Gold Bug

Can someone here give a quick rundown on the difference between the GB models. There are several: original GB, GB2, newGB, GBpro, GBdp. Thanks, Beach

GOLD BUG
[www.fisherlab.com]

GOLD BUG 2
[www.fisherlab.com]

GOLD BUG PRO
[www.fisherlab.com]

GOLD BUG DP
[www.fisherlab.com]

Tom in SC

The late 1980s Fisher Gold Bug was a real design breakthrough at the time with S rod, elliptical coil, and compact detachable control box. It ran at 19 kHz which was high at the time. There was no discrimination at all. Just beep and dig. It is a very good detector but the lack of ferrous discrimination would be a major lack compared to the current crop of detectors.

The 1990s Gold Bug 2 looks physically the same, but upped the frequency to 71 kHz making this an extremely hot unit on tiny gold. The trade off is it actually gets less depth on large gold in mineralized soil than the earlier 1980s Gold Bug. The addition of a very good iron discrimination setting is a major plus, and the model is still produced today. As a prospector I consider it a "must have" detector due to the extreme sensitivity to small gold. The Gold Bug 2 can be purchased new with either a 5" x 10" concentric coil or 4" x 6" concentric coil for the same price. There are no DD coils for the unit. The only other coil option is a 14" elliptical coil.

First Texas then decided to produce a huge number of variants on a new design. The new 21st century Gold Bug is sold as the Gold Bug, the short lived Gold Bug Special Edition, the Gold Bug Pro, and to really make life interesting, the Teknetics G2. These are all 19 kHz detectors with digital target id and adjustable audio discrimination. The Fisher units have a S rod design with control box mounted on the rod and the Teknetics units have a pistol grip design with the control box mounted on top of the pistol grip. The Gold Bug Pro comes with a 5" round DD coil and the Gold Bug Pro DP is just another variant in that it is the same detector but standard with the 11" elliptical DD coil. The G2 comes with the 11" elliptical DD. Units with the 11" DD cost $50 more than units with the 5" DD.

The new Gold Bug, Gold Bug Special Edition, and Gold Bug Pro all also have firmware variants which generally change the audio output in small ways most people would not notice but which detector nerds like myself obsess over. Modulated audio or not? VCO or not? There was also some concern about lack of sensitivity to silver coins at one point supposedly addressed by later firmware variations. Regardless silver is not a strong point on the Gold Bugs which, well, are designed to find gold. I believe we are up to version 4 of the firmware, with version 3.0 and 2.9 Being a couple earlier versions. With the unit turned off and set in disc mode, depress the ground balance button. Keep holding it depressed, and turn on the detector. The firmware version should display. My Gold Bug Pro displays version 3.

If buying new I think you can pretty much ignore the firmware issue. If you like S rods, go Gold Bug, and decide which coil you want to get with it as the stock coil, 5" or 11" (or both). If you want pistol grip then go G2 but as far as I know you can only get that with the 11" coil as stock. Just to make matters interestingI will mention that the new 5" x10" DD accessory coil is getting nods as perhaps the best all around coil for the unit. Mine is on order so I will have to weigh in later on that. For prospecting I would lean towards getting the Gold Bug Pro with 5" coil and adding the 5" x 10" accessory coil if you want a larger coil.

Hope this helps,

Steve Herschbach

Prospecting Since 1972 at DetectorProspector.com

Steve's Mining Journal - - Gold Prospecting & Metal Detecting "How To" Guides - - Equipment Information & Reviews - - Public Gold Prospecting & Metal Detecting Sites - - Gold Mining Claims For Sale or Lease - - Steve's Guide to Gold Nugget Detectors



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 04/19/2013 02:50PM by Steve Herschbach.

I wish out of the New incarnation they would of kept the audio/Disc range of the GB 2.9 Special Edition version on the 4.0 Pro which is the current version ..

I like the 2.9 the best of all the newer ones...it was called special edition...I discovered it had a Silver issue where it would not hit on large pieces of silver and was weak on small silver.....I contacted Fisher about it and they researched it and decided they were set to Omega internal specs and they had a recall ...After it was fixed ( Internal Ground Bal alignment) it worked quite well on high conductor's for a 19kHz machine...

The audio of the 2.9 was VCO form surface to depth...the newer ones are vco from depth to about 4 inches then surface to 4 inches or so is a beep...
I also Feel the 2.9 S.E. had more depth out of the 2 2.9er's I had they were a little hotter than the latter version's...Also the iron disc on the 2.9 would cut a nail out around 17-20 but the newer ones would have to get into the 30's to cut a nail out....

What do I like about the newer version's...they got the sens right for all metal hunting when compared to the 2.9.
The 2.9 sens when wide open in all metal was to erratic to hunt with but when you backed it down on the gain to smooth it out the disc I.D. speedometer at the top was desensitized too much to be of use on all but the shallower stuff....

The new versions will run wide open almost in all metal and this allows for the I.D. at the top to work too a much greater depth...also works well from jumping from disc to all metal mode without having to re adjsut sens to compensate for the erratic all metal side if too high....

I also like that the display self clears it's self after a few second's on the new version...the old version would hold I.D. till next target was registered..Why's that important...Well say if your last target was a reading of 25 (iron) and you hutb awhile and get a weak hit that wont register the I.D. but you look down and if you are in a lazy mood you still see the 25 showing well it would be dismissed as deep iron and walk over it....So I like the dsiplay to clear...now if it's too deep to I.D. the screen stays blank and you know you better see what it is....


But as you can see I like a couple attributes of the newer ones and a couple of the older one's...

I like the G2 the best of the current model's...I believe its also now 4.0...And it is a nice runner and I like the ergonomic's and the nice 11 Inch Bi-Axial for relic hunting deeper object's...

If getting a used one either G.B.Pro or G2 about a year ago their supplier messed up and switched the fe304 band signal words up at the bottom of the display...so when you were in all metal instead of showing Fe304 is showed Signal strength on the display and it showed Fe304 on the DIsc mode...I think the bar info was working right it was just the labels were wrong....But little thing's like that will drive me crazy...

I see alot of used ones on E-Baly floating around labeled wrong...I told the factory about it and they looked into it and found out it was the LCD supplier...


I think they will swap out one thats labeled wrong though if you get a backward's one...

If you go for a Special edition 2.9 version of be aware that if you send it in for a problem in the board they will most likely swap it from that version...

The whole Gold Bug release was a mess from the get go....they are great machine's but they were releasing them while they were still smoothing out the edge's...I remember Cabella's got some 1.0's that were really DEEEEP but had no moduclated audio.. So a surface target and a 8 inch target sounded the same, and had no VCO...The 2.9er got the vco for surface to depth and kept the power of the cabella contract ones ...

Make sense LOL!!

Keith

Hi Keith,

Thanks for the details on firmware versions. I was not sure what was different in latest versions. I was not aware of the all metal issue in 2.9. I use my unit 99% of the time in all metal mode and it is usually jacked to the max and runs just fine that way so the change must have come at 3.0.

I agree the whole release was a mess.

Steve Herschbach



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/24/2014 03:25PM by Steve Herschbach.

Hi Steve!

Yes I think the issue of all metal was taken care of on the 3.0....

The 2.9er was just extremely hot in all metal.. to get it to run like the newest 3.0/4.0 you had to get down to about 60 or so on the all metal sens...But the Disc I.D. circuit then suffered while in all metal...

The newer versions seem to run fine close to full open in all metal and allows for the I.D. circuit to work for deeper target's...

I feel personally the 2.9 had some drawback's but depth was not one of them..I dug some deep low conductor relic's quite easlily in my Harsh North Ga red clay .

The newer ones are nice and more behaved and feel more user friendly but most folk's with a 2.9er seldom let them go..

I should also mention that the machine seem's to perform better when using a quality 9volt..

Too bad they cant get 2 - 9-volt's in there. Like the older machine's...

Keith

Good data..... good reports.

I will add (in case this is the question/intent of this thread): The Gold Bug-2..... operating at 71-Khz and having Iron Disc....... is the best micro-jewelry detector...... to date.
The new Gold Bug (and Teknetics G2...... -same unit, just Teknetics name-)..... offer some valuable/unique features....... but for different application. The new GB/G2 will find larger nuggets to greater depths than the old Gold Bug-2. In theory (for beach hunting).... this sounds like a good attribute. . . . . yet, is self-defeating for the original intent.............. that being: 'micro-jewelry hunting. If a GB/G2 can find larger nuggets to greater depths............ this alone...is to implicate that the larger nuggets may then start to be detected by many other general-purpose detectors (understood...... not to the same depths). Yes, I am mixing 'prospecting' with 'micro-jewelry' hunting; yet, multiple intent(s) are achieved. If you are micro-jewelry hunting.......... your primary intent is to find the smallest of targets....... which is a competitive 'edge' (product differentiation) over all other units.

If two equal-skillset people are prospecting........... one using a GB-2 and the other is using the newer Gold Bug.......... the end-resultant may be:
The GB-2 found MANY more tiny specs/flakes of gold over the new Gold Bug.
The new Gold Bug found substantially less gold targets; yet, of larger mass.

Overall............ which one performed better? It is the geographics/site that will determine the answer.