mh9162013

If it were waterproof, I'm guessing Minelab would sell more units. But then they'd probably sell fewer Equinox units.

Thanks for the input guys!

Looks like I'll pass on it.

I saw one of these for sale for basically $200 + shipping. Is that a good deal? What's the typical resale price (Fair Market Value) for a machine like that?

Thanks!

A very interesting article from a unique perspective.

Thanks for sharing!

During WW2, the total combined computing capacity of the Allies was less than what you buy in a birthday card at the store that sings happy birthday. And everyone readily accepts that such a card is disposable, at least on a hardware level.

On 5/20/2017 at 10:44 PM, FschJg said:

Here is my experience with ML and communication....

Bad communicatiin between ML and the dealer cost me a pretty penny. I actually bought two GPX since the wife wanted one as well. The second one was a trade in. I found another dealer, River Team Six Detectors, he took three of my machines and offered me a GPX 5000 for them. So at least I did not loose much on  the second deal. Still frustrating because I could have spend the money I lost on coils. This experience made me buy Detech coils instead of ML coils, because I was just not willing to throw more money at ML

To be fair, that's not Minelab's fault. That's the dealer's fault...unless I'm missing something? I suppose Minelab could have failed to communicate with the dealer, but even if that's the case, after your initial inquiry, a prudent dealer would have contacted Minelab to confirm the policy.

Even if Minelab dropped the ball, you should never do business with that dealer again. Do you mind PMing me who it was so I'll put them on my do-not-buy list?

5 hours ago, EL NINO77 said:

Wanquish ... I would personally put the display backlight into the basic model 340 .., that would attract a lot of potential users ...,

Waterproof detectors in this category do not expect, some water resistance but Yes .. But But the markteting Minelab- on this multifrequency model the detector / Vanquish / in category from 238 euro to /V340../ to 438 euro..on / V540 /... I consider very good .....
 
 

Never underestimate the power of marketing. Diamonds are a great example. Oh, and so are the Garrett AT series of metal detectors. They're such old detectors, and while quite capable, seem to be square in the prospective metal detector's eye when considering a new machine. It's almost as if they came out when the Equinox or Simplex did.

Gotta give Garrett credit...

21 hours ago, phrunt said:

It's a bad tactic, not only does it annoy potential customers it also allows the competition to know what's coming, and give them some time to get their act together on a competing detector.  It seems Vanquish will be at OZ/NZ dealers in December.  They must be sending the US ones over on a paddle steamer as they're taking a few months longer.  It's a race who will be first in Australia between the Simplex and Vanquish as both look like they'll hit at the same time.

I agree and I can't stand the strategy of announcing something well before it's actually available. But Minelab isn't stupid and they've done some number crunching and concluded (correctly or not) that this current strategy is better than the alternative. Well, at least I hope they're not stupid. After all, they did design their Pro-Finds to use 9V batteries...

20 hours ago, Rick N. MI said:

Minelab is probably going to make them waterproof now that the Simplex is out.

Why would any Equinox owners buy a  Vanquish? Yes they have smaller coils that we want for the Equinox but still would an Equinox owner buy a Vanquish.

Guess I can't say that because I have an Equinox and have a Simplex coming on Monday lol. I guess Equinox owners will be buying the Vanquish. Hope they make it waterproof. 

1. Cost

2. Color

3. Ergonomics

4. Uses AA batteries

5. Less complex

6. Size/collapsability

7. Coils

8. Desire for Multi-IQ without having to buy the Equinox

I personally would love the form factor of the Vanquish with the ability/performance of the Equinox.

It also looks like the Pro-Find 15 might be discontinued? I noticed it's selling for less than $80 at some online retailers or is out of stock. And now, there's the Pro-Find 20, which is basically the 15 with extra notification features (sound that can be turned on and off, plus vibrate - if I recall correctly).

5 hours ago, PimentoUK said:

...So that's a little project, making a custom lithium PP3, I will post pics when it's done. mh9 probably won't like it, hehe, but the economics make  sense, these cells were 1 Pound for all 5, I recall. Capacity is 300mAh, perfectly decent.

That's actually my initial prototype (if you see my post from a few months ago). I don't like using lithiums as much as LSD NiMHs, but they're certainly better than 9V batteries.

On 5/16/2019 at 6:28 PM, kac said:

Did you get your Profind 35 in yet?

I have one and if I turn it on facing upwards it will sound off when turned face down. If I turn it on facing down I can use it but if I lay it sideways it sounds off. Not sure what is up with the self calibration.

If yours behaves the same way then I won't submit for an RMA on it.

The only "odd" things I've noticed about my Pro-Find 35 are that:

1. If it gets too close to the Garrett Carrot while the Carrot is on, the Pro-Find will go off and will need to be reset (turned off then back on).

2. At maximum sensitivity, it i swing the Pro-Find 35 rather quickly, it will go off. But if I move it "normally," it works just fine. Lowering the sensitivity to the middle level or less will remove this "issue."

Sorry for the late reply. Hope this helps!

8 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

I use NiMH 9V batteries in my Carrot with no issues and have been quite satisfied with them. One in pinpointer and one ready for backup in my pouch, rotate as needed. I used them in my old Gold Bug 2 and Gold Bug Pro also. Same set still working fine since 2015.

You can use whatever battery you choose and if you're happy about it, more power to you! (yeah, I made a punny)

I was just pointing out the flaw in saying 9V alkalines are "good" batteries because they're better than 9V NiMH batteries.

10 hours ago, PimentoUK said:

...
( and I recharge my non-rechargeable 9V batteries too. If you do it with a low current, it seems to work )

What?!

11 hours ago, PimentoUK said:

...
I don't share your dislike of 9V batteries in quite the same way. I don't like NiMH 9V's in high-drain applications, like pinpointers. The cells are rather small, and the heavy current draw causes problems, usually high internal resistance failure. And with 7 cells in series, they have poor reliability and life, as when one cell fails, so does the whole battery, of course.

...

A NiMH 9V battery? No thank you. The solution to getting rid of heavy duty or alkaline 9V batteries isn't to replace it with a NiMH 9V battery. It's to get rid of the 9V battery.

1 hour ago, PimentoUK said:

...

I'm also curious as to which specific boost regulator was used. Pointers take a hefty current draw when vibe-motor / beeper activate, eg. the turn-on routine. I imagine many of these modules would keel over as soon as you switched on the pointer.
It seems odd that you have no power switch between the NiMH cells and the boost regulator. Isn't this going to flatten the battery, even with the pointer turned off ?

...

I'm not worried about current draw; the voltage booster I'm using can provide up to 1.4 amps, well in excess of what a standard 9V alkaline can reasonably provide.

And no, I have no power switch between the NiMH cells and the booster. Do I need one? Maybe. I'm letting my setup sit in my Garrett Carrot right now and I'll test it every few days to see how long it "lasts" in storage before I need to recharge the battery pack. Assuming the booster draws noticeable current, a switch would be useful, but I doubt it'll be worth the trouble as it would just be easier to unplug the battery pack from the booster if I was going to store my pinpointer for an extended period of time. I may also look for some smaller high efficiency battery plugs, too...

And don't forget, even if my setup has plenty of drawbacks, it still has a HUGE advantage: NO MORE 9V BATTERIES!

Phrunt,

This is the voltage booster I'm using: https://www.pololu.com/product/2116

As for battery life, I haven't done real world testing, because there's no point given how I'm not able to metal detect as often as I'd like and how inconsistent and qualitative the observations would be. I could create some sort of "lab" set up to measure how long the pinpointer beeps and vibrates or something, but I'm not going to waste my time with that because using simple math should give a good enough ballpark estimate, which I predict will be about 50-60% of the run time you would get with an alkaline battery. I discuss how I get this number in my blog post concerning this set up in a Minelab Pro-Find 35. That LiPo cell has roughly the same capacity as these AAA NiMH cells. In that blog post I also mentioned a very slight performance increase in sensitivity (about 1-3 mm of extra range).

A while ago, I posted about a using a Minelab Pro-Find 35 without a 9V battery. You can read more about it here: 

But I wanted to run the modification with NiMH batteries. However, due to space constraints in the Pro-Find, this was not possible without modifying the internal battery compartment (which I didn't want to do b/c it would void the warranty, I'm sure). So instead, the Pro-Find runs off of a LiPo cell.

Well, I got a hold of a Garrett Carrot (Pro-Pointer AT) and given the extra space for the battery, I was able to run the 9V booster off of 3 LSD NiMH AAA cells. Works like a charm! The advantage is that I don't have to worry about "babying" the LiPo cell and worry about storing it with too little charge or anything like that.

Not much else to say, except show you the pictures.

It does help, thank you!

Thanks for your insight!

I have a few questions, to better understand the Vanquish. Some of these will be "stupid," but I need to ask anyways...

1. Exactly how is the inability to run single frequency operation bad? I know that it's usually better to have more control over settings and features than less control, but I'd like to hear how this is the case in real world practice with respect to always having to run in multi-frequency mode.

2. Missing variable recovery speed. Why is this important? Don't you always want recovery speed to be as fast as possible?

3. Why is the inability to switch off the iron Bias bad? Like with point #1, I know more control is better, but how is this "flaw" going to hurt real world metal detecting?

On a side note: If the Vanquish lives up to its hype, it's only a matter of time before someone released a waterproof shell for it, like with 1 or more of the Garrett ACE machines.

Is it fair to say that, assuming the waterproofing issue can be taken care of, this is a solid salt water beach detector?

EDIT: Based on my research, it will be. I'm curious as to how it will compare to the Equinox, though, at salt water beaches.

I've never had any of the issues Kac or afreakofnature have experienced.

"Maybe I'm lucky, maybe I'm born with it. Maybe it's Minelab."

I have the Pro-Find 35 and love it!

Depending on the object, it will start going off when it's several inches away on max sensitivity. Then as I get closer to the object, I reduce the sensitivity until I can narrow in on the precise location of treasure (usually trash).

Wow, I can only dream of a hobby of mine producing that much income!