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New Detectors Via Kickstarter Or Indiegogo?


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Tieing into what daniel TN is saying for the only drawbacks...that is why i made those two wishes(see below).

I could use my Wish 1  V series(multifrequency) unit for most everything but really tough ground where i would want my wish 2 gold/relic unit.  It's all about customer demand and numbers for these small manufacturers in the metal detecting space. I think often we the metal detector customers dont call the owners and let them know what is going on. Other causes call the owners, collect numbers online that show support, and gather money support online which always directs and causes change. Personally like many of you folks i get tired of waiting for the best machines to come out. Especially gold machines which can pay for themselves. I also get these companies are small and don't have infinite resources.

But i think in the new online modern age WE can change that model. Like many folks today we can put up money for a kickstarter or indiegogo effort if white's would agree to such a crowd sourced development effort. Just like all other kickstarter/indiegogo cases those that invest larger amounts equal to the unit price get a free unit and more.

For instance a 1000 investor/customers for each would be worth like...

Wish 1 unit cost~2k-- available funding=2 million dollars

Wish 2 unit cost-4k- available funding=4 million dollars

I dont know if this the amount they need, less, or more to develop these units, it would depend on what White's said. But if minelab took 10 million for development of GPZ  as folks are claiming online.  i think 6 million dollars could get the job done quickly for whites on these two "wish" machines or something similar!  And they would get out the top 2 machines price/function wise on the high end for all metal detectorists.

Steve--maybe this is something you talk to White's on and co-lead with White's the online/partners effort for? 

Reminder of wishes...

Wish 1---ultra-ultra rugged/water proof design(leupold like casing) for the V series. Shouldnt be too hard since leupold makes their stuff in newberg, oregon at 3D plastics not too far from whites electronics HQ. Want it to be chest mountable. Would love it if they could do what depar and xp are doing and add that fourth frequency for gold hunting! Then all of my gmt and mxsport coils could work on that unit. 

Wish 2--same type of cased design as wish 1. But i want a super high power--nautilus level voltage(44Volts) + TDI level current--multi channel pulse gold/relic detector. I want more power to punch deeper into rough ground! I would also like some type of auto ground tuning to check strength, phase and other properties. While asking for my holy grail i want it to optimize the channels/pulses/machine to reduce the effect of the ground and environment around the machine based on profiles i setup on the fly or ahead of time. Also how about some ultra light weight accessory coils to compete with mindlab's new GPZ coils! Miner john, Coiltech or Detech could build these for white's if they think they are too low volume to make themselves.

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The idea of crowd sourcing a detector is intriguing. The first hurdle is coming up with something everyone can agree on enough to attract the money, but the real problem of course is turning wishes into reality. Most detectors are just old ideas in new boxes. To be truly new, truly different, requires access to patentable ideas from brilliant engineers. And as we have all seen making those brilliant ideas actually work is a difficult project indeed.

The reality for me personally is I am not a techie and am far more interested in using detectors then making them. I still have to finish a simple detector mod I started and never finished a couple years ago!

The good news is I think we will see all the stuff we want anyway in the next couple years. If not from White's then somebody else.

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On 12/18/2016 at 0:02 PM, MDCHIEFSH said:

Steve--maybe this is something you talk to White's on and co-lead with White's the online/partners effort for? 

Reminder of wishes...

Wish 1---ultra-ultra rugged/water proof design(leupold like casing) for the V series. Shouldnt be too hard since leupold makes their stuff in newberg, oregon at 3D plastics not too far from whites electronics HQ. Want it to be chest mountable. Would love it if they could do what depar and xp are doing and add that fourth frequency for gold hunting! Then all of my gmt and mxsport coils could work on that unit. 

Wish 2--same type of cased design as wish 1. But i want a super high power--nautilus level voltage(44Volts) + TDI level current--multi channel pulse gold/relic detector. I want more power to punch deeper into rough ground! I would also like some type of auto ground tuning to check strength, phase and other properties. While asking for my holy grail i want it to optimize the channels/pulses/machine to reduce the effect of the ground and environment around the machine based on profiles i setup on the fly or ahead of time. Also how about some ultra light weight accessory coils to compete with mindlab's new GPZ coils! Miner john, Coiltech or Detech could build these for white's if they think they are too low volume to make themselves.

I will relay your idea about crowdsourcing some funding, but we are already pursuing new projects that should make all White's fans happy. Might be tough getting folks to buy into an idea early on vs. just buy the finished product. There is enough information out there on this and other forums that a smart person could come to certain conclusions about what that product might be.

If you have specific ideas on things like HMI, features, please let us know at https://www.whiteselectronics.com/contact-us/, address it to Advertising (which comes directly to me).

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I've been on both sides of this coin, as an independent developer trying to work with other independent developers, and a detector company employee trying to work with independent developers. It's often said that trying to manage engineers is like herding cats; trying to manage independent engineers is like trying to herd birds. It mostly doesn't work out well at all.
 

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I've been reading forums across the internet for a few months now.  You cats seem pretty brilliant in this neck of the woods.  

Is there something wrong with today's makers where they are just not getting the job done?   What are you gentlemen wanting, that is not there?   

I'd like to get into this detecting hobby some day, but posts like this give me pause.   Should I wait for something like this to come to fruition?  Are you guys unhappy with the current machines and feel the only way to produce good finds is this self-funded route? 

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I would say the feeling that metal detector manufacturers are not listening to high end users is a common one. For instance, desert prospectors keep getting offered heavy overpriced metal detectors that are waterproof. Because everyone that hunts in the desert needs a waterproof detector.

I have been metal detecting going on 45 years - no reason to wait. If they never come out with another new detector ever I am well outfitted with what exists now. It is just that everyone always wants something new and better. It also gives detector nerds something to discuss on forums when the weather sucks!

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Gotcha.  I would suppose they listen to their "generalized" focus groups more than the hardcore users.  So I could see the validity in starting something like this for the hardcore user.   Be interested to see where it goes if somebody takes the leap.

Hope to make my first purchase soon.  

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i think its much more than a listening and focus group issue. All the companies have experts that know what they are doing and give direct input. 

Its more so a basic money investment, return on the investment. and a competition problem. It takes a lot more money to get the higher end units out that the expert gold detectorists want. Look at minelabs quoting 10 million in research for gpz. Where the money is you have a lot of cloning going on. Build a high price unit and somewhere in china in less than a year a clone is built and dumped into every major WW sales market they can get into. Most of which dont have IP protection easily enforceable so there goes a companies returns. So it becomes a race to the bottom in such efforts. Makes no sense to rush into a race for the bottom and empty ones funds or resources on such an effort. You have to pace yourselves and make sure what you release is competitive and or very tough to clone. Minelabs worked hard on the gpz to make the latter the case. Its one of the only anti counterfeit/cloning metal detector designs on the market. So i expect them to make money for a while.

But more than likely these other companies without such anti counterfeiter efforts only have 1 or 2 years on such new releases to make their money back before the prices drop out on the big stages for gold detection. For minelabs you have Africa  pushing some good sales at first. But how anti counterfeit proof they are and how long before the market is eroded makes gold detector mfg'rs wonder should they compete and build radically new detectors, versus cost cut and do slight improvements on what they already have. Also why not go after  the mid to high end of the coin/relic hunting spaces which doesn't touch these markets and face the level of challenges or investment.

In addition to the cloning race to the bottom challenges there are a lot of good detectors out there already from numerous competitors that know each other well. So the competition can be fierce for what's left over in the protected markets.  

Also the smaller metal detector companies are not like the big companies many folks work at that have the means to afford a fail,  or two, here or there and can invest millions into a project. Especially if less than a year later the chinese cloners have replicated units all over the world and take away 80% of the sales as they did with mindlabs during the big gold rush a few years back prior to gpz.

There is  of course therefore a hearding(geotech's words) that i would argue not just with the engineers but with all parts of said small companies to deliver on these technologies that is very hard to do. There is always in a small company someone telling you they know best and can sway a smaller company with money or influence the majority of their resources that they have. They maybe right for their immediate need and their use case. But for the expert users  that are the early adopters and will buy if there is a reason to buy. They dont need or want units that are functionally basic units that add on top of them waterproof function. This defensive design affords such mfgr's future planned erosion and access to rainy and dry areas in Africa.  But does nothing for the expert user that 20 to 30 years ago had access to that level of technology and has scrubbed clean the ground with said technology. 

For the high end detectorists to  buy a new gold unit they must be buying units that are better, much better, or the Steve's  and similar gold hunters of the world have no reason to buy them. There has to be some advantage over the other systems. Else as Steve notes these users are set with what they have. This will be the case until something new can literally come along with the next big thing. As was the  case of the recent mindlab gpz systems. They find the gold that other detectors couldn't find in areas they thought they scrubbed clean or couldn't detect in.

It's complex and its risky for the small mfgr's in the gold areas of metal detecting without partners and help. Thus if folks want something in the high end of the gold/relic space i think the era of kickstarter and indiegogo is here and actually needed. The small metal detector mfg'r needs to save their monies for anti counterfeit design work. Else you flip this problem around and have everyone partner and fund anti counterfeiting work, or best of all do both.

 

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A useful idea for professional gold/relic metal detectorists from indiegogo

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/goblin-the-world-s-first-metal-detector-drone-smartphone-gift#/

Wish number 2 i listed would work well on something like this...after all this stuff is almost sixty years old..

https://www.google.com/patents/US3105934

And look at these kick starter anti landmine ideas....that could be adapted for professional gold/relic hunting..

I am just waiting for someone to figure out on indigeogo or kickstarter something like wish 2 on these systems with some of the modern GaN devices used for wireless power tech in the airfuel standards. With this technology you can totally shape and control the energy delivered and how that effects the ground and its response. 

Someday folks i think will also figure out how to split up the emitters after that and direct energy similar to what is done in beam stearing devices for 802.11ad through 802.11ay wifi router technologies. Then you will be able to sum energy to a point in the ground without effecting the ground between it that you pass the individual beams through. I would imagine those folks working on those mining asteroids projects will have this running first.

http://www.planetaryresources.com/

 

 

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