Rick K - First Member

Welcome, lots of us “double dippers” from Dankowski over here.

It’s grams and maybe he should use GM to help us understand correctly. ”Grains” are wonderfully complex and confusing, like most of the traditional English units of measurement - which the British, Canadians, Australians (and the rest of the world) gave up some time ago. If you want a fun read, try this https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grain_(unit)

Pecan grove? You might look for these while you are digging. https://www.farmprogress.com/orchard-crops/pecan-truffles-sell-300-pound-if-you-can-find-them

Remember my carefully reasoned prediction of a new tech singlefreaker as the new ML machine? Well, here’s a snipped from Codan’s Investor presentation from March... ”Expanding multi-frequency technology across product range“ Maybe multifreaker after all. How’s that for hedging my bets!!

I’m not absolutely sure, but I can’t think of a single case where a still operating US metal detector company has been acquired by another - with one exception - Fisher by First Texas (their acquisition of Teknetics and Bounty Hunter were - I think - just assets of companies no longer actively in business). In any event, the production facilities - located in Oregon - probably aren’t worth much to a competitor. The current engineering staff is, I suspect not attractive for an “aquihire” - where you buy the company to get the technology and the folks who developed it. Their patent portfolio is large, but only a couple of them are likely of real value as a basis for future products, and even there, it’s not the shortage of good ideas that make us wish for better detectors, its the limits imposed by the realities of running a small business - and all of the manufacturers are small businesses. The realities of limited staff and capital capacity. Even Minelab who boast of the largest technical staff - 30 or so engineers and scientists working on detectors are dwarfed by the resources of large firms. So, it’s probably “root hog or die”. the company will have to make something new out of what they have. Reduced distribution, limited budgets and dim current outlook. We all wish them luck. I have owned many of their detectors and currently have an IDX Pro and an XL Pro and am likely to hold on to them. The XL Pro recently got back from Whites with a couple of new pots and a whole new top deck and meter - beautiful - charge for all that $140!

OK, here’s my guess. I guess that MD-Hunter’s post is right and the Finders Keepers one is wrong. I guess that its “VFLEX IQ” and not “Multi IQ”. Why, because this new machine (or series) is likely intended to fill the big hole left in the under $600 range by the near disappearance of the X-Terra line. The sales of these must be languishing and the GoFind isn’t an adequate substitute. The VFLEX Technology was highly touted but 3 frequencies and needing separate coils for each frequency confused the heck out of would be buyers and would put a real enthusiast in the poorhouse. If I’m right, then I suspect this will be pitched as a breakthrough in single frequency detector design using the I/Q technology developed for the Multifreakers. Here’s a bit from Minelab about the IQ part of Multi IQ (just mentally delete the first three words of the below text. Simultaneous Multi-Frequency In-phase and Quadrature Synchronous Demodulation. We can go to a statement from Dr Philip Wahrlich, our principal technology physicist, about a key difference of Multi-IQ compared to the demodulation taking place in conventional single frequency VLF detectors: “Within the Multi-IQ engine, the receiver is both phase-locked and amplitude-normalized to the transmitted magnetic field – rather than the electrical voltage driving the transmitted field. This field can be altered by the mineralization in the soil (in both phase and amplitude), so if the receiver was only phased-locked to the driving voltage, this would result in inaccurate target IDs and a higher audible noise level. Locking the receiver to the actual transmitted field, across all frequencies simultaneously (by measuring the current through the coil) solves these issues, creating a very sensitive AND stable detector” On the other hand, they preached so hard about multi now “obseleting” singlefreakers that it might be hard to go back. The CDX replacement will take a lot longer I suspect as they learn from the shortcomings of the Equinox what the “Supernox” has to be in order to justify a greater than $1k price. We’ll see.

Asking $1.4 million that’s over $100/sq. Ft. - doubt they’ll get it. They took out a $200k mortgage on it a couple of years ago, some bank will want their money back,

My first TDI was one of the original batch of thru-hole models. It has a pretty warbely threshold about as bas as my SDC2300. The next one had mods devised by Reg Sniff including at least one IC changed. It had a nice smooth threshold and was noticeably deeper at least in air tests. The coil I mentioned was an open loop 14” mono. It air tested quite deep but Paul in CA who I sold the whole outfit to believes it is defective. Folks are justifiably sceptical about the Manta. It’s disclosed that it will be expensive and there has been so much disappointment in the past about discriminating PI’s that experienced users are wary of any such claims. All I can say is wait and see. Based on my limited time with the proto last October, it does what they say it does. The ferrous ID could be occasionally fooled by a fresh bottle cap or a very rusty Bobby pin, bit was otherwise very effective on very trashy beaches in Mission Bay San Diego. They have been working on the discrimination and LE.JAG has posted that it is significantly improved. Alexandre is a bit of a “mad scientist” type - he is absolutely obsessed with detector design. It has been his passion for over a decade and I have the strong impression that it’s about all he thinks about. Like everyone else interested in this Project, I am unhappy with the time it has taken to get it into production. There are lots of good reasons for this, having to do with issues like complex 3 layer circuit boards, very special construction requirements for 7 microsecond coils, thorough testing of the mechanical components and designing and qualifying the assembly and test stations and qualifying the operators. Meanwhile, back in the “Doc Brown’s Secret Laboratory” (I mean Alexandre’s place in France) - “Doc Brown” (I mean Alexandre) is busy with his “flux capacitor time machine” (I mean the AQ and a series of follow on model detectors) - after all, isn’t that what metal detectors are - time machines?? Lol

Mark, your TDI experience matches with mine with two different ones. The last one had Reg’s mods and GB off would hit a nickel at 17” with a 14” mono made by the guy who sold out to Miner John. The depths are for real, with the latest tweaks to the software, they are getting significant additional depth in AM and in the mute/multi-tone iron ID modes. The ID really works. The video I posted on the other thread shows that it is for real, but I have seen non-public videos which clearly show how about 4” of pure iron filings simply disappears without blocking detection of a gold ring beneath it. Amazing. I have posted this several places, perhaps even here Mark, but for your convenience - here is a depth test video from 5 years ago - a lot has happened since then - all of it good. The Manta hits the large ring at almost 20” (50 cm) - the others including a GPX5000 and a TDI manage around 16” (40 CM). It’s in French, but there is a summary caption at the end of each test.

I suspect that few have used a TDI in running salt water - why would they, it’s not dunkable. I did once and when I dropped it, luckily it was on wet sand, not in the drink! Even though no water got in, it wouldn’t work. I opened it up and there was a loose wire - but loose from where??? I took a picture with my phone and sent the pic to Reg Sniff who I was in touch with through the whole TDI introduction period - he showed me which place to solder it back - lol Those who did use it at the beach quickly learned that it would run fine with GB off, but that they had no discrimination and with GB on, the depth took a huge hit. Not just depth on deep stuff, but signal strength on all targets - big stuff deep but smaller stuff at lesser depths. Your TDI and mine with the GB on and the audio set to report low conductors only would hit the ring under the nails - and with the GB off - hit the nails with or without the ring - forcing us to “dig it all”. Result, GB off - dig junk. Result GB on - big depth loss. This is what doomed the TDI. It could do cool stuff, but only when the GB was on and the depth was crippled. Killed it in the goldfields (especially Australia) and killed it at the beach. The AQ is said (I said “said”) to be deeper in all modes, including ferrous ID - than the TDI in any mode, including with TDI GB off - Also dunkable which all TDi’s except the TDI Beachnunter aren’t. The shorter pulse delay is not about adjacent target discrimination. PI detectors work by sampling the target return at some few microseconds after pulse cut off. The return signals from targets decay rapidly, the less massive and conductive targets and those with the weakest signals decaying faster. The sooner you can sample, the more information is there - more sensitive to targets. So deeper is not only about absolute depth, but relative depth. More depth on every target. I’m pretty sure when production AQ hardware is tested and reported on that the difference will not only be clear, but startling. If I’m wrong, so be it - you can all come back - I’ll still be here - and tell me what a fool I was. If I’m right, I might have to become a dealer!!! When this reaches the market there will be professionally produced videos which clearly - in verifiable ways - demonstrate its capabilities.

The latest developments of the AQ pre-production platform continue to increase the utility of the ferrous discrimination capability of the machine. Steady refinement of the design have made the machine not only deeper overall but greatly narrowed the gap between sensitivity in all metal and sensitivity in the iron ID modes of mute and multi-tone. 2020 Edit: The Impulse AQ has been revealed - see details here I suspect that if no iron/steel trash existed at the beach, no serious beach hunter would use anything except a Pulse Induction machine - unless they were in dry sand, and maybe not then. The reason I say this is that the depth advantages of existing PI machines is well demonstrated since they can operate on most beaches without the penalty of using ground balance. Also, except for iron/steel, no other level of discrimination is useful since gold jewelry can appear almost anywhere in the ID range above iron. So of the iron wasn’t there - PI’s would likely dominate. In the case of Phase shift discrimination systems like VLF IB detectors use, the strong iron signal dominates the audio output, either silencing the audio entirely in the case of a single tone VLF, by nulling like an FBS/BBS - or by giving a lower tone in a multi-tone Detector. Even in the case of the multitone VLF’s, hearing the non-ferrous target depends on the recovery speed of the processing hardware in the detector. With the AQ’s PI time-based discrimination, The discrimination of iron is reported to the user either as silence (in the mute mode) or as a low tone (in the case of multi-tone). In mute, not only do you not hear the iron, but you hear instead silence - unless there is a non-ferrous target, in that case you hear the target with no hint of the iron at all. In this mode, the AQ software simply makes the ferrous targets disappear - just disappear. In the case of multitone, you hear a high tone for non-ferrous low and medium conductors and a high tone for ferrous targets - close or even superimposed, makes n difference you would hear both tones in any case. This has several major advantages. First, there is “zero recovery speed” - All targets produce an output signal if they return one - the ferrous is - by operator choice - either silenced or assigned a low tone. The low/medium conductors always return their characteristic high tone. This occurs 100% of the time - there is no “switching delay” from target to target based on processor speed limitations happening. Separation distance between adjacent ferrous and non ferrous targets is ZERO. By zero, I mean exactly that, even non-ferrous directly beneath ferrous gives a clear non-ferrous high tone and the iron simply “isn’t there” (in mute - in multi-tone it gives a low tone which you would hear along with the non ferrous high tone). This means that “silent masking” that Tom wrote about long ago, where even a tiny bit if ferrous like a common staple can mask a deeper and larger valuable target, is largely eliminated. Now this isn’t magic, it’s just that the iron is above the ground balance point (or at it) and you are hearing the signals below the GB point and the ones at or above the GB point are silenced (or give a low tone). Is it perfect? - no. In discrim on the AQ some high conductor targets will be “above the GB point” and be treated as iron. If your idea of a good beach hunt is finding a bunch of dimes and quarters in dry sand, then stick with whatever light, cheap VLF you want, they can help you avoid all that aluminum and gold which would just slow you down - lol All this is clearly demonstrated in the video I have linked to before. The machine in the video is the Manta prototype from 3-5 years ago. The system has gone through a lot of development since then, including the very latest gains in overall depth and depth in the iron ID modes which I reported in the first sentence in this post. Will the AQ “obsolete” any other detectors? Depends on what you mean by obsolete. The gas turbine aircraft engine (the jet) quickly replaced the extremely complex, high maintenance multi cylinder reciprocating aircraft engines for heavy, fast and high aircraft, but lots of light aircraft are still piston powered. The piston engine is still undergoing development for some aircraft applications. So I expect that IF the AQ in the hands of the early buyers lives up to its claimed capabilities, that serious beach gold hunters will adopt it quickly. When a new tool in the hands of early adopters proves to be superior at doing a specific job to the previous best tools for the job in question, those who are really serious about performance for economic or other reasons will adopt the new tool and stop using the old one. How many framing carpenters still use a hammer. Not many if the compressor/nail gun noise at any construction site is any guide. The framing hammer is not obsolete - it still works just fine - but for serious users the nail gun became “compelling”. Time will tell how “compelling” the AQ will become for serious beach jewelry hunters.

Do you see where this is heading? Maybe towards a new machine introduced with actually verifiable test results against standardized and measurable set-ups. Wouldn’t that be a change? ”blinding me with Science...”

Also, perhaps see this post on Dankowski. About 12 posts down “HumblePie” gives a detailed explanation of the relationship between GB readout numbers and Fe3O4 percentages. Note, in an early post”Streak!” States this about the infamous Culpepper VA ground...”In the area around cupleper Va, the FE304 reading varies from .1 to 1, with the RARE 3.

For us non-geologist/chemist types... Fe203 is usually found as hematite Fe304 as magnetite The F-75 and T-2 have readouts of Fe304 Here’s a cut from the F-75 manual as well as one posted a while back by ElNino77

Here’s some of my collection of Reg’s stuff, https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/whitesgoldmaster/ - this is the Miner John forum https://www.mytreasurespot.com/main/read.php?49,578762,578762#msg-578762 - several posts here as Reg46 Link deleted since Findmall Forum update broke all old links - long dialogue here between Reg and Steve H. Link deleted since Findmall Forum update broke all old links here we get Reg, Steve H. And Eric Foster in on the discussion http://web.archive.org/web/20090201183352/http://www.nuggetshooter.com/articles/UnderstandingPIdetector.html a link to Reg’s canonical “Understanding the PI Metal detector” essay https://forums.robsdetectors.com/topic/3909-new-whites-pi/page/2/ early stuff on Rob’s forum with Reg, Steve H. Reno Chris, Eric Foster and others - 9 pages or so https://forums.robsdetectors.com/topic/3909-new-whites-pi/page/2/ pre-dates the TDI, Steve H. Gets educated by Reg about how two channel GB PI’s work Link deleted since Findmall Forum update broke all old links interesting back-and-forth between Reg and Dave Johnson Sadly when findmall deep sixed the whites stuff all of Reg’s there went missing. enjoy

My extremely limited experience with an AQ prototype (I had it for about 4 days at the end of last year only to test various headphones) in the Gold Canyon AZ area was that it ran fine over our medium mineralized AZ dirt and got depths comparable to what I got at a black sand beach in San Diego on buried nickels. I know our “positive” hot rocks sounded off in all metal and I could use the “iron mask” control in multitone and mute ID modes and silence them. I don’t think I ever tested depth on one mode vs the other. How it would do in extreme mineralization is more doubtful since the ground balance system is optimized for providing the iron ID function and not for coping with extreme conditions which shut down machines not optimized for the goldfields - like the GPX series. I’m sure folks who get one for the beach will try it inland and it will be fascinating to hear how they do. Of course, FT has stated that a “Terra” (as a opposed to “Aqua”) version is under active development - so - patience is a virtue.

Read the comments in Italian (Google translate is your friend) - the picture is from a genuine eBay ad at normal price - 99% chance its a scam

They are busy with other new stuff - I have no clue what it is, but they have clearly indicated that it is coming. There is nothing “lucky” however about their “aquihire” of the Manta program and team. Carl Moreland’s long running geotech forum is where Alexandre elected to “surface” his long program of studying, then further developing multi channel PI detector technology. Carl saw this and using his “put up or shut up” approach - contacted Alexandre and got a prototype to try. That part was pretty straightforward - mind you - I have no actual information, but imagine pitching the idea of buying in and hiring these French guys to First Texas Management. This is a closely held company, Tom Walsh runs the place. Tom had to make the decision to literally “buy in”. Lucky, maybe, but also daring.

P.S. Alexandre just posted that it will be this year. Now, having said that, I doubt that the Chief designer gets to decide when a product will be released - having said that, I suspect he knows - something.

What you posted Mark is a key factor in the whole “equation ” that FT has to solve to make the AQ a commercial reality. As Steve rightly pointed out - water hunting is a niche - salt water is a “sub-niche” and beach as opposed to diving is another splinter. For a company who is used to shipping out their products in container loads, it’s a heck of a challenge, especially given that it will probably have to have a price that makes your analysis about whether it would be realistic for you quite correct. I believe that they are committed to doing it - but I also expect that they are being extra careful in order to maximize the chances that it can actually earn back it’s development costs and yield a profit.

Since the Dankowski forum is the only place Alexandre has posted about the AQ, i will cross post something he just put up - under the “handle” of “golden retriever”. He posted it right after Tom D. Had made a post where he commented that the Tarsacci was hitting a nickel at 14” on the beach. Note: English is not Alexandre’s native language. Also, when he writes “(with a fast swing without noise)” he is not talking about the strawberries, but about the fact that all the test results he is sharing were obtained not by “massaging” the target, but with a fast swing and that was without any resulting noise from the ground. The Tone Mode and the Mute Mode are the two modes where ferrous and other high conductor targets are ID’d. Hello, Salt wet sand for US nickel : IN ALL METAL MODE 17'' without noise at 7µs with a maximum ferrous discrimination IN TONE MODE 17'' without noise at 7µs with a maximum ferrous discrimination IN MUTE MODE 17'' without noise at 7µs with a maximum ferrous discrimination With fast or slow SAT speed setting... If the competition is better I pay them a tray of strawberries... (with a fast swing without noise) Alexandre

Point taken. I posted what I did mostly because the Linkdin reminder served to remind me about how long it has been since the Manta was “Fisherized”. Also because this thread was about AQ production delays. As far as the wider topics of First Texas needing a new top of the line general purpose detector or the fact that a high priced specialized beach machine being a niche product - all true enough.

As one of the participants on that thread on Dankowski, I will offer a couple of comments. That forum get a bit “frisky” at times, it is loosely moderated and pretty wide tolerance is evident. That particular thread has been a focus for a lot of folks who have been hearing about the upcoming Fisher beach PI for almost two years now and are increasingly frustrated by the fact that it seems to be a case of “so near, yet so far”. Fisher showed a pre-production machine at the big outdoor expo in Germany in the winter and now folks are really hot to see it released, but that hasn’t happened yet. A few minutes ago, I got a “ping” from my iMail app. It was one of those annoying reminders from Linkdin - the career/jobs website that I am on - not because I want a job - but because it gives me an alternative to Facebook for following folks I know from when I was working. On Linkdin, I follow Alexandre Tartar (who is the designer of the AquaManta - now Fisher AQ). The reminder was an invitation to congratulate Alexandre on his anniversary of two years as an employee of First Texas Products. Two years ago, Tom Walsh, the CEO of First Texas, opened his cash box and did an “aquihire” - acquiring the rights to Alexandre’s Manta Project and hiring him and his team. In the two years since then, the project has apparently been moving steadily towards production and market launch. I think everyone who has been following this project expected a launch as early as 2018, now 2019 doesn’t look like a “slam dunk”. That is disappointing. Two years is a long time to wait. It isn’t such a long time however in terms of the process of development and bringing to production status of a new platform, one which shares virtually nothing with any of First Texas’ existing products. Not an excuse, just an observation.

This one is probably a good start - the bottom line was that even 25v. Didn’t increase the depth more than perhaps 10% https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/whitesgoldmaster/tdi-battery-voltage-t870.html Here’s a quote from “Geo” on the geotech forum ”I tried the (first) TDI model at 25V without problem.Difference at depth was very small so the stantard battery (14.8V) is the best solution.Of cource i believe that the constructors knows better than us“ https://www.geotech1.com/forums/showthread.php?23030-TDI-SL&highlight=TDI+battery

You are likely right about the coin Mark. I suspect however, that you are likely wrong about the Impulse AQ being too late. Here’s my thought on that. If it turns out that the statements which LE.JAG and others have made about depth on targets large and small and the quiet operation over all kinds of beaches which they have described is really there, then it will show quickly in the experiences of early users. If that sort of user experience doesn’t materialize, then it will be a problem. If it does however, it will be a case of “I hope you get one before your hunting buddies do”! Mind you - I am talking strictly about gold at the beach. What can be done about PI’s inland in terms of making good on the promise which the TDI never quite delivered on - that’s a whole different kettle of fish.