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Minelab Coil Patent Application


VicR

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Thinking out loud here ....taking lots of wire and winding it in circles like they have been doing for decades ...why not build one big custom made wire or antenna what ever it's called for the coil...advantages/disadvantages? 

strick 

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Making a flat wrap of wire like flat licorice would be neater and easier but wrapping it into a circle or elliptical shape wouldn't be possible I would think? they'd have to make the wire the shape of each coil already as each wrap of wire is shorter than the last.

Licorice.jpg.4d6d7dd358d1e3b2ad57461087b5313d.jpg

 

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On 2/28/2022 at 11:13 AM, phrunt said:

Some important information from that Patent application.  It looks like Minelab is in the business of making new coils 🙂 This is obviously a new coil for a gold detector, could it be the GPZ 8000? Why release a completely new design coil for existing detectors when you could cash in on a new model.  Pretty cool, new improved spiral windings.

I wonder if you'd technically even need a new machine though? This coil in their diagrams and most of their description is just a spiral wound mono coil, and so technically I suppose it could work on an old 5000. The difference is just how it's wound/molded, with the vertical section in the front/back or in the case of Fig 3, the dual level horizontal sections. The wiring is simply still just a mono though.

The way the patent explains the physics behind it sounds like no special signal processing is required to gain the advantage of decrease saturation in the front/back while maintaining the advantage of the spiral windings being closer to the ground on the sides. 

That said, I'm sure modern signal processing in a new machine could probably squeeze even more benefit out of it, and well lets be honest, Minelab is going to squeeze as much $ as they can out of any product so that probably does mean a new machine and chipped coil, as you guessed. 🙂

They do make one brief mention of the idea that you could layer these windings (aka - 2+ coils in one), and that would definitely require a new detector to interpret and drive it. 

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Also, 2 or more coils stacked on top of each other could technically operate as a gradiometer. IE, not just detect the signal but detect the gradient of field decay and strength of a signal. Technically speaking, such ideas might conceivably used to differentiate targets by size and depth with signal processing. 

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1 hour ago, jasong said:

Also, 2 or more coils stacked on top of each other could technically operate as a gradiometer. IE, not just detect the signal but detect the gradient of field decay and strength of a signal. Technically speaking, such ideas might conceivably used to differentiate targets by size and depth with signal processing. 

Another coil manufacturer experimented with stacked coil windings and a co-planar spiral-wound coil. They found these couldn't be patented because of prior designs. But that has never stopped ML from doing it anyway lol. Minelab haven't been interested in building/designing coils since the early GPX days (Commander) UNLESS there was a new detector in the wings. My guess is a new GPZ in 2023.

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21 minutes ago, Aureous said:

My guess is a new GPZ in 2023.

A coil like explained in the patent Simon posted would mostly be beneficial for highly mineralized or highly variable ground. I think it mostly applies to saturable (FeO) ground, not conductive (salt) ground, but I might be missing something there. I'm not sure I see an immediate benefit of running one in mild ground. In fact, I can imagine a case where such a coil might actually miss or provide much weaker signals on nuggets if detected 90 degrees the wrong way, which have a very large difference between their radial and axial sizes (nail-like, or flake like) and so a person in mild ground may actually not choose to run such a coil and it would be a detriment to have this coil only on a detector.

I might be missing something though. But it's that idea, along with the idea that as explained in the patent there is nothing stopping a person from running such a coil on a 4500/5000, that it sounds like it may be a standalone coil. However, people are right that Minelab has never been in the "coil business" and they certainly do take the opportunity to make as much $ as they can off products, and that may mean an entirely new detector.

I'm not sure Simon's coil is actually the coil VicR posted about originally, so something additional may be in store there.

I do agree it's about time for a nice, lightweight and more powerful GPZ though!

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double post, sorry

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Patents might be to prevent any aftermarket manufacturers, not just ones prevented by chips.  I don't know if a detector would only work with a certain coil design though? The Concentric coils on the GPZ have become very popular and they're so different to the standard DOD design.  Could they make a detector that only works with the design of coil they provide with it and then have a patent on the coil deisgn so nobody can make their own coils for it?

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4 minutes ago, phrunt said:

Patents might be to prevent any aftermarket manufacturers, no just ones prevented by chips.  I don't know if a detector would only work with a certain coil design though? The Concentric coils on the GPZ have become very popular and they're so different to the standard DOD design.  Could they make a detector that only works with the design of coil they provide with it and then have a patent on the coil deisgn so nobody can make their own coils for it?

As aggressive as Minelab has been in court, I wonder if they sometimes just make patents on the chance (likely or outside) that they will come up with an application for it, and meanwhile dare anyone to try something close.

When you're the big bully on the block you can sometimes get by with just flexing your muscles....  That is until David comes along with his slingshot.

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