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Any News On Fisher Waterproof AQ


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3 hours ago, NV-OR-ID-CAL-AU said:

Geotech,

IMHO For the professional prospector definitely manual GB. For the newer prospectors or patch hunters on widely variable mineralized ground, less noise is preferable until they get more comfortable with the different sounds so tracking GB would be best. New detector users like more simplicity, so to expand your market to both types of users will be probably better accomplished by having both options available at some point in time.

For now I would suggest do what Minelab does by starting with a new model dectector, then in two years add a couple of better options to re-up sales again. This will get the detector to the market sooner and give you time to fine tune the tracking GB for the next release. 

So glad to hear this detector can compare to the SDC’s performance, hopefully the price and weight will be better too, unless it has some decent discrimination.

Can you describe the discrimination abilities on this new detector?

 Thank You,

Ron

The AQ and Impulse Gold have no discrimination at all in the classic sense. The AQ is using manipulation of the ground balance via presets to achieve a pseudo discrimination function. In other words, they are using the ground balance to discriminate instead of ground balance, leaving the machine out of balance in many situations.

The inability to adjust the ground balance on the AQ makes it non-functional in some ground. For gold prospecting, the ground balance must revert to its intended use, and so there would be no discrimination per se. However, the Gold version would be able to get similar results by purposefully offsetting/misadjusting the ground balance. All in all it is very similar to how people were getting discriminations results with the TDI, and from my use the Impulse feels like nothing more than a finely tuned high power TDI. Whether that is technically correct or not…. that is how it acts and feels. Once you understand this, then all questions about discrimination etc. can be understood.

 

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2 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

The AQ and Impulse Gold have no discrimination at all in the classic sense. The AQ is using manipulation of the ground balance via presets to achieve a pseudo discrimination function. In other words, they are using the ground balance to discriminate instead of ground balance, leaving the machine out of balance in many situations.

The inability to adjust the ground balance on the AQ makes it non-functional in some ground. For gold prospecting, the ground balance must revert to its intended use, and so there would be no discrimination per se. However, the Gold version would be able to get similar results by purposefully offsetting/misadjusting the ground balance. All in all it is very similar to how people were getting discriminations results with the TDI, and from my use the Impulse feels like nothing more than a finely tuned high power TDI. Whether that is technically correct or not…. that is how it acts and feels. Once you understand this, then all questions about discrimination etc. can be understood.

Steve,

Great explanation of why this would be a dig all PI in order to not lose the PI depth advantage over a VLF, we can still look forward to a lighter land package and hopefully a price tag that will meet the market for people wanting to get there first PI experience on a budget.

 

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5 hours ago, NV-OR-ID-CAL-AU said:

So glad to hear this detector can compare to the SDC’s performance, hopefully the price and weight will be better too, I’d pay even more if it has some decent discrimination also.

Can you describe the discrimination abilities on this new detector?

It is light and a breeze to swing. No idea on the price, that hasn't been decided yet. I've lobbied for $2k. No discrimination, it happily finds those rotten can flakes.

4 hours ago, phrunt said:

The reason I think tracking or at least a ground grab would be good on this detector is the market it needs to go for.

...

One of the biggest problems I see with QED users especially new to detecting ones or new owners is they get confused how to ground balance it and find it too hard to use and understand, so making it a bit more simple than the QED would probably be worthwhile if it must be completely manual.

In most places I did not find the manual GB to be an issue. But in one locale the ground varied by the meter and I found myself tweaking the GB every few swings. Once I swap the locations of the fine/coarse knobs then it will be fairly easy to use the thumb to tweak the GB control on-the-fly. As I recall, the QED has to be placed in a particular mode to adjust GB which makes it difficult & tedious. Impulse GB works in any mode.

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Compared to swinging the SDC the Impulse is an ergonomic dream come true. If performance is similar, and the price is right, Fisher will have a real winner. And honestly, getting away from the issues surrounding trying to make a submersible detector would help a lot! Dry land or wading, ditch the epoxy filled box for serviceability, no worries about knob corrosion, battery integrity, etc. I never understood why a beach machine was getting all the attention first, when the nugget + relic market is a larger slice of the pie.

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The QED could ground balance in any mode, it just had what I consider a failed attempt at a ground grab using the AGB button that got you somewhere in the general vicinity of balanced but you really had to adjust it further to get the balance right, often it was just easier to balance yourself completely and not even try use the AGB button and it caused people quite a bit of confusion.

I think it's pretty exciting that the project is coming along, the key to success is going to be pricing, hopefully Fisher isn't going to try get too much for it.

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1 hour ago, Steve Herschbach said:

I never understood why a beach machine was getting all the attention first, when the nugget + relic market is a larger slice of the pie.

The beach version is what Alexandre had focused on and was ready first. It did not have the small sensitivity of the (e.g.) SDC2300 and we didn't know how tough that would be to solve. Turns out dropping delay from 7us to 3us wasn't as hard as I feared, although it remains to be seen if FTP can manufacture it.

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3 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

knob corrosion

I've been slacking, I need to get back on this project. Got into a after burner project for the excalibur to spank the D2, it's sucked up all my bench time.

 

AQ FP.jpg

20210718_021131.jpg

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15 hours ago, Joe Beechnut OBN said:

I've been slacking, I need to get back on this project. Got into a after burner project for the excalibur to spank the D2, it's sucked up all my bench time.

 

AQ FP.jpg

20210718_021131.jpg

...and the list just keeps getting longer.  😉 jk

Looking good.  Don't let "spanking" that pesky D2 detract you from more important work, Joe.    

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