phrunt

I hope it's not going to be a slow trickle of them released. My dealer knows nothing more about their pending arrival than perhaps possibly if we cross our fingers, hold our mouth in a certain position and stand on one leg we may see them next month.

Don't you have black Carrots in the US? 🙂

Yes, they don't seem interested in metal detecting acquisitions, with communication the big focus from recently with these three that a quick google pops up from the past couple of years. Codan (ASX:CDA) subsidiary Zetron to take control of US-based GeoConex | The Market Herald Codan puts aside more than $100 million for a tactical US acquisition (smartcompany.com.au) Codan Limited - ASX Announcement - Acquisition Announcement Hopefully if technology has reached its limits, they don't become a First Texas releasing paint jobs over and over again for decades to come 🙂

It is quite possible the 15x12" maxed out depth on the Nox 800, I know a guy that bought the 15" round and felt it no better than the 15x12" just heavier so he sold it off, wasn't an easy coil for him to sell either and took a big loss on it, I didn't buy it from him for this reason, he'd already told me it was no deeper than his 15x12" which was much lighter. If the 18" is no deeper than the 15x12" in actual field use then it will be another big flop like I guess the 15" round is.

The GPX 6000 battery run time is 8 hours in optimal conditions, and I would guess that is when using headphones. Mine tends to last about 6 hours on a full charge as I use speaker and has been this way since new. It's a part time detector, not a full time one like the GPZ is without a spare battery.

Wow, blown away by your success! Well done. I feel for the people that lost their jewellery, one person's loss is anothers gain.

This maybe of interest. Metal Detection (Minelab) Minelab is the world leader in handheld metal detection technologies for the recreational, gold mining, demining and military markets. For more than 30 years, Minelab has introduced more innovations than any of its competitors and has led the metal detection industry to new levels of technological excellence. Minelab delivered revenues of $176 million (FY22: $262 million). Notwithstanding, the reduction in Minelab revenues against FY22, which is a direct result of continuing disruption in the Northeast African market, Minelab delivered a stronger second half across all its key markets, being RoW recreational detectors, Countermine and also in the African market. Minelab’s FY23 segment profit margin remained stable from H1 at 32%. Despite the global trend of increasing inflationary pressures affecting consumer sentiment and discretionary spending, the revenues from RoW recreational detectors have remained remarkably resilient, growing 9% versus pcp after adjusting for the ceased Russian recreational market. This sector continued to expand, exceeding the record FY22 levels which were driven by government stimulus and unprecedented COVID-related demand. The newly released products Manticore, X-Terra Pro, Equinox 700 and 900 detectors have been well received and the products delivered exceptional results driving the FY23 RoW recreational revenue growth. The Company anticipates a full year benefit from these products in FY24, although we continue to closely monitor the impact of global macroeconomic conditions. Within Africa, significant disruptions experienced in the Northeast African region have persisted throughout FY23 and these are continuing with no signs of any improvement in that disrupted market. Importantly, revenues from other parts of Africa have stabilised and are largely returning to pre-COVID levels. Consistent with previous years, the African market benefited from seasonal conditions in the second half. Looking forward, the Company does not anticipate improvements in trading conditions within Northeast Africa in FY24. In light of this, the Company considers FY23 to represent the new revenue base for Africa going forward. Following record Countermine sales in FY22 several large project awards contributed to another strong result in FY23 albeit slightly down on FY22. The focus for FY23 shifted towards supporting humanitarian efforts to de-mine in countries such as Ukraine. In summary, through Minelab’s continued focus on expanding its technologically superior product range and through further geographic expansion, Minelab’s RoW recreational detectors are well placed to continue high single digit growth in FY24. Outlook There are a number of key considerations regarding the Company’s outlook for FY24: · After normalising for the impact of the large Communications project delivered in FY23 (approximately $20 million), the Communications business (excluding Eagle) is targeting to deliver 10% to 15% revenue growth in FY24; · Minelab’s RoW recreational market is targeting to continue high single digit growth, with a full-year benefit from newly launched detectors; and · Regional geopolitical issues persist and global macroeconomic conditions remain uncertain. Looking forward, there is a continued focus on investing in our product development pipelines, and in our people, systems and processes to support the future growth of the Company. These initiatives will see an increase in Codan’s operating costs in areas such as IT systems and the required resources to deliver our future acquisition strategy. The business believes this investment in the right structure and foundations is essential to build a stronger Codan and deliver the Company’s strategic growth plan. The Board will provide a further business update at the Annual General Meeting on October 25, 2023, which will again be a hybrid meeting with in-person and virtual attendance, to provide as many shareholders with the ability to participate as possible Source: Codan Limited - Annual Report 2023 I think for those waiting on the GPZ 8000 being a release in the near future. I think we will see a CTX 4040 long before a GPZ 8000.

Sorry to hear that, I hope it doesn't destroy your prospecting trip. Sounds like it's off to Minelab for a repair 😞

Flash roms and EEPROMS that are used for this sort of thing are very reliable for data integrity. I've got 15+ year old motherboards where the firmware on them is still holding as new, the same bios on there perfectly fine even though they're rarely if ever used. There is little to worry about in regards to this. If it were a problem our cars and everything would be playing up, their software is stored on the same stuff and has been for 10+ years 🙂

Have you checked the little battery pins, they can get stuck in or dirty and not connect properly. 8 volts is correct for a good battery on a multi-meter, 7.2 volts nominal voltage when running. My 6000 came out of the box not powering on properly, it was the detector at fault not the battery and I found out at the time it was a pretty common problem, some came from the factory with both or one of these pins stuck in. Some just had a bigger issue inside to do with the battery connection. If the pins are popped out just give them a little clean with some alcohol, worst case a damp cloth if you have nothing else available and wait for them to dry and try it out.

Although possible a board level component change is affecting certain detectors and not others, I think it's unlikely as the replacement components they would use the engineers would have been testing and verifying they're suitable. Electronic components have tolerances and I would think the older analog detectors would be more prone to these problems than digital detectors. We've seen recently the GPX 6000 with detectors having variable performance inductors causing some detectors far worse self-generated EMI problems than others, so that's a recent example of this problem however I think this was more a problem with the quality of the product than anything with varying performance between inductors, every cent matters, so this of course means other components they're using could be causing their own problems. The computer the end user is performing the update on can have an influence on if the update works, as in their computer may error saying it can't do the update for whatever reason or not detect the detector when plugged in, however if the update goes on the update goes on, the update tool will be doing a Cyclic redundancy check (CRC) on the file to ensure there is no corruption with the firmware prior to updating and then after updating it will compare the CRC to ensure the file once written is the same as the original file like a signature check, if for example the computer doing the firmware update has a RAM problem with the computer corrupting the firmware during transfer the tool flashing it would fail the verification and flash again, or error. The firmware update I put on my Manticore is the exact same one everyone else has on theirs, there will be no variation caused by the computer used to update it. I'm confident manufacturers are not sabotaging others firmware update tools and files 🙂

Excitement from me! Shame the same level of support isn't going into the Manticore. I hope they make it lighter, there is no way the 15" Coiltek Nox coil needs to be as heavy as it is.

They don't have a significant dominance with VLF detectors, they did for a while with the Equinox while others played catch up or over took them, as it stands now competition is pretty fierce when it comes to VLF's with some brands even significantly cheaper for detectors very similar in performance and often better build quality. It's good for us as customers, not so good for them seeing the extremely high margin gold detector market is fizzling off a bit so they are putting a lot of effort into coin and jewellery machines where there is very active and highly competitive alternatives from many brands such as XP, Nokta, Rutus and now even Quest. Every brand has their positives and negatives however, if they want to arguably remain the market leader in thiese coin machines they need to up their game a bit with coil releases and ensuring the product that hits the market is ready, especially when it comes to quality control. They make the most expensive detectors in the world by a significant margin however these detectors are no better build quality than a cheap low-end detector worth 1/50th the cost and to me that's not acceptable. Something like a Simplex has better build quality and reliability than a GPX 6000. You buy a Mercedes you expect much higher build quality than you do if you buy a Chinese discount car brand such as Chery or Haval. I really hope new leadership brings them back to the Minelab of days gone by with rock solid detector quality like on the older GPX models. I'm sure if they're actually reading the reports by customers on social media and forum's they will easily be able to see the majority of complaints are all focused on certain aspects of their business that they could work on improving - stock availability, coils released as soon as possible after new detector releases ideally at the time of release would be ideal for them and for us, and last but not least build quality.

They do a fantastic job of spinning their reports to be favourable from an otherwise negative report. RoW recreational detectors remained resilient, growing 9% verses HY22. - then the fine print - After adjusting for the ceased Russian market. The Russian market was a large percentage of their world sales in previous reports. In FY21 the Russian market was equal to their home market Australia at 54m. A significant market to lose entirely. I can see their focus becoming more and more on the coin and jewellery detector market, following the money. Maybe that means there will be a new CTX one day. No mention of their new pinpointer, insignificant really, a bug fixed Pro-Find 35 but the damage was already done with that line by releasing the 35 in its current form and running with it. I hope the new head honcho changes how the business is run to focus more on customers, building better quality products, resolving product availability issues and maybe just maybe improving communication with customers in general, seeing them more than just dollar signs. I felt the business has been run very poorly over the past couple of years, in a way that has damaged the brand significantly with product availability and quality problems. We shouldn't have to wait over a year to get new coils for a new detector that's basically their flagship like the Manticore, that's just embarrassing that they can't supply coils at the time of release.

If you do go with the Carrot option go with the Pro Pointer AT (orange), not the Pro Pointer II (black) I have both are the AT is far better especially when it comes to sensitivity.

I wouldn't use heat shrink, especially the adhesive ones as they will make the cable very stiff, they'd work well for sealing up the cable but you'd have a whole lot of trouble wrapping it, you'd have to heat it up, wrap it and leave it wrapped, you could take it off and it will keep the loops for you 🙂 In saying that, to heat shrink it you'd have to cut the cable unless you use the 4x shrinking stuff to get it over the coil cable plug. Still, not a good idea with how stiff it makes the cable. Electrical tape is a very short term fix and not overly good when it comes to water. Perhaps try this silicone self fusing tape, waterproof, flexible and should do the job I would think, even says for insulating failed electrical wires. Stops Rust® LeakSeal® Self-Fusing Silicone Tape Product Page (rustoleum.com.au) Going to the effort of replacing the coil cables probably not worth it for the coils, the Chinese on Aliexpress used to sell replacement GPX coil cables but now I can only find replacement cables for the GPX 6000 and GPZ 7000 from China.

Not the Axiom in action but a demonstration on finding the hot spots on coils by using small lead pellets, this coil is a bit of an anomaly amongst other model coils whereby the top of the coil in the correct spot on the front ridge is more sensitive than the anywhere on the bottom, this can be seen with the #6 pellet in the video, but it's even more pronounced on some small gold. It's very handy to know the hottest spots on coils, especially when looking for very small gold and even pinpointing it for digging or scooping recovery soils so I do something similar with every coil to learn the coil.

A 6" round for the Manticore would be awesome. Then I'd have to learn how to use it properly 🙂 I do normally have it set to 5 tones and the silver range tone always brings me to a stop but I just can't dig everything so I try to be very fussy digging the easy obvious coins to cause minimal damage seeing they're sports fields I'm targeting, perhaps if the coins run out and the soil is soft and the right time of year, I could be a bit more experimental with my digging while causing minimal damage. I can't just pop out targets though, they're all way too deep, well any target I want is, I have to dig. I need my ID's and so far for me the CTX followed by the Vanquish then the Nox are ahead of the Manticore for that 🙂 Once I get the big coil, I hope things improve, they're slightly better on the Nox with the 15x12" over the 11". It's very interesting to hear Jeff is finding it better with ID's in his soil though as not everyone finds it worse, my opinions on that are taking into account the extra ID range causing a bit more bounce too. I look forward to hearing how you go on the gold nuggets Jeff once you get it out there finding some.

A software setting to set the Manticore between legacy Nox 50 Target ID mode and Manticore's larger scale would be the ultimate firmware update for me. I don't always want a large ID scale nor do I need it. I guess I can do it in my head but the perceived more accurate ID's are just a nice thing to have, and for beginners they often make the detector easier to use/understand too than more bouncy ID's.

That's really interesting Jeff, you're reporting far better ID's than the Nox in your crazy bad soils, yet for me it's far worse than the Nox in my very mild soils, perhaps they put a lot of focus on worse soils thereby making mild soils worse. I can calm my ID's down by going to 17 sensitivity which is my go-to sensitivity number, going above that my ID's get progressively worse and going below it I start to lose some depth, whereas 17 seems to maintain a majority if not all of the depth. Good for people in bad soils I guess except for reports like from Abenson, and seeing yours has the update from factory it's a bit of a puzzle why his was playing up, even the replacement. I don't know if you read that thread much seeing you didn't have a Manticore at the time.

I think we should all chip in and buy you a year-long therapy voucher to Detector Addicts Anonymous, I'll see you there 🙂 I'm pleased you're finding the Manticore experience good, more so that it confirms I don't need to bother with a Nox 900. The Manticore's pretty good, it's impressive you're getting quite tight target ID's in your soil.

I guess that's why Minelab released a range of pinpointers based off the one, so they can remove features from some to charge more for others, crazy! I've never bothered to look at the lesser featured Pro-Find models as I'm used to brands really just having the one model in the range.

yep, I don't know of a pinpointer that doesn't. The Pulse Dive is the ideal pinpointer for a beach/water hunter like you Erik, the other good option is the F-Pulse although personally I prefer the Pulse Dive over the F-Pulse, especially seeing it can use coils, but the F-Pulse also has a very quiet speaker which I don't like. I find the Pulse Dive deeper than the F-Pulse too but the F-Pulse works very well in salt much like the Pulse Dive.

The Garrett AT is just a reliable workhorse, it's stable, sensitive, deep, good quality, loud speaker, long battery life... the list goes on and on. The only time I wouldn't want to use it is in salt water or wet sand, aside from that it's just a safe good choice. It's the one pinpointer that if it died on me, I'd be rushing out to get a replacement, every other pinpointer I own I'd be disappointed but wouldn't replace them. Discrimination has started to slip into some pinpointers and for me, it's only beneficial when using a PI detector that has no discrimination itself, otherwise I'd rather leave the discrimination up to the detector as detectors do it a whole lot better, you can't even compare pinpointer discrimination to that of a detector.

Outstanding, you're well ahead of my biggest. It's hard not to ignore those boomers but it can pay off.