600/800 Support Ended!

[welldigger99]

It appears that Minelab support for the 600/800 has ended. Access to software updates is no longer possible.
I accept that support cannot continue for ever, but given the continued popularity of these machines, this is a very disappointing move.

[Phil2401]

Probably explains why the price of a new 800 is now £689 at the major dealers (including an extra coil for 'free') - a tad less than the original price. They are however still highly capable machines and any further updates would in my opinion simply be 'gilding the lily', but they have of course been relegated into the shadows by aggressive marketing of new products, which we are expected to believe will perform better (if we walk over the target, that is).

If new machines are still being sold, then warranties are being provided and replacement parts are therefore available. I'd only be worried when they stop making replacement parts, making the machines unserviceable.

Phil

[Rank81]

The Equinox 600 and 800 are no longer in production- just the stock etc being sold. The 700 and 900 have now taken over.

[Phil2401]

The Equinox 600 and 800 are no longer in production- just the stock etc being sold. The 700 and 900 have now taken over.

Yep - but are they still making replacement parts, or is it likely that owners now have to rely on existing dealer stock?

Phil

[cvno]

Probably explains why the price of a new 800 is now £689 at the major dealers (including an extra coil for 'free') - a tad less than the original price. They are however still highly capable machines and any further updates would in my opinion simply be 'gilding the lily', but they have of course been relegated into the shadows by aggressive marketing of new products, which we are expected to believe will perform better (if we walk over the target, that is).

If new machines are still being sold, then warranties are being provided and replacement parts are therefore available. I'd only be worried when they stop making replacement parts, making the machines unserviceable.

Phil

As Phil says unless you walk over it waving whatever rechargable battery operated time machine you choose eventually you will find something and what you find depends on quite a bit of luck timing fate etc etc

[fred]

Luck certainly comes into it but you can increase your chance of being lucky by buying the best detector that you can afford and then learning how to use it properly.

[Phil2401]

Luck certainly comes into it but you can increase your chance of being lucky by buying the best detector that you can afford and then learning how to use it properly.

Define "best"! On second thoughts don't - that's a can of worms

Phil

[theoriginalfatcat]

I have two thoughts here.

Firstly as someone who has been eyeing up buying a used 600 for a while now - why do these machines need upgrades anyway? I take it “ support” means upgrades.

If a good machine like this is designed to perform well and have a multitude of tweaks and changes available to the user, why the need for upgrades? As what’s hidden below the ground isn’t going to change.

And secondly, I’m sure that spares will be around for ages. You can buy and use old cars from the 50s 60s and 70 s and still buy genuine bits for them.

[Ten pence!]

My detecting partner has the 700, I have been using a 600 since they came out circa 2018, we swapped machines for a couple of hours, I could detect(!) no worthwhile difference in performance.
Get a 600, used they can be had at very good prices.

[KevinB]

Get a 600, used they can be had at very good prices.

I would of thought now finished cheaper than before including the 800......

Peoples focus will be on the 700/900.

[Fusion]

It's a shame they didn't offer more software revisions, there were a lot of features they could have added, that the machines were perfectly capable of. There have been plenty of user suggestions posted on various forums worldwide ( including lots from me ) so they know what things people would like.

Quote: "Get a 600, used they can be had at very good prices"
They have a finite lifetime, though. This should reflect in the used price falling off.

The electronics in the pod is essentially unserviceable, the case needs sawing open just to access the electronics. Then modern micro components are very hard to work on, especially without any service manual/technical info/schematic diagrams etc. Then there's the 'programmable' aspect - memory chips and microcontrollers don't store their software / data forever. The tiny pushbutton switches are fragile, the "Power" one gets the most use/abuse. The membrane keypad is also fragile ( my own 'pinpoint' button is getting tired ), no replacements are available, and obviously fitting it would involve cracking the case open.

The coil is also failure-prone. Seven wires in the cable, any one failure causes a coil failure, and there are known weak-points in the cable design that will ultimately lead to wire breaks ( particularly close to the coil strain-relief gland ).

Then there's the waterproof issue. Even when new they could leak, and a second-hand one has to be considered "rain-resistant", nothing more.

[theoriginalfatcat]

An interesting post above.

[oldartefact]

Probably the person who did the updates has retired..??

[Fusion]

Quote: "Probably the person who did the updates has retired?"

I think ML are on top of this type of problem. The E800/600 code forms the basis of the Vanquish and X-TerraPro machines, and the Manti is an evolution of the Eqx, so they have engineers still developing the code.

[ I have seen numerous times on other Forums suggestions that Garrett should develop and re-manufacture Whites V3. It's never going to happen, as the quite large piece of code was written by one programmer, who has long since moved on. The raw machine code isn't a 'secret' , it's actually easy to read out of the memory chip in the detector. But there is nothing anyone can realistically do to "hack" it - it is compiled from a high-level language source code ( likely 'C' ), and would be an 'expert' level job to even understand it, never mind modify it. ]

[tommyb]

Access to the 600/800 software updates and support is still available it can be found
in the discontinued section at the bottom of the Equinox 600 & 800 section