Wm-08 Module With Equinox 900 ?

[Chase Goldman]

15 hours ago, PimentoUK said:

I know electronics is my area of expertise, but I've no idea how much the wireless chip, it's associated peripheral bits, and the cost of placing them on the board would cost. Then there's the extra PCB area - this costs too, and makes the machine bigger. Not forgetting the pile of software that the main brains has to run in order to control the WiStream link; remove that, and the designers have a load of free program memory, that could be used to add functionality to the detector.

Understood.  The only point I was trying to make was that it's apparent ML has decided to Sunset their proprietary WiStream accessories going forward for whatever reason be it cost, packaging, memory, or...? I am sure if they really wanted to keep it alive, they could have figured out how to engineer it into their new generic/multi-platform control head/shaft form factor.  But they have moved on, embraced the Nordic chipset and the outlook for home grown or third party wireless audio accessories (especially headphone receiver packs) for the Nox/M-core/Xterra Pro platforms is murky leaving users stuck for the time being or bolting on additional transmitters to a detector that already has a radio.  Disappointing.

[GB_Amateur]

4 hours ago, PimentoUK said:

Wi-Stream system is supposedly not needed, as the Bluetooth LE specification equals it, in terms of latency, anyway.

Do we know that for sure?  The Manticore Bluetooth latency was brought up in discussions here early on -- I know since much of that was from me!  There were many latency numbers tossed around for Bluetooth 5.3 Low Energy, from 5 ms up to about 40 ms.  I think the WM08 latency is between 15 and 20 ms.

I looked in the Manticore downloadable manual (from early December) and couldn't find the latency spec anywhere.

[PimentoUK]

Hmm, I suppose when I said "Equals it ..", I really meant: "Has sufficiently low latency that it's not really noticeable to most people in a detecting scenario, hence it's comparable to WiStream"

WiStream may be 20msec, BT-LE may be 30msec, but you would be hard pressed to tell. After all, [i]most[/i] detectors have over 70msec latency, and you get used to that.
[ Tek T2 / Fisher F75 stated as 78msec lag in normal detecting modes, I'm unsure about the newer FA (fast) mode ]

Edit:
Here's a photo of the Eqx 800 PCB: the two completely seperate wireless systems are at the top edge of the PCB ( with the chamfered corners ). The black squares are the RF chips, there's a seperate quartz crystal oscillator module for each chip, a fair pile of R's and C's on top and bottom of the board. They couple together into one antenna, along the edge of the board. ( these are the official EMC test lab photos )

https://md-hunter.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/opening-the-minelab-equinox-800-600-03.jpg

[phrunt]

I think it's funny people think Minelab made their own wireless audio chipset, of course they didn't.  That would never make good business sense to spend developing that.

LE adjusts and can be fixed to a latency a product developer chooses, and manufacturers can make their product to only support the lowest of latency, it's no free lunch, audio quality is affected with lower bitrates but certainly not detector audio quality.  The headphones included with the Manticore will be very low latency, I haven't even powered them on and I doubt I ever will but I doubt they're running at the higher end of LE's latency range. 

We are crying now there isn't much support, but it's only a new technology, give it time and a huge range of stuff will be available for it, it is becoming the standard. 

 

[Chase Goldman]

3 hours ago, phrunt said:

I think it's funny people think Minelab made their own wireless audio chipset, of course they didn't.  That would never make good business sense to spend developing that.

LE adjusts and can be fixed to a latency a product developer chooses, and manufacturers can make their product to only support the lowest of latency, it's no free lunch, audio quality is affected with lower bitrates but certainly not detector audio quality.  The headphones included with the Manticore will be very low latency, I haven't even powered them on and I doubt I ever will but I doubt they're running at the higher end of LE's latency range. 

We are crying now there isn't much support, but it's only a new technology, give it time and a huge range of stuff will be available for it, it is becoming the standardDon't recall 

Don't recall anyone in this thread saying ML made their own chipset.  If you referring to my post, I said that ML WiStream (I previously erroneously misidentifed it as WiMax and corrected that) proprietary wireless audio didn't need to be licensed from Qualcomm like APTX (i.e., the Codec family).  Despite using an off the shelf chipset common to other proprietary wireless solutions from Garrett and Quest, WiStream was indeed ML's proprietary wireless audio solution (just like their detectors, which also use off the shelf chipsets) and unlike BT APTX-LL hardware which is compatible with other APTX-LL hardware across brands, is not universally compatible with other 3rd party wireless radios using the same TI chipset.  In fact, in typical ML fashion, similar to their coils, they made sure their own WiStream modules were not compatible between their own detector platforms.  Something Garrett and Quest do not do with their "TI PurePath" proprietary wireless audio solutions.

Also, notice what PUHH said in his post, just because they have adopted a BT LE Audio compatible chipset, that doesn't mean they are using BT LE Audio and the LC3 CODEC for their detector wireless audio that would ensure that it is compatible with 3rd party BT LE Audio accessories once they start hitting the marketplace.  It might be locked down by ML or utilizing a proprietary codec (doubtful, but who knows at this point).  Unlike their APTX-LL implementation, ML has not explicitly mentioned BT LE Audio or LC3 codec compatibility or touted compatibility with forthcoming 3rd party or ML branded BT LE Audio accessories.  We just don't know yet.  Either way, it would have been nice to retain WiStream WM08 module compatibility on these new Nox's at least to bridge the gap until 3rd party BT LE Audio HW existed (if it is indeed compatible), despite the engineering challenges that approach presented as pointed out by PimentoUK.  But instead of including a WM08 (or equivalent) like with the Nox 800, they force us to buy a 6" coil with the 900 whether we need it or not.

[phrunt]

I was meaning in general Chase, it's surprising how many people assume the technology is something Minelab made themselves, sort of like reinventing the wheel I think and just not something they would devote time and money and hire staff capable of doing, then the cost of making the chips.... just not going to happen. 

Their detectors benefit from advancements in technology from component manufacturers, newer models are often improved greatly by those advancements and then manufacturers like Minelab can take advantage of hardware improving over time.

It's similar to coders for games on computers, the hardware is often the restrictive thing, some of the early tricks thy used to get games to work on hardware it shouldn't be able to work on in the early days of games was pretty awesome.

 

[Chase Goldman]

19 hours ago, phrunt said:

I was meaning in general Chase, it's surprising how many people assume the technology is something Minelab made themselves, sort of like reinventing the wheel I think and just not something they would devote time and money and hire staff capable of doing, then the cost of making the chips.... just not going to happen. 

Their detectors benefit from advancements in technology from component manufacturers, newer models are often improved greatly by those advancements and then manufacturers like Minelab can take advantage of hardware improving over time.

It's similar to coders for games on computers, the hardware is often the restrictive thing, some of the early tricks thy used to get games to work on hardware it shouldn't be able to work on in the early days of games was pretty awesome.

 

Gotcha, thanks.

Yep, you are correct.  The in-house engineering is primarily to develop their IP, the algorithms  and they basically project manage the integration of the platform whose electronic, power, and mechanical design and manufacturing is outsourced to subs.