Minelab GPZ7000 information and questions

Araratgold said:

Ridge Runner,

I have personally found some porous type nuggets that the ZED will see at 6 inches in air testing, but the best I could get with a GPX was 2 inches ! That is 3 times the depth, much more than Minelab have ever claimed.

Another porous nugget the ZED could air test at 2 inches, and the GPX even with a Sadie coil had to be rubbed on the nugget to get even a murmur, no matter what settings I used !

I have at least 500 hours under my belt with the ZED in real goldfield conditions, and can tell you that the machine rocks on numerous types of gold. The only gold that I have found it to have little advantage on is solid blob type nuggets.

Anything with a bit of ironstone / quartz through it, or porous or crystalline, or nuggets standing on edge, the ZED will smash the GPX.

Rick

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I agree with what you say. Many Gold types are invisible to normal type PI machines, but not to the hybrid system that the ZED use's.

Rick, Thanks for the U Tube Vid, with the gravel so far down the area has a lot of potential for your Z on smaller pieces.

Ridge Runner said:

A 70% increase is a fisherman's Tail,

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That was my point John. Nowhere does Minelab claim a definitive or guaranteed increase let alone a definite 70% increase? Their advertising blurb is based on data averages over a set of given targets not a flat increase of 40% or 30% on every given target.
It is a fisherman's tail but it's not being drummed up by Minelab!
All I know is that I firmly believe I've found gold with the GPZ that the GPX or SDC would have missed. I am sure the same can be said for the others too in different circumstances i.e. they would find gold the GPZ missed - a lot of that can come down to differing factors.
At the end of the day they are all great machines & regardless of which one or what combination of them you use you are giving yourself the best chances by using anyone of them - in the correct prevailing conditions of course

mbasko said:

Ridge Runner said:

A 70% increase is a fisherman's Tail,

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That was my point John. Nowhere does Minelab claim a definitive or guaranteed increase let alone a definite 70% increase? Their advertising blurb is based on data averages over a set of given targets not a flat increase of 40% or 30% on every given target.
It is a fisherman's tail but it's not being drummed up by Minelab!
All I know is that I firmly believe I've found gold with the GPZ that the GPX or SDC would have missed. I am sure the same can be said for the others too in different circumstances i.e. they would find gold the GPZ missed - a lot of that can come down to differing factors.
At the end of the day they are all great machines & regardless of which one or what combination of them you use you are giving yourself the best chances by using anyone of them - in the correct prevailing conditions of course

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I have no doubts that it is the best machine at finding Gold from deep, shallow, Large or small Specie's and prickly nuggets too. It does it all, And the more coils they bring out the better it will be, IE a 6x10 and a 8 or 10" round coil. .

John.

mbasko if you seen some of the terrain i detect in you would probably hop back in your car and head straight to the GT. Forget about the Z its a marathon just to walk in some of the gullys i go to. In some places its that steep the harness is useless, i have to adjust the shaft where the lower cam lock almost meets the upper cam lock and use my pick as a anchor just to get a swing, it can get pretty dodgy in some spots but no one goes there. If your ever down this way i would love to take you out and after about a hr you will be saying the Z weighs a ton

Yeah no worries but I'm not in the GT. A lot of my local spots are exactly as you describe - gullies, hills, slopes - mountain goat country. With the use of a hipstick & detecting across or downslope I find it pretty good. Last outing I spent about 6hrs in similar country but did spend a bit of time on the flats leading into a few gullies too. Some pictures I've seen posted here of some of the hilly, hard going areas around Vic remind me of Hargraves etc. here.
It's heavy no doubt - the Zed is the first machine I've resorted to using a bungy with fulltime & only rarely used one with SD/GP/GPX. Never used a bungy with the SDC. Only wore a harness because it holds my PLB, first aid gear, booster/speaker, water bottle, pick etc. Now it's full Shingleback harness, bungy & hipstick in all terrain.
My point was it can be managed with a set-up to suit you. I find what I use great on flat ground & pretty good in the harder going hilly areas too. The hipstick has made a heap of difference to me or my set-up.

goldwright said:

Do you own a GPZ?

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and have you used it on gold bearing DEEP mineralized ground?

Ridge Runner said:

goldwright said:

Do you own a GPZ?

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Why, I don't need to own one to recognise Right from Wrong,

I know that it can see other types of gold invisible to other PI machine, But there again it is not a PI so I guess it should see them,

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Technically it is a PI machine. Its the way the pulses are sent to the coils and the processing that makes it different.

The new 19" coil is more than 30% bigger than the 14", I have no doubt MLs claim of 30% is on the money as I have with no doubt proven their 40% claim with experience I know precisely what is right & wrong. RR you can quote without experience til the sun forgets to rise, but doesn`t change a thing, I just love that weighty feeling in me pocket. I`m off to Z`d a nugget or two and suspect there is just a fair number of other Z owners doing the same, the Z has opened up OZ goldfields big time as its ML predecessors did.

i just want to find gold :|

I just want a smaller coil for the Zed I can't even carry loose change in my pocket with the 14" How do you think I'm gonna go with the 19" coil.

With over 30 oz's in the GT last year with the Zed and 90% of the finds were no deeper then 10" I have left two of the good find spots untouched so as to run both coils to just see what I have left.

You just never know the new coil just might come out with a new model at the end of the year, whats the chance of that ?

:8

re RR's comment (The 19" coil will be a great addition to the ZED and help to take it towards the next level, But that next level is only going to add about 3 or 4" maybe a touch more on a target that is a whisper at 24 ",) My comment: Even a 1" gain could help to pay off the 19 inch coil.

With my Zed in the last 2 years have never found any deep gold in the Eastern WA goldfields, all shallow, unlike in Vic where I have found deep gold along with deep rubbish. So IMO I think the 19" coil will be more suited to Vic.

PeterInSa said:

re RR's comment (The 19" coil will be a great addition to the ZED and help to take it towards the next level, But that next level is only going to add about 3 or 4" maybe a touch more on a target that is a whisper at 24 ",) My comment: Even a 1" gain could help to pay off the 19 inch coil.

With my Zed in the last 2 years have never found any deep gold in the Eastern WA goldfields, all shallow, unlike in Vic where I have found deep gold along with deep rubbish. So IMO I think the 19" coil will be more suited to Vic.

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You have to admit that for such a large coil that 14" coil has an incredible ability to find tiny Gold, That is something we are not use to seeing until the SDC came along or found by those using VLF machines.

John.

I admit it. Now back to the new coil ....... pleeeease!

Araratgold said:

Ridge Runner,

I have personally found some porous type nuggets that the ZED will see at 6 inches in air testing, but the best I could get with a GPX was 2 inches ! That is 3 times the depth, much more than Minelab have ever claimed.

Another porous nugget the ZED could air test at 2 inches, and the GPX even with a Sadie coil had to be rubbed on the nugget to get even a murmur, no matter what settings I used !

I have at least 500 hours under my belt with the ZED in real goldfield conditions, and can tell you that the machine rocks on numerous types of gold. The only gold that I have found it to have little advantage on is solid blob type nuggets.

Anything with a bit of ironstone / quartz through it, or porous or crystalline, or nuggets standing on edge, the ZED will smash the GPX.

Rick

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Rick, you are spot on. I've found gold with the Zed at about 9 inches, that barely registers on the GPX rubbing the coil. How much % improvement is that?

Yes the GPX loves the more solid gold, and in different areas GPX's can and are still doing very nicely.

John, the initial 40% was compared to a 15x12" Commander coil. The new 30% increase is Z19 vs Z14 coils which is pretty much what you'd expect comparing a 19" vs 14" coil, with obviously a slight drop on very small stuff.

What I'm keen to see is how the settings will differ, and how the coil behaves in the different Gold Mode/Ground Type combos. The fun will begin all over again.

Ridge Runner said:

I wonder why they never compared it to the 14" round mono because the 15x12 if a full on elliptical where as the ZED 14" is only slightly elliptical ?

John.

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Because minelab did not make a 14" round

They used the 15"x12", which is a semi-elliptical, because it is the closest Minelab coil to the GPZ14 (14"x13"). Minelab don't have a 14" round so I guess they wanted to keep the testing Minelab orientated.
Edit: Trashy beat me to it!

Ridge Runner said:

We were talking about the coil until they direct their garbage at me and making it personal and then having to defend myself because of their smart Azz remarks And I am not a Troll, And no matter what I think of minelab it has nothing to do with the laws of Physics or what is physically possible, I have just spent over 7 weeks testing 12 Coils on multiple targets from lead to Gold, and in the past 5 years I have tested over 60 Coils, So forgive me if I don't agree with what minelab claim.

take care.

John.

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Hang in there John as I do not agree with what Minelab claim.

Detrack said:

I just want a smaller coil for the Zed I can't even carry loose change in my pocket with the 14" How do you think I'm gonna go with the 19" coil.

With over 30 oz's in the GT last year with the Zed and 90% of the finds were no deeper then 10" I have left two of the good find spots untouched so as to run both coils to just see what I have left.

You just never know the new coil just might come out with a new model at the end of the year, whats the chance of that ?

:8

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Hi Detrack
With 90% no deeper than 10" how much of this do you think you would have found with a 4500 or 5000 with say a NF 15" Evo?
I'm really trying to decide whether to get a Zed or persist with my 45/Evo15".
Minelab say the Zed will detect 30 to 40% deeper than a 5000 and 11" mono, and 25% deeper on >100g with 5000 and 15x12 Mono. There is no comparison to the newer more sensitive flat wind coils that have hit the market in the last 12 months. Appreciate your thoughts.

Hope you can make it to the Vic GT Camp Melb Cup Weekend ...... You are cordially invited.
Cheers Andy

Well I just spent a long weekend at Long Gully near Forsayth, no gold but I think I cornered the market in rusty steel and iron!
and I discovered the real 'downside' of the Z....its very tiring digging 5-750mm holes to find rusty metal! still it was good to get away for the weekend 'out bush' anyway.
on a more serious note, I think I 'dug' 2 'tree roots' with the Z, I got a faint but repeatable signal, on the downstream side of 2 trees, where heavies could be deposited in the resulting vortex, so I dug them. Hard going trying to get round the roots, and this prevented me from being able to get the Z coil in the hole, but I was still getting a signal over the top of the hole. After going down about 500mm I fetched the SDC and ...nothing...no signal at all. I think I have read of something like this on here, but wondered if anyone had any comments?