Pioneer

21 hours ago, Nedkelly said:

Looks like Pioneer's E1500 sold quickly. His add has been taken down.

I think he would have found it to be a better performer if he was running better coils. The Sadie wouldn't be my first choice. Small spiral coils make it look very ordinary. In saying that it will always be in the E1500 detector bag because of its size.

The other big coil he had I think that there are better options available.

The coil cable issue is something I haven't noticed but will check when I'm out next.

I didn't sell it but decided to return it to Algoforce for a refund. 

The Sadie is the recommended coil Algoforce its even in the manual. I also tried a Nugget finder 18", a Coiltek 9" Elite as well as my Minelab 15" semi elliptical.

I did side by side target comparisons with 7000, 6000, 5000, 2300, equinox 900 and gold monster. It on air tests it it was only beaten by the 7000 and the monster and Equinox 900 which with their small coils could our smallest piece of 0.006g. On targets in the ground it saw every target the 6000 and 2300 found again it couldn't see one target in a larger piece of quarts that a monster found. 

For me the biggest issue is the ground balance, hunting mulloch heaps were the ground from each layer discarded can be completely different I would keep getting me the appearance of clear targets but end up being just ground noise. There isn't a dedicated ground balance button or trigger, in fact the ground balance is the second function of the right arrow button to toggle through the function menu. A long press on thus button activates ground balance you can release the button at any time but I likes to wait for the two confirmation beeps from the machine. This could take a very long time easily over twenty seconds sometimes. As I want a machine I can work fast to cover more ground, l don't like having to look at the screen to check how far the ground balance is out, then waste time re ground balancing every few meters.

On consistent ground I am sure it will do well. Just for me, on the same ground one after each other with the E1500 always going first I found substantial more gold with both the 2300 and gold monster.  We all want a new machine to find us more gold than our old ones, so this the ultimate reason why I am returning it. 

12 minutes ago, Tony said:

For those that have the AlgoForce, can some of Pioneer's concerns or observations be addressed or solved, etc?

Thanks.

Steve......if this thread morphs into some useful information then maybe a new topic might be in order? Maybe a "Troubleshooting Guide" or "FAQ" for the E1500.

I have brought most of my issues up with Algoforce. You can't simply phone a customer support line to discuss things. They only seem to communicate through email. Which they do do quickly.

They are working on a fix for the sloppy top join of the shaft. They are trying to find some very thin heat shrink tube that they could send out. 

I have made video recordings of all the issues, pinpoint mode no numbers, pinpoint mode freezing and screaming when removed from the ground all together, ground noise giving great sounding target noises even after being ground balanced a couple of seconds before and withing 50cm.

It's a brand new machine from a brand new company, there will be some teething problems. They are trying, they have already done one firmware update and I want them to succeed, so I not going to post any videos.

But they are watching and are aware of everything that going online about their machine. If anyone has any questions contact them directly through their website, you'll get a thorough response pretty quickly.

On 2/17/2024 at 2:22 AM, Steve Herschbach said:

“I got it because I wanted more versatility. I sold it because there is too much going on”

So basically he is selling it because it is doing the thing he bought it to do. You don’t get versatility without extra complexity. Last thing I’d be doing is telling a SDC user they need one. The SDC is an excellent and very simple small gold vacuum cleaner. The AlgoForce is lighter costs less etc but I doubt it really would find gold any better. And I’m a bit doubtful of coils larger than 14x9 at most. That 15x12 you’d want a large battery to balance out the weight. Not a coil I'd want on the machine.

A U.S. buyer should grab fast though even with the bum coil. Beat everyone else by months at least.

Bottom line impulse buy try sell has always been and always will be a feature of the detecting world, especially when the price is this attractive. Going to be lots of new detectorists especially pop for these just to discover PI detecting is not for them. Some people might be better off with a Manticore and 5x8 coil.

I was hoping to have just one machine for the small, shallow gold around Creswick and the bigger, deeper gold elsewhere. I'm trying to live off gold. Currently, I can find a lot of pieces with the Gold Monster, but they don't add up to much weight. I get fewer pieces with the 2300, but they weigh more. However, I'm finding it hard to average more than half a gram a day. So, I thought I might be able to get the small pieces with the Sadie and then try to find some deeper ones with the Commander or an 18" Nugget Finder I've been lent.

It's not so much that it's complicated; it's just that it's fiddly and feels cheap in your hands. I'm going out every single day, and I don't want to waste any time. Also, I feel it would take a lot more to kill a 2300. I don't have money to waste. I had planned to sell the 2300 once I got the E1500. Trying the E1500 has given me a greater appreciation the quality and capabilities of the 2300.

I'm the guy selling the E1500.

There were a lot of little things that annoyed me with it, but they all add up. The main issue is it costs me gold. I've gone over the same ground using my SDC2300 and found pieces the E1500 missed. A friend using his Gold Monster picked up a small specimen in a patch I'd checked twice. I found myself covering a lot more ground quickly and confidently with the 2300.

I wasted a lot of time digging for ghost signals due to ground noise, even after ground balancing within a meter of the area. I don't want to have to keep my eyes on a screen to notice when the ground balance is off at one end of a swing.

With the Sadie coil on faint signals, often no numbers in the discrimination/pinpoint mode would show. With the larger coil in pinpoint mode, it would threshold drift and scream after ten seconds.

Changing coils is fiddly; you have to line up two sets of holes, one on the shaft and the others on the plastic spacer that can easily push down the shaft or turn slightly. The shaft isn't rigid enough for my liking, flexing under the weight of the larger coils. The design decision not to ship it with the rotator stop in the top joint means there is slop in the joint, which, with larger coils, allows it to loosen by itself.

Cable bump noises are very noticeable, even at the top where it enters the controller.

The inbuilt speaker is not crisp, clear, or able to go to a decent volume. My Gold Monster volume setting of 1 is louder and clearer than the E1500 at its maximum of 9.

Ultimately, it's all about the gold. I've only had the 2300 for just over a month, and interestingly, I paid about the same price secondhand for the E1500 body only. I tried to force myself to use the E1500 every day first thing, but I often stopped using it sooner than planned as the 2300 just gets out of the way and lets me concentrate on the ground in front of me. If anything needs to be changed on the machine, I don't even need to look at it. I can just feel there are no multi-layered options menus. I don't have to constantly re-ground balance from swing to swing. I don't need to view a screen or check a number, as the speaker is clear, loud, and expressive enough to know straight away if it's something worth investigating.

I was really excited when I first investigated the E1500, I'm sure a lot of people will love it, I'm just really disappointed and although they offer a thirty day money back. I've spent hundreds on coils and battery packs I have nothing else to use on, that's why I'm selling it. I hope Algoforce does well and becomes a worthy Australian competitor to Minelab.