GPZ7000 up-date.

davsgold wrote:Say goodbye to yellowfin, he wont be back, well not by that name at least.

ADMIN

Its people like that that stop members with the know how to comment on forums
However some criticism is needed to stimulate some topics , this topic didn't need any to start with

Marty

lenoil wrote:  

The tree takes water and, more importantly to this discussion, minerals, up through its root system... Given this, I could never understand the confusion over why a metal detector would signal on tree roots.

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Hmm. Maybe horizontal roots store more than we think they do.

An old story but.............you never know.  


Gold found growing in eucalyptus trees in world-first CSIRO research


 


Geoscientists in Perth have discovered gold particles in the leaves, twigs and bark of eucalyptus trees, claiming a "eureka" moment which could revolutionise gold mining.

CSIRO researchers believe the trees, sitting on top of gold deposits buried deep underground, suck up the gold in their search for moisture during times of drought.

"We weren't expecting this at all," Dr Melvyn Lintern, a research geochemist at the CSIRO and the study's lead author, said.

"To actually see the gold particles in the leaves was quite a eureka moment for us."

Dr Lintern said the trees appear to be telling scientists what is happening under the earth's surface.

"The particular trees that we did the research on appear to be bringing up gold from a remarkable 30 metres depth, which is about the equivalent of a 10-storey building," he said.


The research group used the CSIRO's Maia detector for x-ray elemental imaging at the Australian Synchrotron in Melbourne to analyse extremely small particles at high resolution.

The portions of gold are about one-fifth the diameter of a human hair. Dr Lintern said even 500 trees growing over a gold deposit would only yield enough gold for a wedding ring.

The researchers said they have also found gold in the leaves of other trees, such as the Acacia mulga.

"We've actually found gold not only in trees but in shrubs that are growing beneath the trees as well, so (it is) not restricted to any particular trees at all," Dr Lintern said.

Discovery could make exploration cheap, quicker

The discovery, the first of its kind in the world and the first time gold particles have been found in living material, will undoubtedly generate huge interest from within the gold mining and exploration industry.

Former Newmont Mining Geochemist, Nigel Radford, says the implications for gold exploration are huge.

"A lot of this stuff has been speculated about for some time, but the identification of the gold particles in the leaf materials is completely convincing and very, very important for the future of mineral exploration," said Mr Radford, who has worked in mineral exploration his entire working life, most recently with US-based Newmont, one of the world's biggest gold mining companies.

Mr Radford believes it has the potential to make gold exploration much quicker and cheaper.

"Ideally, any mineral exploration team would like to collect their samples on-surface," he said.

"If you can sample on-surface, it saves all the cost and all the time involved in drilling holes

We returned to an area yesterday, we had previously detected the area with 2300's, the gold is very delicate reef gold, the speci's are almost sponge like, i was swinging the 7000 and my mate a 5000 with an elite, i started hitting targets straight up and i could see him scratching around and he eventually called me up to run the 7000 over the hole he had opened up, he knew something was there but just couldn't pin point them, the 7000 had no problem at all and i recovered 3-4 bits in quick time, the 5000/elite may be good but it is not a 7000.

UNCLE BOB wrote:

davsgold wrote:Say goodbye to yellowfin, he wont be back, well not by that name at least.

ADMIN

So Admin...........
We cannot give the pros and cons to a detector???
Since when did this happen?
What has this world come to for this to happen that we cannot even say
Much anymore.  Are we turning into Yanks or is it nobody likes to hear the truth anymore.

I will discuss the pros and cons of detectors all day long with any intelligent person who wants to have a conversation. The problem with people like yellowfin is they are not interested in intelligent discussion about the actual detectors. They are only really interested in sharpening their knives to take a stab at Minelab the company and fostering perceptions of ill behavior by said company. The continual focus is on what the testers knew or did not know, and speculations on whether the GPZ should have come to market when it did. And that ultimately in some way it must be shown that Minelab the company is bad or guilty of something.

The simple reality is that good engineers can improve anything. That means research and development never ends but is an ongoing process at most tech companies. If you wait until a product reaches a point where all engineers involved figure they can't do anything to improve it you will never get to market.

What that meant in the past was we got what we got. Then a couple years later as internal development work continues enough improvements are made that what is essentially just an improved version of what came before is offered up for sale as a new model. You could keep what you had, or buy the new model.

That has been the way of the product world for a long time, with the SD/GP/GPX series being a perfect example. Is the GPX 5000 proof the SD 2000 came to market too early? Should not Minelab have just continued to work on the machine for 20 years to get it "right" before release? Instead we get accusations about "drip feeding" technology as new models are released every couple years.

Research and development never stopped from the day Bruce Candy first put the idea of the SD 2000 on paper until the day the GPX 5000 came out. Each new model was just a snapshot in time of where the research and development was at any given point.

These days like almost any consumer electronic item a lot of what a detector does is done in software. You still need a new model to support new hardware but we now have at least some ability to upgrade our detectors as the software improves instead of having to buy a completely new detector. And for that I think we should be thankful.

Did the GPZ come to market too soon? I personally was waiting a long time for the next advance in basic metal detecting technology. My first thought on hearing about the GPZ was not "oh, it's too soon" but rather "about bloody time!" I am not getting any younger and the advances in metal detector technology are glacial by comparison to some tech sectors. The machine on release was fully capable of finding gold and has done so for very many people since release. Would I have wanted to wait until now for the GPZ to come out tomorrow instead of when it did, the only difference being this software change? Absolutely not. I am fortunate enough to be one of the first people to have a GPZ, sold my GPX 5000 immediately, and have never regretted it one second. No, in my opinion the GPZ was not too early to market, especially given the gap between when the GPX 5000 came out and when we finally got the GPZ.

This is very complex technology and once again research and development continues and will continue on the GPZ. Hopefully most improvements will be in software and available to current owners as a download. Sooner or later some hardware advance will probably see a new model released but it is nice to know our investment has at least some ability to be improved without buying a whole new detector. This might even account for the price somewhat as Minelab has to factor in fewer future repeat detector sales and pay forward the cost of developing and issuing upgrades to current owners.

There is no coil you can put on a GPX that can make the electronics find gold that GPX pulse induction technology cannot find. Anyone that understands how a PI works understands that the GPX has pulse delay timings that allows ground and hot rock signals to decay and not be heard by the time the detector switches to receive mode. Unfortunately there are gold signals that decay and disappear along with those ground and hot rock signals. The Zed with its continuous wave zero voltage technology suffers from no such limitation. The challenge technologically in "lighting up" the gold the GPX misses is of course in also figuring out how to deal with ground and hot rocks (and tree roots!) that also want to reappear. The bottom line is that no coil can or will make a GPX into a GPZ. It is not possible given how the technology works.

The real question is do we want to discuss detectors and how they compare and how to get the best out of them? Or do we want to discuss companies, their motives and business tactics, and conspiracy theories? I think the two subjects need to be kept separate. The problem arises when GPZ owners or people interested in the GPZ get interrupted by people who have an axe to grind with Minelab and how or why it does things. I could write a book on each of the major manufacturers about the stupid ways I think they conduct business but it does not help me one bit in my prospecting.

It might be of interest were some other company really stepping up and competing with Minelab. Let's face it, for about 20 years now the only company competing with Minelab is Minelab. They could have stopped with any one of numerous models along the way and called it good. For instance, they could have just quit with the GP 3500. If they had done so they would still be making the best prospecting detector available. That is what other companies do, they come out with a prospecting detector and then milk it for 20 years. Then come out with another almost identical model and milk it for twenty years.

Instead, we have Minelab single-handedly developing the cutting edge technology. At no point has somebody even temporarily unseated Minelab as top dog in the prospecting world. So we have a situation now when discussing prospecting detectors that the question is not whether to get a Minelab or not but which one to get. Do I get a GPX 5000 or a GPZ 7000? Or maybe a GPX 4500? Or would a SDC 2300 better suit my needs?

You Aussies might just have to do something that seems counter to your nature and be proud of your home grown company. They took on the best U.S. companies and left them all in the dust. If it was not for Minelab we could all be arguing about what is best, a TDI or an ATX. And even those products might not exist had not Minelab blazed the way and created the market.

No one detector is best for all people under all conditions. No detector is without flaws. But as a serious prospector I truly am thankful that we have Minelab putting products like the GPZ 7000 in my hands. I have been prospecting and metal detecting for over 40 years now and the GPZ is without a doubt the most powerful detector I have ever had the privilege of using. And because it is new cutting edge technology I think I can look forward to finishing out my remaining detecting years using machines based on this technology. I can't wait to see where Minelab goes with it in the future.

Very well written Steve
I `m hardly setting the world on fire with my 7000, but I live and detect in an area that has been hammered by every metal detector that`s ever been built in the last 40 years. As good as the 5000 was I have never considered going back to one
dave

G'day Steve

Absolutely spot on, a very even and objective view on the way things are in the Metal detecting world, thanks for your post.

cheers dave

Steve Herschbach's post is just about the best insight into the GPZed we are ever going to read. In fact, I hope the moderators put it up as a sticky.

Steve H.

You are right what you said above......

Steve H, brilliant reply and provides a well balanced view! I actually enjoyed reading your viewpoint on the GPZ 7000 and Minelab's options in bringing it to market. Spot on about continual improvements being made to electronic devices thru firmware upgrades. Lets hope ML continues to fine tune the 7000 with further updates as improvements occur.

I also think yellowfin should be given a second chance, he has obviously been severely frustrated by his GPZ 7000 and this needs to be recognised. Whether his problems stemmed from his operation of it or thru some fault with the detector, we dont know. Maybe show the guy some compassion, with a warning, and let him continue on the forum as yellowfin.

Ian

I tend to agree with you Ian, a bit of a shame for yellowfin, the Guy hails from Bendigo and has been trying to operate his Zed over some bleeding hot ground, no wonder he's been a bit negative.

A post he made mid March was pretty much along the same lines he couldn't believe the machine had been released when it struggled in a lot of juicy spots in the triangle.

He mentioned later on that you can only use a mono in enhance or smooth in these areas, so perhaps the Zed was out of it's depth. Same as others in the area, canned heat, Cal etc. they all had problems.

Early adopters need to remember there are no guarantees with any new technology, no one forces us to buy, we take the gamble, if it doesn't find gold everywhere we try it then it's our problem and nobody elses.

Kev.

Watching this with interest as UTBN has my old machine,and he's doing well with it,he's told me its good straight up,do i take notice of Jase? Yep sure do,do i take notice of what yellowfin has to say -sure do,if ya dont listen to the pro' & cons' you will never get a balanced idea on any product.
Sorry to say this but i honestly cant see why the minelab reps cant answer a few tough questions here and there, they use these forums as a marketing tool then when a few tough questions come there way they jump up and down and spit the dummy,Steve H's reply above reads like something off a cue card,i thought an intelligent conversation involved being able to talk in all directions and be able to answer questions to ya best ability?
Clearly the 7k is still slightly better on some gold then the new coils etc,ive seen it but the gap has narrowed,as someone thats gonna jump back on 7k maybe soon i'd like to hear all feedback......

Is this a forum for prospectors or salesman?
In the end we are talking about a metal detector not curing cancer,bit dissapointed ya banning people for asking a few tough questions.
Just honest observations from me
PS: if ya gonna ban me can ya hang off till i sell them coils

I am not a Minelab rep nor a detector salesman. I am a prospector.

Steve,

To write this comment:

",,,,,,Is the GPX 5000 proof the SD 2000 came to market too early? Should not Minelab have just continued to work on the machine for 20 years to get it "right" before release? ,,,,,,,,,"

One cannot make a comparison of a 20 year time span to develop a detector from the SD platform to the GPX with the 7000 that was problematical from the outset and is only now slowly being fixed by ML over a period that commenced within weeks of its release. That excuse just doesn't sit well with me. Your comparison is like saying the Model T Ford was a developed into the 6 litre V8 GM Commodore race car. It took one hundred years for that. The 7000 was being modified within weeks of its release. Nah mate, that's not on.

If any product has to be revamped or modified in such a short period of time then it must have been defective when it was marketed initially. My 7000 was sold months ago. ML can keep it until next year when they've fixed these problems. Only then will I consider buying again. I've yet to see a 7000 here in Western Australia that is stable. I have yet to see a 7000 that can "outshoot" a 5000 on all occasions. I have yet to see a 7000 that can outshoot a 2300 on all occasions. And for the sort of money that I paid out I would expect the 7000 to be superior to both of those detectors. Mine failed both tests. And it was tested PROPERLY.

Well said Steve H. Didn't sound like sales talk to me, just stating the facts.

Don't worry about Les, he's been bagging it out on every forum in Aus under various names. Bad tradies love blaming there tools

Yep, I have! I paid my money & I took my choice so I'm entitled to a "$10,700.00 dollar" opinion I'll bag it wherever and whenever I can. But my main critique is aimed at ML because I am of the belief that some people got good 7000s and some got lemons. The technology of the 7000 seems to be sound NOW that they're fixing it but my machine was useless it was that noisy.

What got me about it at the end was that the people that were doing well had a great time saying just that,,,,,,,,,,,but I don't recall any of them telling anybody what they were doing right whilst others were getting it wrong. I don't include Ararat Gold in that comment. He was very helpful but my 7000 just didn't respond to what he was using. It didn't even improve when I used the Ferrite Ring. Mine was sold two days before I was told that the settings outlined in the manual were rubbish. Too late for me. And now I'm waiting until at least next season before I maybe buy another.

Besides which, where I'm working now with what I'm doing I don't need no 7000. But it was nice trying it out,,,,,,,,,,,A big Cat and a big sluice beats a 7000 hands down. Much more fun and no aching back or tired legs! Yeah!

ichi-ban wrote:,,,,,,,,,,,A big Cat and a big sluice beats a 7000 hands down. Much more fun and no aching back or tired legs! Yeah!

Yep and at +270K or more to have the same fun

Marty

Not 270k,,,,,,,,try 40K. Not the same fun either. If you call walking all day for 8 to 10 hours like I used to 30 years ago, with a an 11,000 dollar machine and having to listen to hee haw all day long and finding nothing but 0.2 grammes,,,,,,,,FUN, then I don't. If you call it fun getting skunked by a 5000 with an 11 inch mono and again by a 2300, I'm sorry but I don't.

On the other hand, using a dozer to push a wall of dirt all day, no legs aching, no shoulder pain but maybe a sore bum from sitting down all day,,,,,,,even if no gold is forthcoming,,,,,,,,,now for any redblooded male,,,,,,,,,that's FUN. Gold or no gold, that's as much fun as a bloke my age is allowed to have by his doctors. Mind you the repairs are PIA!

My 7000 was Hee Hawing when I held it at waist height - that's about 800 mm off the ground, sensitivity down, auto smoothing low and high, after ML had inspected it and passed it, me doing what the manual said to do, me doing what JP told me to do, using the ferrite ring etc,etc,,,,,,,,,,,,, and I couldn't shut the damn thing up and neither could anyone else. I and the machine was the laughing stock of Leonora! Can someone on here, that is having success with a 7000 please tell me what I and others were doing wrong? Rick,,,,,,,,don't answer that. You've tried already.

BTW - my 7000 was onsold by the guy that bought it from me after only a cuppla weeks. Like me, he couldn't shut it up. I did warn him.

Les, if your walking around for 10 hours out here and only getting 0.2g then it aint the detectors fault.  I could get more then that in half hour with an old vlf.  Maybe you need to get off flogged ground?
In anticipation of your response, it isnt the detectors fault your too old to go find new patches.

It'll be interesting to hear whether you actually get permission to use a wet plant, blokes I know up here had heaps of water but couldnt get approval.

Here is some insight into what im hearing from customers.
I have done training sessions with at least 50 customers so far who have bought their zeds from us. I have not come across any 'dud' machines in those sessions and all have seemingly been on par with one another. Customers have ranged from total novices through to experienced prospectors.
Of those on our sessions there would have been less than 5 off the top of my head have had issues- only minor and mostly charger related. I have not had any of them ring and complain that their machine was unusable. One user who recently came back from his first trip to WA using his first ever detector (zed) who pulled 6ozt out of the specking patch alone! We are starting to hear of some amazing finds from our zed customers and most don't want names or tallys published. People are doing very well with this machine and keeping quiet!

Its those who are going low n slow that are having most success- those trying to use it like a gpx are the ones struggling. I think the only thing similar about the 2 machines is the sound.

Steve Herschbach wrote:I am not a Minelab rep nor a detector salesman. I am a prospector.

 Yep nothing personal steve i just call it as i see it sometimes,all good,its just metal detector,no good getting our knickers in a knot over it  
Lotsa ground and life is short

Gezzzzzzzzzzz, all this talk about how it should have been a perfect detector before it was released, well on the whole it is the best detector money can buy, sure some had problems, mine was one of them and I said so at the time.

Well mine, with some good help was fixed, still not perfect but very usable and found plenty of gold for the most of the time we were still in WA.

After the update was applied a couple of wees ago, as soon as it was available made a huge difference to the way it ran, basically like I had bought a new/different machine, am I happy hell yes.

I know of 2 other machines that were upgraded at the same time as mine and they both say theirs are better than before as well.

I don't hear people complain that Henry Ford invented the Model T years and years before Ford built a Ford Mustang, it saved a hell of a lot of walking in the meantime having the old T Model while better things came along.

Minelab is no different, we might as well use whats available when its available, or not, whatever we choose.

We could spent our whole life waiting for something better and not getting the current one because we would still rather wait for the next one, and when that one is current we still wait because the next one might be better...........................................

cheers dave

There are not many places that you could run a GPX in Aussie Land with a maxed out gain and stabliser without it being noisy and erratic and you had to tame it down to get the best out of it.

The GPZ is a very powerful detector but you have to harness the power and get it to do what you want. Yes tame it down to suit the ground you are working. The power is there if you find ground to use it in if not tone it down and listen to what it is telling you. Even toned down it is still very powerful and will find gold if you go low and slow. I loved my 4500 but the zed for power smashes it even on lower settings. Find a comfortable level of settings for the area you are working and then go low and slow and if there is detectable gold you should find it.

G.B. wrote:There are not many places that you could run a GPX in Aussie Land with a maxed out gain and stabliser without it being noisy and erratic and you had to tame it down to get the best out of it.

The GPZ is a very powerful detector but you have to harness the power and get it to do what you want. Yes tame it down to suit the ground you are working. The power is there if you find ground to use it in if not tone it down and listen to what it is telling you. Even toned down it is still very powerful and will find gold if you go low and slow.

I agree G.B. a very powerful detector indeed, but with very weak audio processing, well at least it was on the initial release code, I've not run the update in the field yet, but I suspect efforts were directed at the GB improvement mainly.

Yes you have to listen very very carefully to what it is telling you, the signals are there alright but boy could you dismiss many, and they are the ones that are usually the very deep ones.

I found you could counter it a bit by wearing phones, heavily reducing the volume limit, upping the volume, with a low threshold, but even then I need to concentrate to the point of distraction to hear those murmurs that signal deep chunky solid bits, and not the compressed crystalline bleb types the Zed loves so much at middling depths.

Being a continuous wave machine like induction balance you need to run it more like a VLF in many areas. There's no way you can run a VLF flat out in most goldfields. High gain often swamps the circuits and "hides" weak targets, among a jumble of atmospherics, ground and non-homogeneous cobble responses, plus the detectors own internal "noise".
I wouldn't in every day use try to run a ZED flat out either, couple the above with the less enunciated audio and you get no gold while someone running a so called "dumbed down" detector finds plenty.

This so called "dumbed down" is it not just driving to the conditions to avoid a crash, perhaps a crash in morale. Seems the most skillful approach to me. Why throw your passengers around, they're likely to vomit over your seats, carpet and you. No a nice smooth drive gets more gold in the end.  

Minelab must've been fully confident that the hardware was sound to release the unit when they did. Also the maths proving the GB algorithm must have been fully solved, and a first release iteration had been executed in code to an acceptable degree, such that the release proceeded with the Engineers' confident that any field issues that may arise, could be addressed in a later patch. That's what the industry does, we can't emulate every scenario out there and address it at launch time, testers can only test so much, so patches must be made to address the most common of these uncommon issues if there are any.

To Minelabs' credit, they put out feelers to ascertain the magnitude of the problem that had been highlighted on the forums and via their dealers. Some dealers I understand were asked to contact certain operators and get feedback on how the machine was going in their area, you as a ZED owner may've been contacted. Hence we have an update to address the major issues reported.
 
A.

P.S. I hope they address the signal volume next time.

Admin


I think you need to clean this thread up as none of this has anything to do with the so called ""GPZ-7000 Up-date""
If guys wanna fight take it else where

Marty

Great suggestion Marty, all done now...

[quote="alchemist"]
Y
I wouldn't in every day use try to run a ZED flat out either, couple the above with the less enunciated audio and you get no gold while someone running a so called "dumbed down" detector finds plenty.

This so called "dumbed down" is it not just driving to the conditions to avoid a crash, perhaps a crash in morale. Seems the most skillful approach to me. Why throw your passengers around, they're likely to vomit over your seats, carpet and you. No a nice smooth drive gets more gold in the end.  


 
A.





Hi Alchemist, I think I said something like: "No point in dumbing it down to GPX levels". The goldfields have been pretty well hammered with the GPX's, so dumbing down the Zed to GPX levels won't open up the goldfields again, will it? That's the only point I tried to make. Obviously you shouldn't have the Zed at full warp speed all the time, you will set up the Zed to suit the conditions for the area your using it in to run nice and smooth, it's only common sense.
Apart from that, everything else you write is always on the money, so keep it up.    Cheers, Harry.

The pointie finger wasn't in your direction Harry.
I know, you know what you're doing, as you earlier said, and I agree with you, "Sir Bruce didn't give us full throttle for naught" or words to that effect, knowing when to put the boot down is key, and I've not had many opportunities, she sounds like a cackle of women around an almost nude male stripper if I go much over 12. I've only seen that on TV by the way!    

Cheers.

I'm not sure if this may help anyone but the success I've been having is as a result of it. Well I hope. I honestly think there is something in it as I've got gold where zed operators have chained areas and they clearly left a bit behind. But that could be due to a variety of circumstances.
For the most, I push zed very hard and the majority of times I have sensitivity at the top end. Mostly I use hy/difficult sometimes gen/difficult if ground playing up and on rare occasions hy/normal for major power.
Rarely I use ground type severe also. But I do when I need it whilst reducing sensitivity when required.
I never use audio smoothing here in the west.
GB I've always run in auto.
I've mentioned this but will add a little more.
Again coil control is everything with zed. Inaccurate swing will cause noise. When I say you must swing with a perfectly controlled swing I really mean that. Obviously it's well known you go slow. Some bad grounds you go slower. Initially upon starting zed and running it in this way there is noise but I allow time for zed to settle.
I hear at times zed beginning to go erratic and concentrate on my swing which I notice settle down soon after.
The way I do run zed is or sounds chattery but I find it is ok for me. My ears are well tuned to this noise and I seem to pluck targets out easily amongst it.
I've prospected large regions this season and the one ground I found difficult was the Nullagine region. The flats were very noisy. Surprisingly I could use hy/normal and maxed sensitivity in the creeks. It still ran stable too
Others may not agree with what I do and that's fine I know this isn't for everyone. I thought it was worth explaining what I personally do. Don't hesitate to ask any questions I'f you want to ask.
Zed is very powerful and one impressive unit from my perspective. I just feel at times zed is being crucified for no valid reason.

Thanks heaps Jase for sharing your hard earned.
Contrary to what I believed, but I may just have to give the old hens a go if I'm leaving gold behind.

Cheers
Kev.