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GPX 6000 - How Do Others Compete?


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37 minutes ago, Northeast said:

That process commenced yesterday for me  🀣

Sold my Harley months ago on speculation 🀣. Have already rung it in to Nenad Β at Phase Technical to put me on his buy one list πŸ‘πŸ‘πŸ‘πŸ‘πŸ‘πŸ‘πŸ‘Β 

will have to find enough gold to buy another bike πŸ€‘πŸ€‘πŸ€‘πŸ€‘

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3 minutes ago, Minerjosh said:

and my other half gets flowers haha

I wish it would be thatΒ easy for me....

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4 hours ago, jasong said:

I don't know much about it either. Which to me demonstrates one of their weak points as a company in terms of being able to take on a major detecting company.

Outside of forums, in the US, I doubt many have even heard of it. In the Middle East/Africa where the market for such a machine seems to be ripe, I wonder how many know a lot about it?

Point being, seems to me they have more hurdles than just keeping up with ML tech. But again, I know nothing about them except that I know nothing, which itself seems to be a problem they need to solve in a general sense among potential customers.

The QED hasΒ a niche market. Since it has been designed, manufactured and until recently distributed byΒ one man (Howard Rocky) It's clearly notΒ in direct competition with any other company.Β 

It draws on no MinelabΒ patents, but utilisesΒ patentsΒ (expired and under license) from some of the PI detector pioneers. This makes it more of a parallel development.

"A single channel Pulse Induction metal detector using a differential integrator as the null summation / averaging means to null the ground and static magnetic fields. The Ground Balance method is based on the published papers or lapsed patents of the early pioneers Eric Foster, Poole, Chapman and Howells and more recently the lapsed patent of Dr. George Paltoglou and Australian Innovation Patent AU2010101019. The front-end blocking circuitry is US Patent No.: 10,181,720 B1, dated 15 Jan 2019 by Dave Emery and is used under license. Click here to read the Dave Emery Patent. Average current consumption 400mA, voltage limits 6v min to 10v max. Audio PWM VCO & VCA. Digitization method Bipolar Integrating (200uS) ADC Display, 3 digit LED Backlit Transflective LCD EMI Compliance # E5498"

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10 minutes ago, goldenoldie said:

I expect the reason why you are now selling your QED towards purchasing a 6000.Β 

Correct.Β  Going to be some gold getting sold too.Β Β 

Going to see the Doc this afternoon, might check if I actually need both of these pesky kidneys too  🀣

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2 hours ago, jrbeatty said:

It's clearly notΒ in direct competition with any other company.Β 

If that's the case then I don't know that we have any companies even trying to compete with Minelab then. When it comes to gold machines anyways.

The ATX, the Impulse? What current ML product would those even be competing with?

I believe there are places a smartly run company could tactically take market share, especially with patents like the 4500 on the chopping block soon. It wouldn't be in the flagship product range though. Such a smartly run company might find some opportunity to tackle larger projects eventually.

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35 minutes ago, jasong said:

If that's the case then I don't know that we have any companies even trying to compete with Minelab then. When it comes to gold machines anyways.

The ATX, the Impulse? What current ML product would those even be competing with?

I believe there are places a smartly run company could tactically take market share, especially with patents like the 4500 on the chopping block soon. It wouldn't be in the flagship product range though. Such a smartly run company might find some opportunity to tackle larger projects eventually.

The only REAL competition is with themselves and time. Once the market appears saturated for any particular niche, sales begin to wither and they then know, its time to release the next bit of technical improvement to bolster sales once again. ML are always 3-5 years ahead of themselves in either theory, bench-concept or field prototype. The massive profit margins they reap (always 70%+)Β  allow big R&D expenditure to 'reach into the future' and slay any potential rival. Only Garrett and Nokta appear capable of building anything that would even come close to some of ML's product range. The ATX, Impulse and QED are currently the only gold machines (with further modifications) within screaming distance of ML's products. But, once the 6000 is released, a new GPZ and maybe an updated SDC in coming years, the catch-up race is even further stretched.

Plus, the patents issue is always strenuously pursued by ML....their ground tracking and MPS (multi-channel PI) patents are ancient and yet still enforced at great cost....again, to throttle potential competition. Not sure how long this can last (legally) but you can bet that ML will try.

Β 

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8 hours ago, Gold Catcher said:

I wish it would be thatΒ easy for me....

mine said your 4000 has been shit , your 2100 was shit, you found all your gold with the 3500 , buy a 6000 and get your arse out there and show me gold ......😘  easy peasey ........

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3 hours ago, Aureous said:

The only REAL competition is with themselves and time.

Agree. I am of course, as I often do, playing a bit of a devil's advocate for the sake of interesting discussion since this thread is literally asking "how does anyone compete with Minelab".

However, I will note here, thatΒ just a few month before the 6000 news came out, I was virtually one of the only people posting here that I still thought there was room to advance PI technology and suggesting how it might be done - some of those suggestions now being seen in the 6000, while most other postersΒ were saying PI already reached it's limit of progression and we won't see many (or any) more advancements there.

Seems like pretty much everyone has changed their minds now.Β πŸ˜„Β But I still believe there are some fairly inexpensive ways to advance something like a 4500 when it's patent expires, and make a fairly competitive machine in some markets, especially if a company was willing to weather a few years of losses and do some really cuthroat pricing schemes.

Anyways. Eventually ML will reach a tech barrier unless they find totally new technology. And that 20 year clock is always ticking. Therein lies opportunity for some company. Eventually. If anyone is even still seriously detecting for gold by that time, whenever it might be.

Β 

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There’s a snagΒ inΒ the twenty year rule concept of patents expiry, one is the competitor will be using patents that will produce a detector that is essentially 20Β years old performance wise compared to more current patents and 2ndly those developing gear based around expired patents need to understand the art to be able to produce something in the first place. I don’t mean to sound arrogant or dismissive here.

I presumeΒ the Garrett ATX and the QED both do that to some extent patents wise and from memory the QED did come up against some breach of patent query’s at one stage during its development.

Β 

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