GPZ7000: Info, Tips, Finds

I think that as a very keen supporter of Minelab products, I am just very disappointed in their response. Being in the electronic service industry I would be very annoyed if one of my staff fobbed off a customer like that. Especially to one who had recently given us over $10 000.

steel pat
I know your pain buddy got the same answer when I rang them ,
just cant get mine to run smooth at all unless I run in severe and high smoothing
cheers bob

patchfinder said:

Hi Bob, probalbly the problem is that you consider yourself to be an experienced operator, because you didn't even consider that the problem could be on wrong settings or in your part, I am not an experienced operator, even if I am detecting for more than 10 years, my GPZ7000 is my forth detector and works like a treat, I had a training day with Nenad in Victoria, he is a very good teacher and he, very patiently taught me how to operate this perfect machine, now if I find something or not is entirely my fault.
I noticed that the best solution for me was to completely forget what I've learned with other metal detectors and start over with the 7000, because it has nothing in common with previous detector.

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i did consider ALL options, thank you, the machine was faulty, minelab replaced the machine last week,works a treat, thank you minelab,how you came to the conclusion i never considered the settings was a bit of a brain fade,anyhow i do take on board all information

Hi Bob, good to hear the new unit is working a treat.

I did do a ground balance on both the modes I have been using and did notice a slight difference. Until I hear any new info, I think I will continue to do a gb on both the mode combinations I use.
Regardless of all the little issues/lack of concrete info, I still love my Zed lol.

Same here SteelPat, just a tad disappointing they haven't even answered the query.
Just a simple "I don't know" would suffice.
The silence is deafening.

bob f 57 said:

hi all
im having lots of issue's trying to get my zed to run smooth to the point I must have a fault with it ,
I was at Clermont last week and no matter what I tried I could not get it to ground balance properly every swing it would false
to the point after 3 days I drove back to the gold coast (I don't have the ferrite ring yet)
any ideas would be great
thanks bob

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Hey Bob, same issue for me mate, not impressed. Spent 2 days out to only shut it off and grab the sdc2300 out. Returning it tomorrow to see what's wrong with it. Anyone got any ideas on this problem? Almost every swing has a few signals per swing, including swinging over a blade of grass or a twig. So saying that, impossible to scratch the ground. Any advice or info on this issue we are both experiencing would be appreciated guys. Thanks Ivi

I been thinking its just me being a noob digging heaps of hot rocks and phantom signals.
It still may be just me being inexperienced because i have found some nuggets....sub gram'rs and a 3gram.

But the hot rocks are driving me nuts.
Im still not sure what to think of this machine.

I havnt had a chance to try the ferrite though yet so will give it some more time and see what happens.

I guess i was expecting something like the SDC that would practically ignore the hot rocks....was i expecting to much?

Ivi said:

bob f 57 said:

hi all
im having lots of issue's trying to get my zed to run smooth to the point I must have a fault with it ,
I was at Clermont last week and no matter what I tried I could not get it to ground balance properly every swing it would false
to the point after 3 days I drove back to the gold coast (I don't have the ferrite ring yet)
any ideas would be great
thanks bob

Click to expand...

Hey Bob, same issue for me mate, not impressed. Spent 2 days out to only shut it off and grab the sdc2300 out. Returning it tomorrow to see what's wrong with it. Anyone got any ideas on this problem? Almost every swing has a few signals per swing, including swinging over a blade of grass or a twig. So saying that, impossible to scratch the ground. Any advice or info on this issue we are both experiencing would be appreciated guys. Thanks Ivi

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yea same as mine mate, I have sent mine back to minelab so we will see what they say I tried the ferrite ring it made no difference at all
cheers bob

Been using the ferrite ring lately, and not sure if it's the ring or me getting more and more comfortable with the GPZ, but it has been purring along nicely. One spot that is fairly mild ground where I can get away with running Normal (with a low Sensitivity), has become difficult to work due to being saturated from all the rain, and I wanted to avoid going to Difficult as I feel would be de-tuning it too much. I tried using the ferrite and working with a Fixed ground balance, and the detector was very consistent. I did have to rebalance quite regularly by flicking across to Auto through the User button, but I think it was a good compromise. Found a 1.2 grammer for my trouble.

But before the rain, I wasn't using the Ferrite, and trying to push the unit in Normal ground settings where I probably should have been in Difficult, and was rewarded with this piece.

Very nice piece Nenad.
Must give the ferret a run, haven't used it yet.

Just a quick question - if the ground is just a little noisy (even after ground balance with ferrite ring) do you:

A: Turn down sensitivity
B: Turn on Audio Smoothing to low (I generally run with off)
C: Adjust Threshold

On the weekend I found it was a little noisy so I turned the sensitivity down by 2. Was this the right way to go?

Also over the weekend, I was working under power lines and found I had to manually adjust noise cancel as the Auto was way off.

Yes turn Sensitivty down first. Audio Smoothing to low and turning threshold up will give the perception that it's smoothing out ground noise, but it is more just masking it.

Nenad when you say pushing the machine is that just putting up with a lot of warble .but listening for a repeatable sound /dip .
I had smoothing off and basically your "pesky hot rock settings " with sensitivity up a bit and was putting up with a lot of noise ,should I be aiming for an ultra smooth tone .

In that instance, pushing the machine was using Normal ground type and dealing with the moans and groans. I persisted as I hadn't been digging anything in Difficult, and soon as I flicked into Normal I started getting deep targets.

Hi all, did a quick test that may be of interest.

Using my standard 0.3 test piece, I buried it to max depth that I could get with a GPX5000 and 14" elite coil. This was in medium ground, on the mild side, the sort of ground where you feel it's overkill using Fine Gold, but still a bit noisy in Normal and Sensitive Extra. The detector was a little pushed, Rx Gain 13, Stabilizer 11, Target Volume 12, optimal settings for the spot. Comparing some various timings:

Fine Gold - clear nice little signal
Enhance - Still getting it, a little fainter
Sens Extra - getting it, but a weird signal
Normal - barely getting it, but had a dipping response, i.e low-high

Then powered up the Zed. In my normal high mineral settings, having last used it at Jupiter creek, basically got no response.
Knowing that I was now in an area with milder ground and less EMI, first thing to do is crank the Sensitivity. Upping it to 16, General, Difficult I was easily handling the ground, but the high sensitivity introduced quite a bit of noise that was messing with the target response. Drop of Sens to 15 and Smoothing on Low and the target was coming through quite clearly. I also tried the Max Sensitivity/Minimum Threshold trick and it worked, but I preferred hearing the threshold and Sens on 15.

Now, being in mild ground, I tried Normal ground type, and dropping the Sensitivity to 6. Here's how the gold modes compared:

Extra Deep - nothing
General - got a faint response, but dropping Sensitivity below 4 made the signal lost in the noise
High Yield - "whammo", very loud sharp signal response, even turning the Sensitivity to 3.

So in this soil, on that particular nugget, which is a very flat 0.3g bit, the two best setting combinations were:

1. High Yield, Normal, Sens 3 - 7, Smoothing Low (even tried High with good results)

2. General, Difficult, Sens 15, Smoothing Low

So, it's definitely worth spending a bit of time to find the right combo for where you are searching.

Nenad

Thanks for that Nenad.

Its interesting that the High Sensitivity/Minimum Threshold settings also picked it up. Was it a good signal ie comparable to the '1. High Yield, Normal, Sens 3 - 7, Smoothing Low' setting?

What I don't like about it is that you lose some of the start and end of the signal, so you really need to be over the sweet spot of the target. If your coil is slightly off it is very essy to miss.

Basically with a threshold, you are hearing the target over a much bigger area.

Have found for depth and larger pieces general over high yield, normal if possible over difficult. A 8gram solid picked up just on high yield, clearly on general, piece when dug was 22 inches deep. Difficult and low audio. Shame I didn`t try normal, deep, audio off and high but didn`t expect piece to be so deep, in fact as I approached it reckoned it`d have to be an ounce or better. Sens set on 12, threshold on 24. But that`s the brilliance of the GPZ, always a wee disappointing once target in hand. Much like when we migrated to the PIs over the VLFs.

Ok so I tried a little experiment today. I have a .5 gram nugget potted in epoxy (so I dont lose it) as my test target.

The ground had a lot of iron stone so is a little noisy so I had Ground setting as 'Difficult'.

I first tried the low threshold/high sensitivity - and as you mentioned Nenad, the coil had to be centered over the target at maximum depth.

I then turned sensitivity down to 15 and then upped the Threshold to a point I was comfortable with. This turned out to be at 25.

I tried the smoothing off and low - I felt more comfortable running low. The target was a lot easier to find than the low Threshold/High Sensitivity combo.

Results for Today:

I ran these settings in both General and High yield and found a lot more lead than previous settings as well as a .12 gram piece down about 2". While I found this on High Yield, I checked it with General before I dug it and could still hear it easily.

I think I will try to use these settings from now on, adjusting them slightly for ground conditions.