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.

3 hours ago, Jin said:

Thanks jasong, Some more helpful information to think about. Ill be more than likely doing my patch lead next week. 

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

3 hours ago, Jin said:

Thanks Rick,

Got to say my first impression was it looks terrible inside compared to the Minelab 14". Real backyard job.

Im surprised as they look professionally made on the outside.

Im told the Russians have sent my 20" coil so looking forward to its arrival. Not doing the 22x21 x-coil now apparently. 

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

1 hour ago, afreakofnature said:

Jin, I think it would be better to show an Xcoil opened up.  The soldier point might not be related at all to the GPZ14 soldier point.  I am surprised someone has not opened an Xcoil up yet, most people on here like to see how things tick.  Stoke Stoke ?

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

Just now, Jin said:

According to Dave, a few days ago the 22 x 2's hadn't left Russia yet (May has now) Although ive got the 10" im in no hurry to put it on. Just ordered two lower shafts for the zed a few minutes ago but they will take a week to arrive. Need to order the plugs for the patch leads which ill do tomorrow as the ones i got where incorrect. Will probably do the patch lead in a week or so.

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

33 minutes ago, madtuna said:

I'll try it and If it scores me more gold be it because of size, placebo or what ever I'll use it. If it doesn't work I'll go back to the stock ML coils including the 19" which I had good success with.

I don't give a fig who makes it and who sells it, I just care if it scores me more gold as that is how I earn my income.

I'm still trying to get my head around the moral side of things? What's the big difference between using after market coils on any other machine? Nobody is altering the ML chip or counterfieting it and infact still using it.

We put after market chips in cars, computers and any number of other gadgets, we alter crap every day to make things work better that the way they come off the factory floor.

How come we suffer moral outrage about somethings and not others.

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 

26 minutes ago, Norvic said:

I like your phone analogy MN, tis unreal that the consumer can spend about the same on a 6" phone as on a 60"TV, both Android except iphones of course.

With ML it seems they push the SDC for those who want smaller coils, the Z for their 14 & 19. Hard to understand why they put that chip in the coil connector not in the coil itself, why bother...…….. buh ……………..ML works in mysterious ways but you cannot knock their detector technology as they are light years ahead. 

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

3 hours ago, jasong said:

Heard! Carrying and packing/repacking all that stuff every target can be a real test of patience. 

Appreciate you taking the time to make this one. Agree with Strick, footage looks real sharp. Good to see a video where I can hear the sounds.

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

2 minutes ago, jasong said:

Wow... That signal was a screamer in HY, not that far from overload. If you are completely confident that you gridded that specific spot and that wasnt even a whisper with the stock coil then that's crazy impressive.

Would be awesome to see a comparison of a signal like that if you happen to have a hunting buddy with a stock GPZ, or feel like switching coils for benefit of a vid. If it's that big a difference I for one would void my warranty and forget about resale value as that much difference can easily pay and more.

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

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

4 hours ago, Jonathan Porter said:

Or it could be because a “Coil Not Connected” problem is too scary to deal with?????

Rick, the idea behind the Ferrite is to calibrate the detector so it does not make a noise on X signal in the ground (of which Victoria has huge amounts). When X signal is present it adds additional noise to the audio akin to not achieving a correct Ground Balance, it also means your ‘G’ Balance will try to compensate thereby causing a ripple effect to the general behaviour of your machine. If anyone refuses to use the Ferrite then I HIGHLY recomend they use the Auto Ground Balance mode. 

As an example every time you visit a location your machine will behave slightly differently depending on where the X balance ends up which then affects the G balance, this might explain why some targets are still present (although you have mentioned not finding anything of note for some time at the location).

Using Auto Ground Balance also opens up another can of worms in the form of Salt and Saturation signal, Salt will be problematic on any larger coil on GPZs, Saturation signal is very bad on the X coils. Any of these signal responses WILL throw the X balance out!! This is why I advocate the USE of the Ferrite and to use the SEMI-AUTO mode at all times. Edge of detection targets really benefit a lot from having a correctly set X balance through the use of the Ferrite, after all this is what the GPZ 7000 is all about, DEEP gold! Why allow any sort of noise into the signal train when you have the option of removing it? 

Out of curiosity are you using Audio Smoothing at all? Also Volume, Sensitivity and Threshold levels would be interesting? 

JP

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

16 minutes ago, Jonathan Porter said:

So the coil Ferrite balances OK? I presume you were using High Yield Difficult? Give General Difficult a run on stick and knocks and see how it goes. I also presume this is a Spiral wound coil?

Not stirring the pot here am genuinely interested and value your feedback.

JP

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

48 minutes ago, Aureous said:

Nukem, talk to a dealer who there at the conference. Tell them that you heard about the 3 different machines including a new Pulse gold unit due out this FY. If you know them well enough, you'll tell right away if its true. I've heard it from 2 dealers and confirmed it with a 3rd. The SDC is almost 5 years old and the GPZ is 4 years old in November. They are BOTH due for a replacement this FY. ML upgrades their units in each market niche every 4 years on average.

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

Cheers, Rick

51 minutes ago, RedDirtDigger said:

Info coming in few months...release in november for christmas maybe?

maybe just once Minelab will provide a detector with a longer shaft that a tall person can use comfortably and give you a control box cover to protect your big $$ investment! ...and plastic that doesn’t break and charger wires that are not thin as hair. Its the design package that lacks not the platform.

im a lover not a minelab hater, i have had most gold models since the 2000, its just that they never listen

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