Evening forum users. Newbie here. Been reading bits and pieces for a while and thought it was time to jump in on this one.
Have had a ZED for about 5 months now. Also an SDC. Would easily have 100 hrs up on the Z. Absolutely love it. Also a newish detectorist so has been a big learning curve. Started slow but now running it pretty hot.
Have found 42 bits of gold, 62,000 bits of lead shot (at least it feels like it), crap loads of iron/steel/tin and have dug deepest target at 1.2 meters (lump of steel). Not a single piece of gold over half a gram and to be honest I am guessing they are mostly .2 of a gram or thereabouts - and I would hate to think what the weight of the smallest is - it is tiny!!!! Need some fine scales. And this is all with the Z. I have compared the Z and the SDC on quite a few targets that ended up being gold or lead shot and the Z gave a far clearer indication every time that there was a target there. But the SDC was bought more for the waterways in the warmer months so not concerned.
The teeny tiny gold and the lead shot tell me though that the Z is working well, that I am using it well and that it is incredably sensitive.
Running it hot is also finding me a few hot rocks but not too many where I detect mostly. Have had to dampen things down a bit during the 2 times I've had a quick run in the Bendigo area.
Having watched HEAPS of GPZ vids to learn what to do and what not to do I noticed a few things that may/may not help the gents on here with the Z's firing off some weird pings and pangs. I watched LC76's YouTube links up the page and a lot of the noises sound like some of the EMI noises I have heard on other vids when there has been lightning around. Obviously not lightning stuffing up your machine but certainly sounded EMI-ish. And I think someone else said they had to noise cancel 4 or 5 times until it found a quiet channel. This was something"Prospector Pete" told us at the training day. The Z has a very good noise cancel and it will find a quiet channel but it may take more than one try to find the right channel. He also said start the machine off the ground - I.e. Holding it straight out from you. Noise cancel every time you turn it on. Spin very slowly in a circle to pick up where the most EMI can be heard and then leave the Z really still and pointing in that direction until it has finished its noise cancel.
Also noticed in the shorter video that the coil was moving along the ground and at a fair rate.
Pete also said that the Z has to be swung quite slow. He described it as the "slowest detector". GPX was a bit quicker and then the SDC quicker again.
Also that the Z had to be hovered as close to the ground as possible without scrubbing it on the ground.
Have found with mine that when it is knocked on different things whilst swinging it will give the odd weird noise.
Have found tree roots giving off a 'ground noise' type signal. Have also found some gold in amongst tree roots.
Wet ground hasn't been such an issue even though it has been saturated over the last 2 months.
I doubt that the above probably helps you as I'm sure you have tried everything to get it to work. All I can suggest is to persevere because when they do work they are pretty awesome - in my eyes anyway
And I hope you don't feel that I'm telling 'grandma how to suck eggs' here as most of you have probably been using different machines for years - just trying to help
Hope you get things sorted.