New Minelab Manticore

[steveg]

6 hours ago, Chase Goldman said:

Cal,  I know this is a somewhat tongue in cheek sensationalist statement, but Tom D as an engineer should know that from an engineering fundamentals standpoint regarding a coil (not talking the interface chip), this is just a ridiculous take and also what’s the point of making it?  Was he trying the explain away ML’s propensity to not provide cross platform coil compatibility or were we supposed to be impressed from the imagined visual of Nox coils exploding when they are connected to the M-core’s 2.4 gigawatt flux capacitor?

As someone who also “enjoys the technology behind all this” because I am an electrical engineer and a detectorist, I CAN say ludicrous statements like this are literally blowing smoke and NOT moving the ball forward.  Tom D should know better.  I’m not worried about you drinking the M-core Kool Aid (it should be a great evolutionary step up from Equinox - I’m liking what I’m seeing as ML feeds us more info), but definitely watch out for whatever Tom is spiking that Kool Aid with.  

Chase, maybe I missed something, and I'm not an engineer, but I'm not sure what the issue is, with Tom's statement.  Here is the full statement he made...

"IF you could figure out a way to wire a EQX coil to the new Manticore...... the Manticore would blow/burn it out. Soooo...... coils are NOT interchangeable. (There's also other reasons for incompatibility)."

In context, he was just dumping information about the new machine.  These were bullet points, that he was dropping.  So it's just a "stand-alone statement" in context, trying to give those who are curious some info about the new unit.  Really, this appears to me to be just a statement saying "it wouldn't be wise to try to hook up an EQX coil to the Minticore."  In his "engineer" way, I think he was simply explaining that the coils are not compatible; in the context it was stated, he never mentioned or implied anything about the "50% more power to the coil" thing specifically, being the issue with coil compatibility.  I assumed MYSELF that this "incompatibility" had to do with "more power to the coil," and thus that the coil's electronics would be "burned up" due to the higher "power" going to the coil.  Am I incorrect there?

Steve

[Sinclair]

14 hours ago, Cal_Cobra said:

How much is a Minelab CTX where you're at? 

It's 2499€

dollar/€ is about 1:1 at the moment

[mn90403]

On 8/26/2022 at 7:34 AM, Steve Herschbach said:

There is no reason to expect old coils would work on it anyway.

Early in the thread.

[vive equinox]

6 hours ago, schoolofhardNox said:

No one said you had to take anyone's advice that's posted. You are complaining about something you think is true without even knowing if it is fact. Why not just ask Minelab?

I been doing this , this is the response : 

" Hello,

Thank you for your enquiry about the MANTICORE backlight.
At this stage there is minimal information available for the MANTICORE as it is still in it's final engineering stages.
I haven't had a chance to use one of these myself at this point but from what I have seen via the online videos the light on the detector is switched on/off by the button on the side of the control pod. 
The adjustments (1-10) for the back light setting will be changed through the on-screen menu. "

 

[PimentoUK]

All this talk of "burning out an Eqx coil" is just a steaming pile of horse manure. Please stop it.

A more pertinent question is:
What is Mandingo doing that the Eqx didn't do ?
Here's the Equinox transmitted signal:
"The Equinox transmits a complex square-edged waveform, that repeats every 385 microseconds.[ 2600 times per second]. In that waveform are 15 cycles of 39kHz, 7 cycles of 18.2kHz and 3 cycles of 7.8kHz. That is how the operating freqs are related to each other : 7.8k : 18.2k : 39k are ratios of 3 : 7 : 15."

This, as it stands is pretty good for: general detecting; low-conductor targeted detecting ( gold jewellery / ancient coins ); nugget hunting. The obvious weaker area is the lack of lower operating frequencies, which should ideally suit the high-conductor coin hunting niche, and potentially be useful in salt-water. The Deus2 can be seen to vary its MF frequency selections depending on mode, for example "Deep HC" uses a lower frequency mix ( 4.76 kHz & 14.3 Khz ).
So it's not unreasonable for Mandingo's freq blend to be variable - that alone, I think, is sufficient to warrant badging it "Multi-IQ+".

However, there is the X-Y display showing on the LCD screen. If this is anything like the FE/CO FBS system, it requires one l..o..n..g transmit cycle in its waveform to perform a 'Pseudo-PI' transmission. This is not possible with the Eqx's Multi-IQ waveform, there's simply too many high-freq signals in it.
One possibility is they have created a mash-up of FBS and Multi-IQ. If the above waveform lasting 385 microsecs was alternated with a single cycle of 2.6 kHz, there would then be enough time to do the Pseudo-PI, and hence generate the "FE" signal of the FBS system. FBS uses a single cycle of 3.125kHz, so 2.6kHz is similar enough, and probably slightly better, at allowing this 'trick'.
A down-side of this may be that there will be a slowing-down of the performance, much like the CTX is slower than the Eqx, due to the main TX waveform only being transmitted half as often. So it may be a user option: if you want 'CTX-style', you get slower response, if you choose 'Eqx-style', you get the speed.

[Chase Goldman]

5 hours ago, steveg said:

  I assumed MYSELF that this "incompatibility" had to do with "more power to the coil," and thus that the coil's electronics would be "burned up" due to the higher "power" going to the coil.  Am I incorrect there?

Steve - that's the point.  Who knows who's correct. This stuff is just being thrown out there without any substantiation.  I agree with your point on context.  In context, that statement is not necessarily ridiculous but really kind of irrelevant to the point of coil compatibility.  Folks (including Tom D himself as he now has a self-admitted stake in M-core's success (his reputation) and is now explicitly part of the marketing machine rather than an objective subject matter expert) are taking such statements and conflating them with the 50% power stuff and other breathless proclamations and throwing it out there with little concrete technical specificity and that just adds to the self-hype factor.  

This is just the grumpy engineer in me talking (I like documented specs and real world results vs. hype and bloviation) with the subtext that we basically have a significantly improved Equinox here in the M-core, nothing more, nothing less.  And that's OK.  In fact, it's great.  But it's also not a game changer simply because of more power, better submergence, better menu navigation, CF shafts, vibrating handles, light sensors, big batteries, or even 2D target trace.

Speaking of context, in contrast, Equinox itself was truly groundbreaking for detecting at the time of launch in the sense that it broke several of Minelab's own paradigms (let alone the detecting industry's) associated with SMF performance (speed), situational all-terrain versatility (truly a detectorist's swiss army knife), ergonomics, weight, and cost...and it took about 4.5 years for the competition to catch up to Equinox.  Equinox's performance and features were also being compared to detectors that cost 2 to 3 times as much as Nox at the time.  That was worth all the late 2017/early 2018 hype.  It was a game changer for detecting at the time and that was exemplified by its popularity and was a motivating factor for the other manufacturers that brought us Legend, D2, and even Apex for that matter (i.e., positive rippling effects that were good for detector users).   The irony is, in the latter half of 2022, M-core appears to be an incrementally better machine than Equinox (and costs about a Nokta Legend's more than Nox) in terms of performance and has some great features add ons, but that in and of itself, is not a groundbreaking proposition compared to what Equinox was in 2018.

Not trying to suppress the excitement, just tempering the over-the-top hype and unrealistic expectations.

 

[Chase Goldman]

1 hour ago, PimentoUK said:

All this talk of "burning out an Eqx coil" is just a steaming pile of horse manure. Please stop it.

A more pertinent question is:
What is Mandingo doing that the Eqx didn't do ?
Here's the Equinox transmitted signal:
"The Equinox transmits a complex square-edged waveform, that repeats every 385 microseconds. In that waveform are 15 cycles of 39kHz, 7 cycles of 18.2kHz and 3 cycles of 7.8kHz. That is how the operating freqs are related to each other : 7.8k : 18.2k : 39k are ratios of 3 : 7 : 15."

This, as it stands is pretty good for: general detecting; low-conductor targeted detecting ( gold jewellery / ancient coins ); nugget hunting. The obvious weaker area is the lack of lower operating frequencies, which should ideally suit the high-conductor coin hunting niche, and potentially be useful in salt-water. The Deus2 can be seen to vary its MF frequency selections depending on mode, for example "Deep HC" uses a lower frequency mix.
So it's not unreasonable for Mandingo's freq blend to be variable - that alone is sufficient to warrant badging it "Multi-IQ+".

However, there is the X-Y display showing on the LCD screen. If this is anything like the FE/CO FBS system, it requires one l..o..n..g transmit cycle in its waveform to perform a 'pseudo-PI' transmission. This is not possible with the Eqx's Multi-IQ waveform, there's simply too many high-freq signals in it.
One possibility is they have created a mash-up of FBS and Multi-IQ. If the above waveform lasting 385 microsecs was alternated with a single cycle of 2.6 kHz, there would then be enough time to do the Pseudo-PI, and hence generate the "FE" signal of the FBS system. FBS uses a single cycle of 3.125kHz, so 2.6kHz is similar enough, and probably slightly better, at allowing this trick.
A down-side of this may be that ther will be a slowing-down of the performance, much like the CTX is slower than the Eqx, due to the main TX waveform only being transmitted half as often. So it may be an option: if you want 'CTX-style', you get slower response, if you choose 'Eqx-style', you get the speed.
 

True.  Which is why I think Miralax is more of an Equinox on a very mild dose of steroids than even a CTX light.  We'll see once the hype machine calms down and we get real world user results months from now, as to how much speed it sacrifices for the "deep TID accuracy" modes, but I also suspect that the power increase may be feeding some sort of signal processing to regain response (vs. CTX) and to feed the rudimentary 2D display graphics beast. 

[steveg]

1 hour ago, PimentoUK said:

All this talk of "burning out an Eqx coil" is just a steaming pile of horse manure. Please stop it.
 

Pimento -- I, and I would assume others, don't understand the issue here, and you didn't do anything to explain WHAT the issue is.  So, just saying "stop it" is of little use.  You and Chase clearly see some issue in this discussion.  I don't, and so a bit of explaining would have helped...

Anyway...

 

Quote

A more pertinent question is:
What is Mandingo doing that the Eqx didn't do ?
Here's the Equinox transmitted signal:
"The Equinox transmits a complex square-edged waveform, that repeats every 385 microseconds. In that waveform are 15 cycles of 39kHz, 7 cycles of 18.2kHz and 3 cycles of 7.8kHz. That is how the operating freqs are related to each other : 7.8k : 18.2k : 39k are ratios of 3 : 7 : 15."

This, as it stands is pretty good for: general detecting; low-conductor targeted detecting ( gold jewellery / ancient coins ); nugget hunting. The obvious weaker area is the lack of lower operating frequencies, which should ideally suit the high-conductor coin hunting niche, and potentially be useful in salt-water. The Deus2 can be seen to vary its MF frequency selections depending on mode, for example "Deep HC" uses a lower frequency mix.
So it's not unreasonable for Mandingo's freq blend to be variable - that alone is sufficient to warrant badging it "Multi-IQ+".

However, there is the X-Y display showing on the LCD screen. If this is anything like the FE/CO FBS system, it requires one l..o..n..g transmit cycle in its waveform to perform a 'pseudo-PI' transmission. This is not possible with the Eqx's Multi-IQ waveform, there's simply too many high-freq signals in it.
One possibility is they have created a mash-up of FBS and Multi-IQ. If the above waveform lasting 385 microsecs was alternated with a single cycle of 2.6 kHz, there would then be enough time to do the Pseudo-PI, and hence generate the "FE" signal of the FBS system. FBS uses a single cycle of 3.125kHz, so 2.6kHz is similar enough, and probably slightly better, at allowing this trick.
A down-side of this may be that ther will be a slowing-down of the performance, much like the CTX is slower than the Eqx, due to the main TX waveform only being transmitted half as often. So it may be an option: if you want 'CTX-style', you get slower response, if you choose 'Eqx-style', you get the speed.

Can you talk a little more about this "pseudo-PI" transmission that you say FBS uses, and how that allows the generation of an "FE" signal?  I find this fascinating, but don't have enough knowledge to entirely follow.  But, this "trick" of which you speak sounds quite fascinating and I'd like to understand better.

So, are you saying that there could be two DIFFERENT transmissions going on -- an "EQX-like" waveform, and then an "FBS-like" waveform, such that Manticore, in a way, actually COULD be a sort of blend of both FBS and Multi-IQ (just as the "Manticore" name would imply -- i.e. the mythical "multi-species" creature)?

Steve

[schoolofhardNox]

5 hours ago, vive equinox said:

I been doing this , this is the response : 

" Hello,

Thank you for your enquiry about the MANTICORE backlight.
At this stage there is minimal information available for the MANTICORE as it is still in it's final engineering stages.
I haven't had a chance to use one of these myself at this point but from what I have seen via the online videos the light on the detector is switched on/off by the button on the side of the control pod. 
The adjustments (1-10) for the back light setting will be changed through the on-screen menu. "

 

That statement comes directly from MInelab??? Or is it from a dealer? If that's directly from Minelab, I would be shocked that they could not answer that question. In any event, I hope you can get your answer.

[PimentoUK]

'Burnt coil' first:

The power put into a detectors coil is VERY small, 10's of milliwatts, enough to light an LED, for example the little red 'standby' light on your TV. So even if this power were increased +50%, it would still be a pathetic amount of power. Nothing will burn, burst into a mass of flaming plastic and copper, explode etc. So any suggestion that Mandingo is capable of such havoc is baloney, and is likely a failed attempt at 'hype'.

Only two things of relevance come from "+50% more power":

A potential improvement in EMI handling. If there's 23% more voltage on the TX coil, there's +23% more return signal from the target and the ground .... but the EMI signal remains the same. Hence a modest improvement in signal-to-noise ratio, which is useful.

Increased current drain on the battery pack. However ... the Eqx draws about 420 mA, from a single Li cell, say 3.8V, hence 1.6 Watts. Of which less than 0.2W [my estimate] is spent driving the coil , the rest is microprocessor / ADC / signal amplifiers / LCD screen/ audio amplifier / wireless TX/RX etc etc. So the new machine will be similar; most power is the inner workings, the 'enhanced' coil power is not a major contributor.