GPZ 10" Xcoils In USA

[Norvic]

37 minutes ago, Nevada Brian said:

The yellow ferrite ring is fixed, the ferrite value never changes within that ring, so why not incorporate that value into the equation through firmware everytime the QT button is depressed, as suggested by Jasong.

This says it all, why wasn`t this fixed value incorporated into the firmware? The Z is a magic detector, simple as to use, why was this confusion added to its use when a great many experienced users rarely use the ferrite on their ground as expressed in this thread and others. Only time I use the QT button is when I change from semi/auto/fixed ground tracking because it forces me. The Zs ground tracking is all I need, you could take the QT button away.

[jasong]

1 hour ago, Nevada Brian said:

The yellow ferrite ring is fixed, the ferrite value never changes within that ring, so why not incorporate that value into the equation through firmware everytime the QT button is depressed, as suggested by Jasong.  

Near as I can tell, it must have to do with varying temperature throughout the day which cannot be accounted for in algorithms, at least not without a temperature sensor on the GPZ maybe?

I have asked this question a few times with no answer though, even back years ago after the GPZ (then ferrite) release. Maybe it involves proprietary info that can't be shared? A design flaw they don't want to share? No idea.

X Rays from Strick showed us a ferrite inside the coil already too, interestingly. Which makes me wonder if the yellow ferrite is somehow necessary to balance out the ferrite in the coil since I still don't see why they can't just track the ferrite in the ground even if it's saturating, since putting the ferrite under the coil will saturate it too.

This discussion all leads to what might be 2 guesses regarding the weighty mystery "mod" JP mentioned in X Coils - either something to raise the TX winding 2 cm, or a ferrite around the solder beads. Would be interesting to see a X Ray of an old X Coil and a new one if they incorporate said mod.

[Jonathan Porter]

19 hours ago, madtuna said:

Yep...I don’t worry about all this alphabet stuff, I just get out there and do what works for me. But then I might be one of these crap detector operators I’ve been reading about lately.

while it’s great having all this knowledge about how the detector works, I’d prefer to master how to work it and I’m getting there by experimenting, testing, swinging the damn thing and experience.

Often the more you read about X, G, Y etc..the more confuddled you get, the more self doubt you create and therefore the less success and enjoyment you have.

At no stage have I said anyone is crap at anything, I’m just trying to inform and explain. If self doubt slips in that’s not my fault its just the nature of presenting new ideas and concepts. I’ve tried to keep people informed on the facts associated with my experiences with the X coils, this includes the pit falls and why’s of things because people want to know.

I did a long post trying to explain and apologise for any offence taken Madtuna but it got kulled out in one of the clean ups, so I offer it again, I apologise if you have taken offence it was not my intention to offend anyone.

JP

[Jonathan Porter]

On 7/8/2019 at 9:14 AM, jasong said:

I would really like to hear what JP says too since I'm getting really confused with what exactly X and G entail also, and there seems to be conflicting bits of information all over the place in various posts.

From a physics standpoint: saturation should be the point on the magnetization curve where any permeable ferrous or ferrite mineral stops increasing the B field exponentially when an external mag field is applied, ie where all it's domains have already been aligned with the external magnetic field. Therefore, unless I am misunderstanding it, saturation is not a response itself, it just affects the X response as the ferrous or ferrite materials go in an out of saturation as the applied magnetic field from the GPZ changes.

For sake of defintion (someone please correct this if not accurate) - ferrous and ferrite materials are natural occuring oxides of iron most commonly for our purposes. AKA - hot ground. But ferrites can be a lot of other things also that we don't encounter as commonly.

That being the case, I am struggling to understand how salt affects the X balance and requires one to toss the ferrite down again since there are no ferrous or ferrite components in salt, but this has been said many times over as if it's understood somehow that salt will throw the X balance off. I cannot find a proper definition of what exactly G is tracking and it needs to be defined in order to understand this all I think. I asked a few times in the past... It doesn't appear to be anything scientific specifically that I can find, but something related to detectors so someone with knowledge of detector engineering would need to define it.

I don't get if X is only ferrite and G includes non-ferrite permeable materials like magnetites, pyrites, etc. Or if X encompasses all ferrite/ferrous materials and G only includes the conductive response of the ground? Or...?

Hi Jasong, apologies for missing some of your questions and thanks for the PM bringing it to my attention. I am not at liberty to answer all questions especially of a technical nature, firstly because of confidentiality and secondly because I’m not qualified to go too deep on those subjects.

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

 

 

 

 

[jasong]

Thanks for the reply. I'm at work on my phone so I will have to take this all in later when I can think a bit longer. But that all makes sense. I will definitely try out semi auto and the ferrite again when I get back into the field and see how it affects both the z14 and x coil balancing. The semi auto update did not yet exist when I had to stop detecting to go back to work so it's kinda new to me. I detect all over the country in different ground types Arizona to Colorado, good to know how to adjust for each.

But that leads me to a last question: is there a circumstance you can conceive were Auto would be used instead of semi auto now? Also, would manual still be preferable in cases where the soil is very consistent, or is there no advantage to using manual on the GPZ now?

[Jin]

4 hours ago, Jonathan Porter said:

Having a good Ferrite balance that is fixed to the units operating temperature in this case is best,

I wasn't sure how long it took to get to operating temperature so did my ferrite balance on start up and then again after half an hour of detecting. Through out this detecting session I would check the ferrite on the ground to see if any response was coming from it.

[Andyy]

20 hours ago, jasong said:

 I will definitely try out semi auto and the ferrite again when I get back into the field and see how it affects both the z14 and x coil balancing. The semi auto update did not yet exist when I had to stop detecting to go back to work so it's kinda new to me. I detect all over the country in different ground types Arizona to Colorado, good to know how to adjust for each.

But that leads me to a last question: is there a circumstance you can conceive were Auto would be used instead of semi auto now? Also, would manual still be preferable in cases where the soil is very consistent, or is there no advantage to using manual on the GPZ now?

I have been in areas before where I never achieved complete balance off the ferrite even with the 14" coil.  Now I am understanding that people really need to be cognizant of "Saturated signal", "X signal", "Ground mineralization signal" and "Salt Signal".  Sometimes I think this can be tough to determine.   Obviously ground mineralization can be ground balanced with side pumps.  Deciphering whether there is salt signal, has also been discussed previously.  Saturation has been discussed in this thread and instructions were given to determine if this signal exists.  (I still need to follow through to see if this method clearly identifies saturation in my soils)  It would be nice for the machine to tell us the amount of these components so that we can best tune the machine.  Maybe that will be a future machine.

I am not sure if I will get out testing this weekend, but if I do, I have a place in mind that had very noisy ground, and is a lot shorter of a drive (which is a plus).  Then I can try to raise the coil off the ground to determine if saturation is present.  It is possible saturation has been giving me issue for some time (even on std. coils) and I just thought it was ground signal that was not balancing.  Things I would like to try with the ferrite (specifically for the Xcoil) are: 

1) how well auto works (no ferrite use)

2) semi-auto (with ferrite) using recommended technique by JP

3) semi-auto (with ferrite balance only over the front tip of the coil)

4) semi-auto (with ferrite raised on rocks 6-8 inches)

 

 

[Jonathan Porter]

In my opinion Auto is only there now in case I break or misplace my Ferrite. If people do not see the point of the Ferrite then I HIGHLY recommend they use the Auto mode to at least give the detector the chance to calibrate the X signal naturally. Auto might be the only way people can use the X coils in areas with a lot of X signal.

Absolutely you can detect in MANUAL, I often do and it does provide the maximum depth achievable assuming both X and G are calibrated properly to the former and localised ground balance conditions for the latter. 

If ambient temperatures are north of 15 Deg C in the morning then usually the X balance does not move very much, I allow an hour for things to settle down electronically, but seriously 30 minutes should be plenty if the ambient is getting above 20 DegC. It only takes seconds to check the Ferrite balance, so long as the residual signal is small then there’s no need to fret.

JP

[Andyy]

 **** TRIP 2 ****

The main purpose was actually to test ferrite balance in saturated ground, but I wasn't going to drive back to the first areas I spoke of.  That is way too far for some simple testing.  I have another area where I found my first gold patch.  Strangely enough it was on a GPAA claim.  Who would have thunk.  Those claims are beaten down and squeezed dry, right?   Me and a friend both laugh about this place.  We very often go back to the general area to beat down the skunk.

After getting out to the claim at midnight, I set up the detector.  Surprisingly, ground balance was fine and so was the ferrite balance.  So much for testing that.  Next best goal for testing is to determine if the 10" coil gets gold missed by others.  Well this place has been hit by every machine you can think of, including the VLF's.  Well after checking the main hillside area, I had nothing.  Only one boot tack I found that everyone missed.  Then I headed down to the stream where I had found gold before.  Lots of pieces had been found here.  But the area had been worked hard by drywashers and detectors, too.  My buddy with an SDC2300 basically cleaned this place out.  Last time I was here, I got the skunk.  It was starting to look the same this time.  But then after hitting the sides of the wash, I got clear signal.  And by the way my rule for this hunt was that I wasn't going to get down and dirty and make the gold appear by using the tricks of the trade like digging out areas and moving rocks.  I wanted to see if got what other machines had missed, not what other techniques had missed.  But nobody should have missed this signal.  There actually seemed to be a couple signals.  The first two signals were the biggest pieces.  But I kept hearing more and more signals.  I dug down another 4-5 inches through the schist and pulled out another 4pcs for a total of 6 (all of which in a 2'x2' area).  I had hit this specific spot before and found gold about 10' away.  But here I am with more.  I am not really sure how the larger pieces were not heard with the GPX5000 I used previously down this wash.  

So I still have no conclusion on the ferrite ring other than I know I can use the other coil to lock in the ferrite balance, so I am not too concerned.  Does this coil find what other machines cannot see, well that is hard to say.  I know SDC,GPX and GPZ's have been over these areas.  I think a lot of the gold on the hillside patch was gone over.  I may have just been lucky on this spot.  But it *is* strange that it was not far under the bush or hidden or difficult to reach.  Anyways, not much to conclude with this test other than this coil operated smoothly at this location and still finds gold.

I do really like the small pinpoint accuracy of this coil and how light it is.  Not very big gold (total of 2 grams), but I am only showing it to give an idea of its capability in the states.  It does seem to add an inch or two depth on the .1g pieces.  This is what I would expect for a 10" coil.

 

 

      

[afreakofnature]

Andyy you mentioned your friend has an SDC.  Any way you two could do a comparison on targets?  Maybe video it?