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Thanks JCR! The YouTube channel I bookmarked and always went to disappeared recently, so I thought it must be a new spot, but I did notice I was subscribed. 🤔 I appreciate the correction! 🏆

Glad you found out about this Channel but it actually is not a new one. I have been subscribed to it for several years. I knew he also posted on a more official XP channel but this one is more interesting to me. I like his content very much.

Welcome from not so far away. 🙂 Don't know how I missed this. 🤔

There have been several over the years. Dave at least did manage to get at least one patent filed. He did know his stuff, had respect from some in the engineering community. Unfortunately in the case of the Pulse Devil seems to have went down a rabbit hole, with the final step always just out of reach.

Hey y'all, Noticed yesterday that Gary Blackwell's YouTube channel has moved, I am a fan and found the new home. https://m.youtube.com/user/gardansolyn/videos It's now just called "Skill School", but features his work with XP detectors and a host of other stuff. 👍 I really appreciate his calm and no-nonsense approach to detecting, and even find his other content interesting, such as drones and e-transportation. There is a video there about beach detecting that new and old Deus users might appreciate: It ends up with small modifications to Tekkna, but also it's a guide for beginners. Best of luck in your new home Gary! 🍀

I received the Legend 15" coil I ordered directly from NEL today. I'm happy to have it & think it will be a great addition for me. Ordered 03/14/2024. The factory shipping box is even in good shape. The postage looks like it went around the Moon to get to Texas. 18 inches, here I come!😁

Cygnus-X from a few years back was a similar lofty promise - zero substance type project. Couldn't even get anyone to say what sensing principle it utilized (induction balance, pulse induction, ?) or even show a cartoon of a prototype unit. Unfortunately, the person behind that effort passed away about a year or so after announcing his project on a detectorist forum. The folks behind these endeavors appear to have some common attributes: big thinkers, big talkers, perhaps even know their way around a breadboard or C+ code, but have little knowledge of how to practically package, produce, or market their inventions or to project realistic timelines and are great at putting off the big reveal with excuse after excuse usually backed up by murky proprietary or intellectual property protections. It seems the motivator is not cash but the simply getting their ego fed by the throngs of folks who are buying their incredible story and promises and bestowing accolades by comparing them to ground breaking luminaries like Tesla before anything is actually demonstrated. Kind of like the fake it till you make it folks in Silicon Valley - but that is usually both cash and ego motivated. It's sad.

From the 2023 investor report. You'll see they said they wanted to grow reactional market share via expansion of retail distribution footprint leveraging eCommerse channel, which is their own website selling direct. Again from 2023, You'll note they say, "Shift in consumer preference towards direct-to-consumer and eCommerce channels. They are indicating the market demands buying direct from them bypassing dealers. Fast forward to 2024's investor report They clearly say they're aiming to grow market share via expansion of retail distribution and expansion of retail distribution footprint in the US, and Europe leveraging their Ecommerce channel (Their own website) so it looks like very soon also Europe will be able to buy direct off Minelab like the US now can. As much as dealers don't like this there will be people in Europe that live nowhere near a dealer that will benefit from it. The next thing from 2024, still the focus on the shift in customers wanting direct buying but something new stands out, "Product Range Across All Price Points" We are seeing that now with them giving birth to various new model VLF detectors, and another one on its way very soon. Where they are currently lacking is PI detectors across all price points, competitors like Garrett, and especially Algoforce have much cheaper PI machines and the Nokta is on it's way which they've already declared is going to be a good price. I also think this is why the GPX 5000 has made a return into the USA market, a gap filler until their new model is ready, as the 5000's closer to the Axiom price point. I don't think it will be very long at all until we see the new cheaper Minelab PI machine, maybe they're waiting until Nokta releases theirs and release at the same time to take the shine and excitement off Nokta's release. This selling direct Ecommerce thing wasn't new news, they've talked about doing it for a few years and started trialling it in Asia a few years ago now, it was just a shock when they rolled it out in the USA before most other countries.

Still not enough action on the beach here in MI. Waiting for the summer activity. Nice finds there.

I'm guessing its going to be X-terra-Multi-Pro. With exclusive coils and BT headphones, shipped March 2025. 😞

Thank you for these posts. I've been using a Gold Bug 2 for diamond stud earring recoveries. I've been looking for a machine more up-to date with a visual ID. Did you ever get the replacement? Rob (This is a gold 1 ct. stud from a recent find)

Awesome! Thanks for the report.

Thank you!

Most certainly could be chert. Pastelite and Jade is a small part of a narrower category of chert.

For those that do not know, the Nemesis and then Pulse Devil were supposedly PI detectors under development that would combine full VLF type discrimination with full PI type depth. I'd be surprised if Dave is here because we did not part on the best of terms. He may be a brilliant man, but he said too many things that did not turn out to be true and I ended up calling him out on it. He was going to meet people and go places to demonstrate the machine, but in every case never showed. Twice he was putting one in the mail to me... then nothing. The machine was often said to be done and ready to ship, then did not. The excuses, often as flimsy as can be imagined, piled up to the point that he started repeating old ones. If you followed it all as I did for years it became obvious something was not right. When I finally called him out on it his excuse was that he had never taken money from anyone, so why all the upset over his words never proving to be true? Well, where I come from a man is only as good as his words and promises kept, and nobody ever cut me the slack that people repeatedly cut Dave, all because they wanted so much for what he was saying to be true. I'd be tarred and feathered and run out of town in Alaska for going on like Dave did for as long as he did. Nothing he ever said, ever, came to pass as he said it would, and he finally lost all credibilty with me at least. One of the pithier discussions from 2008 is linked below that occured late in the game but before I finally gave up on him ever following through with the things he told me he would do. I was not a peripheral player but one of two people he selected, without me asking by the way, to be dealers. In the end I decided this was just another thing he was doing to try and make it all seem more real and to give his project more seemed legitimacy, by tying himself to a couple trusted players in the industry. He was not one for having anyone question him and finally "punished" everyone by folding up the dog and pony show. No doubt a brilliant man, but like many brilliant people I think his eccentricities got in the way of him being able to complete what he started. https://forums.robsdetectors.com/topic/4830-anyone-have-a-picture-of-the-pulse-devil/

I was able to get out for a short while to test/hunt with the new dt feature of the new V1.15 update. It has shown very good promise in my testing at home for both improved deeper target acquisition ( especially in mineralized ground) and improved unmasking in Iron. The afternoon was quite warm, about 90 degrees F with high humidity. Summer is near & I'm not used to it yet. The bugs are also pretty bad right now so I only stayed about 2 hours. Out of a handful of targets, there were 3 deeper ones that were found with the dt feature active & set at 4-5 that would not have been noticed without using dt. All were decent non ferrous items. Nothing over 6" deep, but that just goes to show, how severely, high mineralization handicaps even modern SMF detectors. These were all targets I would have been over before, using The Legend prior to V1.15 dt. I still need to try the dt out in some dense nails/iron trash spots to confirm it's benefits in unmasking. That will be the next little muggy buggy hunt. So far I am very pleased with what Nokta has, once again added for us.

The truth is that the FindX detectors were the answer to the really cheap Minelab detector... which is sold only on Amazon... Now I assume that the new minelab factor X detector will bring possibilities above X-terra Pro as well as Vanquish class detectors.... so the ratio: the performance of the detector vs the possibilities...it can be really interesting...I think Minelab will go for sure...

True so true! Chuck

I will have some videos coming soon on the Manticore in action in a dig & detect operation on my claim as soon as forest service clears our NOI. He wanted to make us file a Plan of Operation despite that we are digging with hand tools. He said in all his years as a reclamation geologist he has never seen anyone move more dirt by hand as me and my claim partners. We had to scale back our digging ventures to stay out of being forced to file a Plan of Operation as opposed to an NOI.

Andrew, I totally agree on the Manticore. I've found two nuggets with it. The first one was within a few minutes of turning it on and swinging it to compliment the Gpx5000 in a dig and detect scenario. I had a very faint target the 5000 hit on but was so faint, it would not rise up to an apex to decern where in the ground it was exactly. I turned the 5000 off, picked up and turned on the Manticore and it had the nugget quick. It turned out to be deeper than I expected. It handles hot rocks way better than the 800 and the Monster. I knew at that point this was going to be a special detector to compliment a PI. I just found a 1.2 grain piece on my claim a few days ago after I accepted a skunk with my 5000 for the day. I cleared away some forest floor fluff and decaying organic material and proceeded to dig down to bedrock. Each layer I pulled out of the hole and spread out was hit with the Manticore and when I hit bedrock I scanned the last dirt to be spread out and I got a solid hit of 01,02 and the numbers were in black, not red indicating a good target. The tight blob showed up right on the conductivity line and this told me it was either going to be a nugget or a very small shard of lead. A lead pellet shows up at 06,07 and a pellet is much louder. So I knew I likely had a nugget. It was in fact! The Manticore saved me from a skunk day and I am looking forward to hitting more gold with it. The Manticore is, to date, the most perfect vlf to compliment a PI. It is far more stable than the Monster and especially the 800. Target ID is far more precise. The M8 coil is a joy to swing, compared to the small coil for the 800 or monster. Setting the ferrous indicator setting to red will let you know more accurately, each target being trash red, or black for a good target. If you have a monster or any other vlf and then get a Manticore, after using it and seeing the advantage of it, one of two things will take place. You will stop using the monster or other detector, taking them with you or you will sell them. I already have my Manticore set up in the all terrain high conductive target mode to hit on all of my silver coins and small and various gold targets- jewelry. Everything else is completely blocked out. You can extend the ferrous limits all the way over to the end of the screen and then swing each coin or jewelry you want to hit on to open up those notches. It works great and talk about cherry picking! This thing is a beauty when it comes to cherry picking good coins and targets from ground with a lot of targets in it. The necklace pendant I found with it is 12k black hills gold with a sapphire in it. I found each style of silver dimes had a different TID number. Mercury, seated, barber were all slightly different numbers.

Hi Steve Regis here we are really pleased with the quality and the delivery speeds of the rod parts we bought from you,my mate is detecting daily and they are up to the test!!!!! RR

Woo hooooo. Damn! Well that's good news. 👍😁

Chuck, I don't think Nokta is "running on borrowed time". I think they are paddling their own canoe and not letting other "bigger" companies set the rules. They obviously don't take kindly to being bullied, as they shouldn't. They will introduce any new products when they feel it is ready. I think we will all be pleasantly surprised with whatever it might be & see the "rules of the game" changed in the users' favor.

And here is my red version .. 🙂 I reused a Nokta FindX shaft ( upper and middle ) . The lower shaft is an XP Deus shaft . I ordered the FindX on Amazon for a ridiculous price : 150 Eur . Amazing ... 🙂 Never used a Nokta shaft before . It is very well designed and top quality I like it .. 1) The beast 🙂: 2) Once folded : 3) 760g ( 1,6 lbs ) for the shaft and the D2 9" coil :

If there were one thing I don’t like about the Manticore it’s the short battery life and how long it takes to get it back up to full charge. If any detector could use an under arm battery it’s the manticore. But it’s tolerable as it is for my needs. I rarely detect 8-10 hours in one hunt. Usually half that.