cobill
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Posts posted by cobill
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Found this pic of the Aussie made 14" x 7" test coil on another forum. Check out the GPZ cable.
Yes there is a Santa Claus and Christmas in July for GPZ users.
Bill
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6 minutes ago, mn90403 said:
Could it be as simple as a development shop that is throttled by an economic financial model that doesn't allow for coil R&D money?
OK, then outsource the coil R&D to the industry experts...Coiltek & Nugget Finder! What is so hard, let it go!
Bill
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3 hours ago, Jonathan Porter said:
The issue I have with the Super D coils, if you can call it an issue, is the way the GB will sound balanced when the coil is swung across the ground but the GB can be completely out as can sometimes be evidenced when the coil is pumped.
JP,
The engineer told me last night that I can check my GB when the coil is swung across the ground, if it's quiet the GB is OK...sounds like he may need some updating as well!
Bill
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On 7/6/2019 at 2:22 PM, Jonathan Porter said:
Hi Rob, I instruct my customers to NOT use Quick Start because of two things, one it resets the GB, secondly it resets the Ferrite Balance and lastly it reverts the settings to FP if you select the “reset all” option.
Semi Auto Locks the Ferrite balance once you release the Quick-Trak button, this is especially important in Normal Ground Type Modes because these modes (especially High Yield) produce the loudest response on the Ferrite and also react the strongest to Saturation and Salt signals. This means in Auto Mode the Ferrite balance can be pulled away from optimum even a few feet from where you last performed the Ferrite balance. This is even more obvious with the GPZ19 coil BTW.
There is no need to reset everything unless the detector has gone into a state as described in a thread on this forum through running the machine in an environment that causes the GB state to go entirely out of whack. The GPZ remembers the GB and Ferrite settings on switch off so if your detector was running OK on switch off things will be pretty close at the next start up unless the temps are drastically different or the ground condition has drastically changed.
Another trick I do if the GB is way out (especially on new machines) is to use Quick-Trak and pump the coil till there is no noise then switch off and restart the detector then perform the Ferrite balance as described.
I usually do the Freq Adjust first thing by holding the coil parallel and away from the ground listening to the threshold and adjust either manually or doing an auto tune, once completed and I’m happy with the threshold I then check the GB is reasonable (Quick-Trak and pump if its bad then switch off then on again) then perform the Ferrite balance as described. Remember the Ferrite balance can only change if the detectors electronic change temperature so there is no need to use Auto mode which just adds an extra variable in an already variable environment. Cutting down on the amount of things that can change is a huge advantage, this is why I advocate using Manual GB when checking targets and during digging, less variables equals BETTER outcomes.
JP
I spoke to a very nice Minelab engineer in Australia last night concerning JP's new Ground Balance(GB) procedure and the use of Semi Auto GB. I informed him that I had concerns about the outdated GPZ manual and Knowledge Based Article "GPZ Tips for Better Ground Balance"...basically the lack of updated/detailed procedures on "what to do" for GB based on the ground conditions. He told me that the manual is very basic guidance, it provides instructions that will work for everyone and most people should use Auto GB. He did mention that Minelab might provide more on the subject in their Treasure Talk pages, because that is where opinion pieces are posted.
Thank goodness JP keeps us informed!
Bill
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Quote
"Not using a Ferrite means you will never know if your X balance is out, relying on Auto means you are relying on the detectors algorithm to find the X balance for you which is OK in soils were X signal is minimal, in Australia this (and Arizona because I have detected there) is not a good thing in my opinion. Using Quick-Trak could potentially exacerbate things because Quick-Trak forces the G and X tracking, if the detector does not get a good look at X signal during this stage the X balance will have to be out. This is not a problem if there is no X signal in your ground which is suggested by your GPZ successes.
X balance is needed because no electronics are exactly the same and prefect and no two coils are EXACTLTY the same and perfect, as such there can be slight temperature drift in ZVT allowing X signal to come through. This is especially true with the X coils.
The detector in the environment does not always know the difference between Salt signal, Saturation signal and X signal as such it can become confused if too much Salt signal or Saturation signal is present in Auto mode, this then could cause the X balance to no longer be optimal hence the release of the Ferrite to allow the detector to see an optimal X signal, this is why I advocate the use of Semi-Auto and the Ferrite to prevent this from happening, even for low X ground. The first GPZs had a very lively X balance in Auto mode which potentially allowed Salt and Saturation signals to interfere with the X balance, this was later refined in the first update and carries through to today.
Salt Ground can also have variable amounts of G and varying amounts of X signals as well as Saturation signals, you the operator cannot always tell mainly due to the Salt signal being so dominant. Having a good Ferrite balance that is fixed to the units operating temperature in this case is best, to avoid the X balance moving away from optimum. If X is not present then there is no issue. If Saturation is not present then there is no issue."
Hope this helps
JP
Thanks JP!
Bill
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9 hours ago, Rob Allison said:
I guess the main reason is the potential customers download the instructional manual from Minelab's website, read it briefly and don't see any of this info for the most part in the manual. They then want to question, why isn't Minelab showing any of this important info on how the detector runs ......
Rob,
Yep, I was trained to use Auto GB 4 years ago and trusted the GPZ. Now, from the posts, tips, etc. I know I've NEVER had a good GB for the past 4 years and probably missed alot of gold!?
Good thing you can "teach an old dog new tricks".
Bill
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Jason, read page 2 for more about X (ferrite component) and G (ground component) and the New Ground Balance Mode options. Not much technical stuff, but it helped me some.
https://www.minelab.com/__files/f/313856/4907-0942-1 Brochure, GPZ 7000 Software Upgrade No.2 EN.pdf
Bill
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Dave,
Is this Treasure Talk the source for your chart, and if so, the software update according to ML fixed the ground balance issues...or did it?
"With the update, we have improved the ground tracking so that the detector is much less susceptible to the typical events that will cause the tracking to deviate from the ideal level."
"detecting your pick will still cause an audio response but it won't impact the tracking."
"there will no longer be a need to continually re-ground balance with the ferrite, unless perhaps moving to a completely new area."
https://www.minelab.com/usa/treasure-talk/gpz-7000-ground-tracking-software-update
The more I read about GB, the more confused I become! Really appreciate JP's posts.
Bill
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23 minutes ago, Jonathan Porter said:
Sweeping the coil gives an average of the ground balance, depending on how variable the ground is the GB can be way out at times which explains why nuggets are missed on flogged patches to then be found on other occasions (usually with some new whizz bang bit of kit or coil). Sweeping the coil side to side will not show the GB is WAY out, only pumping the coil will do this. All Nulled coils are like this, they run quiet over the ground even when the GB it out, this is their strength and also their weakness if the user is not aware.
Pumping the coil gives accuracy on the ground that is under the coil then when you sweep the coil the Semi-Auto mode continues to slowly track the ground giving an average continual GB from the last pump point. It pays to pump regularly to bring the GB back to accuracy especially in ground that has salt signal (DO NOT TOUCH THE Quik-Trak button unless the Ferrite is present). Salt signal, even faint ones, drag the GB away from accuracy which is why you get a faint false pip like target signal that disappears on second pass. Salt is everywhere, it is part of what Mineralisation is.
All this information is given to our customers during our training sessions, we go above and beyond when it comes to GPZ purchases.
JP
PS this is my opinion only and not directed to me by anyone else.
Every time JP posts, I'm blown away by the obvious "News to us in the USA". Looks like ML may have to update their manual, I can't keep up with all the changes and "Cut & Paste" is now a such a big mess to keep it straight in my mind!?
Bill
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Just found this video on Youtube and he has another one posted...pretty good results in Australia with the 14" x 9" coil. My new SDC just arrived this morning and the coil is on the way!
Bill
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PM sent.
Bill
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Phrunt, I agree with your thoughts. If Minelab had an alternative coil or manufacture working on coils, it wouldn't have taken them 4 years to figure this out. JP has to stay loyal to ML, protect their interests, communicate issues, and he is a Minelab dealer(high standards in the MD world)...nothing wrong with that and I have watched and learned from him, "Best of the Best"!
We can all SWAG this one, Minelab dropped the ball and told us to use an SDC if we wanted a smaller coil.
My 10" X coil is on the pre-order list....not waiting around any more.
Bill
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Back in 2015, we asked Minelab for smaller coil options for the GPZ and they said you can't wind enough wire (1 mile in the 14" coil) for the GPZ to operate properly in a smaller coil profile. Well, they have been proven wrong and some creative person has provided a solution for the customers.
Maybe now they will listen to us...we've waited too long!
Bill
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55 minutes ago, Northeast said:
Morning JP.
This might be obvious to others but not me.
Auto GB allows constant changing of G and X signal.
Semi auto locks X and allows changing of G signal.
Manual mode must lock G signal and ??? lock X also?
Is there any benefit to locking the X signal in the ground at these salty locations or should the Ferrite ring be used in every situation?
With regard to a document over and above the GPZ manual. It is slightly time consuming but well worth creating your own document by going through every post by JP and Steve (and anyone else on here you feel has good knowledge). Cut and paste into a word doc, stick stuff under section headings to make it easier to read, add in extra bits whenever new threads turn up (like this one). Just be mindful of copyright and keeping it to yourself.
Northeast,
I'm already cutting & pasting everything available. Most posters don't go into enough detail like JP & Steve...so there isn't much available. I'm also on 2 Aussie forums and learn bits here and there. Still lots to learn.
Bill
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2 hours ago, Jonathan Porter said:
There is always going to be deeper information available on any detector as is evidenced by Andy Sabisch’s new book on the Equinox. To be fair to Minelab they do invest in my continued involvement in the development of their detectors so its not like my experience and knowledge are wasted. The GPZ 7000 is by far and away a much simpler detector to use out of the box than any other High End detector they have ever built, if we could address the weight issue there would be even more happy users out there world wide.
For my part the effort required to put together material in written form or in video format is a mammoth task I am no longer willing to undertake, I prefer to just focus on our customers in the shop and continued involvement in this forum when I have the time. Moving forward I intend to continue on giving feedback to Minelab for as long as they need me, hopfully this will be in parallel with my getting out detecting more frequently or one day even full time again if I’m lucky.
JP
JP,
I think what we're looking for is more "Knowledge Base" type articles on the GPZ 7000 with your style of in-depth analysis of when and why to make adjustments on the different Ground Types, Volume, Volume Limit, Threshold Level, Threshold Pitch and Audio Smoothing, and the impact of those adjustments on ground noise, detection depth, coil speed and control, etc.
The GPZ 7000 manual only has 5 pages devoted to these CRITICAL ADJUSTMENTS with a basic over-view style of writing. These are detector operator decisions that can make the difference of finding gold nuggets or constantly being skunked and selling the Zed.
Minelab must realize that most GPZ 7000 owners have very limited actual hours using this complex detector. I have attended a 3-day dealer training and they setup the detector with mostly default settings.
Bill
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52 minutes ago, flakmagnet said:
I agree Cobil, the people who buy a 7000 are generally not novices. It stands to reason that deeper information beyond the set-up manual would be a huge head start to understanding the true measure of this detector. JP's dedication to providing his detailed and hard-won knowledge to a huge segment of the detecting population is well documented - I suppose it is asking too much to hope MineLab would contribute to help fill this information void.
Flakmagnet,
Yes JP would the best choice for this tasking. Maybe we should put together a "pre-order" list or poll to show how much interest there would be. A local guy put together the "Book of Jack", an electronic cut & paste collection of best posts on the White's V3i and Earthsurfer then organized it into a 63-page book. Maybe JP would rather do this than another expensive & time-consuming video.?
Bill
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Jason,
I agree with your smaller coil idea and have seen it firsthand...a GPX 5000 at Rye Patch with torrential daily rains. That guy just picked up a nugget out of old push piles with a small coil, while everybody else was listening to extremely bad ground noise with their Zeds!
That's why I have a 10" X-coil on order.
Bill
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What I find interesting in this discussion is that when you change from Auto to Semi-Auto GB, you also should adjust your Threshold Pitch from a preset of 53 to below 40 for larger nuggets. These "nuggets" of information are really missing in the GPZ manual and somebody could write a book, like others have done for ML detectors.
Jonathan Porter really knows the ZED inside & out!
Bill
JP said:
"The information following is my opinion only and is based around what you have ‘actually written’ assuming I have understood it correctly.
Semi Auto locks the Ferrite balance therefore there is no learning in Semi Auto Mode, Auto Mode learns but is a lot different to the original Auto GB mode in the first release software. In essence in your case you are actually only ever using whatever you locked in originally relative to the temperature so there will be a lot of times where the Ferrite balance is wrong, an easy way to confirm this is to wave the coil over the Ferrite, if there is a BIG signal then your Ferrite balance is way out. IF there is a big signal that means the detector is going to make a noise on any Ferrite-like material in the ground which then means you are going to have unnecessary noise which will then compete with target signals especially deep edge of detection target signals.
You have mentioned ground noise, with Volume as high as you have gone the ground noise response will be extremely variable because you have taken a smooth information packed surface (your Audio Smoothing OFF threshold) and magnified it immensely, this means all the little variations are now very loud which then drown out any edge of detection targets. I note you have lowered your threshold from 27, this is a sure sign of what I am describing. The same could be said for lifting the sensitivity especially in combination with a high Volume setting, however increasing sensitivity can improve signal responses a lot, especially the smaller deep targets.
Deep big target signals are very similar to ground noise, they are slow responses that require careful coil control to be heard effectively. Increasing the Volume too much on any Minelab since the GPX series (Target Volume) will also lift all the surface signal responses potentially drowning out the deeper target signals. This is especially true for Low/High targets which we all crave so much. Using a lower Threshold Pitch really improves the Low/High signals especially below 40. Not having a correct Ferrite balance adds extra uneeded noise to your signal train, if you can remove it why wouldn’t you do so? Any noise that does not need to be there either through poor coil control or bad ground balance or bad Ferrite balance can cost you performance, this is my constant mantra when I am training in GPZ users. I am unsure how you’re actually listening to the detector so some of this information will vary especially with headphones.
Hope this helps and I hope I have not offended."
JP
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4 hours ago, Jonathan Porter said:
Semi Auto locks the Ferrite balance therefore there is no learning in Semi Auto Mode, Auto Mode learns but is a lot different to the original Auto GB mode in the first release software. In essence in your case you are actually only ever using whatever you locked in originally relative to the temperature so there will be a lot of times where the Ferrite balance is wrong, an easy way to confirm this is to wave the coil over the Ferrite, if there is a BIG signal then your Ferrite balance is way out. IF there is a big signal that means the detector is going to make a noise on any Ferrite-like material in the ground which then means you are going to have unnecessary noise which will then compete with target signals especially deep edge of detection target signals.
You have mentioned ground noise, with Volume as high as you have gone the ground noise response will be extremely variable because you have taken a smooth information packed surface (your Audio Smoothing OFF threshold) and magnified it immensely, this means all the little variations are now very loud which then drown out any edge of detection targets. I note you have lowered your threshold from 27, this is a sure sign of what I am describing. The same could be said for lifting the sensitivity especially in combination with a high Volume setting, however increasing sensitivity can improve signal responses a lot, especially the smaller deep targets.
Deep big target signals are very similar to ground noise, they are slow responses that require careful coil control to be heard effectively. Increasing the Volume too much on any Minelab since the GPX series (Target Volume) will also lift all the surface signal responses potentially drowning out the deeper target signals. This is especially true for Low/High targets which we all crave so much. Using a lower Threshold Pitch really improves the Low/High signals especially below 40. Not having a correct Ferrite balance adds extra uneeded noise to your signal train, if you can remove it why wouldn’t you do so? Any noise that does not need to be there either through poor coil control or bad ground balance or bad Ferrite balance can cost you performance, this is my constant mantra when I am training in GPZ users. I am unsure how you’re actually listening to the detector so some of this information will vary especially with headphones.
Hope this helps and I hope I have not offended.
JP
JP,
I have watched all of your Minelab GPX videos and thoroughly enjoyed them. But, there was not much info on the ground noise discussion we're talking about and there is nothing available on this subject, anywhere on Youtube on the GPZ to aid us in the USA. I wish you could put something together to "train" your friends from across the pond.
My question, related to ground noise issues comes from last weeks GPZ outing at Rye Patch, Nevada where there was significant rains and salty soil. Moisture was at least 2" deep from the surface. I received some "guidance" from so-called experts and ran the following settings:
High Yield/Normal, Sens 18, Vol 9, Threshold 12, Threshold Pitch 60, Vol Limit 12, Auto GB, Smoothing OFF. Using headphones.
I had the Knowledge Base Article with me in the field, but didn't use it. The result was I heard ground noise frequently and slowed down to a crawl. I always GB with the ferrite and only found shallow bits of iron shavings from a dozer and other junk.
What would you recommend?
Clueless in Colorado,
Bill
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I bookmarked the White's V3I thread Link deleted since Findmall Forum update broke all old links and it just came up, so it's still there...just buried!
Bill
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Steve,
I spoke to Gerry today and he has been testing the TDI Beachhunter in the salt waters and beaches of Mexico. He will share some stories and photos soon. Based on early field reports, I have ordered the TDI Beachhunter and sent an inquiry to Reidman for the li-ion battery pack he makes.
Bill
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Gerry,
Thanks for reporting on the new TDI Beach Hunter as there isn't much info available on the net or Youtube. A few questions come to mind:
1. Does the TDI BH meet NASA Tom's 40% rule: an attribute that is at a minimum 40% greater/better than your best VLF ID capable unit? Is the PI 40% more sensitive at finding small & tiny gold or 40% greater depth on low conductors?
2. The TDI BH doesn't have iron discrimination, did the high tone audio work well enough for your needs?
3. The 12" Dual Field coil is designed for high sensitivity to small targets, deep penetration in salt and other mineralization. What were your thoughts on pin-pointing while in the water?
4. What pulse delay settings did you find best for your detecting?
I'm considering the TDI BH because it's available now, the TDI is a proven design and White's provides great customer service. RNB makes a great Li-ion battery pack, so no problem with detecting time. Thanks,
Bill -
Hey nighthunter,
We all dig trash and lots of it. My very discouraging prospecting adventures, after years of zero gold, reading lots of books and magazines, forum posts, etc. took a turn for the better when I decided I needed some "professional help".? I took a 3-day training course in a proven gold district. Some professional dealers on this forum offer training and it's the best advice I could offer anyone. I also had a GPX 5000 and most of my settings were way off. Try it, what do you have to lose!
Bill
We Have Winners Another Contest + Something Similar
in Detector Prospector Forum
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I want this or something similar!
Please include my name in the drawing!
Bill