GPX 6000 - How Do Others Compete?

[jasong]

Right. I'm not suggesting someone straight up copy the 4500 when it's patent expires.

What I'm saying is that someone like a Garrett or Fisher, or even Nokta could be free to develop already existing or similar designs similar to such a machine without the current fear of ending up with their own machine in litigation because ML didn't like the idea of a competitor. I've seen it posted that this is one reason that has kept other companies from really developing competing machines.

Stuff like the QED is based in part off earlier US designs, so it's not like there aren't people available here who don't have the understanding or capability to build such a machine, in fact we've seen posts from some of them showing they already have, at least generally speaking.

Then on top of that, a ton of stuff like noise filtering is simply built into inexpensive, powerful MCU's today. That alone, which clearly the 6000 is employing to some extent, goes a long way in modernizing a machine similar to a 4500. Add in modern ergonomics and good modern design, and sell it at cutthroat prices at a loss to develop a customer base, and a company might have something that at least puts them in the arena to try to compete on some level and maybe hire some engineers and scientists to start patenting ideas themselves and position themselves for the future. Because honestly, a big part of the tech business world today is about patent jockeying. 

The question in my mind is how much future does electronic prospecting have exactly? 20 years? 40? Is there enough for any prudent investors to even want to try to build something to compete with a giant? 

[jasong]

Also, given my personal experience with the GPZ and X Coils, I strongly feel that Minelab is intentionally crippling the capabilities of their machines through coils in order to create or sustain a market for their lesser machines. I'm not saying that to be argumentative. That's my opinion and my observation based on the information I have available, which is granted, not as extensive as what you have.

Maybe I'm wrong. But if not, that right there seems like a critical tactical error on their part which also gives an upstart company a good potential toehold into the realm of competitiveness with Minelab.

When it comes to the ZVT business anyways, which again, is probably impossible until the patents expire. But when they do, I know there are some US based engineers who have already built their own similar designs which might otherwise be held from market for fear of patent litigation. These designs with better performing coils, modern design, and an inexpensive price tag would certainly be an interesting entry into the market, depending on timing.

[Jonathan Porter]

I’m pretty certain things don’t work like that at Minelab and I’m pretty deeply entrenched in the development side of things at a very early stage. The GPZ was not crippled by its coils, as I have said before on this forum I used concentric coils on the prototypes so know exactly how they are going to behave. Yes in some cases as has been shown they work just fine but in the vast majority of mineralised ground they do not.

The detector has to work in the majority of ground types, the whole design process is dictated by this necessity. A company like ML is not going to invest big money into developing a detector that only works well in some areas, it has to work well in all areas especially where the majority of its sales are located.

[jasong]

But even the standard design NF coil is outperforming the stock Minelab coil on all sizes of gold you tested according to your report. In addition to being better in bad ground, and better with EMI.

I cannot find a logical reason to believe Minelab, undisputed king of detector technology, intentionally only produced 2 inferior coils and called it good there and stopped. Without some other logical reason.

If the reason isn't what I gave, then what is it?

 

[Steve Herschbach]

I’d argue it’s more via lack of coils. I am sure the coils are built as best as is possible, but by limiting key coils on models it helps keep each model more defined in capability one from the other. Other than that, do me a favor and turn the temp down in this discussion. It’s speculation and will lead nowhere positive I can see. We are doing the basic hit JP with questions he can’t answer thing. It’s not like he calls the shots at Minelab.

[Aureous]

Pulse Induction tech in all of its forms, whether single channel, multi channel (MPS) or BiPolar (ZVT) has plenty of scope for incremental improvement. The keys are all to do with coil current-transmit gain, frequency, pulse-train timings, sampling speed (MPF) and various methods of extracting the ground signal. All of these offer potential answers to extract more gold from the ground, either singularly, or in combination. For instance, can you imagine a high frequency, fast sampling BiPolar PI with high transmit gain using a DDO coil? I suspect there wouldn't be a single speck of gold left within a 2ft depth anywhere within a few years lol

[Aureous]

8 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

I’d argue it’s more via lack of coils. I am sure the coils are built as best as is possible, but by limiting key coils on models it helps keep each model more defined in capability one from the other. Other than that, do me a favor and turn the temp down in this discussion. It’s speculation and will lead nowhere positive I can see. We are doing the basic hit JP with questions he can’t answer thing. It’s not like he calls the shots at Minelab.

But, it is a key question which ML I fear, will never answer....if you are going to release only 1 coil for a detector....and then only one accessory coil a couple years later (as with the GPZ), then why not allow the aftermarket coil manufacturers to do the job for you? Especially within a short time-frame, as coil options sell more detectors. They did it with the SDC (finally) but not the GPZ until just recently. Coiltek is in the same city as ML's head office, where all the decisions are made. They would be the logical 1st option I'd suggest. But Nugget Finder also make sterling quality coils and so maybe a belated 'you're next in line' decision was made? 

Its all just an odd and curious situation. No high temp from me, just extreme curiosity...

[Jonathan Porter]

17 minutes ago, jasong said:

But even the standard design NF coil is outperforming the stock Minelab coil on all sizes of gold you tested according to your report. In addition to being better in bad ground, and better with EMI.

I cannot find a logical reason to believe Minelab, undisputed king of detector technology, intentionally only produced 2 inferior coils and called it good there and stopped. Without some other logical reason.

If the reason isn't what I gave, then what is it?

 

The difference between NF and what ML have provided (I also very strongly feel the lack of coil choices), is ML designed the coils over 6 years ago and they are mass produced. NF build there coils by hand and build them differently after carefully studying the ML offerings to avoid the hurdles of mass production. I’m sure if ML went back to the design process they would do things differently as is evidenced by the very light GPX 6000. 🤐😎😇

I have no real insight into why more coils were not provided other than guessing at lack of engineering staff because of other projects, it is clearly a highly emotive subject but seriously I’m not trying to justify why they do what they do, I can’t because as close as I am on some things I’m well out of the loop when these decisions are made. 

[Gold Catcher]

5 hours ago, Aureous said:

They did it with the SDC (finally)

IMO it is not necessary to have all machines always available with all coil options for plug/play. The SDC for instance is perfect with the 8 in mono, I am not following the concept of putting on bigger coils on a machine like the SDC that is made for shallow gold. I do miss the options for the GPZ, but for the new 6000  it appears the 11/14/17 coils pretty much cover what you need, with the 14DD being something very distinctive from other DD's from what we know thus far. I think ML wants to keep their coils as an integral part of their detector design/ franchise and chooses coils that they think are a the best matches for the respective machines and intended use. As I said, the 5000 being the only exception but likely being the last of it's kind. Just my view on things, perfectly fine to disagree. 🙂

[afreakofnature]

It actually saves you a bunch of money to not have to buy a bunch of coils for a machine you already own 😂.  When you don’t have any choice you don’t have to blow your cash 🤣.   Then you can save all that coil money that you would’ve blown to buy a new X6. 😊