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I often see others using a high sensitivity setting of 16 - 20 on the 7000. Is there really much of an advantage doing this? I used to think maxing out my 4500 gave me some kind of advantage over the poor suckers who ran factory presets or slightly higher, now im not so convinced. Today i tested out my new 10" and 20" X-coils and tried many different combinations of settings to see what would suite me best. I did most of my testing with the 20" coil on a 2 gram bit of gold. I dug a skinny trench 200mm (nearly 8 inches) in some reasonably hot ground and placed my 2 gram bit in the bottom. High yield/Difficult were the better settings. (Ferrite and ground balanced, Semi auto ground balance, Ground/audio smoothing off, volume 8 (using a booster), threshold 27, threshold pitch 63, volume limit 7) First i tried a high sensitivity and the target signal popped out nice and loud. Then I started detecting the surrounding area and felt there was so much other ground noises going on that the quieter signals may be masked. Eventually I found my sweet spot where the detector was quiet as a mouse and i had no problems hearing a slight change in the threshold no matter how small it was. This was at a sensitivity of only 3. I then went back over the 2 gram bit and it still gave a great response using sensitivity of 3 (although slightly less than when the sensitivity was a lot higher). When i started detecting and raising the sensitivity up around 6 -8 a lot more ground noise came in. Now im used to ground noise as i used to use my gpx in Normal timings most of the time. But after reading how the zed is a different beast and not to drive it to hard i decided to try less aggressive settings to see if less is infact more. Obviously im new to the zed and have much to learn so will continue trying different things until i get my head around things.

Jonathan, any truth in the rumour that Minelab are considering introducing a lightweight version of the 7000? A proper prospecting detector rather than a modified military monstrousity that the Z currently is? You being close to Minelab, I'm hoping you may be in a position to enlighten us. I for one would consider an aquisition should this come to pass.

I just couldn't figure it out. The old Jeep mysteriously started running much smoother and quieter and became much more stable. I would also say that it's performance somehow increased by 30% or perhaps even 40%. In fact i was so impressed i decided I would invest some time into cleaning it up a bit. As I was mucking out the interior ( forgotten rock samples, sticks and leaves, old sandwich wrappers with sandwiches, dropped nuggets and such) I found Sourdough Scott's missing ferrite ring. I took it out and put it where Scott could pick it up and now the Jeep is back to it's usual squeaky, whinny, worbally self. Mystery solved.

I always wondered if there was even gold around where the X-coil manufacturer lives, I didn't know much about Russian gold or if Russia even had much gold. Here is a video broken into parts of the Russian manufacturer showing the different capabilities of the 17x12" X-Coil between the Standard GPZ14” Minelab coil being used near high voltage power lines in Russia. It's good to see he is a prospector. Sorry about the quality of some of the parts. It's a deep hole he has to dig to get it, nice soft soil though... that'd make life easier than using a jackhammer 🙂

Clearly, with the huge amount of interest that is being shown in the after market coils for 7000, it`s obvious that there is a market out there for coils other than 14'' and 19". I don`t take the 19" out much because I have had very little success with it and with my bad wrists it`s just too damn heavy, but Minelab did tell us in the early days of marketing the 7000 that they would be releasing a 11" coil down the track, and now there is another company that nobody has ever heard of making a huge range of coils that are lighter and have so far been very well received by the public. What`s going on Minelab?

We've all had our 7000s for a few years now. Much of the time we keep the same settings. I'm going back to areas where I've used my 7000 and other detectors and not finding the small gold or the deep gold that I see some of my friends finding. I haven't asked them recently about all of their settings. I'll ask the general question now. There is no RIGHT answer. Maybe we all can learn something that will let us find a few more nuggets in our worked out patches. During my most recent gold trip I set up my 7000 like this: HY, Normal, Sen 8-14, Volume 8, TH 26, TH Pitch 53, Volume Limit 13, Audio Smoothing varied, GB Manual, Ground Smoothing Off or Find Patch, BZ Booster Using these settings I've found 15-50g meteorites at 8 inches but no gold (maybe I didn't get over it). Hot rocks were manageable and few.

Hello fellow prospectors, I recently acquired a Minelab GPZ 7000 and I am looking for a fellow prospector wanting to search for gold with me in Southern California. As a former FBI agent, I have learned it is better to have two people when exploring unknown places... I have been using a Minelab CTX 3030 and I am ready for something new i.e. gold prospecting. I live in Long Beach but I also have a home in the Lake Arrowhead area (San Bernardino County). I believe some areas are worth prospecting in San Bernardino County. Having said that, I am willing to travel. Reach out if you are interested. ads4350@gmail.com

I was going to post this in one of the X Coil threads, but it might be of interest to everyone. I bought a replacement ferrite ring since I left my ML ferrite in Arizona. It's one of the Doc's ferrites with the white backside (off Ebay), I did not realize they were not ML ferrites when I bought it. The OEM Minelab ferrites have a black backside. It would not balance on the X Coils at all and actually sounded like a screaming target (I didn't try the Z14) so I reported that to the coil manufacturer. He responded that the white backed aftermarket rings are not the same as the ML rings. So, as I normally do, I checked for myself, bought an authentic ML ring, and he was right. They are the same size, but the Doc's ring is 10 grams heavier (something I noticed immediately but did not have a ML ring to compare to until recently). It is also more magnetic. The Doc's ring is also conductive whereas the ML ring is non-conductive - the Doc's ring was reading about 38 ohms from side to side whereas the ML ring read infinity. And after I sanded the backs to get a fresh surface to check resistances on I noticed the ML ring looks dull and black as a ferrite should, but the Doc's ring looks shiny and metallic, like iron. So, clearly there are differences between the two rings. Thought people might like to know even if you are just using the stock coil, as I'm not sure how this affects the ground balance, but someone could be running suboptimally using this ring.

I would like to start a thread of peoples opinions on what they found between these two machines with various coils. I love my SDC and have found my biggest and smallest gold with it (8”). My GPZ has definitely gone deeper for gold (14”). I am about even on the total count for each, weight a being different story. I understand that if you only have one detector then you want coil options, but if you got both I wonder what would be a better bang for your buck? A 10” Xcoil at $1000 or a 11”Coiltek at $310. Thats if they compare at depth and sensitivity. Norvic I would love for you to state your opinions here, you seem to have the most on thses just based on other posts.

I go about Ferrite balancing a bit differently to what is shown or advised, this is my own preference and is to do with Saturation noise and Salt signals, especially with the X coils because they can Saturate quite badly. Instead of the Octopus wobble I briskly (not too brisk) wave the coil over the ferrite from left to right under the blue sticker at the front of the GPZ 14 coil, this is with the Quick Trak button depressed of course. DO NOT scrub the coil on the Ferrite this is because there is always a bit of residual signal especially in Saturable ground, once the ferrite noise dissipates I release QT and pump the coil to one side (make sure you are in Semi-Auto GB mode), this then gives the GB accuracy as a DOD coil will always sound quiet from side to side even if the GB is out, once there is no noise up and down then come over the Ferrite again to check if there is signal and repeate the process using QT if there is. Pump the coil to one side again and check the Ferrite again. This whole process should take 20 seconds, eventually you will get no ground signal up and down (Ground Noise) and minimal signal over the Ferrite. If the ground has BAD Saturation signal the Saturation signal will be magnified up through the centre of the Ferrite thereby preventing you from getting the coil close enough to actually balance the Ferrite out fully, in other words the detector will be trying to balance out the Saturation signal and not the X signal off the Ferrite. I also recommend users adopt the GB configured to their USER button approach and to go into Manual mode when checking deep targets or committing to dig, leaving the GPZ in Semi-Auto will allow the GB to drift either through exposure to the pick whilst digging or just general drift through the coil not moving, either way the GB will be out which is not obvious unless you pump the coil. JP

Here is a recent video of a couple of dudes testing out their massive range of Nugget Finder coils against the GPZ 7000 on targets they've dug into the ground in Western Australia's red dirt. I found it quite an interesting video and shows how close a lot of coils are in performance. I notice he doesn't appear to scrub the GPZ on the ground as much as the others, not sure the reason for that, maybe he doesn't want to damage such an expensive coil ? By the time he's got to the GPZ all the ground scrubbing has probably made it a shallower target.

Hello All, Out here in Arizona, USA, it's been very hot and now humid as the Monsoons are right around the corner. That being said, I have been poking around an old placer location loaded with iron rubbish in search for overlooked gold nuggets. I have made it a point to start very early, right at day break and hunt until the heat runs me out (typically 4-5 hours). I was using the Minelab GPZ 7000 and placering a wash bottom down to bedrock like the old-timers would. I'm lucky every so often to get a nugget here and there wedged in the bedrock cracks/crevices that the old-timers missed or overlooked. It's always a mystery to wonder what the old-timers really discovered in some of these really rich coarse gold placer areas. I'm not sure of the rules about Youtube videos, but I have attached two of them for your viewing. Hope some of you that are not able to get out right now can enjoy the adventure with me.

More speculation. http://golddetecting.forumotion.net/t26580-new-gpz7000-aussie-made-coil-rumour

Alright, I know nobody really knows the answer to when there will be a GPZ successor. Because of that, I'm just pinging for some opinions. We are currently a VLF only family that's interested in a detector that reduces some of the hot rock music we listen to here in Arizona. If you were in the market and didn't have a PI detector would you: A) get a used GPZ for $4500-5000 or B) wait and see what comes out over the next one to several years (depending on what rumors you believe)? And, a here's bonus follow up question. Does anybody have a guess what happens to used GPZ prices after the next model appears?

A couple of months ago I put out a call for the parts list for the WM12 because my original WM12 was taking forever to charge. At the same time I bought the replacement battery, I also bought some heavier charging cables because I have about half a dozen devices that all use the same cable. I bought cables that were listed as suitable for external hard drives and they were about 6 bucks each. Because I kept changing cables on different devices I don`t even know now what cables came with the WM12. Anyway, with the heavier charging cables my original WM12 now charges QUICKER than the newer WM12, so I don`t need to fit the battery. Maybe, if your WM12 is getting sluggish charging, it may not be the battery, it may be the cable breaking down. Just a thought. Dave

The battery is ok but, it maybe the speaker or some other connection. It has static at times and cuts in and out, even when it is clipped to the arm strap on the detector, I have narrowed it down to the WM12 as even when it has headphones plugged in it still does the same as when they are unplugged and with a booster and external speakers it does the same whether they are plugged in or not. Is there a way to check if it is just the WM12 speaker or something else inside it. It looks like the actual speaker is a replacement part? and would hopefully be cheaper than a whole new WM12 Any ideas? So for now I am just plugging the booster and dual speakers into the back of the 7000 near the battery, but after getting used to being unteathered by cables it is just a bit annoying when you put the machine down and go to retrieve the target. cheers dave

This has happened for awhile so I thought I would throw it out to the experts. The Wireless Module on my 7000 does two things I don't understand and are probably related. 1. It takes an insanely long time to charge and after a couple of days, it takes another insanely long time to charge. 2. When out detecting it runs out of charge before a day of detecting is over. Any thoughts? Thanks...

Hi Bill, Salt is always going to be a problem, especially if you want to also achieve depth. Deeper targets are slow responses, salt signal kills slow signal responses. My advice on salty areas is to try your most sensitive modes first and go down from there, in this instance it would be High Yield, then General then Xtra Deep Normal before I changed any of my other settings. Your Threshold is too low, stick to 27 especially if Audio Smoothing is in the Off position, I would also recommend using Semi Auto mode because Salt signal messes with the Ferrite Balance in Auto mode. There is a huge difference in Salt signal if you go from Normal to Difficult, this also might have been a good option for you dependant on the ground in your area. A lot of people shy away from Difficult especially in quieter soils because there is a perceived depth reduction, however on Half ounce nuggets Difficult actually gives a better signal response than Normal does in any of the Normal modes (HY, Gen or XtraDeep). Minelab introduced the Ground Smoothing mode in the last update, this mode was specifically designed for Salty ground conditions, essentially they are Motion filters so there is a depth reduction when you select either Patch or Salty mode so I tend to avoid them but it does smooth the machine out a lot. Finally, having a controlled swing speed helps immensely with Salt signals, try not to suddenly vertically lift the coil as this exacerbates the salt signal immensely. To confirm it is salt signal just lift the coil from detect height to abover your head, as the coil transitions from your waist height to shoulder height you should hear a moaning sound, the level of salt signal is determined by how loud this response is. The other way is to place the coil in the air out in front of you with the coil parallel to the ground then rotate the coil from left to right and listen to the audio response, the greater the noise the greater the salt levels. This will help you to decided how aggressive you need to be in reducing sensitivity via the Gold/Ground type Modes or the use of the Ground Smoothing filters. Hope this helps JP

So I titled this as such because when it gets especially hot (here in Arizona) I start my hunts at midnight and go thru until the morning until about 8am. For me, this offers multiple benefits. There is more time with the family on weekends, which for me is #1; I cherish this more than gold. And secondly, if it is hot out, I cannot keep my ground balanced, as some put it. When it starts getting hot, I would tend not to look as hard and rush through areas. Anyways, back to the gold. I was in a wash last week when I ran into some pretty good gold. I found 11 small pcs adding up to almost 4 grams. Now, for my night hunts, I won’t go every weekend, I usually skip 1 or two so that I get my sleep cycle working again. But then there is Mother’s Day coming up and so my wife briefly mentioned that I should go this weekend, too. An hour later I am charging batteries. She walks by and says, “wow, you really have the fever don’t you”. I just laughed. She knows me. She has seen me prospecting for 5 years and put up with it for 5 years. One of the best decisions I made was marrying her. I explain all of this because it was nice to come home and show her the source of the fever. So I went back to this area with my GPZ and started walking through more washes I had marked out on my gps. Nothing for the first one, but the second one, I got a nice strangely shaped 2.75 grammer. Now, I can kinda see a patten on my gps when I look at my finds. I finish the wash and go to a wash that is in the direction of the gold distribution. Good topography … I am in. First couple of minutes of slow hunting in this wash yields, nothing. And then I start focusing on a bench that is maybe a foot higher than the rest of the wash… and I get a signal. A clear, still loud, but smooth signal. My heart jumps as I begin to dig. The dirt just fell away until 15-16” I hit gravel. By now the target was booming. I scrape the gavel back with my pick and I see a large piece of gold flip out! It replays in my mind over and over. Needless to say, you may have heard my scream at 2:15 in the morning (Arizona time). LOL. From there the gold kept coming. I got a couple more pieces farther up the wash and then came back and placered the area for a couple more little ones missed by depth. Wide range of sizes. THAT is why I love the GPZ. And it was nice to see my wifes face change to a smile when she felt the .86oz chunk fall into her hand. Priceless. All in all, my findings came to just over 1oz. Who needs sleep ... Andyy

Hi guys, After the Saturday's success with the X coil 10 x 9 I was keen to try a spot local to me that I have hammered over the years. The last time there with Simon I managed a few bits with the Zed & 14" ML coil. I was keen to target schist bedrock crevices that were a bit beyond the ML 14" coil in the way of it being on the steep drop off face of a tailing race & the nature of the schist crevices to poke the coil into. Bring on the X coil 10 x 9. I ended up E-Biking in to the spot. I started off detecting the easier ground on top of a bedrock schist up lift. Detecting the shallow gravels but was just getting heaps of shot gun pellets. Having had enough of that I went over to the drop off side that was the wall face down into the old timers tailings race. Got a very good hit on a small shelf. Right under where the coil is. No way was this going to be gold. But I gave a scrape that was virtually straight on bedrock. Can you see it? Well I'll be damned No wonder it screamed. I then just shook my head. How the hell did I miss that over the years. GP 3000 & 4500 with the little joey mono & 6" mono. GB2, GM 1000???? Only human I suppose. Oh well....Next As you will see by the photo's this is not easy detecting ground. On another little shelf I got a whisper of a signal In the above pic you will notice older broken out bits of schist from an old dig of mine above the coil. This was from back with the GP 3000 & joey mono coil. On this occasion I got the whisper from that freshly scraped crevice the coil is sitting on. How bloody small is that? Unbelievable.. that's high frequency VLF stuff...but down a good 2" for that coil. Next Further along that shelf & balancing on a knife edge. Another sweet little hit among the schist nooks & crannies. Another little slug Here are a few pics of the surrounding area & looking back on this schist face I am detecting. Autumn (fall) as you can see by the colour of the trees. Even a nice little waterfall. Have always meant to have a scratch at its base & put some material down a sluice box Note the Zed balanced top center Then another signal It was starting to get dark so this was going to be my last one as I had to ride back out. Gosh...having to smash out that block of schist very carefully so as to not send the target flying. Got that down to a fine art over the years in these type situations. Lucky last. Nice wee piece to finish on Making 4 little bits for a total of .84 grams. That total was not as much as my biggest bit of .85 grams from the day before. The smallest bit was just .02 of a gram. Loving this coil & the very reason we all wanted a smaller coil for the Zed in these situations. Come on Minelab......it can be done. Just waiting on Simon to rock up & we are out there....again ? Cheers Best of luck out there JW ?

Okay, this may be a seriously dumb question but if you don't ask you won't learn. This is a quote from the original MineLab release describing the audio response on the 7000: "For example, the audio response for small gold will be a low-pitched tone followed by a high-pitched tone. A ferrous signal such as a bottle cap will produce a high-pitched tone followed by a low-pitched one, enabling the user to discriminate the ferrous target." Have you GPZ owners found that smaller gold does indeed signal with "a low-pitched tone followed by a high-pitched tone?" Thank you for any info. you can provide from direct experience.

My second outing with the zed I tried the factory presets except I used semi-auto ground balance and ground smoothing off. Tried those settings on a patch I've pulled many different nuggets out of over the last year. (4.5 ounces) The zed didn't get any more targets using those settings. I then proceeded to increase the sensitivity up a fair bit but still no luck. I tried many settings/timings but alas no more gold with the zed on this patch. As a last ditch resort to try and justify my purchase of the zed after a 3.5-year wait, I cranked the zed up to the most aggressive settings I could get away with hoping to find something that my 4500 had missed. The settings were... Extra Deep, Normal, sensitivity 20, threshold pitch 33, Locate patch, audio smoothing high. (also used steelphase booster with filter 3 to quite it down even more) (ferrite balance etc) I was pleasantly surprised at how well the zed handled the ground using these settings compared to the gpx when running flat out. Hardly any hot rocks compared to the gpx. Unfortunately after a day of trying this and many settings and thoroughly going over small patches of ground that the 4500 had success on the zed found nothing. My conclusion is one of three things. 1. I don't know what I'm doing. Although surely it's pretty foolproof using the zed in factory settings with a controlled coil swing and the coil slightly off the ground. or 2. Hitting my patch over the last year with the 4500 in Normal and Sharp timings with gain at 15 has done the job. Id previously used enhance with a high gain and done ok. But once i cranked it up in Normal there was still gold left that enhance couldn't hear. It makes me wonder if folk who say that they got gold in past patches with the zed ever bothered to max out the gpx on their patches first. or 3. The gold was fairly shallow (350mm was the deepest bit found) and all within the range of the gpx so no chance for the zed to prove its worth. I was a little disappointed with the zed if I am honest but will give it time and look forward to seeing some kind of advantage over the 4500 that I hear about from others who have had 4500/5000 and now swing the 7000. The thing that I didn't like is that it's advised to keep the coil slightly off the ground. I'm a scrubber and like to use the coiltek Elites to push branches/leaves out of the way in an attempt to get right up close to the ground. Sort of defeats the purpose if you ask me to be swinging 3cm off the ground.

Who could help me. my GPZ 7000 works fine, but sometimes I can not turn it off. I keep the button pressed and it display ( turning off), but it will never go off. I used that remove the battery of the detector to get it off.

I`m sure some will remember when the 7000 first came out I was not a big fan of it, but here it is 4 and a bit years later it`s obvious to me the fault was with the operator, not the detector. Just lately I`ve lifted my game again with the 7000, I`ve cranked the gain a bit and cut target volume down to almost nothing and I now always work very slow, and it amazes me some of the pieces I am now getting at depth that I had previously missed. This is not a big piece by any stretch of the imagination, but for the most part, I am detecting ground that in the last 40 years has seen literally thousands of detectors. This one was the tiniest break in the threshold and down about 6 or 7" in very hard ground. Hopefully there is a big bit waiting for me ?

My Z’s GPS will not connect to the satellites. I have left this on for days now for it to connect and did a factory reset and left in for a day. No luck. Anyone else have this problem and maybe a solution. Probably gonna be calling Minelab but my warrenty is just out of date.