Aftermarket for GPZ

Very impressive. I noticed that it did not come from the bottom of the hole but about half way down on the left hand side. but at least more than a foot or so down at a guess and in dry ground, so I guess not in a frozen region. They would be happy with that find due to it being reef gold. Might be out of a cap reef and likely lots more to come. Nice find.
I see that they were using nice new spades and shovels.
Anybody got a program to pull location info out of that vid...I have but no joy.

Nice video. I wonder if they checked hole for small gold broken of specci?
Did you notice the shovel they are using at end of video on left side? Looked like an attachment of some sort on the top of spade.
Dave you might have to send em one of your picks, I'm sure they would use it.

Martin R wrote:Did you get the new coils yet?
Marty

The first two arrived in Sudeny from Russia and are on a truck (Auspost) once they got to Sydney, now they are somewhere between there and Dubbo.

cheers dave

adrian ss wrote:Very impressive. I noticed that it did not come from the bottom of the hole but about half way down on the left hand side. but at least more than a foot or so   down at a guess and in dry ground, so I guess not in a frozen region. They would be happy with that find due to it being reef gold. Might be out of a cap reef and likely lots more to come. Nice find.
I see that they were using nice new spades and shovels.
Anybody got a program to pull location info out of that vid...I have but no joy.

I reckon it was closer to the bottom of the hole that half way down the side. and yes they seem to do the digging with shovels/spades over there.

Good luck with the location info. I think unless your going to Russia then the location won't be much use to ya.

cheers dave

Travelergold wrote:Nice video. I wonder if they checked hole for small gold broken of specci?
Did you notice the shovel they are using at end of video on left side? Looked like an attachment of some sort on the top of spade.
Dave you might have to send em one of your picks, I'm  sure they would use it.

Yes you would think there would be more small bits broken off somewhere.

They seem to like the spades/shovels for digging, that method seems to work for them, but I reckon it would be hard going in Western Australia.

cheers dave

2 new aftermarket test coils, a 22"x21" and a 16"x12" for the GPZ7000 arrived from Russia today for me to test out, this should be fun, I have already tried an 18" prototype and it worked well.

And there is another parcel of coils from the Manufacture in Russia already arrived at Sydney and should be here middle of next week.    

There naming them X-Coils

22"x21" coil


16"x12" coil


cheers dave

Now lets hope they work as good as they look Dave.

Cheers Kon.

Kon61gold wrote:Now lets hope they work as good as they look Dave.

Cheers Kon.  

You and me both Kon

Will be very interesting to see how they shape up on our ground Dave?

Dave, bet you are itchin to get on some ground. Caravan packed and ready to go, I bet. Quite big coils really, 22" on any detector is a decent search coil. Fingers crossed they are as good as the other coil.

Yes Wally, I'll give them a go tomorrow.

I just weighed the 16"x12" on the kitchen scales, 1050 grams (1.05kg) without the lower black shaft, and 1300 grams (1.3kg) with the lower shaft, thats around 250 grams lighter that the standard GPZ14" coil. So that's good.

cheers dave

I know looks can be deceiving but they look really well made, nice and neat,
keep the fingers crossed,good luck.

cheers moredeep

I gave the two new coils a bit of a test run this morning out at Stuart Town common.  They both ran well, very happy with them.

I did a few videos, one just using the 22"x21" and three other videos on a test target, which was a 58gram lead sinker in the side bank of an oldtimers hole at around 14" deep.

I will put up the videos as I get them onto Youtube.

The first video is using the 22"x21" coil in "extra deep" "normal" sensitivity 13, and then changing to other settings.



cheers dave

This video is the 22"x21" coil on a 58 gram buried  lead sinker at about 14" deep, going through all settings with sensitivity at 13



cheers dave

This video is the 16"x12" coil on the same 58 gram buried  lead sinker at about 14" deep, going through all settings with sensitivity at 13

The bigger coil outperformed this coil as you would expect because of the size difference, I am very happy with the way both these new ran, there is plenty of grunt still not used as all tests were done with sensitivity at 13



cheers dave

This video is the GPZ14" standard coil over the same test lead target with the same settings and sensitivity and the two new coils.

My conclusion is the large 22"x21" coil outperformed both the smaller coils, and I reckon that the GPZ14" and the new 16"x12" coil were very similar in performance.

The weight advantage is the 22x21 new coil is the same weight as the GPZ14" standard coil and the 16x12 new coil is 250grams lighter than the GPZ14" standard coil.



cheers dave

Dave, thanks for your reports and video's. The large coil sounds promising. Out in field on undisturbed targets will be the real test.

Appreciate the time you put in testing/comparing the sensitivity/depth difference between the 3 coils Dave. It sounds like you're more than happy with the 22X21's overall performance (depth wise) as compared to the 14X13 or 16X12. The 2 aftermarket coils seem to balance & run well over our mineralized ground conditions.
The big question now is price & who will be distributing them here in Australia, what type of warranty can we expect to receive upon purchase, as well as any optional spare parts available? (such that of spare skid plates etc)

Cheers Kon.

Interesting just how good the response in HY Normal was, considering the target was 58 grams, which is above what is recommended for HY. Would have thought that General or Xtra Deep would have been better at this size !  
Mind you, gold does behave differently from lead.

Like Nightjar below, was wondering whether the sinker was actually 58 grams, because the overall target responses were fairly mild for such a large target ????

Liking the idea of a 22 x 21 that only weighs as much as the GPZ14 !  

Rick

Great videos Dave/Veronica, one question though?
Should the weight of that sinker you had weighed 5.8g not 58g?

Thanks Nightjar and Rick, yes the lead sinker is defiantly 58g, 25mm dia, I am thinking that perhaps because it is round there is no flat surfaces to reflect back like something of a more flat shape.

Next time I an going to drill further into the side wall of that same hole and maybe flatten the sinker somewhat, or heaven forbid even a bigger flat chunk of gold.

I am very happy the way both the new coils run on the 7000, some settings gave some noise etc but there was plenty of scope to go up higher or down lower.

I really like the big coil 22x21 easy as to swing, anyhow there are at least 4 more new coils on the way for the 7000 and one for the gpx5000/4500 to try as well.

I probably already said they are calling these new coils 'X-Coils" and you can most likely see the stickers on the coils now in the videos.

And yes I weighed the big coil when we got home while it still had the lower shaft attached and it is (1.49kg) so I am calling it 1.5kg on the kitchen scales, and the standard GPZ14 with the lower shaft attached is 1.55kg on the same scales.

cheers dave

Kon61gold wrote:
The big question now is price & who will be distributing them here in Australia, what type of warranty can we expect to receive upon purchase, as well as any optional spare parts available? (such that of spare skid plates etc)

Cheers Kon.      

I am not sure yet about some of the question but I do know there are spares, skidplates, as they sent some of these with this first shipment of the 2 coils.

The rest of your question will get answers as time goes by, and I will be happy to let you all know as the info becomes available.

cheers dave

Thanks for that Dave. Looking forward to their release. Keep us posted.

Cheers Kon.

I've been watching this post with great interest and have stayed in the background whilst this was developing. I was hopeful of the smaller coil being beneficial as a lot of places I go it would be a benefit to get in and around the scrub. A couple of things I looked into was making adapters for these coils but unfortunately because of the SDA IC in the coil plug and also the coil plugs is not available as this was one of the things minelab had custom made to prevent counterfeiting and also coil making I wondered why the ruskies didn't copy the chip until I realised what it was an Atmel Crypto IC or similar impossible to hack. Even when you want to use these you have to sign an NDA with Atmel.

I also thought of mounting the chip inside the detector and making it a mod to put a commonly available socket but that also may not be viable.      

I think your testing will not give a  definitive outcome to as whether they would be better than minelab coils due to this security. Because the 2 coils 14 and 19 have a different code to allow identification of what coil is present, it wouldn't surprise me if minelab has a difference in the detector operation depending on what coil is on the detector. This may be why they revoked Rohan's rights from manufacturing aftermarket coils. Also after speaking with minelab when I was looking to get a coil plug after I had a broken wire in the coil 3 things came to light. The first I already commented about the plug being custom made, secondly they do not repair coils for the Z they scrap and replace with new hence the price unless under warranty. Lastly they didn't make a smaller coil due to the loss of sensitivity and increased noise. Makes a little sense.

So if I am correct in the coil identification changing how the detector performs then unless you have 2 adapters with 14 and 19 a larger coil is not going to give a much better performance if the adapter is a made from the 14 coil lead. Who knows let's hope my conjecture is wrong....

Look forward to see the results of the testing.

Thanks Ismael for your input, I have wondered for sometime why you have not post until now.

I have made my adapter lead from the GPZ19" coil lead plug, perhaps if what you surmise is correct then my 7000 should run better with the larger coils.

Stan made his adapter lead from the GPZ14" coil lead plug. At this early stage there seemed no different between the way either detector reacted to the aftermarket 18" coil that we both used, more testing on various size coils will be the key.

All I know is that when using any of the aftermarket coils with my patch/adapter lead the GPZ7000 recognizes them as the GPZ19" coil attached, and Stans recognizes them as the GPZ14" coil attached.

I do not know if the GPZ7000 makes any setting changes in its own internal onboard program when you change between the GPZ14" and the GPZ19" Minelab coils.

There is a small 10" coil being sent out in one of the next shipments for me to try so it will be interesting to see if it runs ok on my detector when it is seeing things as a GPZ19.

The biggest drawback is not being able to get the plug and chip manufactured direct from Minelab as an accessory part.

cheers dave

Hi Dave, I hope that my theory is just that, nowadays ML are getting very protective with what they do, my comment to them on the smaller coil was that I presume another reason would be to make us buy another detector like the SDC. Most of my talks with ML are informal and although I have a good relationship with them I still have doubts on what is told sometimes.

I agree with your comments on the coil plug but they did say because they are moulded in production being a spare part is not viable, I can vouch for that as it took me hours to separate the moulded portion from the wires and plug. A real nightmare. Once I saw the IC and marking code I realised that it was a pointless task to copy as I have used those same SDA's to protect MCU projects in the past and they are all but impossible to crack. I tried at one stage to PM Stan to contact me so I could contact the suppliers to see what we could do but never got a reply.

I knew that something was not as it seemed when I saw the way to trick the system by using the coil lead and plug. Making the coils would be easy but making the adapter is not viable. On another slant how many coils will they be able to sell as a large majority of Z users wouldn't be able or scared to try given the cost if something went wrong to make the adapter.

Keep up the good work testing, I look forward to the small coil tests and would have liked to test them myself over here but a bit late now.

Oh by the way if you have any older 50c coins they are a good test so I have been informed. You could do what I did with lead is just make a rough hole in the ground and pour molten lead in this makes a good test object and you can make it to almost any shape and size. Just a thought...

G'day Ismael

Not sure if I understood this right.  "They didn't make a smaller coil due to the loss of sensitivity & increased noise?"  I thought the increased ground noise coming from a smaller coil was due to the increased sensitivity a smaller coils winding's put out, (more concentrated field) or have I miss-interpreted/understood your statement?  For Minelab to make a smaller coil for the GPZ 7000 technology, would be hyper sensitive to iron rich/ground minerals, making the coil unstable/unusable over our mineralised goldfield ground conditions?
Anyways, although the modification of the plug part, might be a little tricky for the not so tech savvy, the larger 22X21 inch aftermarket coil, (even though an air test) showed a clear increase in signal strength response, over that 58 gram lead ball (which in turn corresponds to greater depth) over that of the other 2 smaller coils. It will most certainly do the same, over a similar in size slug of gold.
Dave, you're right in what you say about the surface area of your 58 gram test target.  Both VLF/PI detectors rely more so on surface area of target (influencing depth) & less so on the density/conductivity of target. Your 58 gram target being round, has little surface area, hence the minimal depth we're seeing. Flatten out that same ball of lead like a pancake, 2/3 inches round & watch the increase in depth.  

Cheers Kon.

Kon61gold wrote: Flatten out that same ball of lead like a pancake, 2/3 inches round & watch the increase in depth.  

Cheers Kon.

That's what I'll do and I can give the coils another go in the same spot at the same depth and see the difference, although it will be a different day so will be slightly different conditions.

cheers dave

G'day Ismael

With the patch lead I never even tried to strip the plastic from the plug where the chip is, I  was given a precise measurement to cut the cable from the plug itself, and then the amount to strip the wires back, 5 wires in all, very thin and need much care when doing this as there is no second chance.

Solder on the 5 pin plug end, (following the correct wires to the pins) apply hot glue to the area to keep the wires separate and stable, and then the heat shrink tube to finish the job.  Then put the opposite plug onto the Minelab coil so it can also be used again, follow the wiring in the opposite direction for this plug, same again some hot glue, and heat shrink tube, and all was good.

I have used the patch lead now with the GPZ19" ml coil and now also 3 different aftermarket coils , and all work well and cause no disasters, which is a good thing.



cheers dave

Another 3 new aftermarket coils arrived from Russia today, direct from the manufacture.

There is a 10"x9" solid which weighs 900 grams plus the lower shaft which makes it 1150 grams in total.  It looks very neat, hope it works as good as it looks.

There is a 16"x15" soild which weighs 1460 grams plus the lower shaft which makes it 1710 grams in total, another great looking coil.

There is a 16"x15" open spoke coil, this is the same coil in the video that they are digging up that big specie,  it weighs 1220 grams plus the lower shaft which makes it 1470 grams in total.

Small 10x9 coil


16x15 solid coil


16x15 open spoke coil


cheers dave