jasong

If there is any way to add in a 4th ~50khz frequency, or at least something 30+khz this thing could be the only VLF I'd need to own (in theory). It'd do everything from yards to hard rock prospecting. Not sure how all the coil harmonics and whatever else limits multi frequencies, but something to consider potentially? I know they aren't marketing this one towards prospectors but its good to see the smaller shooter coils too from a prospecting perspective too. Also purists may laugh, but I've always wanted notch discrim on a prospecting VLF, if that's what they mean by "notch filter". Actually it's the #1 thing I want if I were to buy a new detector, lots of places I detect the majority of gold registers in a very small VDI window, or multiple small windows anyways and I don't care if I miss the rest if it means saving weeks not digging trash that doesn't pay at all, it's all about maximizing production versus time for me so I've always wondered why no manufacturer has included notch discrim in a prospecting machine...

From what I was told it was going to be quite a bit cheaper than the 5000 yet aimed more or less at competing with it. Coincidentally(?) the 4500 came back into production not too long after I heard about the Nokta PI, never know what is related to what and hey that's part of the fun of rumors, but made me wonder if Minelab heard about it too and wanted a lower price machine to compete. Haven't heard or seen anything about it since back in June or something though.

I hope they include a prospector among their testers for this machine because honestly that AU Gold Finder does nothing at all for me, but this Impact looks like a potentially legitimate reason to upgrade my Fors Core. I know they have another machine in the works for prospectors too which is what I'm really curious about, I wonder if Nokta would comment about that at all yet?

Awesome!! Hope you keep us updated if you go down again, not often I see someone posting from a totally new place.

One potentially interesting thing of note is that about 3 or 4 years ago I contacted a large XRF manufacturer with a proposition to expand their customer base by introducing a lower cost, reduced function handheld XRF unit aimed at the prospecting market. I thought that if they could get the price down to around what the GPX 5000 was retailing for at the time (I said around $6000) that they might find a new market in the small scale mining community. Their marketing department actually did contact me back and after some discussion it was determined that at the very minimum the entry level price point would be around $10,000 (and that was being REAL optimistic) and I was fairly certain that would be too high for all but a very few prospectors to be interested and so I never pursued it any further with them. Of course this was before anyone ever heard of the GPZ and it's $10k price tag. Though I have to say on that subject - I've travelled across the west now since the GPZ came out and I just don't see the widespread usage and adoption that all the dealers claimed was happening so I still think its too high of a price for any prospecting tool that isn't made by CAT. And I've talked to a lot of prospectors in a lot of different areas of the country now and the major reason to not own it is pretty much universal - too expensive. Just my observation. I think it's obvious from price reductions that even ML thinks the $10k was too high now too, and XRF guns are even higher in cost, so I don't see a lot of market for them with us yet. I also thought back then, as I still think now, that eventually even recreational level prospecting will branch out into other minerals and elements besides gold and it may be a proactive business decision to produce a unit for this potential future use - "build it and they will come so to speak", I'm being intentionally vague for altogether selfish reasons here though because they are mining projects I am pursuing myself and hey, always easier to find a seat in an empty room... There is another member of the forum here who owns an XRF gun and maybe he'll comment. They aren't magic bullets, and they aren't easy and quick to use over large areas like metal detectors, he was telling me the best results require powdering the ore sample since the sample area is quite small. Also, just like you get the "nugget effect" in major mines that don't do large enough sample sizes and get subsequently erroneously rich assays, the same can happen with the XRF (they aren't assays though). Still, I think it's a great quick indicator and if I ever get the money I am going to buy one. I think with a low enough price they'd be an awesome prospecting tool. When I talk about prospecting I'm talking about it more from a business angle then recreational though.

I'll go 180 and recommend a different setup I use based a bit on how soldiers carry their stuff: Shoulder strap mount the pinpointer and a flathead screwdriver to a hydration pack, mount the pick to the back, use a scoop lanyard with the plastic ball on the end so the scoop "mounts" to your pocket for quick access, and then my best kept secret - concealed carry shirts, they have tons of pockets made specially for quick and easy access, my favorite are the Proppers, they are literally the only shirts I wear prospecting anymore because they are that handy, even drywashing I wear them. They also zip instead of button up, which is handy in variable climates. I can jog, climb, hike, detect, and everything is always out of the way and secured not interfering with movement, but its all quick and easy to access at the same time.

One application I can envision from reading that article is testing artisanal springs bubbling up in potentially gold bearing areas. Its almost like cheap, ready made coring in a way for the passerby prospector who can't be drilling, the water might bring up gold ions from depths where there is no indication of the deposit itself on the surface. Or for that matter just testing water from wells to see if any local water tables are holding dissolved gold. Most water tables are fairly shallow, geologically speaking, but it'd still be an interesting prospecting method potentially. Methylene blue is cheap and easy to get, I wonder if gold III binds to anything else other than adenine which might be easier to synthesize or acquire that also has similar electrical properties - I'm not sure I understand what they mean by "flexible probes" and how that works into the invention. Just curious, it seems like something not too difficult to tinker around with and build if the article went into a little more detail...

Seems like the part directly preceeding that where there is legislation to eliminate the claiming process entirely and move to a lease-only system is an even bigger change. The one time I looked into a mineral lease through the BLM it was "around $6000" just for the application processing fee, though that might have been a special case. But it also required a full environmental assessment too, just like with a full plan of operations, even just to prospect on the lease with a metal detector. Valuable information would be to know what the proposed lease fee schedule is, and if the new changes would require leases just to prospect or only to mine, and if so where they draw the distinction between the two are at. Will there still be a difference between NOI and POO level operations for instance too? I think the waiver should be decreased anyways personally (yeah I know no one agrees), but moving to a lease system goes a full measure further, it basically nulls out 1872 and that could be the endgame right there...or am I misreading something? If not, more info is required here.

That's a nice setup, I want to build one similar with vibrating hopper and conveyor, but with blowers instead of puffers. Looking forward to seeing it operate!

Hmm, I wonder if dredgers are involved in this show or if its something a producer thought up? Because I've dredged in white water and it sucks because you can't see anything, millions of tiny air bubbles everywhere... I've also tried filming underwater dredging in white water and it's basically impossible due to the bubbles. Maybe the plan is just mostly surface filming...I guess that's where the drama is anyways. Hopefully if they do the inevitable winter frozen filming they realize that getting pushed under ice on a fast moving whitewater river can be death, way more dangerous than under ice in the ocean.

The thing I hope Minelab and their dealers realize is that for many of us these detectors are expensive enough to not just be tools but also investments. The same way a truck is. I am willing to pay more for Minelab for the same reason I am willing to pay more for a Toyota truck, because they retain so much of their value, I know I can resell my truck when I need to for a good and fair price. Similarly, people like me are only able to justify the expense of a high dollar detector because we know Minelab has always retained its value and its always been very easy to get a fair price for used Minelab equipment. To me, the Minelab brand is the Toyota of the detecting world - dependable, best in class, and rock solid values. That brand recognition takes years to build up, weeks to lose, and decades to rebuild (look at US automakers for reference). As another poster also recently brought up in a different reference to US detector manufacturers as well. Just something for corporate to consider. I know Minelab is accountable to shareholders, but they are also accountable to customers via our loyalty and pocketbooks. I hope they don't forget that if the customers "shares" (our metal detectors) get decimated then we are just as unhappy as the shareholders when their stock (or our product) declines. No one wants to invest in a stock that just keeps going down and no one wants to invest in new products which the company and their dealers continually devalue.

Sure seems like from an economic supply standpoint that larger nuggets are going to be very rare and valuable at some point. Throughout history they are always being melted down and nature isn't in much of a hurry to make new ones. Larger diamonds tend to stick around by comparison.

That red and white one is awesome. I'd have to HF acid bath any of mine to get quartz like that.

Nice job! Might be worth bonding and running a little operation depending how extensive the deposit is? In AZ, it's not uncommon to find nuggets halfway down or even shallower, for a number of different reasons, or even right on surface sometimes. The more you get into unexplored or underworked areas, the truer this tends to be.

Now this is some real ADVENTURE! New and dangerous lands. Nice, looking forward to the next part.

If your suction nozzle extension made the suction nozzle itself sit above the water then you'll lose suction. Same reason jets get better suction when they are sitting under the water versus on top of it and why some people find that highbanker combos that use jets (like the Prolines) don't prime or work at all because they have them set up too high. To maximize power out of engines/pumps, especially ones operating near their limits, move everything as close as possible to the surface of the water if not into the water itself. Just a hint that may come in handy some time from a guy who spent a lot of time trying to squeeze a lot out of a little. One spot I used to dredge the gold was all in the first foot of gravel, dunno why. So I longarmed all the time, and the water was normally opaque, couldn't see more than an inch or two into it. If you have a chance to use a facemask and a snorkel it's 100x better and easier being able to see what you are doing, do glasses not work with facemasks?

I'm a bad person to ask about elevation because I lived my whole life above 5000ft and I spend time prospecting above 10,000ft in CO/WY. so AZ is easy breathing for me! At 10k I dredge about 75% the pace I do at 7k. That expanded might work better for you than me, I run UR or ribbed mat under mine so there is a lot of space between the top of the expanded and the mat, the miners moss on yours will fill the voids up and make the expanded have less relief than it does in my box. I'm curious to see how yours performs for that reason among others.

I run a very similar setup on my 3" and 5" except with mat instead of moss. Keep us updated how it works in the water, I'm curious if with a 2" there will be enough flow to run that big expanded without clogging up? My 3" with 5HP engine just barely had enough flow and clogged if the gravel got too angular, so I switched to lower profile and this year I'm running punchplate over it the entire length of the sluice (no pesky nugget gold in CO and WY to fret about).

Gotta love it when you find those spots - Bam nugget, bam nugget, bam nugget! Now you also have a perfect test ground to test new settings and techniques with your machines on. And a place to test new coils, new machines/upgrades/etc. Awesome. When you find those multi-nugget holes, it's worth it to go drywash that hole and potentially the entire patchy area of the wash if that hole shows smaller color too, rip up the bedrock. A lot of times those spots are holding a bunch of scattered deep 1/4 gram minus stuff too that the detectors aren't hitting. Some of the best drywashing I've ever stumbled onto was found that way, but then other times there is just nothing except larger nuggets.

You can install Google Earth on your phone too. I don't think anyone offers claims layers as a map layer though. You could make it yourself but its a lot of work and you have to keep it updated. I'm not sure if Land Matters would be willing to provide a WMS access point to their claims maps or something like a KMZ file to download them, otherwise a guy would have to make them his self if not since the BLM does not provide them either. It takes some work to do and is not for a computer novice. I wrote a script to automate it 4 years ago when I created Virtual Prospector but then I stopped doing anything with it after Google deprecated their Earth Web Plugin, living in the field with nothing but phone internet and a 6 year old laptop precluded it. Maybe sometime in the future I can provide a KMZ for people to download and use if someone else doesn't do it by then since I need to do it for myself anyways. PLSS data is available as a WMS link from the BLM, but I can't remember offhand if in BCN you can use WMS layers or you have to create your own map layer out of them. The mines layer that those old pay programs used were usually directly from the USGS MRDS database and is free online. Things like creek channels, etc are all available from the gov for free too, you just have to search. Topo maps are better though IMO and there are free topo layers. I think for Google Earth one of the most useful is the real time NOAA snowpack map, for us guys that live where such things are a factor at least. No need to guess if you spot has snow or spend 4 hours driving to see if it's melted off yet!

Yeah I hear that, I'm not making any ticket purchases myself anytime soon either for sure. Maybe a bus ticket to scenic Fargo North Dakota or something. Aussie gold is safe from us for now it seems.

Earths mag field is more or less constant (relative to time scales for a metal detector at least), it's also pretty weak. PI detectors look for transients. So I think even if they could sense the Earth's mag field they could just null it out.

You buying plane tickets Lunk?

I wish it was cheap to ship about 500lbs of genuine, A-1 grade, fiery hot Aussie dirt over here so I could test my machines out on it and see how it compares to some of the hotter parts of Arizona.

Yes, see my previous reply: I've tested on a ton of different types of ground too in addition to just trying to "force" them to reverse via the above method.