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New Fisher Pulse Induction & Multi Frequency Detectors


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Last July (July 2014) Tim Mallory of First Texas made a post on a Facebook page. First Texas is the parent company of Fisher, the well known detector manufacturer. Fisher used to make a pulse induction diving detector, the Impulse, but it has been discontinued. Fisher stands out as a company with strong VLF prospecting detectors but also as the only "Big 5" manufacturer without a PI detector of any sort in the lineup.

2019 Edit - Announced as Fisher Impulse AQ

Fisher was also a leader in multi frequency detectors with the CZ series but has rested on the laurels ever since, with no digital version of the old CZ3D offered to date. It has been common knowledge for some time that Fisher has at least been working on a new PI and a new multi frequency models.

Facebook post by Tim Mallory of Fisher (excerpts):

Tim Mallory - I'm new to your group. I'm head of sales and marketing at first texas products, which owns fisher, teknetics, bounty hunter and two night vision companies, night owl and nivisys. We've got a lot of exciting new products coming down the pipe, starting with the f19, introducing right now, then an upgrade for the f75, in the fall, and then new super weather resistant machines on the mid to low range, in the spring.... Lots coming....

Joe Trino - Is the water resistant machine dual feq?

Tim Mallory - Joe, no. They are replacements for f2 and f4. They'll be a lot of machine for the money...but not multifrequency. We have a mf in the hopper and it has recently moved from research to development, but it takes a long time to innovate a new machine of this caliber.

Joe Trino - Tim I love my cz21 I have dug a lot of gold and silver with it my only complaint would be the shaft is flimsy and could beef up the coil wires and headphones I feel confident I can keep up with any mine lab machine about time for a new fisher pi unit.

Tim Mallory - Joe, we have 15 seasoned engineers. Still it takes 3 to 5 years to get a new platform to the intro stage. Let me just say, a PI is in the works.

Dusty Willis - So I was wondering.... When is fisher going to get into the pulse induction business and come out with a pi machine for gold to compete with minelab?

Tim Mallory - Dusty, it's on the bench. But still in research...arguably close to development stage...someday we will have a kick ass PI.

I notice Fisher getting grief on some forums for "being late" with the new machines. The fact is however there has never been any hint of a production timeframe from Fisher. Units are always under development, and many never see the light of day. Anything under development can stop or go at any time for any reason. There simply is no reason to expect a new pulse induction or multi frequency machine from Fisher until they make an official announcement that a release date is near. Still, one can always hope, and I hope we see something one of these days. I would certainly welcome a lightweight affordable PI alternative to what is currently available. The CZ was always one of my favorite detectors, and a more compact lighter CZ would also be welcome.

But I am not holding my breath!

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I think we will see a gold oriented PI from Fisher eventually, but who knows if it will be 2015 or 2016 or ???????  Given potential sales in international markets, its just to big a market segment to ignore,

 

I don't think anyone who wants a PI now should hold off to wait and I don't think its just right around the corner (like it is going to be available to purchase in the next few months kind of thing). If it were going to be available just in the coming few months, I think we would have heard a lot more about it,

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I had a little chat with Tim Mallory recently on Facebook.

William White

Thanks Tim. Your explanation is reassuring. What's the word on a PI machine from FT

Tim Mallory

William White, a PI, is in the development stages. This means years. Our competitors have tied up many useful patents, especially on PI machines, so we have to think outside the box

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I think production volumes and economic ordering quantities of parts have a lot to do with it. Making changes is a lot easier at a volume of a few hundred units a year than at a volume of a few thousand units a month.

As far as "thinking outside the box" goes, there have only been three major manufacturers who have made ground balancing PI detectors. Minelab was first and has a "thicket" of patents on their methods of multi sample target analysis and ground balancing. Whites used a design which pre-dated ML and used a simpler two sample GB method developed by Eric Foster. Garrett's infinium seems to operate much like the Foster system. The ATX may be different somehow, but using it, it seemed to me to be like the infinium but just improved.

The difficulty in doing better than ML lies mostly in the fact that a two sample method leaves a Hole in the detection of targets which give a return at the same time constant as the ground signal. Tough to fix this and ML's patents make using their method impossible.

If I was a betting man, I'd put my money on a fall 2015 release of a new gold machine from First Texas. That assumes however that whatever they are busy working on actuall works out and is at least as good as the ATX. The market where all the money is is Africa and they don't have to beat the GPX for that market, the GPX's price is already killing sales there.

Pulse Induction isn't the only technology possible however and Minelab's new GPZ may not be a PI machine at all!

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The ATX is indeed an improved Infinium circuit. What I have known for a long time and dropped hints about here and there is that Garrett does use its own type of multi period processing and with the improved power of the ATX the design is clearly superior to that used in the TDI. I am not sure how it differs from that used by Minelab but Garrett seems convinced that overall it plugs holes at least as well as a Minelab and perhaps better depending on the timing employed by a Minelab operator. Details at http://www.detectorprospector.com/forum/topic/559-interview-with-brent-weaver-senior-design-engineer-garrett-metal-detectors/

 

I have no idea how Garrett got around the Minelab MPS patent but apparently they did. Garrett has a very good legal department so not something they would miss.

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Fisher should have no problem here.  Users seem to only have two complaints, slow development time and release of product without thoroughly fixing every possible flaw.  Some many complain about performance, but that is just arbitrary and subjective.  Thanks for your insights, Steve!

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  • 3 weeks later...

Old thread, but useful.

$9000 or even $7000 detectors are a commercial dead end without $2000+ per oz gold except for a few full timers in rich countries. The Africans want a machine to tell them where to have the other 30 guys with no detector dig. The Aussies want a detector to find fist sized nuggeta at 3 feet, but then they try and dig them up LOL. Here in what the Canadians call "North America" we want a $1500 detector which is light, ignores most hot rocks, deals with moderate to bad mineralization and gets good depth with no "holes". This would also sell like hotcakes in Africa, South America and Asia.

Minelab will never do it, they are fixated on high margin. Garrett could do it tomorrow, but strangely won't. Fisher might be able to do it with their new super gold detector, but who knows when.

Oh well. I found about 10,000 ounces of gold on Friday here in Abu Dhabi, but the guys with the H&K submachine guns in the gold market discouraged me from prospecting.

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Hi Rick,

Maybe I am just totally nuts. I think there is a huge hole just waiting to be filled in the $1000 - $2000 range for a good performing PI in a reasonable housing. The only real player in that space is White's but they have shot themselves in the foot sixteen different ways with the TDI SL and SPP with their weird convoluted sales channels. That and the unit not really having much horsepower. It really does not outperform a good VLF in all metal mode in most situations and so needs ground so bad as to seriously impede the VLF to look any good in comparison. The SPP did get some traction in Australia which is impressive since it is a model that White's wants kept secret from consumers.

Garrett has the near perfect circuit in the ATX. Is it that a custom housing would in their estimation not be worth the investment? That it would undermine ATX sales? Like you I think a Garrett LTX is a bit of a no-brainer for the African market.

Fisher is the wild card but as slow as things are moving maybe our best bet is now Nokta/Makro?

Or maybe I am just trapped in my own bubble thinking there is a market for this detector and Fisher/Garrett etc. know better. I will just keep waiting and will be the defacto poster boy for the company that first makes a ground balancing PI that performs as well as an ATX in a balanced 4 lb package for $1500 - $1999 out the door. It is not all about sheer performance for me. I just need good enough in a properly designed ergonomic package.

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