phrunt

The thing I like about the M8 in a coin type scenario is it punches well above its weight for depth, I don't normally like small elliptical coils for coin hunting as my coins that I want tend to be very deep with targets quite sparce, so I'm a 15x12" kind of guy, yet the 5.5x8" M8 coil surprised me, compared to similar sized coils on other detectors I've tried and far exceeding that of the Nox 800 and 10x5" Coiltek. It's good to see you finding the benefits of the Manticore for your needs, a shame to see a good detector go to waste. It sounds like with both available in your toolbox you'll be well covered with the GPX hanging around for when needed.

Yes, I understand that, which is why I think the Swingy Thingy is beneficial for lighter detectors, it's not putting it to your hip, more so your shoulders, but that's not overly necessary when detectors are lighter. I can see you really like your hip stick, and that's fantastic, I'm not trying to tell you otherwise and I'm sure plenty of Aussie big coil swingers wholeheartedly agree with you, it's obvious you know a lot about it and its benefits and it suits your needs. I'm just always in pursuit of something better, with just about everything in life so hopefully the new versions of it the people are attempting are improved in some way. It's also normal for a business to keep working and improving a product, that's how you keep sales up, sales of the hipstick seem to have all but diminished to the point they're hard or impossible to buy anywhere outside of Australia.

The hip stick seems to be for harness only with its fixed length, but now I see little need for a harness, I used to for the speakers on the 4500 and its butt battery as I liked speakers but now with modern detectors and the Avantree Torus the harness is an optional thing, even my 5000 now I won't be wearing a harness ever again with its new lithium battery on the side of the box and wireless audio to the neck speaker or its JBL speaker on the shaft, these new lightweight detectors don't really need a harness and even the GPZ with the 8" coil which is my common GPZ combo certainly doesn't need a harness. Docs Ultra Swingy Thingy would take care of any fatigue with these lighter coils and detectors, it holds the pants up too as a bonus, while giving you a decent Bungy option and is certainly more than you need for the smaller coils, if I was in Australia swinging a 22" Concentric on my GPZ I'd be far more for the hip mounted method though as long as targets were few and far between as it's a frustrating thing to wear when constantly up and down digging and recovering targets, even the 15" Concentric on the GPZ can be a bit tiring by the end of the day as its similar weight to the stock 14x13" coil, slightly less I think but I'd still rather just connect it to a backpack and to my belt than have to wear a harness, which is why I'm interested in the contraption Doc comes up with, and anyone else. The reason I like the idea of an extendable one is so I can use anything with the little D ring clip on it to hook the hip stick onto, I often have a small backpack on when detecting, it has my food and drink it in, and another coil usually. So, I prefer to just clip onto that and my pants belt, most decent backpacks already have the little D ring on them. We are all different though, as I become a senior citizen, I'm sure my thoughts and opinions on these assistant devices will change. I never liked them at all, the Swingy Thingy helped convert me a bit.

I think it's pretty clear I don't own this alternative one, one thing I don't like about the original was the sizing, depending on where it's attached, for example it might fit your harness but not your backpack, you have to be a Bart Simpson and wear the same thing every time you detect as its fixed size dictates where it can clip on. If you like to use other ways of connecting it having a fixed length isn't great and an adjustable one would be better. It's true, I didn't care much for the original, which is why I have been looking for an alternative for the times I would wear one, Doc's version if it comes to fruition or this one are trying to take the basic concept and improve upon it, in the meantime his Ultra Swingy Thingy I think is better for my needs and unlike the hip stick it's not trying to push my pants down, it holds them up 🙂 The original was made by a very inventive person using off the shelf components to bring their idea to life, now seeing these custom-made versions using parts specifically made for the purpose they will likely be able to better it, I think Doc will come up with something pretty good.

Carbin fibre shaft instead of a fibreglass tent pole might make it even lighter and stronger, and adjustable length from 13" to 22". If it doesn't make the grinding noise of the ball like the original that would be a bonus too, I just kept it silicone sprayed to help with that. The good thing about the original is anyone can make one at home using cheap parts from the hardware store and get an exact replica, this one's a bit more custom made not just off the shelf parts. Each to their own though, that's why it's good to have options.

The Algoforce manual suggests end users contact them with suggestions of improvements they could introduce, so I thought I'd test it out, see the caption below from the manual, "Bug Report and Feature Request AlgoForce highly values customer feedback as a crucial means of enhancing our products. To ensure a seamless feedback process, we encourage you to reach out to us directly via email at admin@algoforce.com.au. If you come across any bugs or have ideas for new features that could enhance your metal detecting experience, please send us an email with a detailed description of the issue or requested feature. Kindly include the hardware serial number and firmware version of your detector (located in the Miscellaneous setting) in your email. Our dedicated team of developers will promptly review your feedback and respond to you accordingly. We appreciate your contribution and look forward to working together to improve our products." I contacted Algoforce with a suggestion of an improvement on the 8th of February, The pinpoint volume I thought was unnecessarily loud, it's nice to have the general audio volume quite high when using the speaker or the Avantree Torus neck speaker which really made the pinpoint mode roar, in fact I have the volume maxed out most of the time, however the pinpoint volume in that instance was extremely loud, so I suggested an independent pinpoint volume control setting to adjust pinpoint's volume and leave the general volume the same. I am guessing headphone users would have found the pinpoint volume rather loud too. It is now the 13th of February and to my surprise this morning I woke up to an email from Algoforce with a new firmware update to try out, now incorporating independent volume for the pinpoint function. You can also now adjust the vibration separately from the audio volume, so you could have high pinpoint vibration with low pinpoint volume, or high pinpoint volume with low or no vibration, and the same goes in normal detector mode, no vibration with high volume, high vibration with low volume etc. To adjust vibration you just hold down the volume - or + buttons rather than pressing them. The new firmware release notes: Release Notes for AlgoForce E1500 Software v1.0.8: 1. The activation time for a long key press function has been reduced from 1.5 seconds to 0.7 seconds. For example, the time duration between pressing and holding the ground balance key and the commencement of actual ground balancing is now 0.7 seconds, as opposed to 1.5 seconds. Other functions requiring a long key press are similarly affected, including vibration adjustment and auto frequency scan. 2. In version 1.0.7, Pinpoint mode and the main detection mode shared the same volume and vibration controls. With the introduction of v1.0.8, Pinpoint mode now features independent volume and vibration controls separate from the main detection mode. Users can customize their preferred volume and vibration settings in either mode. Furthermore, the volume and vibration settings in both modes are saved during power down for convenience. I'm now testing this firmware out, I must say the upgrade process was simple and quick, I've recorded some video of the volume control function in use to see here, and soon they will have the firmware available for download. Very happy with their quick response, especially when at the moment they're super busy. It doesn't get better than contacting a manufacturer and being able to talk directly to the engineer behind the detector. So here is a video of the firmware update process, and some basic testing of the new volume control function. I'm pretty impressed by this, how quick they were to respond and do the modification, and it works just as I hoped it would. The screen in the video has the backlight turned off, in the sun, no backlight and the screens still easy enough to see, in fact I didn't even notice it was off, it looks a little darker in the video than in reality, which is why I didn't notice.

Further to this information from the manual, on the 8th of February I contacted Algoforce with a suggestion of an improvement, The pinpoint volume I thought was unnecessarily loud, it's nice to have the general audio volume quite high when using the speaker or the Avantree Torus neck speaker which really made the pinpoint mode roar, in fact I have the volume maxed out most of the time, however the pinpoint volume in that instance was extremely loud, so I suggested an independent pinpoint volume control setting to adjust pinpoint's volume and leave the general volume the same. I am guessing headphone users would have found the pinpoint volume rather loud too. It is now the 13th of February and to my surprise this morning I woke up to an email from Algoforce with a new firmware update to try out, now incorporating independent volume for the pinpoint function. The new firmware release notes: Release Notes for AlgoForce E1500 Software v1.0.8: 1. The activation time for a long key press function has been reduced from 1.5 seconds to 0.7 seconds. For example, the time duration between pressing and holding the ground balance key and the commencement of actual ground balancing is now 0.7 seconds, as opposed to 1.5 seconds. Other functions requiring a long key press are similarly affected, including vibration adjustment and auto frequency scan. 2. In version 1.0.7, Pinpoint mode and the main detection mode shared the same volume and vibration controls. With the introduction of v1.0.8, Pinpoint mode now features independent volume and vibration controls separate from the main detection mode. Users can customize their preferred volume and vibration settings in either mode. Furthermore, the volume and vibration settings in both modes are saved during power down for convenience. I'm now testing this firmware out, I must say the upgrade process was simple and quick, I'll record some video soon of the volume control function, and soon they will have the firmware available for download. Very happy with their quick response, especially when at the moment they're super busy. It doesn't get better than contacting a manufacturer and being able to talk directly to the engineer behind the detector. This is how easy it is to upgrade the firmware, no issues at all. I'm on Windows 11. At the point where it says it was successful you can just unplug the detector and off you go.

@Wiggins The benefit with having it on the detector is just convenience really, those model detectors don't have a built-in speaker at all, and rely on you using corded headphones, so by putting a speaker on it like that it gets great audio with no cords dangling out to your body. Now though, with the latest model detectors either having a built-in speaker or some form of wireless audio it's not as necessary on them, but the cost of making a plastic mount as an accessory option I am guessing wouldn't be that high, so if it was sold separately to the clip-on speaker, it gives you an opportunity to sell more stuff for those with the model of detector that would benefit from it and for people wanting to clip it onto a bikes handlebars or something else 🙂 Clipping the speaker on the shaft as shown points the speaker up towards you, mounting on your body tends to face the speaker away from you, if it has good volume, it really doesn't make much of a difference, part of detecting though is listening for very faint target signals, headphone users have the advantage here, so speaker volume is essential to hear the faint targets. As long as the speaker has a good way to clip it so it's not dangling, something that secures it to your shirt more than holds it on there, it needs to not flop around as it would get annoying, you're often digging holes and gold detecting you're swinging a pick smashing up the ground or rock, so if its loose it is annoying. I've been using the Avantree Relay and everything is great, no signal drop outs, in fact a good range too as I often wandered off from my detector and used the audio to get me back to its general area when I forgot where I left it 😜 The things I would change with it are the fixed cable needs replaced with a female 3.5mm port to plug in different lengths of cable, as the cable is just too short for the detector it's plugged into, and for another detector the cable is very much too short, allowing different lengths to suit different applications is much better. You'll see here I have to mount it quite awkwardly to fit so the cable reaches. I just used adhesive Velcro on the transmitter and detector. Another transmitter where I can use whatever cable I want fits better, although I need to invest in a right-angled plug cable so it doesn't stick out. This transmitter is bigger, and will be harder for fitment on some models due to its size, the Avantree is a much better size and shape. The next thing is the USB port for charging, this would be best if it had a little cover to put into it, I have bought covers but if one was included that would be an idea especially if its one that remains mounted so it can't be lost, detecting is a dirty dusty thing to do, exposed ports are asking for trouble. I'm finding the Avantree Relay better than the MPow for audio stability, maybe a better antenna?

Looks great, only downside to me is its looking 3D printed. They say it has a Flexituff base, and all I can find about that is it's a durable rubber paint coating with a registered tradmemark on the name so maybe it's 3d printed then painted? Flexituff (duluxprotectivecoatings.com.au) Otherwise, it's a nice-looking design, much better than the original and priced not much higher.

The ideal people to buy an Algoforce are those with an earlier model GPX, a 4500 or 5000, or any of the earlier models, it will completement those detectors so very well, they can share coils and the Algo provides a lot of attributes they lack, the lighter design would be a big plus too with the tiny little light batteries. It would give them better small gold sensitivity, and from what I've seen so far hits the difficult bits of gold the GPX models (except 6000) miss or are very weak on. I wish they didn't call the 6000 a GPX, it's frustrating as it's not even remotely a GPX model. Earlier GPX users will greatly benefit from its EMI handling too, they can use mono's when normally they'd need an AI coil, or if lucky a DD may work OK. QED owners, it's a no brainer, perfect upgrade. As I've never used a TDI I can't comment much, but it might be something they would be interested in too with its features, coil compatibility and performance along with the attractive price. SDC owners I have no idea, never used one. The next set of buyers would be those that don't already have a 6000 or 7000, someone looking to buy a PI, but not sure they want to spend Minelab pricing, they'll get a great detector with far less outlay. They could also use it for other purposes, I think it's going to end up a pretty damn good dry and wet sand beach detector, and will be a very good way to use a PI for coin and jewellery hunting anywhere with it's great Target ID's and EMI handling. GPZ owners may like it for a lighter patch hunter, it's yet to be seen how it would perform in this situation, and the Aussies will soon report on that no doubt, it may even outdo the GPZ with stock coils or official aftermarket coils on some small gold, and seeing the 12" round is the officially smallest coil for the GPZ without modifications then the Algo brings those people small coil support for a detector that doesn't cost too much more than some aftermarket 7000 coils and the Sadie to pair with it is a pretty cheap little coil too. It's most certainly its own detector and has features and benefits that no other PI has, such as its incredibly stable Target ID's, which put most VLF's to shame from what I've seen so far. I'll be interested how people doing all sorts of different things with detectors are able to adapt the Algo to their detecting style and the benefits it brings them.

I've accidently changed coils on my GPZ from a 12" Spiral to a 10" without turning it off, I did a hot swap at the adapter. It wasn't intentional and I wouldn't do it again unless accidental, but no damage was caused, it just shut down with a coil error, fired back up fine afterwards. It's better to be safe than sorry though and always power down. JW's 6000 was in use, and the coil started acting up just really unstable so he started the noise cancel procedure then it did a coil error so he shut down, powered back up and no longer was a coil detected so the chip in the coil likely fried I guess, either way it didn't' damage the detector and having the chip fried is similar to having the coil disconnected. It's not something you want to do, but if it happens by accident, you would probably be fine. They're probably more worried about you trying to plug the coil in and get it lined up wrong where a pin with power contacts one it shouldn't, that could be a big issue.

Yup, I'd never base a decision on if I have a skunk day or not, they're random even using the best of the best equipment and happen often! It's not the best detector on the market, according to price the GPZ is, yet some prefer the SDC, or the 6000, or the GPX 5000, some even prefer older GPX models, it all comes down to wants and needs. It's a great detector for its price though, for people that are having some sort of anxiety problem this $2275 detector is somehow threatening their $9,000 AUD GPX 6000 detector, you need not worry, but it's sure not 1/4 of the detector the 6000 is like the price indicates, so perhaps you overpaid 🙂

Unfortunately, good targets like coins shoot up the mineralization meters too. I didn't notice it with pellets as they're too small to shoot up the meters, but larger targets like coins do.

They should not be bought out, what's made them great is they are themselves answering to nobody. Like every business they'll grow and expand as necessary, they're obviously run by very smart people who I'm sure are capable of sorting it all out, as income grows from sales they'll expand, having more demand than supply is a great problem for them to have. They'll catch up with time, and jump through the hurdles of selling in the US. I doubt it will take them that long, a few months. If it doesn't cause other brands to respond in some way, they're asleep at the wheel. I can't wait to see what the Algoforce E3000 brings in the future. This first unit is really good, and the next one will only be better, it's fantastic to have a new player in the market offering a good product and with extremely reasonable pricing keeping the big boys in line.

In the meantime, dealers can sort themselves out, getting accessories for it arranged they can upsell with it, and getting coil stock as I'm sure a shortage of GPX coils is coming, they can source wholesale some good quality power banks, Bluetooth LL transmitters and even start to think about a cover. DD leather is Australia appears to be going to make covers for its battery area which is a good idea, especially if they follow on and make a lightweight cover, not some big heavy thick canvas thing, it doesn't need to be some heavy cover, there are plenty of lightweight tough materials.

You're correct, I didn't find any gold, I was going over ground I'd done before with the 7000 and 15" CC and 8" X-coils along with the 6000 and 10x5" Coiltek, and even the Equinox 800, it was an area I'd found one of my biggest nuggets along with a few small bits so I really wanted to just check out how it performed on the same ground doing the same things, and if it did find anything I'd missed, The area has quite bad hot rocks too, yet I never found one, the E1500 went over them like they didn't exist. It was just nice to experiment with it and hit the heavy junk area trying to take advantage of the Target ID to experiment. JW was with me and he was smart for someone trying to find gold, he went to the spot I found a nugget right as his 6000 coil died the last time we were there so that area hadn't been as detected and we knew nuggets were likely hiding there, he found 3 little bits with his 6000 and Coiltek 10x5" in the time we were there, which was only a few hours. I could have done the same sort of thing but just wanted to experiment more, learning the detector. It won't easily perform miracles finding gold where the others have already done, I never expected it would but wanted to try experiment more with the Target ID feature and just see how it behaved in various situations. We ended up spending a big part of the day not even detecting, driving exploring gold producing areas I'd never been to before, largely as I was too worried to try take on the 4x4 track up the mountainside, it's a challenging drive, even the drive back down the various gates along the way had all been bent and buckled by being crashed into by vehicles with their breaks failing so it was good to have someone experienced with me to take on that drive for my first time, I got stuck once where even in 4x4 mode my tyres just skidded but he advised how how to get through that 😉 I'm not an experienced off road driver. I learnt plenty and saw a whole lot of new detectable ground that I could experiment with in the future, a little more confident to take on the drive myself now, in the right weather as long as there has been no rain for quite a while as I would get stuck 😛 It was nice to get out of the mid summer heat and go cool off in some snow too. There is a town down there, can barely see it. This is Jw that found the 3 bits of gold with his 6000 and 10x5" in the thyme bushes. My 10" round would have struggled in that area anyway, I'd have to put on the Sadie.

I've tried out the microphone feature, it's quite nice being able to put the ambient outside noise through your headphones for awareness of what's going on around you. As I mostly use the speaker or the Avantree Torus I'll probably not need this feature, but it's still nice to have in case I do need it. Can never have too many features 🙂 Probably some tin foil hat wearers will think it's recording everything they say and beaming it back to Alfoforce HQ via satellite so they can find out everyone's gold locations like they did with the GPZ and it's GPS 😁

I'm confident it will work fine, I'd be extremely surprised if it didn't, I think virtually every mono coil will work fine.

14x9" is more stable than the stock 11" coil.

More sensitive to smaller gold.

I'm going to confirm this today, I only noticed all this yesterday and I got home late at night from a big adventure gold hunt 🙂

Too early to know for sure, maybe larger good targets do it too, that's what I've got to test, I just stumbled into an area with iron junk, I haven't yet tried normal targets to see if they do the same, like a non-ferrous coin. The small shot pellets I was finding obviously don't do it 🙂 It would be great if this turns out to be the case, I'll find out today, but the bars certainly go up with an iron target, hopefully they don't with a non-ferrous. Here's a short video of the Algo ground balancing in some very iron sand rich soil. It generally takes 5 pumps on the coil to balance anything out, later in the video I am pumping the coil, without the balance button down to show how out of balance it is, I then press it and my pump speed changes so show when I've pressed it, and it balances within its usual 5 pumps. You'll see the bars on the ground balance meter growing as I swing over the iron sand concentrated ground; these are the same bars that shoot up on the iron targets I was hitting. They're the bars in the middle of the screen below the number. Once out of high concentration areas of iron sand like this even though it remains in balance in the milder areas with the same balance setting, I like to balance again as I believe you get better sensitivity to tiny targets that way. It's such an easy detector to use and understand. I really like its fixed ground balance; I wish the 6000 had a way to do that too. It has enough settings to give you some control while still being suitable for a beginner as it's very easy to use and understand, there is nothing complicated about it and navigating the user interface is very simple. Woody's done another interesting technical video on it too.

More cool information about the Algoforce, it ground balances very salty soil fine, even in Ultra Fine gold mode using a super sensitive 10" fully spiral wound coil. This took me by surprise as the last time I was at this spot was testing the GPX 4500 with the Nugget Finder 14x9" EVO and had quite a bit of difficulty with ground balance, The Algoforce barely even needed balanced, it wasn't even bad from switch on with only a small portion showing on the mineralization bar, this was resolved with a ground balance. I was in ultra fine gold mode, on the GPX 4500 I had to drop the timings down in sensitivity, I can't remember which worked well. It maintained good pellet sensitivity once balanced, not as good as in mild soils, but still pretty good. You'll notice the sun reflecting in this photo above on the screen, so when I have the same photo with the sun behind me even further like below, you'll see just how good the screen is in direct sun, it loves it, it's brilliant in full sun, so different to the GPZ that's damn near impossible to see, it's good though, as the Algo has so much information on the screen, really good information. I must have found 15 or more 22 shells today, for the first 8 I was checking if they were 22 shells after getting their 22 target ID, then I started playing a game of odds, any big booming that with an ID of 22 was likely a 22 shell so I didn't waste my time. In may not look it in the photos but this soil is so weird, it's almost white and full of salt. I hadn't calibrated my coil in its slot as I was using it for another coil so I calibrate it in the video, you can see this being done for those interested in seeing a coil calibrate. I had a bit of trouble pressing the two buttons at once with one hand to start the calibration while holding my phone to film 🙂 Note my Ground balance numbers, 50 00, default is 50 50. It would be nice from the manufacturer to update the manual to indicate what these numbers mean in some way. 50 00 is a bit of a surprise number combination, must be the salt. Didn't spend long here at all, had too much to do, but it was worth a try to see how the detector worked in salt and it worked brilliantly. I think it's going to be a great beach detector; I wonder how it would go with a mono coil in the salt flats in Australia. Another little bit of information that may be of interest, it is looking like you can use the mineralization bars on the screen as a form of Iron probability meter, when going over an iron junk target, they rise right up like it needs ground balanced, pass over the target they drop back down. I tested this quite a bit today, every bit of iron I knew was iron before recovering it by using this method. I need to experiment with this more and see, and do some iron air tests. I have a lot to learn yet but the Target ID and other features of this detector give it much more of a VLF like feature set, and could really be taken advantage of.

I've been wanting to buy a 10x5" Commander DD since I discovered this, there was a guy selling a second hand one forever on our local auction site, I mean for years it kept appearing on and off and now when I want it, it's gone! a 10x3" I think on this detector would be an absolute weapon on small shallow gold, would be a pellet lover too though 🙂 I wasn't interested with the legacy GPX models in this revelation, but with the extra sensitivity of the Algo it seems like a cool thing to try. One thing I'd recommend, if possible, for people buying second hand coils for the Algoforce and only really if they're unusual coils like the ones demonstrated in Steves post above for the TDI or the probes is to test them on the detector before buying, I've had no trouble with any Coiltek, NF, Minelab or standard spiral X-coils. When you plug in a new coil and go into the coil menu you have a number of slots you can save coil profiles on so you can have your favourite coils in there calibrated and ready to go, a new coil plugged in unless within the specifications of another coil you have used will request calibration. It's a quick process, only takes a few seconds where you press the + and - buttons to start the calibration. If a coil is too wildly outside of normal GPX specifications it won't calibrate, and if it won't calibrate, you're not getting the best out of the coil, it will work, but not as well as it could. In all the coils I've got only a prototype 15" Concentric X-coil won't calibrate at all, and that's likely because it's a 15" Concentric in DD mode on the GPX and a 15" Spiral mono in mono mode, I think it's just too out of spec, this is being looked into to see if it can be resolved by either side as its not even a released coil. I doubt many will encounter this and it would have to be some wildly bizarre or out of spec coil, if it does happen it just won't calibrate, you can still use it, it just may not work as well as if it was able to calibrate, although with my 15" CC that doesn't calibrate, I think it's working well on my initial usage.

ahh yes, I usually do that, unfortunately I threw them out when I emptied my pocket as I have a very angry wife a few times when the washing machine gets filled with little pellets and bullets, I'd lost quite a few too as I was using them to test various things on the day. I was using the scrape and detect method and I was also experimenting with the 00 target ID on shotgun pellets, so I wasted a lot of gold hunting time by experimenting and getting to know the detector, I think that's important to do though, especially for me as I have to have confidence in the gear I'm using or I just won't enjoy using it. The more I experiment and test it the more I learn about it the more confidence I have in the detector. I am sure I took home with me about 30 pellets, so a 1 to 15 ratio 🙂 Although, I probably rejected as many as I dug by moving them on the first scrape, and lost another 10 experimenting. I am going looking for gold with it again today at another spot with the other guy that lives around here that gold hunts albeit with far more success than me, JW. It rained a lot over the past day and overnight which generally lights up the gold in the ground, no doubt plenty of fresh summer snow on the hill tops when the light kicks in soon too as it's been a bit of a short sharp cold snap so today I should be far more comfortable detecting with some snow to look up at whenever I feel hot and any breeze blowing over some snow to cool it 🙂 Fingers crossed I can find some more with the Algo!