phrunt

I don't even see anything new in the current pipeline, this is from a Conference in May 2023. Metal detectors are decreasing becoming a much smaller part of their business, from averaging over 70% now down to 35%, a massive drop and just shows how the African market was really propping them up, they even say they were dependant on Africa. Hopefully Minelab are thinking of a re-release of a 5000 as a 5500 to stay ahead of the competition, but if they are they're not giving anything away to investors about it, normally new products being worked on get some sort of mention, this time it's all about opening up new markets such as India and getting rid of dealers relying on e-commerce and selling direct to customers.

They can't discontinue the 5000 as it's still the best they make at some tasks, some ground only a 5000 will do so renewing it really makes sense. The 5000 can be used in many places, with AI coils it's still the best with EMI I think, it works well at beaches, heavy hot rock areas, super bad soil, extreme salt, places that kill the 6000 the 5000 works perfectly fine. It's also their only offering with some discrimination, although not perfect it does work especially for coin and relic hunters. Over the years I'm sure they now know ways to tweak it further, simplify its settings a lot and lighten it up. I fear they'd go the chipped coil route with it through and prevent us using existing GPX coils, a fatal mistake of course but I'd not put it past them. Doing that is going to bite them one day though as if the competitors don't do it, and gradually catch up or even get close, or just outright destroy them with price then the availability of aftermarket coils will be a really attractive option for buyers. I'm sure a large percentage of 5000 owners barely strayed into settings beyond their go-to's. Simplifying the settings with a digital screen interface wouldn't be that hard for Minelab. If Nokta can do so they should tap into that existing GPX coil compatibility on their PI, QED did it, it can be done and gives it an instant boost over anything else that comes out from other players, plenty of people have coils and they're readily available with reasonable pricing, the coils available are vast and fantastic options. It would be a very attractive attribute to their PI. Hopefully next year we see something from Nokta and Fisher. I think we are far more likely to see a revised Gold Monster with Multi-IQ than we are a GPZ 8000 in the near future. The coil offerings now available for the 7000 make the 8000 a whole lot harder to do than they planned.

Just in general, the 35 especially in the higher sensitivity settings can just be unstable, going off in the air for no reason. Gets quite frustrating when using it.

One side of my face went floppy when you said you have no pinpointer, I felt physically ill and gagged a few times trying to hold it in. I think people prefer the convenience of the USB charging. I'm not overly bothered by it at all, and in a way it's good as your pinpointer can easily get a new battery when required, built in batteries can end the life of the product if the battery goes and there are no replacements at the time. The modern batteries used in these pinpointers are fine though, last for many years, often more than 5 with no sign of degradation. The 9v can be good if you get the right one, I highly recommend PowerEX 9.6 or 9.2 volt rerechargeable iMH batteries for 9v applications. they have a good solid long life in use and last for many years. They're often at Photography shops as they are great for camera flashes, microphones and other photography gear that has high power demands. Maha Powerex Precharged 9V 9.6V 230mAh rechargeable battery | Protog Higher voltage True 9.6V Rechargeable NiMH Batteries provide longer runtime in most devices Get more out of your devices! Powerex 9V batteries have 9.6V true voltage, rather than 8.4V found in many other rechargeable batteries. Compare Powerex 9V batteries with many other 9V batteries and you will see that they really are in a class of their own. Why do 9.6V batteries last longer? The Powerex 9.6V batteries are designed specifically for devices which need the full 9V to operate. The nominal voltage is 9.6V, whereas most other rechargeable 9V batteries have a nominal voltage of 8.4V. When the Powerex 9.6V is fully charged, the voltage will be around 11.5V, just as your 12V car battery will be around 14.4V when fully charged, and about 7.6V when fully discharged. Due to the non-linear voltage discharge curve of NiMH batteries, the device can access around 90% of the Powerex battery capacity before the voltage drops below 9V. See the chart below: Features True 9.6V 230mAh rating, with Precharged low self-discharge technology, retaining 85% of their charge for up to 1 year. Actual Voltage is slightly higher than standard 9V Alkaline Batteries. Will outperform a standard 9-volt battery due to the higher voltage. Will also outperform 8.4V rechargeables due to the higher voltage required by some devices. Powerex 9.6V 9V batteries will operate microphones that other 9V batteries cannot power. Fast charge capable and works well with the MH-C490F and MH-C1090F Powerex Charger Enables microphones and paintball hoppers to last longer and work faster. No memory effect allows for fast and efficient full charges. No conditioning necessary. Chargeable up to 1000 times. If you end up with a 40 I'd be interested in what you think of it, particually if it runs stable.

Has anyone purchased a Pro-Find 40 yet? I'd really like to hear from a buyer what they think of it rather than promoters. It doesn't seem in very high demand, I can't find a person anywhere so far that's bought one.

He's got a nice smile. Such cool animals.

It's really a change of guard, the old dogs are dying off and the new players are taking over the market. Many sat on old outdated technology too long and players like Nokta come in, innovate and bring products we want to buy after being fed out of date food for far too long. Paint jobs are a thing of the past, if you can't bring good new product to market your time is up. Thank you Nokta!

Thanks for the tip off, they could probably source the 03 and sell it, they use Paypal too so pretty safe. @Shelton may know if they're a good dealer. Sphinx Magnetic Pinpointer 02 - Omnitron - Wykrywacze metalu The 03 is only new so perhaps they just haven't got any yet.

I'm honestly not sure, outside of Russia I can't find a dealer of them and sanctions mean Russian parcels can't be sent to our countries. @pavelka72 is involved with them I believe, if not the creator of it so he may well be able to advise how to buy one, keep in mind you're essentially buying it with no warranty even though it's got 2 years as it would likely cost you as much to send it back as it cost to get it. A good pinpointer that's for sure, but something you'd only buy if you don't mind the extra expense and difficulty involved in getting one. I think they need to find a dealer elsewhere to sell them and need to create an English app. Until then it's probably not worth the effort and cost involved getting one unless you're a pin pointer addict 🙂

How long have you been using them V3i? Shenmz are Shenzhen Shenmeizi Technology Co Ltd batteries and they've been known to over-rate their batteries power ratings, but they make a lot of generic brands and Shenmz is the brand directly linked to their name so they maybe their better-quality batteries, they seem to mostly make aftermarket phone batteries but that's becoming a dying business with phones having batteries that can no longer be changed. If you're still happy with them after about 6 months of use I'd be interested in getting some. I use the PowerEX TRUE 9.6v NiMH batteries with good success. Amazon.com: Powerex MHR9V Powerex 9.6V 230mAh 1-Pack Rechargeable Battery : Health & Household

Can you get a Sphinx 03 France? deeper discrimination and no 9v battery.

Well, it wasn't that long ago many of us thought the Equinox was it, nobody could meet or exceed it, then comes the Deus 2 and the Legend, both capable of meeting and exceeding the Equinox in many tasks. I would not be surprised if Nokta can do it, and do it well, I'm certainly hoping they can, I want one.

You can easily revert back, there is a little dots thing that doesn't stand out in the firmware update tool you can click and revert back, if you read the entire thread you'll see all about it and how to do it.

well keep in mind the Pro?-Find's depth drops when you enable discrimination, the Sphinx appears to lose no depth with it enabled, all my testing videos were with it enabled on the Sphinx and disabled on the Pro?-Find as the Minelab losing quite a bit of depth if you have it enabled. My air test videos on various pinpointers all had the Sphinx 03 with discrimination enabled, and the Pro-Find with it disabled. You also have to be pretty close to the target for the discrimination to work, that's similar on both of them although I think the Sphinx is a bit better. I really hope the 40 is a lot better than the 35 as the concept is great, the delivery was the problem.

The funny thing is even if Minelab’s Amateur-Find 40 is their claimed 10% deeper than the 35 all that would do is catch it up to the worst performers in the bunch 😂

Does moving the ribbon cable around affect it? it could be a small crack in the mylar cable which you could solve with a bridge. Have you applied pressure around the edges of the screen on the metal surround to see if you can make the lines go away or move? Have you left the detector on for some time to see if the lines go away with time? It could be a bad batch of screens I guess, or a fault with the PCB.

Ok, the Sphinx people have done a good job on this pin pointer, I figured this was a hyped-up pin pointer and would not meet my expectations as a real pin pointer addict, I even doubted the earlier promotional review Cipher did of it as it seemed a bit too good to be true, but he's redeemed himself. I really thought I was going to be a bit argumentative with his review and it turns out I am, he said its depth is similar to the Pro Pointer AT, I think he's wrong, it's deeper and by a reasonable amount, at least in my soils., I've buried a few coins at different depths and it does exceed the Pro Pointer AT for depth and keeps up with the Pulse pinpointers for depth while having more sensitivity. I've long been on the search for my perfect pinpointer as I love the things, so when Cipher was showing his glowing review although it seemed like he was provided the pin pointer for the purpose of the review I had to see for myself if it was good, I was fortunate to have a friend living in that part of the world I was able to ask to ship me one so that made it all easy for me to get one, had I not had that friend I doubt I could even buy one. So really the Sphinx is nothing more than a tease for people outside of the Russia and surrounding countries, and I hope they do try expand their market someday, and make their app in English also to help with that. It really is a good pin pointer, it surprised me, I didn't expect it but I'm very glad now I bought it. Let's just say if it ever died, I'd be buying another one, and if a new model comes out in the future, I'd be buying that too. The only other pin pointer I own I'd replace if it died is the Garrett AT, I could live without the rest. I'm still yet to test it with my GPX 6000, 5000 and GPZ, geez I haven't even had time to try out my Nugget Finder 12x7" for my 6000 yet, still sitting there untouched, not even plugged it in, the Sphinx guy that's posted in this thread has indicated it will work fine but I've got to see it to believe it 🙂 lifes just so busy at the moment with it being ski season and my building project to become the home for my detecting gear I rarely have any spare time other than when I'm having a coffee break or to sleep and eat.

The Impulse project was severely messed up by releasing a waterproof beach detector prior to the gold detector, it was done the wrong way around, such a small market by comparison. I have no idea how long it takes to make a detector from scratch so I've still got my hopes up Nokta are working away on it in the background and will surprise us. I would say there isn't really room in the market for another PI gold machine, but that's completely wrong. There is plenty of room, it just has to be at the right price, a reasonable price that makes it an affordable detector for many to use. If they make it dual purpose with some features that coin and jewellery, relic and even beach hunters would like and also keep the price low they'll hit a home run. I shouldn't really be advocating for a cheap PI as that means there would likely be more people looking for gold in areas I look, price is what keeps the hobby limited in numbers, not many hobbyists are willing to pay the price and rightly so, unless you're in a very good gold location no matter how many hours you put in it's unlikely you will recover costs so you're doing it for the love, the challenge and that takes the numbers of people willing to do that right down. If Nokta can do it, and do it at the right price they can expect to open up a whole new market of weekend or even holiday/vacation warriors with detectors, I thought Garrett was going to do that but they went for well-trodden high-priced route and have also quite severely limited their sales doing so. I would argue ideally it needs to be a lot better than a TDI, The QED is better than a TDI I hear and it's not quite where this Nokta needs to be to be very enticing, closer to a 4500 or 5000 would be better, anything better than that is pure gravy. If a QED level is all they can do which you would think they can with it being a one-man job from a garage in rural Australia armed with his 3D printer and some electronics skills then it needs to be priced right more towards VLF pricing for what it is then it would still be a good success I think, but to really cause a stir the GPX 4500 should be the goal post. There is little reason a PI should cost a lot more than a VLF, the only real thing costing more is the extra battery power it would require although QED's run off two 18650's

me too 🙂

Yes, I'd never used silicone grease on it, in saying that I'd never got a chance to use it at all. In my recent testing it's the deepest of the pinpointers I own on a coin, and that's without even putting a coil on it, just as a pinpointer is topped the bunch on an Aussie $1 coin. Once the replacement arrives, I'll be sure to buy some silicone grease and keep it well lubed 🙂 Have you tried the larger 8" coil on your Erik? I'm tempted to buy it for a bit more punch.

Yes, makes me want to buy a Legend

I have now joined the long line of people that have experienced exceptional customer service from Nokta, they're replacing it for me even though I can't locate my receipt.

It's called Gold vermeil, sterling silver jewellery that's got a thick gold plate. This site talks about it What Is Gold Vermeil? Your Complete Guide | Linjer Jewelry

I'm guessing we won't see a 6" at all unless Coiltek make it, Minelab have a habit of releasing 3 coils at introduction or shortly 🤣 after release, then nothing else in the life of the detector. Even Coiltek are likely to just release their same old sizes with the 10x5" 14x9" and 15" round, cheaper for them to do that, a mistake of course, but often it comes down to $$$$, although by doing that they're missing out on a lot of dollars they could get by making more in demand coil sizes, and less weigh than their current 14x9" and 15". They should learn off Detech with the 13" Ultimate coil, so light. People would be all over it if it came out for the Manticore or Nox.

They're too busy releasing new products like the Pro-Find 40 to flood the market with new things to buy to worry about coils that they appear to have some sort of distain towards, it must be their strategy at the moment, release as many new products as they can to overwhelm the market. I think they would sell a lot more Manty coils than they would Pro-Finds. I'm hanging about waiting for the brave soul that buys a Pro-Find to do a review on it from someone that isn't associated with Minelab as I'm hoping it's good, I just don't think it will be. They've become very complacent with their success, but you can only ride that wave for so long unless you continue to meet expectations and right now, they're not really achieving that. It could of course be the coils just are not ready, the ones out in the field at the moment in the M8 size don't appear to be where they need to be, up averaging quite badly on targets. It's better they take a bit longer and release a good product as lately they've rushed stuff to market and released a few lemons.