Jonathan Porter

The latest ZSearch coil I’m using is an MTR unit (Manufacturing Trial Run) and is a clone of the coil sent to ML for validation. It makes sense to then let a few people have a play to confirm my own experiences, who better than a wide mix of people from our customer base, both experienced and inexperienced GPZ operators. So far the feedback has been very positive.

The orange stick is a ferrite assist stick we used to supply for ferrite balancing the GPZ held onto the shaft by clamps, since the inception of Semi-Auto GB mode the frequency required for ferrite balancing has reduced immeasurably, negating the need to carry it around with you. 

Hope this helps
JP

On 11/20/2020 at 10:16 AM, phrunt said:

I wish we had big surface gold like that

The 22 gram piece wasn’t surface gold?, it was at approx 12 inches in super noisy variable soils. The worse the ground the less the depth you achieve. In this case the nugget was an easy find because it was in a super awkward location in amongst prickle bushes, the lighter coil, quieter operation and smaller size allowed for him to detect there. (Smaller means less salt signal)

Newbie customer from FB finds in only a few hours after the training session

Some bits and pieces I’ve found recently on old patches 

Friends finds from yesterdays session in super hot variable ground

Vicky was customer who bought a GPZ based on the weight saving of the ZSearch coil, her first nugget was this 8 gram piece with the test coil on one of my training patches (thrashed). They are eagerly waiting for the release. 

Logic can easily be used to explain delays, logic says there has been COVID19 and that the coils need to meet strict standards to pass muster.

JP

Customer with a nice 22 gram piece found recently with one of the plug and play prototype test coils.

6 hours ago, Reg Wilson said:

I guess a 'turn on and go' detector suits some that can't manage a more sophisticated machine. A poor operator will always blame the tools.

Is that why you sold your GPZ Reg? ?

9 hours ago, jrbeatty said:

............Good to see those faulty X coils still delivering the goods. Well done Rick!  ?

OK I’ll bite, if a Minelab GPZ control box or coil didn’t Ferrite balance they would be considered “faulty” and replaced, this is not to say the coils mentioned are no good just not optimal. Clearly they find good gold, this constant jibing and digging just for the sake of it has grown very thin, if X balancing wasn’t needed then it wouldn’t be provided in the menu and a calibration tool would not be in the box.

In this day and age witnessing a nice haul like this is great to see and I congratulate Rick on his successes. Also great to see Davsgold posting again, sending my best wishes to him on a speedy and full recovery.

JP

15 hours ago, Lanny said:

Yes Jonathan, for those of us that spend 90% of our time detecting in mountains, the weight of the heavy Minelabs really is a killer.

I'm with Steve on looking forward to someone that will come out with a top-notch much-lighter-weight machine that will do a comparable (or better) job to the heavy Minelabs. I can only dream about detecting in flat areas because our gold is mountain bred and often requires hanging on by the toes while swinging a coil.

If Minelab gets the weight down considerably and it truly offers something remarkably different in their new 6000 model, I'll take a look, if not, I'll look somewhere else.

All the best,

Lanny

Lanny I assure you I too dream of the perfect lightweight form factor detector that has the performance we’ve all become accustomed to since ML released its first PI back in 1995. Hopefully new ML detectors coming out will follow the Equinox 800 which eloquently combines both desires/needs.?

JP

6 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

It’s a forum and speculating, suppositions, and guess work about new products is a large part of the show. Like Simon notes I don’t know that you follow it JP, but the same thing goes on and always has with every new product by every manufacturer.......

Anyway, I’m sorry it all stresses you out so much JP. The reality for me as forum owner is I will continue to encourage early information and posting about it here, for the express purpose of stirring up speculation, suppositions, and guess work! 

I'm not stressed Steve,  you assume that I am.?

I avoid posting here these days because of exactly what's just happened, open house for everyone to say and imply what they please but anything I say that might provide some balance or a differing view always seems to trigger a strong emotional misinterpretation of what it is I'm actually saying. 

Thanks for reminding me it's YOUR  forum.....again.?

23 hours ago, jasong said:

Only irrelevant if you have some kind of information we don't. 

Otherwise, right now all the factual information we were given is the "12 inch" from the website and "330 mm" from their photo, so those sizes are specifically relevant.

It's been 12" on their website for quite some time. The new info we have now is the photo with 330mm. That is info provided by Nuggetfinder or a dealer themselves, not guesses.

So, unless you have inside information then what you are doing is guessing about changes. Which you seem to take exception to others doing.

The irony is that the bit about the NDA's combined with the lack of denial that you are testing these coils is written with an apparent intention to make people guess that you are in fact testing these coils, or at least guess that you know something more than we do about them. While we just got chastised for guessing, we are in the same reply almost encouraged to guess again.

No offense intended man, just a strange chain to read and try to make sense out of.

This is why I don’t post much here anymore?, being constantly fine tooth combed, my NDA comments were in regard to GPX rumour threads etc. I haven’t looked at the NF website for a fair while and noticed they expressly say 12” which is quite a detailed number, whereas all the photographs I’ve seen show the coil in a lot of different guises, so I think I’m right to take all pictures with a grain of salt, this also coincides with the couple of variants I have actually tried but am not inclined to discuss for the exact above reasons. ?

Not trying to rub anything in anyone’s faces just that until you either actually hold a finished coil in your hand, or see the dealers with one or sight the dealers order list it’s still in development, why they keep putting teasers out there is anyone’s guess but I’d say it’s because of COVID19!!

This is the last I will post on this subject until more concrete information gets released, members can read between the lines all they like, I for one am done for now!!

On 8/28/2020 at 7:00 AM, phrunt said:

It's like every new product thread JP, it happens ? You clearly don't read the VLF threads like the Apex ? It's been a long wait, and we are nearing the end of the wait now!  By the sounds you didn't get to test these NF coils ?  I thought you would have been.  I guess NF will be as disappointed as everyone about the pushed out release date, detecting mostly taking place in winter right and the coil coming out towards the end of the cooler months.

It is what it is, I’m used to Product Development pathways and the hurdles that get in the way of finishing dates. I spend the bulk of my time trouble shooting issues that flair up, these can be very time consuming to isolate and sometimes require a redesign, it what it is and I’d rather things be held up and done right than quality/performance be compromised.

Simon I dabble in lots of things to do with gold detectors and hardware etc and especially with Minelab am bound by NDA’s. ? Since my last visit I see NF have updated their website and have specifically mentioned 12”, so until I actually receive a price list and a date when stock will be available I will be considering everything I read and hear to be very fluid and open to change.

JP

32 minutes ago, phrunt said:

Does anyone on the forum have plans of buying the 12 inch 13 inch NF? I would be interested to hear their opinion of it vs the stock coil especially on small targets.  I was intending to get one as I wanted to compare it to my current 12" but 12" is about as big as I'd want to use and even that is pushing it.  I've had good finds with my 12" really tiny stuff. The 13" is getting a bit too big for me to outlay the money, I've only used my stock coil once it was just too big when I had smaller options.  I know its a big ask if anyone who has the current 12" is going to get one to do a comparison so anyone getting one will do.  I recall you saying you were planning on getting one jasong, is this still the case?  I think I even told my dealer to get me one, I best contact him and change that if I did.  It's been that long since it happened.

Simon your post’s are full of baits and triggers, I get that your balancing the books but until there’s actually a coil available to do a comparison there is little point to constantly jibing away, I say this with all due respect.? This is a little like the GPX 6000 thread, full of supposition and guess work, based on very little factual information. 

The main thing for me is the Z search coils from NF will be lighter and plug and play offering massive peace of mind, that alone makes it worth the wait, I for one wish they were doing a larger coil first. Till the dealers are actually told there is stock available the sizes being proposed are irrelevant, in the past when I was doing testing for them I often saw Nugget Finder make big changes to coils and design techniques almost overnight, thats the beauty of having a small factory, they can quickly make changes to designs right up to the last minute.

I’d say the real reason why the coil has been delayed so much is the massive demand since COVID, our shop has struggled all season to get stock from all of our suppliers, it is maddening to have a shop in the middle of the busy season with huge demand with no stock, no coils, no picks and no detectors!! It’s been that crazy!! Every dealer in Australia has this issue right now, getting Nugget Finder EVO coils has been extremely hit and miss for the last 3 months.

JP

Gosh that is some steep country, no wonder the GPZ is a struggle over there, even lugging it in on your shoulder would be hard work. I‘m definitely the wrong build for mountainous country like that and so is the GPZ!! ? Really pretty gold and pretty views, more so because of all the hard work required to get it, well done you deserve every gram and more.?

JP

Pic of one of the more mountainous regions I’ve worked over the years (Pilbara area WA on a 40 degree C day so was laying in the shade of my quad having lunch)

I suppose I take it for granted that for me performance in our ground comes before price and historically even ergonomics. The ATX is a good example of this where it really struggles because of our mineralisation and to achieve performance the sensitivity has to be lifted a lot to get a signal response on the smaller SDC like gold, once you lift the sensitivity the other flaws like touch sensitivity come to the fore making it a very hard detector to use,  this makes things very difficult for new chums trying to learn the art before frustration kicks in.

Obviously ergonomics are extremely important also, as as you have said Minelab have demonstrated they can build a really nice metal detector in the form of the NOX800. 

Watching the FT story with interest.

JP

Good ergonomics are vital to comfortable detecting. Overall weight is a weird one, for instance I find the GPZ really nicely balanced in flat terrain but can understand how people in steep areas would suffer terribly, I also prefer the weight to help maintain a good range of motion control over deep edge of detection signal responses, this controlled ranged of motion is especially important for a DOD coil design as they are a slow coil by nature, good control also helps in avoiding saturation signals. One thing that does drive me nuts with the GPZ is the delay in the menu button pressing, absolutely slow as a wet weekend. Seriously it’s Commodore 64 on dial up slow, its so slow it actually hurts my brain thinking about changing a setting, press button, think, think, think.... think some more then a tiny bit more then as your about to give up and try again chirp!!!??

I also find the SDC a nightmare to use because of the left right swivel knuckle and general klunkyness, yet they sell like hot cakes both new and second hand?,  an all time ergonomic Frankenstein nightmare that just keeps on going and going, our hire machines cop an absolute pounding year after year yet step up time and again begging for more!!?

Time will tell on what ML are actually offering, the usual catalyst for what people are willing to pay is the results from the early adopters, a price tag as described suggests ML are confident in what they are doing. 

Steve I’m interested in the Impulse too, is there a release date announced at all? (I’ll go click on your link so this question might be silly)

JP

Kind of feels wasted on YouTube, a quality piece like this should be on prime time. Steve such a pleasure to see my good friend again, reminds of the wonderful time we spent together chasing gold in WA.

An absolute beautiful piece of gold worthy of the good guy who found it, well done to all involved I enjoyed every minute of it.?

JP

PS LOVED the clunk. ?

I have tried the dual WM12 and find they are always slightly out of sync with each other, only slightly but enough to annoy my hearing. Also I found one would drop packets while the other didn’t which drove me nuts, the reason is one unit is mounted across from the detector and your body blocks the signal at times causing the drop outs.

The SP booster is excellent with headphones but IMHO is not real good with speakers especially if your hearing is a little off, having to use the inbuilt volume control of the GPZ can help but the volume jumps are too coarse so things get gritty very quickly. 

Question: Are you using Audio Smoothing OFF?

To get more audio presence try using Sensitivity 9, Audio Smoothing OFF, Ground Balance Semi-Auto, Threshold 27, Volume 12 for WM12 speaker, 8 for B&Z with speakers or a bit higher with the SP. When lowering the Audio Smoothing filter (Noise floor is OFF) the overall volume of the detector increases as you open up the noise floor of the detector, I see a lot of people going the other way because they do not like too much feedback from the detector and then have to increase volume and sensitivity to compensate, which is kind of like robbing Peter to pay Paul (no pun intended)?.

Hope this helps

JP

Been a while since I added to this thread, travel restrictions have eased so I did the trek south to go see my Mum who’s been in lockdown and not seen a soul since this all started (she in a high risk group at 80 years young). Since returning home the shop has prevented me getting out much so only a couple of sessions over the last week or so, thankfully the good thing about gold is it doesn’t rust.?

JP

Some of the nasty ground I’ve been working (holes will be refilled)

Few pickers I got just on dark

Yesterday morning’s session with a bonus chunkster ? 

1 hour ago, phrunt said:

 The GPZ even with it's plastic housing is much better for EMI than the GPX, I have to be right at the power lines to be bothered.

Like I said the bulk of the EMI is coming in via the coil, the shielding on the GPX control box is already VERY good thanks to the aluminium extrusion, but the overall electronics are not as refined as the GPZ hence the big difference in the 2 around the high Voltage Power lines in your area. The power lines also gather and channel a heck of a lot of Sferic noise which the GPX machines are very susceptible to, Sferic noise is all the garbled non-rhythm like sounds, fences and telephone cables are notorious for channeling this stuff, the longer the line the greater the effect.

The Booster should put out very little EMI unless it is right up against the control box, far less than a mobile phone for instance. I know the B&Z puts out nil anyway.

JP

5 hours ago, flakmagnet said:

Wait, so the plastic housing on the gpz isn't doing much to hold down EMI…
interesting. What kinds of advice did he relate (if you don't mind my asking).
I am into anything that will hold back EMI.

 

The GPZ is pretty immune to EMI from a circuit design POV, however the plastic housings will allow a certain amount of EMI in if the boards are not shielded well, you can see this with a GPZ using a mobile phone, just run the phone past the housing along the sides especially when the phones transmitter is ramping up due to low signal, the SDC is also bad for this. However this is from a localised concentrated source and why you should keep your mobile phone away from the control box (some Bluetooth transmitters will do this as well).

Most EMI that affects detectors gets in through the coil which is a far more sensitive to the weaker long distant EMI such as 50/60 Hz and Sferics type EMI, the control box is not really affected by this unless your extremely close and then the coil noise will swamp the control box noise anyway.

If you think the GPZ control box is allowing EMI in then maybe line your cover with foil but be aware too much might be seen by the coil and kill depth, one of the reasons why I’m not a fan of aluminium enclosures especially ones mounted separately from the control box.

JP

17 minutes ago, Aureous said:

I dunno how long this 'consignment' GPZ arrangement with dealers has been going on, but what does consignment deals and free coils say to you, the potential buyer??? It says to me... 'Run out all the stock coz something new is coming'. I was in a dealers showroom a few days ago and a guy wanted to trade-in a 5000 on a 7000. The seller was advised to wait a few weeks 'coz ya might regret it'. I'll leave that for you all to ponder.....

Bad advice I’d say.? 

GPZ’s have been on consignment since day dot.

I do not get excited about the lower priced coin and relic machines because there is just not enough margin relative to the time we spend on customers and the volume we can achieve in a small population centre, we do move a reasonable amount of Equinox but have to discount to remain competitive. TBH I have no issue with the chain stores stocking these items because for ML to make money out of them they need to sell volumes which cannot happen with shops like ours set up for more personable engagements. 

JP