Gerald Wright Midas 500

Does anybody here recall the Gerald Wright Midas 500?
I am trying to locate the coil converter plugs or information on what cct components that are in each plug that are used to adapt the detector to different brand coils.
I cannot locate the plugs for my detector but looking at the control box coil connectors the converter plugs could possibly be simply blanking caps??
The coil pins in each A & B connector are joined directly together in Parallel. The centre pin of the Fisher coil connector appears to be the coil cable screen.the remaining pins are grounded.
The detector seems to work very well without the converter plug connected to the remaining socket.
Is Gerald Wright (The designer) still around?

http://www.minelabmods.com/joomla3/index.php/news/83-gd1000-kalgoorlie-report-must-read

G/day Nightjar.
That report link does not reproduce very well and is dark and difficult to read.
I do have some of the earlier reports about Geralds Midas 400 & 500 and the Midas Quantum 2000..They all worked well but he had a difficult time promoting them.

adrian ss wrote:G/day Nightjar.
That report link does not reproduce very well and is dark and difficult to read.

Think it is time for you to visit Specsavers Adrian.....

Near the top of the report is a cog icon and a dropdown arrow. Click on the arrow and then hit print. T'is magic I tell ya.

Hi all I changed the font colour for this article... Old website colouring and as this article was in the archives it doesn't show up on anything posted on the new site sorry...

All clear now.
Yes I read that report many moons ago and assumed that the detector would do well but it was not to be.
    My 500 seems to run very well with the Fisher 5 x 10 DD and without the converter plug connected.
I purchased this detector used in early 2000 or thereabouts out of curiosity and it never really got a good workout because of the missing converter plugs and the NiCad battery pack was not well. When I attempted to replace it I discovered that it was well and truly secured into the control box and to the cct board by copious quantities silastic, so I gave it a miss and used the machine as it was. The cct is completely encased in a block of pitch.    Turns out the battery pack was only charging up to 11.5 volts and not the required 15 volts so I did not get to see what the true performance of the detector was supposed to be. The 500 was relegated to the cupboard and ousted by my Infinium and Scorpion until now....And some others.
   Because I have been going bonkers with zero watch repair work since the corona v shut down Angus & Coots. So decided to drag out the 500 and fix it with a set of NiMh in place of the decaying NiCads. Those old batteries still charged up to 11.5 colts after 30 years of sitting idle....and they had not spewed their guts out and the tecta still worked..sort of. If I measured it correctly the op frequency is near on 18khz with the Fisher coil fitted.
  It has burst to renewed life and has very much surprised me with the performance and sensitivity to gold.....and it can punch through some serious iron mineralisation.

This is a diagram of the coil connectors in the box.
It would appear that the coil converter plugs are likely to be simply blank plugs because both connectors connect either coil to the same points on the cct with the only difference being that coil A has a coil cable screen pin.
So I see why the tecta works fine without the plug cap fitted to the unused socket.

Gave the Midas a run at Pine Island this arvo. (First run in 20+ years) A bit chilly at 7 degrees C, raining and windy but what the hell I am tired of sitting around doing not a lot.
The detector operated perfectly, ran with a slightly chatty threshold at high sensitivity but no worse than any other high sensitivity tecta that I have used.
Detected deep and responded very well to some really small bits of earring studs. Even at the low sens setting the machine performed excellently. So even though it is a gold machine that is designed to work in high iron minerals it is also a good fine gold chain detector.
The tuning did not drift at all. although it does run a fast SAT in Search mode. The Pinpoint mode is smooth and powerful.
The Midas ground balance range is capable of salt beach detecting according to the info that I have. I will give that a try-out next time down the coast.