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New Fisher Impulse Gold Land Based Pi, What Features Would You Like?


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I was wondering what features in the new Impulse Gold detector you nugget detectorists would like to see in this new  machine to make you buy? For myself the lightweight part is very important, I would also like to see solid coils for ease of use in uneven terrain, and I would like to see gpz type performance on surface grain size gold and would like to see gpz type performance on 1-2 gram nuggets at depth. Not real concerned about deep large nuggets. Auto ground balance would be a huge plus too. Perhaps the 7 usec timing will be enough to produce gpz type performance on grain size and gram size gold. Time will tell I guess.

I don't expect Minelab will be sitting still with regards building a lightweight nugget detector flagship model, sooner than later probably.

fisher-impulse-gold-detector-prototype.jpg

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It’s officially Impulse Gold, so I took the liberty of editing your post to reflect that.

I’ve been trying for years to get Minelab to put a SDC 2300 in a standard detector housing and outfit it with a set of standard accessory coils. Don’t care about waterproof in the desert. Waterproof is nice, but not if it adds a pound or more. Waterproof should come with little or no weight penalty these days, and the Equinox proves.

So if Fisher just made something with SDC equivalent performance with 8” coil, but with better depth on large gold by way of larger coils, in an ergonomic package, at a reasonable price (under U.S.$2K)... I’d be thrilled.

I agree with Simon, a decent external speaker would be great. The speaker on the SDC sucks. It’s poor volume to start with, but then aiming it directly away from the operator makes it worse.

fisher-impulse-gold-logo-white-small.jpg

 

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Simon, I agree with you, if the minelab gpx style coils would work  you would have a wide range of all sorts of coils available immediately for use with the Impulse Gold. Would be very popular for sure. I know I love my Elite and Evo coils.

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1 hour ago, phrunt said:

Yup, why reinvent the wheel, we have a huge amount of coils available so it makes sense to take advantage of that if possible.

Because they have already reinvented the wheel to make coils that run at 7 uS for the Impulse AQ. Nice thought, but it is unlikely Fisher could gain any performance benefit by using Minelab coils when the coil tends to be one of the major limiting factors on getting a detector to work properly at 7 uS. I know that was a major hurdle for First Texas to overcome in manufacturing, and still may be. It is a far better bet to assume that the Impulse Gold will be coil compatible with the Impulse AQ. Hopefully we will see coils made just for prospecting however, as the round open spoke coils are more for in water use.

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Well, he did ask for a wish list, and we can always wish. Nothing says I'm right, just an educated guess. :smile:

I was after all one of the reasons the TDI ended up coil compatible with Minelab coils. Or at least when the question came up I voted that remain a top priority in the final product. I'd love it if there was somehow a way we could have over 100 accessory coils available for the Impulse Gold out of the starting gate. Or at least maybe compatibility with the Coiltek coils made for the SDC 2300?

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The ML coils would negate the advantages of the Impulse Gold. Alexandre has specialized in building advanced PI coils for MANY years. You can “go fishing” in the forums - especially in Europe and find references to Alexandre repairing Eric Foster coils or building new ones for Eric’s detectors for folks after Eric stopped doing that kind of work.

Every aspect of the AQ and the Gold is designed to work together to optimize the functionality and performance of the device at “The Job to Be Done”.

That’s why the AQ “Rejecting” silver coins isn’t a problem. In terms of the “job to be done” of finding gold jewelry, silver is an unwelcome distraction - FOCUS

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If it meets the following criteria, it should be a success here in Oz.

1. Must be able to handle highly mineralised soils. If it can totally blank out hot rocks like most modern Minelab's do, that will go a long way in becoming a success

2. Long run time, preferably 10 hrs plus

3. At least as sensitive as the SDC

4. Good EMI immunity

5. A good range of coils - three different sizes at launch is a good target 

6. Light but also robust. I.e. don't shave too much weight and we're left with a very flimsy toy. 

7. A manual analog frequency tune pot. 

8. An adjustable tone - probably should be top of the list! 

 

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Give me a removable battery pack.

Jim

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This sounds like a trivial thing, but I've always wanted a digital readout tied to each potentiometer, so I know exactly where each control is set at. Not really important for the Volume setting , but for discrimination, or pulse delay, I would love to line them up exactly.

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I wonder how far along First Texas is with the Gold variant.  I suspect most of us would prefer it to be released fairly soon (say within a year) with the features and properties already in the works than have to wait an extra year for mods.  All just WAGging.   OTOH, it can't hurt to ask/request/beg(?).

Fisher (both before and after First Texas acquired them) has created some detectors which not only rewrote the book but still are the book -- the Gold Bug II's performance on the tiny gold and the T2/F75 in the ergonomics' properties are a couple examples.  If they give these new Impulses as much attention in the ergonomics aspect as they did the T2/F75, that would be well received, IMO.  One improvement that, IMO, would enhance even the T2/F75 would be if the counterweight module could be user repositionable along the shaft.  That would allow fine-tuning for different weight coils.  To be clear, I'm not asking for the T2/F75 to be redesigned but rather to incorporate this adjustability to the Impulse.

Then again, maybe Fisher has already thought of this.  I think the same engineers who did the ergonomics for the T2/F75 still work there....  They already have that 'Oscar' in the trophy case but room for another!

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