phrunt

Awesome Dave, a game changer for sure, now you will have all the confidence and be able to go back and do it yourself.  

The problem is they thought they'd promote it before releasing it by their Storm is coming marketing, this may have backfired on them with heavy discounting by the biggest competitor on their best machine.  Once someone buys a machine like that, they're very unlikely to buy another one a month or two later.  They need to get this storm out the door, the longer they wait the worse it gets.

We saw it again recently, Nokta had been talking about a PI years, Algoforce hits the market and takes it by surprise with no clues it was coming at all, now Nokta suddenly do a naming contest for their PI that looks like it's finally coming, but not necessarily, it took years after their Legend naming contest until it hit the market.  Maybe the Algoforce release shook them a bit.

Manufacturers would be smarter to take the market by surprise like XP with the Deus 2 and not leak a new model is coming when it's not ready to release, it just doesn't seem to work in their favour.  I really hope the storm hits soon, and it uses the Apex design, love that big screen and overall design.

4 minutes ago, RobNC said:

That was quite the test. Maybe currents have something to do with increasing leakage possibility? Ya know ocean salt water plus washing waves/current pulling and pushing.

I believe your Equinox is considered well done at this point with that slow cooking you did on it. LOL

The spa was running as it has to heat, which means lots of bubbles moving around and why I had to use the rock to hold it in place 🙂

9 minutes ago, RobNC said:

Were there any confirmed reports on the actual source of the water leaking?

I've read occasionally the speaker, and other times the battery area, especially with people that changed to aftermarket shafts, not sure how valid that is.

Mine spent 3 days at the bottom of my spa pool with a rock holding it down, left turned on, it went flat obviously but after 3 days I took it out and charged it up, and it was fine.  I did that while under warranty.   The water was 38 degrees c too, 100 degrees f, which I believe warmer water like that may cause leaks more than colder water as rubber shrinks when hot.  I did it a few times throughout its warranty.

6 hours ago, Jeff McClendon said:

At this point from my experience with Beast mode AFTER seeing, accepting and doing the operational procedures recommended in Nokta’s demo video, I am using Beast mode as a 2 tone beep/dig mode for extreme situations almost like an extreme depth non-motion pinpoint mode. 

The Deep Target feature is the “beastly” feature that I will be using the most from the 1.14 Beta versions. 

Can it catch it up to the Manticore for depth though as this video makes it look terrible by comparison, seems a lot of messing around when you have other detectors that natively hit the same depth without doing anything, especially switching into a tricky to access mode to check a target? whenever you get a suspect deep target.

I read a lot of people saying the Legend is a bit of an 8" max detector and many comment on it's not very deep compared to others, the same thing I found with my Simplex and a guy I know in NZ sold his for that very reason, although that was very early on in the firmware updates, he didn't give it much of a chance.

Every time I think I'll jump onboard and buy one I read stuff that puts me off!  Although as soon as I can get my hands on a Nel Snake for it I'll buy it regardless for a waterproof creek gold detector, albeit second hand as even though we are a tiny market they're regularly available second hand, usually they're on multiple owners though.

The Deep Target feature sounds more viable to use than Beast mode.  I think the naming of Beast mode was a poor choice as it makes it sound like it's something super powerful and perhaps got people's expectations too high.

Understandable, very hard to see NZ in that amount of time, you'll be in a mad rush, I could spend 2 weeks just in my area and not run out of stuff to do as a tourist and many do, that's a pretty normal stay time around here.

Always check the sky at night, especially when outside of cities on the South Island, the Aurora is very active at the moment, 2 nights ago taken from Queenstown Botanical Gardens.

I think the brain will be under the arm cuff too, this seems vital to fitting the capacitors and other gadgets required to make a deep seeking PI

5 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

You know Simon that using a PI to ignore pellets is no different than notching the low end pellet responses out with a VLF? Either way you miss gold and either way you don’t dig pellets. The first few non-ferrous numbers on the VLF scale are basically reacting according to size, the bigger the gold bit, the higher the number.

yea, the pellets I'm used to dealing with although worse now than ever at that spot, and the GPX I was using picks them up just as well except the tiny little ones, it was more the endless hot rocks that was driving me mad, can't go a swing without it going crazy on them and then there is the question of if I was missing gold because of the hot rocks on the VLF, I believe less likely with a PI that was silent over most of them except the worst ones.  This is a particularly bad spot to use a VLF though, I'd never enjoyed using a VLF in this area, probably my lack of patience with it.

6 hours ago, Chase Goldman said:

Said like a true detector addict in denial, Simon.  And being one myself, I don’t believe a word of it.  

You know me too well, perhaps I should have worded it I will resist with all of my might not to buy one.  I'd like to support Nokta for putting the effort in to bringing it to market though, and for keeping with the tradition of their better pricing model. 

With my wide array of detectors, I only reach for a small handful though and even then, sometimes I use ones out of that handful with the hope of keeping their batteries alive.  I might cull them all off one day, that would be a milestone event.

I could drop back to 3 detectors and be fine.

13 minutes ago, mn90403 said:

Ah, I haven't read all of the thread but my thoughts are what was said earlier when the price increases were laid on at the beginning of the year.  Raise the price so you can put it on sale!

Must agree that Jeff's satisfaction with it and my soon use of Simon's may cause me to make an order before I return from this trip.

You won't want to use it at many gold locations here, between the shotgun pellets and hot rocks you'll barely have 5 seconds when it's not reacting to something, especially at the new golf course spot, they're shooting like mad there to get rid of the rabbits as it won't be any 18-hole golf course for long, it'll be a few thousand holes.  I tried it out yesterday, big mistake, went back to a PI quick smart and it was night and day.

Well, they had a winning formula of suggestions on this forum, let's hope they didn't listen to Youtube and Facebook influencers too much and neglect the suggestions here unless they were in line with each other.

I'm puzzled why they're doing two models other than for more sales as surely one detector could handle both jobs and give people even more bang for the buck.  Hopefully it's just the supplied coil options although I have a very bad feeling they've gone down the path of their own coils not compatible with GPX coils and if its chipped like the Legend then there is another reason for its uptake to be slower than hoped.

I guess their Relic one will have the Algoforce Target ID's and possibly DD coils and blanking, features that would also be good on a prospecting machine.

They missed the beach part of the market, always neglected, I guess that's the Impulse's fault having trouble selling 100 detectors.

Good to see they're indicating it will be cheaper, perhaps not than the Algo but than the Minelabs.

Unfortunately, I have too many detectors, so having another gold machine in my cupboard is very unlikely unless it betters what I have, and that's unlikely but we can hope and dream!

7 hours ago, walkerrj said:

I budgeted for a new Detector this year and was waiting to see what the Garrett Storm might be all about.  With $500 off and a 15% Veteran discount I jumped on a new Manticore today. 

I can imagine you were their target market with this sale, they want to take the shine off the competitor before it even comes out, that's the problem with announcing something that's not ready.

XP did something simialr to Nokta too, Nokta were hyping their Legend up for a very long time before it came out, XP came out of nowhere and released their Deus 2 leading the pack.

Sometimes these sales become price adjustments, as they stick around or never go back up to their full price.  I thought the Manticore is overpriced, well still is here.  I can buy a Deus 2 WS6 lite whatever it is kit for half the price of a Manticore.

Minelab always aim high for pricing, and gradually adjust when they work out they have overshot.  

The Deus 2 is the competitor to the Manticore and has pretty good popularity, and the Legend competing with the Equinox 800.  So, for the first time in some time Minelab has real competition.  It will be interesting how Garrett's new detector when it finally comes out adjusts the market uptake but may have been another reason this sale is US only, as the Garrett detector will be virtually USA only too unless they sort out their pricing.

My biggest problem with Nokta detectors is their UI is always a poorly thought-out mashup of making too much fit on a screen not suitable.  XP face similar issues although not near as bad.  The Manticore is so simple to navigate and understand the screen it doesn't even compare in that regard.

What was never taken into account it seems was a bulk of people were happy with their 800's, and the changes made especially to the 900 were certainly not enough to entice an "upgrade" unless a water hunter so many will only upgrade once their 800 fails out of warranty.   The Manticore was an upgrade but the price increase was far too high for not enough extra for many people.  I'm happy with my Manticore though, and glad I bought it, especially now I have the m8 and m15.  A very good detector.

As Steve said they'll sell a lot of Manticores now during the sale, once the sale is over, they'll be lucky to sell many at all for a long time.

You can get them from China as they use them on their clones, you'd want to pop yours open first to just make sure but generally their clone stuff is identical in the way it fits.

I'd get a quote from Minelab first, as these Chinese ones aren't even that cheap, they used to be when a lot of sellers had them but now it seems down to one.  You could ask Woody at Detectormods as he's tinkered a lot with these fakes.

Just 4 screws and a ribbon cable to replace it, although I'd pop off your ribbon cable and clean it with some electronics cleaner or pure alcohol and plug it in again and see if it fixes your screen, as it might, do it at both ends.

I think eventually when Minelab stops services the GPX we'll be increasingly relying on these clone parts but while Minelab still services unless the prices are beyond a joke it's best to just let them repair it with their parts.

4 minutes ago, dig4gold said:

That's interesting. I don't recall any posts you have made of gold you have found from where they are prospecting.

https://www.santanaminerals.com/bendigo-ophir-new-zealand

Odd, I never post where I am at so I have no idea why you would say that.

And of course I mean general area, not their actual mine site.

The F75 would be far easier to setup than the Legend, the Legend has pretty complicated menu system.  I even get annoyed at my Simplex for difficulty of adjusting things and remembering all the little icons meanings and its far less feature rich than the Legend, in saying that I rarely use it so I don't get a chance to let them sink into memory. 

A big reason for the F75 being simple to setup is it has very few options, the Legend is loaded with options, if that's good or bad depends on the end user.  I like detectors simple but not missing too many features.  The Legend comes across as a bit complicated to use to me, mainly due to it's cumbersome menu system and trying to pack too much onto a screen and menu system that just can't handle it.   The F75 having so few options can be learnt and understood in no time at all but lacks a lot of features the Legend has.  A detector like the Legend would have really benefited from a screen like the Manticore.

In saying that, I'd still pick the Legend, more features and features I find appealing especially the multi frequencies, it's like having a bunch of detectors in one, whereas the F75 is very limited there with its single frequency.  The Legend will also have more ways of avoiding EMI than the F75 which seems important to you, as it is for everyone.

The Legend is a whole lot of detector for the money.

The Versa is very impressive, the Legend not so much, too fiddly and the Versa just worked better on deep targets.

Good video, very chatty machines in that area, the beast mode seems to still be a long way behind the Manticore in it's standard detecting modes, and I doubt anyone is going to be hunting in beast mode, seems like you have to know the target is there then use beast mode to try bring it out.   

Well, now this beast mode has extended to blender, it's certainly a new trend.

The QED gave me a phobia of 3D printed stuff 🙂

He gives it a good beating in that video and it handles it well.

3D Printed stuff..... 

A mine they claim the richest find in NZ in four decades is hoping to open near a spot look for Gold, no doubt Mitchel will be driving right past this one on his way to Queenstown.

South Island mine could hold $4.4b in gold | Star News (odt.co.nz)

They claim 1.12 million ounces of gold, a bit more than the gram or two I've got from the area 🙂
 

I use these PowerEX True 9.6V rechargable batteries and they work well, but I found it's best not to store them in the Gold Bug 2 detector for long periods, it seems to drain them to zero even when not in use.   I can leave them in the Gold Bug Pro with no issues.

They claim you can recharge them 1000 times, I've had mine for years but not had to recharge more than 50 times I would guess.

As far as VLF's go I think the Manticore is right up there as one of the best available for prospecting.  You would benefit from having the M8 coil but the standard coil still does a pretty good job.  

The GB2 will be more sensitive to the smallest of small gold though, but not by much.  Hard to even notice the difference.  The Manticore will be better in almost every other way.

9 hours ago, PhaseTech said:

Correction - 3.5mm, or standard 1/8". 

Make sure you keep your sP01 topped up if you're not using it. 

I'll dig it out today and top up.

Thanks.