araratgold

My two bobs worth. I have had my ZED since a week after release in 2015, so 5 years in late February this year. It has never missed a beat and done thousands of hours now. I would not hesitate to buy mine from myself if the price was right. Electronics by and large are very reliable these days, and will last for many years if looked after. I still have a Black and Decker drill that was made in England that is going strong 20 years on, and all the electrical components in my 32 year old Nissan Patrol are still working ! Cheers, Rick

Another fake video from " Golden Bullshit Media " !

Just a one off Simon, she just wanted to see how it was done, and our planets rarely align. Unfortunately, I wasn't in a position to just give her the $1600 nugget as it was the only one we got.

Gidday All, Just found a clip on my old hard drive taken in October 2015. I took my step daughter out for a swing in a paddock I had access to over near Maryborough, Victoria, Australia. First time that she had ever been out. To say she was excited is an understatement ! Minelab GPZ 7000 in difficult / general. Cheers, Rick

Hey Rick, if you want someone to do patch your lead for you, I can highly recommend Pat from SteelPhase. He did mine and I can not fault the service. Cost me $100 including return post of the GPZ14, and he also put a new plug on the GPZ14 so it can still be used. He apparently has done a few now. Cheers, Rick

I was just sent the new Minelab Vanquish ad, what a total wank ! It tells you nothing about the machine, other than showing that it is a coin/ treasure machine ( as if we need another one of those ! ) I don't know who is doing Minelab's ads, but they need to be fired, IMHO ! https://www.minelab.com/vanquish Rick

No black paint. Cheers, Rick

No worries Rick ! I cancelled my big coil order because 20 inch is not a big enough difference over 17 inch to justify the $$$$. Old mate in Russia wasn't happy with the performance of the 22x21 so has put them on the backburner. Cheers, Rick

Here is a photo of the internals of a 17 inch super D X Coil. Two ferrites included in this coil. As you can see, vastly different to the Minelab coil ! Cheers, Rick

My 22x21 must be leaving at the same time as yours, my 12" has hit Melbourne so will have it in a few days. Also bought 2 extra lower shafts from Lucky Strike in Geelong, ready to go when the Russian jobbies arrive. Cheers, Rick

You nailed it Steve. We alter things every day, such as the diesel tuning chip and modified suspension that I have added to my Triton. We are not making fake copies of the GPZ, just altering it slightly to allow another brand of coil to run. The thing is, despite all the protestations, these Russian jobbies work, and they work well. I have already pulled numerous bits from my " dead " patches just with the 17 inch. I have had none of the " problems " that are supposed to plague these coils. We now have choices, and that is what makes us all happy ! ? Can't wait to see what the " big bertha " 22x21 can do, when it arrives " from Russia with love " !! ? Cheers, Rick

Found another nice bit in one of my flogged spots today, beside a little patch in State forest. Went 3.6 grams. Also got an 0.2 gram crumb. Rough reef gold, as were all the bits from here. Only out for a couple of hours today, going to put a full day in tomorrow ! How well do these new Russian coils go ! Still had none of the problems that JP was talking about, and it balanced fine over the ferrite ! Ground here is bloody noisy in patches, but was still able to run Normal HY over most of it, which I could NEVER do with the GPZ14 or GPZ19. Rick

Got to agree with you Norvic. I thought when the ZED first came out that the chip was in the coil, but learned later it was actually in the plug. If they had have put the chip in the coil, we would all be stuffed ! Probably a mistake on their behalf, because now there is nothing they can do to stop the flow of aftermarket coils. Rick

Likewise Norvic, I have found I can use normal a lot more now. Stability is great, as is EMI resistance. In addition to my awesome 17 X coil, I have a 12 round and a 22 x 21 coming. Can't wait to see how well the big " Russian jobbie " goes on some deep ground ! The way these coils are performing, I can see Minelab taking a big hit to sales of their GPZ19. Cheers, Rick

Gidday Jasong, Thanks. I finally have a good video camera, and it has a plug in microphone that I have covered with some sponge to dull the wind noise. The stock built in microphones are terrible when it comes to windy days ! Cheers, Rick

All the reports from people who have these new coils are good, and from what I have seen in a week so far they are impressive, much better than the stock coil. I would like to do comparisons, but I hunt alone, and it was hard enough carting a video camera with small tripod around with me, let alone a stock coil as well ! Not to mention having to swap the coils around, which is not as quick and easy as swapping GPX coils, plus I don't want to be changing too often as I don't want to possibly damage the adapter lead. Cheers, Rick

Got out today for a few hours in between showers and managed to get one nice little 1.5 grammer in an area I have carefully gridded with stringlines. Was detecting in HY Normal, sensitivity 18 and no smoothing. 17 inch X coil. Ground was damp and normal moaned a bit, but the targets still yelled out. Normal general ran noticeably quieter that normal HY. Filmed in 4K with a new dedicated video camera, hope you enjoy. The X coil is dynamite, and I can see many more nuggets coming ! ? Cheers, Rick

All good thanks JP, no offence taken at all. Cheers, Rick

Gidday Jin, I've been using picks made by " bluejeansronald " for a long time, they are great. Contact him through Prospecting Australia Forum, he also has them on eBay from time to time. https://www.prospectingaustralia.com.au/forum/viewtopic.php?id=15914&p=1 Pictures of them by Mbasko down the first page a bit. Cheers, Rick

JP, I understand the theory behind the ferrite. I use semi auto, and as you know, the machine "learns" the ground and compensates as it goes. As I said, I have found no positive difference in using the ferrite, after many tests of in ground targets, which is why I stopped using it. In fact, if anything, I found the the ferrite can actually over compensate for the ground, especially if you are in quieter ground. Just my findings, yours may be different. I use no audio smoothing, my machine runs just fine without it. Sensitivity at least 16, usually 18, and often 20 when night detecting. Threshold 25, volume 18, threshold pitch 37 and volume limit 16. As you know JP, ground noise is a delicate balancing act. I always try to use normal, but when ground noise gets too much you have to go to difficult, with the corresponding loss of depth ! Deciding the point where ground noise is negating the benefit of normal is the $64K question ! Cheers, Rick

Gidday JP, Did not even bother with the ferrrite, haven't for about a year now. To be honest, I have not seen any improvement / difference between using the ferrite or not, when testing over buried targets, or general prospecting. I was using HY Normal for most of the time, just to see how much ground feedback I got. The ground where I was varies from medium to nasty, with lots of hot rocks and hot pockets of clay. A bit of ground noise where I got the 2 targets, but the two targets still jumped out ! Other areas the ground was too noisy to run normal, so went to difficult and HY. Tried a number of different settings, including general difficult, which is generally my go to for raw prospecting. No bump sensitivity at all. Same with general / extra deep. These coils have excellent build quality ! The coil is a super D similar to Minelab, not spiral wound. EMI was also good too, considering the wet and windy weather we have at the moment. Cheers, Rick

Gidday All, Managed to get two hours in today before rain chased me home with the 17 inch Russian X coil. Blew me away just how good this coil is ! I purposely picked a small area of State forest that I have flogged for the last 10 years, with all 3 different GPX detectors, with coils from 11-25 inches, the SDC, and even a QED. This spot has yielded many ounces of gold to me from 0.05g up to 33g. I had declared it " dead ", as my last 10 or so efforts with the standard GPZ14 and GPZ19 have yielded nothing more. 2 hours in today, nearly back to the car, and I get an obvious signal. This was slightly downhill from a small patch of small reef gold, in an area that I have literally smashed. Coil was about 2 inches above the ground because of sticks and clumpy grass. Removed said obstacles and signal firmer. 4 inches in and I am in nice gravel, target now screaming, out pops what turns out to be buck shot. Bugger, but this is from a spot that I have NEVER managed to get a target in ! Moved about 10m along and same thing, another obvious target, once again coil 2 inches over the ground. Dug in and same again, 4 inches down in nice gravel, target screaming louder than the buckshot, out pops what turns out to be an 0.65 gram bit of reef gold ! I'll be buggered, I thought ! Rain then chased me home. Coil was very sensitive, being able to pick up my 0.11g test piece at 2 inches. I tried knocking the coil against a tree a few times and no bump sensitivity. 17 round weighs the same as the GPZ14. All in all, a fantastic coil. Don't know what the Russians have done differently, but Minelab need to have a good hard look ! Further testing to come when our shitty weather finally breaks. Cheers, Rick

The GPZ is already OVER 4 years old, got mine first week of March 2015. Cheers, Rick

I'm hearing you RDD, Even way back when I was a Minelab dealer I wrote to them numerous times about the lack of quality of their chargers, curly cables, and the fact that the shafts were too damned short ! They only thing they did improve was the curly cables, which are at least serviceable now ! The shafts are still too short for anyone about 5 foot 10 or taller ! The wires on the chargers are still very light weight and fragile, and not up to the job when you are knocking about out bush ! The wires for the SDC headphones at the plug were a disgrace ! For the amount of money we pay, and their supposed " military spec ", some of the stuff they produce is just crap ! Rick

Bang for buck you cannot beat a new 4500, with an EVO coil. Will work anywhere in Australia ! Rick