Steve Herschbach

I did great with my ATX and am quite satisfied with its performance. My bar for Impulse is simple... just do as well as the ATX. Anything else I will consider a bonus. Even the disc thing... whatever. Just give me the PI power I crave. It was that ATX heavy 7 lbs out of water (honestly was just fine fully submerged) plus constant issues with keeping rods and camlocks free and functional that finally put me off. I’m actually a little more inclined to be walking the beach or wading these days, so the lighter well balanced design of Impulse is a big plus. The 1 meter rating in my case therefore offers no real impediment. Even for mask and snorkel use I can live with that, though I would far prefer at least a 10 foot rating. 90% of my detecting in the last decade has been with high power PI type detectors. VLF detecting by comparison for me is a surface scratching sideshow, and being without a PI now for almost two years has made it hard for me to get very enthusiastic about going metal detecting. The bottom line whatever flaws exist I really need to get another PI detector ASAP so I can get my metal detecting mojo back. Yet I’ve not been willing to just go back to something I’ve had before. Impulse is coming just in time to prevent my making that mistake. I don’t know how many times I’ve looked at the TDI in the last year, only to shy away from the buy button at the last moment.

I'm sorry you have waited all this time, only to be disappointed.

I have been attempting to offset unrealistic ideas about what the Impulse is capable of as far as discrimination by providing a more realistic and balanced perspective based on my many years of personal use of this technology. Time to bump this to the top with release imminent. Again.

The Vanquish 440 has a nice balance of features and real bang for the buck. Thanks for posting a link to your review, very well done! Vanquish 440 Data & Reviews

That was the Vanquish. I would expect any higher end Equinox versions or CTX replacements to come with rechargeable batteries. Like it or not, replaceable batteries is now viewed as a low end product feature. Minelab addresses detector lines in round robin fashion, generally addressing oldest and weakest areas in a rotating fashion between the gold prospecting and coin/relic areas. No new gold unit since the 2017 Gold Monster and a couple major coin/relic releases since (Equinox/Vanquish). No new flagship gold detector since GPZ in 2015. So it would be time for prospecting to rotate to the forefront. The 2013 CTX however is so old it does not even appear on the chart below, and so is a fairly obvious target. I would expect sales are not what they used to be since Equinox was released. With five key products in the works, we may see more than one area addressed. The MF5 I am guessing is a counter mine product.

https://www.detectorprospector.com/forums/topic/12625-any-info-on-new-minelab-mf5-detector/ https://www.detectorprospector.com/forums/topic/12171-new-minelab-detectors-coming/ https://www.detectorprospector.com/forums/topic/11631-new-minelab-pi-announcement-date-2020/

Very nice!

Stunning find, congratulations! I have always loved the unique design of that coin. You will never forget that moment, I am sure. It’s the moment detectorists live for. Again, congratulations on a fantastic find!

Hard to believe but just 11 years ago it was not an issue. What you bought was what you got. That little fix, tweak, or update? That got rolled into the next “improved” model and you bought another detector at full retail to get it. For some companies, that is still the model.

I personally have no desire to open the battery case for any reason, and would not risk its integrity or warranty by doing so. I also see no reason to complicate a simple project by worrying about numerous unlikely scenarios. I don’t see FT making some super complicated battery, just the opposite in fact. If not told the spec, get the detector, measure the battery output, make another, and make a cable. M8 connectors - thanks Willy. Perhaps the battery end connectors at least could be replaced with something that has more waterproof integrity than the M8 connector in a homemade setup. Too bad the Garrett PI connectors are proprietary and hard to get; they would easily solve this problem.

Welcome to the forum - great stuff! Do not be shy of posting links. This is not one of those forums. Love that 3D printer stuff. Would be fun to get into... like I need more projects!

Yup, the classic PI versus VLF quandary. If you want power and love digging everything, can’t beat a PI for depth. If you want discrimination, you need a VLF. I prefer owning both. But if for some reason you can only own one, I guess you have to choose. Or maybe get a Tarsacci. They claim discrimination to PI depths. But there are Tarsacci owners who keep their Equinox so must be more to it than that.

Just about anywhere. It’s a standard USB to mini USB cable. I must have a dozen laying around for various devices.

Thank you for reporting back. Not everyone does that, and this is some rare and fascinating information. Glad it worked for you, and thanks again!

The Impulse AQ will come with an external NiMH battery good for 3.5 hours. Spare waterproof extras may be costly. I am certain one of the first thing some of us will do will be to make cheap non-submersible versions, and probably extra life hip mounted versions. This would be really great if we ever got an 8” coil. Battery on hip... super light swing! The battery cable that comes with the AQ is way too short to use for a hip mount, so the other job is sourcing the connectors and making longer cables. Lithium Ion will be an obvious home brew alternative to the NiMH, which was a late change by Fisher. The connectors are not proprietary and so will be easy to source. Making a dry land cable with a 12 hour hip mount battery should not be too hard, or a Li-Ion under elbow version with more capacity but not much more weight. Too bad it’s 15V or we could just hook up a GPX battery. Since the Impulse is derived from Eric Foster designs perhaps higher capacity batteries made for the TDI will work? Another side project would be a headphone dongle to employ alternative headphones including wireless boxes.

Don’t hold your breath on iron rejection on the prospecting version. This is done on the AQ by using the ground balance control as a discrimination control. It is set not to reject ground, but iron. In order to work for prospectors the ground balance will have to go back to being a ground balance control.... iron disc gone, or no different than the tones on a GPX for instance. My main issue with QED... no U.S. dealers or service and slightly heavier. But it does use Minelab compatible coils, a big plus. But yeah, I’d like to see the prospecting version of the AQ. Something more advanced will need a leap from analog to digital where Alexandre can perform more complex PI trickery. Fisher Impulse Gold Data & Reviews

Anybody remember the Gold Bug SE? It was a Special Edition, limited production run, at a killer retail price. Software version 1.0 This was indeed a limited time offer and the Gold Bug SE was gone within a year, The same machine came out next as the Gold Bug Pro for a much higher price, sporting firmware version 2.9. I think we are currently at 3.0? The point being the Gold Bug SE was basically a beta version in need of tweaking, but the price was so good nobody cared. That was ten years ago and they are still selling the Gold Bug Pro, one of First Texas most popular detectors ever. They sold a huge number of these in Africa in particular. So a limited run AQ that morphs into something else... that makes more sense to me. Maybe the initial units are limited. But also you will be able to buy some version no matter what for years. Remember, FT paid to buy this idea, paid for years of development, and paid to tool up for that coil in particular. 20 or 50 or 100 or 200 might be a technical achievement, but it would be an abject failure from a business perspective. If they can’t sell these for years in various versions they really screwed up. So get the ball rolling now, and add improvements later at a higher price. There are things that obviously can be improved on this unit, as people here have mentioned. I refuse to believe FT failed on this project and is cutting their losses. There is too much riding on it. So I’m 99% sure you are going to be able to buy an Impulse AQ if you want one no matter what. But what version, what it will cost, how long it will take, where you can buy it... still not a clue until we get that official information release. I could of course be wrong about all that!

No. Africa, gold detectors. When it comes to this detector, the U.S. market is minuscule. Most detectorists here have not heard about it and would not care if they did. Too expensive, too limited. Most club members swing $500 - $700 VLF detectors.

Who knows. When a dealer has one I can buy and a price I’ll buy one. If it’s so limited only special people with special connections can get one... well the product will be a failure and I won’t care. Any company that can’t make enough of something that people want is not worth doing business with. I refuse to buy into any of the “Limited Edition” and “Special Edition” stuff. Yeah, like the F75 Ltd, so limited you can still buy them new 20 years later! but seriously, if FT is not making and selling these for at least a few years, then it is a business failure. Maybe the first few units are “Limited” in some way, but making just 20 units would not begin to cover the cost of even designing and tooling up for the battery case. If FT only makes 20 and quits... did you really need one after all? Think about it. The only way that happens is if it does not perform to a level that people are willing to pay for.

Latest word is one meter, and the only coil for now is the 12”, so that knocks a few people out. It’s not a scuba machine, it’s a wading machine. There was talk of three meters and maybe someday there will be, but for now it’s a meter or three feet. The 8” coil was just a mention once that one was being prototyped for the prospecting version. No mention ever that one is promised for the AQ model. That just seems like a decent bet, but nothing more. The unit always was a one meter unit. Then there was brief talk it might be three meters, but that never fully developed, and at last inquiry I was again told one meter. If there is any doubt about that a Rick can confirm or deny. To sum up, for now I’d consider this to be a waterproof wading detector, dive at your own risk. And 12” coil is all there is for now or possibly ever. If those conditions don’t satisfy you.... don’t be an early buyer.

Yeah, if there is any serious money to be made with this baby, it will be in the gold prospecting market. Rumor had it an 8” coil was being used on the prospecting prototype. I sure hope so, and that it is compatible with the beach version. That would be a dream to swing with the reduced nose weight.

I agree. I see it as a niche detector (pulse induction) in a niche market (beach detecting). And maybe this detector has been promised for so many years it's impossible to get anyone all that excited anymore. It definitely fell into the "I'll believe it when I see it" void.

Fisher Impulse AQ Data & Reviews Not everyone needs to wait for reports from others to decide they want a new detector. Me, I take a look at the specs, and if it appears to have what I want I get it and give it a spin. I'm jaded enough to know that any new detector will not be radically different than anything I have already used for years, and in that I am rarely disappointed. I'm mainly after better ergonomics that performs up to levels I am used to, that's all. I've been bitching for a detector like the Impulse AQ for years, and at 4.2 lbs and I assume in the right price ballpark I'm all in for getting one as soon as I can lay hands on one. As a buyer, not as a tester/reviewer. The Impulse AQ will be a radical improvement over my long departed 7 lb Garrett ATX. Is there anyone else with enough faith in this detector to buy one without needing a bunch of user reviews? I'm just curious who the innovators and early adopters out there might be?

Not exactly setting Facebook on fire with 18 comments. There is an older private Facebook group for the detector with 79 members and 11 posts in the last 30 days. A little bit of posting going on at Dankowski forum, almost nothing anywhere else that I can find.

A post I made 11 years ago.... https://www.findmall.com/threads/whites-official-audio-volume-fix.127081/post-802630