Minelab GPX5000 tips, settings and questions

[madtuna]

Hi GT, A great question but one really hard to quantify and put a percentage on it.

They are so very different, but all excel at finding the stuff once you put in the hours and get intimate with it.

Theres always that debate about the difference between a 45 and a 5 and people saying not enough difference to warrant the extra dollars, but once you start swinging one full time for a living you do get to see that edge. And its that edge we are after.

Saying that, there is no way Id feel deficient detecting full timeout here if I only had a 5 or a 45. I did until the 7000 came out. But since slowly working out the 7000 I am finding its edge.

I always said the 7000 will find me a reef one day, it excels on fine spongy reef or sandwich gold, stuff that doesnt register on a 5 unless its scraping the coil. And it did find me a reef and I have no doubt it will find me another one.

I couldnt care if I never found another big lump, its reefs that interest me, mind you the 7000 does find big lumps!

 

[davent]

I know how good the zed is, but its the $$$$ , I will get one interest free. but Was trying to see how far behind the 5K is or how far ahead of the 45 the 5K is.

So it will be a zed, see if I can hold off for a bit, was approved today for the $$$

 

[shakergt]

Darn I wish I had the coin for any detector at the moment

 

[Syndyne]

I can only echo the above sentiments. Mbasko hit the nail right on the head I reckon. :Y:

It's a big outlay to say the least and I'm sure it caused a couple of sleepless nights for a few of us. Resale is still very good on the Zed so there's no probs there if you decide it isn't for you or financial uncertainties arise.

Absolutely love the Zed and I feel almost lost when I jump back on the 5K or the SDC these days.

All the best with it, Dave!
Cheers,
Shauno.

 

[shakergt]

Hi GT, A great question but one really hard to quantify and put a percentage on it.
They are so very different, but all excel at finding the stuff once you put in the hours and get intimate with it.
Theres always that debate about the difference between a 45 and a 5 and people saying not enough difference to warrant the extra dollars, but once you start swinging one full time for a living you do get to see that edge. And its that edge we are after.
Saying that, there is no way Id feel deficient detecting full timeout here if I only had a 5 or a 45. I did until the 7000 came out. But since slowly working out the 7000 I am finding its edge.
I always said the 7000 will find me a reef one day, it excels on fine spongy reef or sandwich gold, stuff that doesnt register on a 5 unless its scraping the coil. And it did find me a reef and I have no doubt it will find me another one.
I couldnt care if I never found another big lump, its reefs that interest me, mind you the 7000 does find big lumps!

I have seen a comparison on YouTube with both the 5000 and 7000. Both machines did extremely well and the 5000 did find some stuff deeper down then the 7000 did. I will also point out that the 5000 had been modified by detector mods so I guess this is what gave the 5000 the edge over the 7000 in this case. But in light of all this you can not beat 7000 right off the self it is a far better machine in my opinion. They both do an excellent job for what they are made to do.

 

[goldtruck59]

Thanks Madtuna for the tips and advice. I suppose that edge you refer to will not be something I notice as I am only a fair weather waver.
Davent I honestly preferred the 4500 to the 5000 I have now. In fact I believe it found me more gold, but I am a weird bugger and always against the perceived norm.
I am so used the shape of the 4000, 4500 and the 5000 that I look upon he plastic Z as an ugly cheap piece of gear. I am obviously very wrong.
I nearly bought one when I was cashed up 12 months ago and every show I work I seem to be next to Dave from Miners Den tempting me even further !!!!!
I will continue to wander and ponder.

GT

 

[LORD]

Davent,
I wanted to share my experience mate as i beleive we are in similar situations.
Sorry to hijack your thread on the 5000 to bring up the 7k but since its already come up thought i would throw my two bob in.

We both had the 4500 and sold them late last year with the intent on upgrading (pretty sure we both bought and sold the 45 in the same months but that was just coincidence)

So my story, i went on my 2017 annual trip to Kal with 3 other guys all running Zed's and me the trusty 45.
I was getting a bit disheartened struggling to get between 1 to 4 peices of gold in a 12 hr day while seeing the others all getting doubble didgets 10 to 20 peices.
So i borrowed a mates zed for a full day to see if it was me or the machine. I had never picked up a zed before in my life, obviously my mates helped me set it up but straight away started finding more gold. It was all quiet small and in pretty hot ground.
After a while i had a little patch where most targets were turning out to be gold so i went over a 3 x 3 metre section and marked 5 signals with the zed. Some were barley a change in pitch and a coupple of others were what i would call quiet loud.
I then got the 4500 out with the 17 x 13 evo and knowing where the targets were could not get a signal i would dig on any 1 of the 5 marked targets, i switched to the sadie coil and could only get 1 target to register a signal.
Back on the zed and dug all 5 out, 4 were gold and 1 was junk. And you guessed it, the only 1 picked up with the sadie was the junk. All the gold was tiny and as i mentioned the ground was pretty severe but that proved to myself it wasn't me it was the machine.
I was telling the wife this story later that night and she said all the effort i go to get over there, and all the hours i put in swinging i may as well be in with the best possible chance and get a zed myself.

Never had a 5k myself but my mates with the zeds have.
I am sure they are a good machine as are the 45 but will you be 100% confident to put in all that effort and time and money with the 5k

I dont detect for the money, if your talking second hand machines the difference between the 5000 and Zed is about $3000 give or take??
For me personally that is worth my peace of mind and defiantly more gold in my collection at the end of the day, i dont mind that they are sub grammers, finding each peice is why i do it

So that first day i used a borrowed zed and did some comparisons with the 45 i ended up with 24 nuggets.
No doubt in my mind without the zed i may have gotten 3 or 4 of them with the 45.
Not sure how good the 5k is but somewhere in between i guess
Here is the gold from that day

Full disclosure, my tests were definatly not scientific, i didnt weigh the nuggets so not sure there size or depth.
4500 settings were what i was using to keep the machine stable & how i would normally run in enhance.
But they were on the same targets side by side.
Just sharing my experiences, take away what you like or take it with a pinch of salt.
Goodluck all :Y:

 

[hermann]

Here is my little story:- I have had all the Minelabs since 1995, below are 3 of them. From my recording, the 5000 was the worst, the 7000 was slightly better, if only I could swing that beast, I had to sell it because it was hurting my old wrecked body too much. The GP 3000 was my most successful detector.
GPZ 7000 97pieces 3.66oz 9 months
GPX 5000 751pieces 9.28oz 40 months
GP 3000 721pieces 60.1 oz 34 months
This is part time detecting, maybe 4 days in a month. I'm thinking about buying a 3000 again, do you think I'm right?

 

[condor22]

Herman,

I would suggest that back when you were running the 3000, there was a lot more gold around than today, particularly in the popular "flogged" areas.

That's not to say there's not more out there, it's just getting harder to find

 

[Simmo]

Yeah, I got 240 oz with a divining rod back in 1941.....

 

[shakergt]

Hi GT, A great question but one really hard to quantify and put a percentage on it.
They are so very different, but all excel at finding the stuff once you put in the hours and get intimate with it.
Theres always that debate about the difference between a 45 and a 5 and people saying not enough difference to warrant the extra dollars, but once you start swinging one full time for a living you do get to see that edge. And its that edge we are after.
Saying that, there is no way Id feel deficient detecting full timeout here if I only had a 5 or a 45. I did until the 7000 came out. But since slowly working out the 7000 I am finding its edge.
I always said the 7000 will find me a reef one day, it excels on fine spongy reef or sandwich gold, stuff that doesnt register on a 5 unless its scraping the coil. And it did find me a reef and I have no doubt it will find me another one.
I couldnt care if I never found another big lump, its reefs that interest me, mind you the 7000 does find big lumps!

I have seen a comparison on YouTube with both the 5000 and 7000. Both machines did extremely well and the 5000 did find some stuff deeper down then the 7000 did. I will also point out that the 5000 had been modified by detector mods so I guess this is what gave the 5000 the edge over the 7000 in this case. But in light of all this you can not beat 7000 right off the self it is a far better machine in my opinion. They both do an excellent job for what they are made to do.

I don't know why this did not quote Madtuna. sorry guys

 

[davent]

Well, I sold my 4500 and QED for unrelated reasons.
But my last trip with them both was on new ground to me.
My mate was swinging his zed, and got 40 grams in about 6 hours, until his 14" coil packed it in and began falseing....( he is hard it!)

I had about 20 targets, all junk.
I ended up trying the QED with 8" commander on a small area that he got 3 little bits on. He showed me where he dug them. I went over the area, and kept getting good targets, but nothing when I dug them, and the targets vanished , it was hot ground. Switched to the 4500 and 14*9 evo, same thing.
He went over it for about 10 mins with the zed and dug gold every time, very small bit, .3 to to .8 bits, then left looking for bigger bits, which the bastard found, 8 GMs and 13 grams.....I gave it another hour for zip and drank beer in the shade, trying not to cry.
That wasn't the first time either.
Another time I found 8 little bits on patch, for about 4.5 grams. Pretty happy. Was sure there wasn't any more there. He went over it with the zed and followed a trail of tiny bits to some ground that was just to hot for me, and dug some amazing nuggets right in front of me. Biggest bit just shy of 2 oz. This was in an area that has been flogged to death since 1873, absolutely hammered, you could describe it as a common.
I know how good the zed is in hot ground. I want one, I'm just terrified of the price, even though I'm confident it will pay for itself! I'm just chicken.
I'll get one this season.
And Lord, thanks mate!
Cheers for your story, very similar to me, and your yarn made the difference. Thanks again.

 

[shakergt]

Hopefully I find enough yellow to fund a zed

 

[Guest]

What a great discussion , i do a fair bit in tippaburra ,small gold, ive got 2300 5000 7000 , I'll pick up the 7000 or 2300 because set a couple of buttons and the way u go call me lazy ?but put sadie 8x6 on 5000 look out little nuggets but .

 

[OzzieAu]

Just wondering... has anyone done a similar side by side comparison like above with a 7000 and one of Detectormods modified 5000 or 4500 ? According to their website the added front end variable gain and low frequency adjustment can give these detectors the performance equal to or better than a 7000 on sensitivity to speccie type gold and depth on the bigger stuff... all the while running smoothly in the hottest of ground.
I was just wondering if this is fact or fiction. If true, for $2200 you would be well in front of the cost of a 7000.

 

[cairnspom]

Just wondering... has anyone done a similar side by side comparison like above with a 7000 and one of Detectormods modified 5000 or 4500 ? According to their website the added front end variable gain and low frequency adjustment can give these detectors the performance equal to or better than a 7000 on sensitivity to speccie type gold and depth on the bigger stuff... all the while running smoothly in the hottest of ground.
I was just wondering if this is fact or fiction. If true, for $2200 you would be well in front of the cost of a 7000.

Well thats about $8000 verses $9500, in the grand scheme of things not a vast price difference, negates any warranty,difficult to get repaired if needed and you don't know how the next updates might improve the 7

 

[shakergt]

Just wondering... has anyone done a similar side by side comparison like above with a 7000 and one of Detectormods modified 5000 or 4500 ? According to their website the added front end variable gain and low frequency adjustment can give these detectors the performance equal to or better than a 7000 on sensitivity to speccie type gold and depth on the bigger stuff... all the while running smoothly in the hottest of ground.
I was just wondering if this is fact or fiction. If true, for $2200 you would be well in front of the cost of a 7000.

I have seen one on you tube but do you think I can find it now? The modded 5000 out did the 7000 in the clip. I will have another look and see if I can find it again

 

[madtuna]

Just wondering... has anyone done a similar side by side comparison like above with a 7000 and one of Detectormods modified 5000 or 4500 ? According to their website the added front end variable gain and low frequency adjustment can give these detectors the performance equal to or better than a 7000 on sensitivity to speccie type gold and depth on the bigger stuff... all the while running smoothly in the hottest of ground.
I was just wondering if this is fact or fiction. If true, for $2200 you would be well in front of the cost of a 7000.

Yes, 7000 vs a Woody tricked 5000.
All Ill say is the 5000 owner was not in a good frame of mind afterwards.

Edit: he has since bought a 7000

 

[shakergt]

I did find this clip of both machines. The machines are standard in this clip

https://youtu.be/5x0LFrjExn8

 

[shakergt]

I did find this. However ozzieau is right on the money. by the time you spend $2200 on a 5000 to mod it you might as well have brought a 7000. But if you do have a 5000 already it is a cheaper option than buying a 7000.The following is quoted from a detector mod site

"when we upgrade the GP and GPX series detectors we have found superior depth and small gold performance than the SDC and GPZ. As an example, an upgraded and fully modified GPX4500 will detect deeper than the GPZ7000 and will also detect smaller gold deeper than a SDC2300."