to come along and have a go of it on the Sunday. Or if they contact me before hand, can try it with me over the 3 days when I pick it up.
wombat

I will have my GM 1000 soon.. ( end of the this month ) have some junky spots to try it on as well
I mean real junky!

I'm doing up a few Youtube videos on the GM1000 - Part one is an introduction and its done. You can see it at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tyFUOO6tak&t=9s
Part 2 will be the GM1000 in the field and Part 3 some hints on getting the most out of the GM1000 (but mostly directed at new prospectors).

Good on'ya Chris, Seen your first one , looking forward to the others. Sounds like a great little detector by the feedback that it's getting.

Cheers
Ashley

Reno Chris wrote:I'm doing up a few Youtube videos on the GM1000 - Part one is an introduction and its done. You can see it at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tyFUOO6tak&t=9s
Part 2 will be the GM1000 in the field and Part 3 some hints on getting the most out of the GM1000 (but mostly directed at new prospectors).

Thankyou Chris, will watch it later


Cheer jen

Jen PM sent
wombat

Hi all
Will the little gold monster handle this rubbish, we will be raking some of the tins away
Its just quartz and granite sand/reef, with a little bit of the good stuff mixed in
But    look at how much there is!! And this is only part of the area

hi jen.
tested out the monster today and with my short experience the answer is no.
the reason is, is if you walk over a big target like the ones shown the detector forces you to check it by showing it on the screen as gold even though it is rubbish even when buried.
I will be trying out another area of rubbish that has gold in it tomorrow so hopefully I will have more to say then.
it does run quiet in mineralised ground using auto tracking but loses a lot of sensitivity in doing so, compared to running it in the manual sensitivity mode which was noticed during some testing with a small nugget.
hope that helps

Thankyou
Oh bugger  
Oh well will have to try it on the out skirts of the main rubbish, as we are finding it further away
But over time as you know, small bits of rust has washed down as well, hopefully the monster will do its job there

Let us know how you go with it.. please

Cheers jen

hoolahoopa wrote:hi jen.
tested out the monster today and with my short experience the answer is no.
the reason is, is if you walk over a big target like the ones shown  the detector forces you to check it by showing it on the screen as gold even though it is rubbish even when buried.
I will be trying out another area of rubbish that has gold in it tomorrow so hopefully I will have more to say then.
it does run quiet in mineralised ground using auto tracking but loses a lot of sensitivity in doing so, compared to running it in the manual sensitivity mode which was noticed during some testing with a small nugget.
hope that helps

Carol will have to agree with you there as we were at an old goldmine area on the weekend and she got a big alloy/gold reading. We dug it and found a 60mm square iron washer ar about 25cm. We found nothing but junk with both the GM & SDC for the weekend. We never expected to find any gold but it would of been nice.

Cheers

Doug

I took my Monster out for the first time today.
I ran it over a small patch where a mate and I had found 30 or so tiny pieces with SDC 2300 detectors.
I was impressed with the sensitivity although the ground is quite mild (North NSW Location).
I ended up with 9 "Monster" pieces in 2 hours for 0.16g. All very shallow. There wasn't any ferrous trash but I was mainly using the 5 inch coil and picked up quite a few hot rocks which always indicated to the left or trash side of the display. My smallest piece weighed in at 0.008g (yes 8 milligrams)and the reading was still accurate as gold. I found numerous small bird shot that the SDC was unable to find and sometimes the discriminator was having a bet each way with different swings. However overall I was impressed with the discriminator so far, but I think it could be a different story when there is larger ferrous rubbish around.
One interesting find was a fairly loud but deepish sounding signal, (while using auto+ sens), so before I dug it I tested with the SDC as surely we had just missed it. However the SDC could not pick it up. It ended up being a shotgun pellet at about 2.5 to 3 inches deep.
I was mainly using the auto plus sensitivity and it was fairly quiet. I did change to manual 10 for a while and it was a lot noisier and falsed a bit but targets boomed in louder also and it seemed to maybe punch a bit deeper.

I found it an excellent pinpointing/discriminating tool when using the 7000 too.  You can dig a smaller hole and shove the little 5 inch coil down there.  They can be used surprisingly close together with no interference.

Tested the New update on 7000 too. Only played for an hour with it but got 2 pieces for 0.3g on area thrashed by SDC, but never used the 7000 there before so hard to compare.

Wow!!! Thats some small gold

Thankyou Au10oz
Great read..
also shows that each detector has a use..
Mike had a sound with his zed over a very large boulder, yet once he removed the boulder
He could no longer hear the target he was digging.
So over i came with the 2300 shoved my coil in where the boulder was, and yep! Sound still there.
A small bit of gold..

Taking delivery of a Gold Monster next week.
I am in Innisfail, anyone have any suggestions close by to chase some yellow and basically try it out, then try further afield to places like Forsayth and Georgetown.

Cheers

Challenger wrote:Taking delivery of a Gold Monster next week.
I am in Innisfail, anyone have any suggestions close by to chase some yellow and basically try it out, then try further afield to places like Forsayth and Georgetown.

Cheers

We have used the monster at Georgetown area and are getting very frustrated as it reacts to everything. I think that we have to spend a lot of time to work this thing out as we are blessed to have an sdc2300 first. It is a lot easier to use than the monster. Be tolerant with it and hopefully you might work it out before we do.

Cheers

Doug

Thanks Doug,

I have zero experience with any detector, so advice is invaluable to me.
Also, I have watched several review and testing videos about them some good some not so good, but I can't wait to try it out and of course go through the learning phase

Scrapped

Hi everyone

Well I did buy a goldmonster 1000    Thankyou Luckystrikegold.com.au  for all your help
Now i havent done much with it yet.  I don't seem to be able to detach my sdc2300 from myself
Anyway
My brother Tony has given it a couple of goes..
One spot he cleaned up what gold he could with his gpx5000 and sdc2300
He managed to find two tiny pieces with the GM1000 there. one piece of gold with each coil..

He found the Discrimination worked well.. although this monster will ping the hot rocks.. this spot was full of
Hot rocks! It would tune some out after swinging a few times over the hot rock, some hot rocks persisted!!

Tony found the more he used the GM1000 the more he liked it.. he said if the sensitivity is turned up too far
It made the GM1000 noisy. He also found that at times if you swung too fast the GM1000 couldnt keep up.
Was no problem though, just slow your swing speed down.  

As he was using it.. he noticed that he could tell what would be junk or not.  Well almost    those shotty pellets could even fool the GM1000    we think it depended on the shape and size of those darn shot pellets
The rust at this other spot . (  See picture above ) we didn't put it in the thick of those tins and rust..
Bit of over kill all those tin cans in above picture  

the discrimination worked really well.  Where there was the odd larger rusty can or flakes of rust

Can you see the Gold??



More playing with it too be done..
would I use it full time.. no ... as i still prefere my PI machines
The GM1000 Is another tool for cleaning up where we know there is tiny shallow gold to be had..
Its lightweight, easy too use..

Hi Jen.
Interesting comments re the monster.
I am inclined to believe your opinion over what i have read from elswhere because you have used it in aussie ground. I wonder how it compares to the gold bug?
Mine does find very small gold on the surface in nasty mineralisation.

I have never used a gold bug.. so i am of no help there..


I want to be a GPZ7000 when I grow up  

Hi Jen,

Which coil do think would be best to use.

Cheers

Doug

Hi Doug

So far the larger coil.. the 10x6..
My brother took a liking to the larger of the two.
Yet after a couple of hours using it. Then swapping coils.. he seemed to like them both
He did say the 5 inch coil is more sensitive, so more hot rocks.
Tony and Mike use to have the old garret A2b's VLF detector

Still need to play with it some more, we had a day off from detecting today
well not really a day off.  
We went shopping instead
Guess what??
Took 3 hours to do some shopping as the power kept being cut off.. we were ushered out of the supermarket while waiting for the power to return... and of course the cash register's also didnt work! Ahh got there in the end..
So will see what tomorrow brings.

Oh i forgot to mention.. we had the sensitivity set half way

Gday . Was the sensitivity set on the detector or the 3 hour wait at the supermarket
Regards big fella

big fella wrote:Gday . Was the sensitivity set on the detector or the 3 hour wait at the supermarket
Regards big fella

 the sensitivity was an after thought. May have to edit my post again
I saw you at the 3 hour wait supermarket

Gday. Well what else is a bloke to do with 3 hours to spare. Should have got the monster out around the car park. Very impressive detector that one. Keep up the good work its going well and a good summary also.
Regards big fella

Hi all

Well it was bloody freezing here yesterday.. the sun   was nice, the darn wind cut through like it was coming straight off the south pole brrrrrr..
so we didnt detect

Today we did though
Took the goldmonster for a walk over near some of those tin cans and rust

Going through the old timers camp.. as you know over time thier tin cans travel far and wide
Tiny flakes of rust everywhere
Plus there was an blacksmith at this camp as well.. horse shoes and nails

I had first go with it
We didnt have it in discrimination mode.. just watched the gold side of the scale. The sensitivity set at 6
It liked a button.. pellets.. A bottle top.. an old bit of a light
When we swung it over the small bits of rust the scale went to the left.. so we knew it was junk..
We could see the rust as well  
All i could get was the pellets and rust.. oh and the button  

Then Mike had a turn
Walking around through the old timers camp. Nope reckons thats junk. More junk.. more junk.. oh look a big piece of junk.. a bully beef tin  
Then he says.. have a different sound here...  the gm1000 reckons this may be gold

" i said it reckoned the pellets were gold as well   "

it was Gold alright this time.. he found his first piece of gold with the GM1000 today a point 2 of a gram

I didnt take a picture of all the junk we dug up..  it loves those shotty pellets!

So we have the old bit of a light, from a car i guess. Couple of bits of lead.. a button.. the bottle cap, and the gold sitting on top of it.