phrunt

Our smart power meters in NZ send data via the mobile phone network wirelessly from the home meter to the supplier. We also have Ripple Control which is used to switch older meters from day rate to night rate and for controlling load in heavy load situations turning off things like hot water heaters but this wouldn't mess with a detector. Ripple control is the most common form of load management, and is used in many countries worldwide. It works by superimposing a high frequency signal, usually between 100 and 1600Hz onto the standard 50-60 Hz main power signal You can of course send data over power cables such as the home kits for Ethernet over Power, they are really cool as you don't need to run Ethernet cables around your house, just use the power wires to transmit the data, as long as they're on the same circuit it's all good so I can imagine there is larger scale versions of that outside of your house that they can use to transmit data over the actual power lines but haven't heard of anything that does it. My understanding is for things like in home automation and Ethernet over Power sit in the range of 20 to 100kHz, so more likely to affect the higher frequency detectors and with a small range so you would need to be right near the house using it.

Some mighty big nuggets in Russia. A drone would stand out a bit you'd think, good old fashioned car might have been easier.

8" Concentric is a small concentric for the GPZ, I'd like that size coil, the smallest X-coils made was a 12" but it was never released for sale, I have one however, I think it's great, it's bundle wound as spiral would not fit. It's great you're making these coils Chet, Please keep us all updated on your progress.

Ok, so noise cancel does shift frequency, well that's how it works then, great! I'm very rusty on my memory of the manual, it's been a long time 😉 So that's how the Manticore noise cancel works too then, and in multi they must just shift the weighted frequencies to clear it up the same as you would in single frequency but just with more complex calculations. I should have expected nothing less, that's the obvious way it works, it's just their reference to channels that makes it confusing, rather than frequencies. I guess they just wanted to call each specific frequency a channel and in multi they'd have combinations of frequencies pre-set as channels and it tries these combinations. Perhaps the Manticore goes a step further and doesn't have specific "channels" and auto adjusts on the fly without using preset channels, so zoning in one of the noisy frequencies the multi mode is weighted for and shifting that while leaving the quiet ones at higher frequencies for example in it's detect mode is weighted for alone until it has a clean combination. So it's sitting there saying OK my weighted 18kHz is fine, no trouble there but my 5kHz is a bit noisy, so I'll try 4.9, 4.8, 4.7 etc until it gets a good one, then once it does it's ready to roll. The Manticore is significantly better with EMI than the Nox for some reason.

Thanks Jeff, yea I'm not sure if that is switching frequencies or if it was something else the way it's called noise cancelling and channels. I have no clue how it works but I do know the good old fashion frequency shift works pretty good 🙂

The frequency shifting would be an awesome feature to have on something like a Nox 900, and something they should have done for it's single frequency modes, how cool would have have been if you could switch to 4khz, then also adjust it in small increments like the T2/F75 to get it fine tuned to the local EMI. Perhaps this is what the noise cancel tries to do, and you can manually adjust the noise cancel channel. As Steve said though, get it as good as you can, lower the sensitivity if need be which often it is, or just change to a smaller coil which helps a lot. There are ways to deal with it. One thing I've found is you're better off lowering sensitivity to clear up EMI than trying to detect through it, you get better performance with sensitivity and depth by lowering sensitivity than you do trying to fight it.

I think my T2 video perfectly demonstrates small shifts in frequency can cause big differences in EMI problems. This is shifting .1 of a kHz, the jump on the Nox between 5 and 4 is big compared to this and for me at least fixes any EMI issues I may experience in 5kHz by going to 4kGz. This first 50 seconds of the video are in disc mode which is filtering some EMI then I switch to all metal to let it really show its ugly face. FREQUENCY SHIFTING One disadvantage of a highly sensitive metal detector is its susceptibility to electrical interference from other electronic devices. If the detector chatters while the search coil is not in motion, the cause is either electrical interference or internal circuit noise due to a high sensitivity setting. If the detector chatters or emits intermittent false signals in the field, you are also probably experiencing electrical interference. If you suspect electrical interference, you may change the T2’s operating frequency. This is a trial and error method to try to find a frequency different from the suspected source. Each actuation will shift the frequency by one value. The LCD will display the frequency, from F1 to F7. The default frequency is F4. The T2 will default back to F4 when the power is switched off

That's a pretty cool setup, would come in handy for Legend users too with their blowing speakers 🙂

Another vote from me the 4kHz option was a great option to mitigate EMI, 5kHz is pretty terrible around here, 4 runs like a dream. The Manticore in some of it's modes gets lower than 4kHz so perhaps they worked out 5 was quite troublesome around the world and shifted a bit lower. It was interesting they pointed to Asia's customers as being the reason for 4kHz, if it was their EMI causing it of it the targets they chase are better in 4kHz. I found 4kHz great for deep silver coins, the Target ID wasn't ideal in single frequency but the tones and ID range still gave the coins away nicely.

Perhaps the Whites people should have considered Steve's method of gifting the company to the employees, and sat back and watched it thrive, nothing motivates an employee more than it being their business. White's would still be alive and kicking, and they could have had stipulation that new employees coming in get a % of the business to encourage new engineering talents and so on. I think it's a great way to make a business thrive when the original owner no longer needs or wants to be there on the front line although they can still maintain a % themselves and a position in the company more on the "outside" A computer company I worked for in my early years did that, we had 5% each staff member, It worked well, people were always motivated and cared, and the company grew very quickly. I moved on and donated my 5% back to them when I left, didn't bother taking it out. My wife's work was similar although she was in the corporate world and she was given a large quantity of shares each year, as were the other employees there, similar thing I guess but sure kept staff thriving to meet goals to ensure they get their shares, the better they did the more shares they were given. Without the boss telling people what to do perhaps Whites may have done better, the engineers having the freedom to do what they want to do.

I have two T2's, one of the new Green ones, and an original noisy ratty one, I found the original better but it was bad with EMI, so I improved it's EMI handling without the need for DST by just better shielding it's control box housing. Such a simple act improved it's EMI handling very well, just some EMI conductive paint, in about 5 layers in the end over the top of the factories coat of paint, looked like they had done a pretty thin coat and then instead of just using a bit of dodgy tape to hold the shield wire onto the paint like the factory did I painted the wire on with the EMI paint, this gave a far better connection than the wire just sitting there taped to the paint. Imagine if we just used tape to hold solder joints together with no solder? Sounds crazy right... well that's how they do it, tape! After painting it on I taped over it to give it a bit of extra support, although I probably shouldn't have bothered as after that I decided I'd hot glue it too. My early model T2 now works much better in EMI. This sort of thing would be what you'd expect in a later model T2, an improvement over early models, I haven't popped my new one open to have a look but I'd not be surprised if it was still just a bit of masking tape holding the wire to the shield paint. If they have fixed it, that's why it's often better to get a new model than an old one, as generally things should improve with later model detectors over the old models. Each new model "should" have improvements over the last and more often than not do. It's a real shame that modern detectors often lack the true all metal of the T2, if any brands want to make a good modern multi frequency gold detector that will be a hit with prospectors I hope they think back and add a true all metal mode onto it for the purists 🙂

I recall X-coils made @davsgold a drag coil for the GPZ, well I think they did, perhaps it was just a plan that never went ahead I don't remember. I can't remember the reason but @Reg Wilson who is a big drag coil person always said the GPX 4000 was the better drag coil detector over the 4500, something to do with EMI from the Quad bike I think it was.... a long time ago I read that post. The GPZ should be quite a good drag coil detector you would think being better with EMI than the GPX's, I doubt Woodys mods would improve the drag coil EMI situation as the giant coil would be the source of most EMI along with the Quad bike alternator and whatever else associated with the bike.

I guess you could use a drone and camera and try find it?

So are you thinking there is inconsistency in builds causing some to ID better than others? That's a can of worms Minelab won't want. You would assume if that was the case it would come down to coils more than detectors. Your numbers are pretty close though between the two to the point a different days EMI could be at play perhaps? I've decided I'll stick to using my CTX, Nox 800 and Vanquish for stable target ID's and the Manticore can be used when I'm not needing some good ID's, if they fix it with a firmware update fantastic but I'm not going to stew on it like I did the GPX 6000 EMI issue, that drove me nuts until they finally fixed it, for the Manticore I'll use it where it has strengths and use something else when its weaknesses are at play. Who knows, once I buy the smaller and larger coil for it the ID's may improve if it is a coil related issue.

I don't recall there being a number, either way they've released a Manticore, X-Terra, Equinox 700 and Equinox 900. That seems to be it for now. I think the results above explain the heavy discounting on the GPX 6000 though, perhaps gone are the days of the super high priced detectors.

He's right though, the clones available are mostly all First Texas and Whites machines along with the Ace series, they're in abundance on the clone market, why? probably because they've been on the market so long as current detectors it was viable to spend the money to duplicate them, the fact they're simpler electronics to copy too probably helped. If you keep making new models the clones of them go out of date making them less appealing to clone, there are X-terra 705 clones but they are more recent on the market and relatively pointless as Minelab discontinued it not long after the clones first appeared from what I saw. I'm not sure why they cloned the Ace series and not the AT Series Garrett's, perhaps some sort of encryption in the software as they've certainly been on the market long enough to make them viable to clone.

The left side is their recreational detectors, Gold Monster 1000, Equinox etc, the right is the GPX and GPZ. So they associate American prospectors with more VLF sales than high end machines. Steve pretty much articulated my thoughts better than I could, I entirely agree with his comment. They were forced to focus on VLF's more with the gold machine market slowing, they even said it in their last investor report they're going to focus on "treasure" detectors more in the future, exactly what they've done. Will there be a GPZ 8000? I honestly don't know, it doesn't seem like it in the near future and they know if they do it and want the high price they have to justify it's release, it needs to be better and a lot better for people to buy it, lighter is a given, everyone expects that but true performance improvements, and that has been made harder by X-coils with their variety of sizes and types of coils. If part of their reason holding back coils was to leave something in the tank for the 8000 that's well and truly out of the picture now as people will compare the 8000 to the 7000 with the NF coils and the X-coils, if anything it might boost the sales of coils just like the GPX 6000 release did, people wanted more sensitivity without buying another expensive detector, solution, small coil for their GPZ. They could just make their customers happy and release a range of Minelab coils for the GPZ, but I guess there just isn't the money in that for them but still, I think the right thing to do for people that paid so much for the detector to give it some more support especially if a GPZ 8000 is off the cards for the time being. Where to from here for Minelab, that's the interesting question, I can't predict their future, too many unknowns. It's clearly getting so hard to make detectors better than previous models so people really do have less reason to upgrade. Is the Manticore worth the price difference or the upgrade for someone that has an 800? I can't hand on my heart say it is, yes it's better in many ways, but is it worth the upgrade for most people? probably not.

I guess I'm having trouble wording it, I certainly don't see quality as a bad thing, but when you combine quality with detectors that are being left behind by the competition then it's a bad recipe, You clearly think your 5000D Series 2 can keep up with a modern detector, I'm sure plenty disagree with that and voted with their wallets but it's not about that, it's about if you have one of those machines, even the XL Pro from the 90's and the MXT from 2002, all decades old machines. Once you own one what else can you buy off Whites to keep the cash flowing into the business to keep them alive? An example of how to make money is Minelab with the GP then GPX series, best gold detectors on the market at the time, they could have sat on them forever like Whites did with it's "competitor" the TDI but then sales slow to a crawl, instead they went on to compete with themselves releasing newer models to compete with their own models seeing they had no competition, now they're decades ahead of other brands and only recently has Garrett came into the game with a competitor to the GPX but Minelab already released a GPZ in 2015 which is still well ahead of the Axiom and the GPX series in many ways. They kept innovating, kept improving, kept people wanting to buy the new models, and stayed in business making big money by doing so. No matter how good your machines are, unless people keep buying new ones off you then your business can't survive.

I think if anything Steve and others are disappointed Whites could no longer survive as a business. The reason for that is people stopped buying them, it's really that simple. If they sold well they'd be here right now, but they didn't. Loyal Whites people mean very little, having people using their 10 year old Whites detector doesn't keep a business alive, businesses need sales and to get sales they need to be innovative and provide products people who own older models want to upgrade to. If you make a great product in a small market like detectors that's great, you will sell a lot, what happens when everyone who wants one has one? your business dies. Tesoro = Lifetime warranty? Great way to kill your business. Forums don't hire people, in fact they're insignificant in today's market when it comes to advertising, Youtube, Facebook etc are the home of paid promoters, not forums. You are part of Whites failure, happy to run a decades old detector because its built well, and works well enough to keep you happy.... how do they make money off someone like that? They can't. The only detector businesses that survive right now are the ones constantly striving to bring new better models to market, maybe their performance doesn't improve all that much but they add features and other benefits to make people want to buy them over their existing detector. The moment that stops they will gradually die too and there will be the last few companies standing that can afford to keep going, possibly propped up by something other than detectors. Whites worst enemies were it's devoted customers using their decades old detectors content with their old long lasting well built detectors not wanting to buy the newer model.

I agree a million percent.

I haven't been keeping up with Minelab's progress now I'm no longer a share holder, fortunately I did get out at a good time, so this is a month or so late but interesting none the less. I took a few tidbits from the documents which can be read in full here: https://codan.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/2512906.pdf https://codan.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/2512925.pdf Starting with the Chief Executives introduction message. It's surprising to see how much Communications has taken over metal detection as the better part of their business, even in R&D they're spending far more on communications now reflecting that market performance I guess. Some bad news for dealers, they're investing more in e-commerse, we all know what they means, there will be more buying direct from Minelab and cutting out middle men smaller dealers like they've recently done in Malaysia and Indonesia with their own buy direct website - https://minelab.co.id/ You'll likely need to click on the images to see them in a readable form depending on your screen size. It's interesting the key markets for Gold Detectors are Asia Pacific, yep that includes me 🙂, not the USA though. The USA is in the treasure detectors category as a key market. Latin America is a key market for the Gold Detectors though. I guess not many Americans look for gold anymore by comparison to other countries. The near term strategy is just to focus on marketing and selling the new Manticore and Nox 700/900, so it doesn't look like we'll see another detector out of Minelab this year, the long awaited CTX and GPZ replacements are a long way away yet, although this was also interesting. See smaller dealers, increase E-Commerse penetration, they're wanting to do that into more markets! It will eventually be big box stores and E-Commerse (Minelab direct sales) They didn't consider the Equinox to be a high end machine, more of a mid range and this Manticore is considered a CTX level machine, maybe there never will be a CTX 4040. The best coin and treasure detector on the market they say, more accurate discrimination at depth they say....... not sure I can agree with that statement. Now lets have a look at performance..... Not looking too crash hot, it shows that gold detectors and Africa were vital to their good figures. Africa then.... and now A massive drop in sales to Africa. The USA is making up some of that slack with the treasure detectors, the Americans must be buying up Manticores and Nox's in big numbers. Not looking good at all, no matter how it's spun. So, I guess we won't see anymore new detectors this year, it's very unlikely, surprising the X-Terra didn't even get a mention although it's not a high profit detector, it's to remain competitive at that end of the market and won't be a big money maker regardless of sales I would think. Engineering investment is now favouring communcations where the money is being made more so than metal detection. Lucky for me I'm in no rush to buy any new detectors, in fact I may not buy another Minelab in quite some time, I can't see me buying their new GPZ when it comes out unless it's significantly better than my GPZ with X-coils and I have my doubts especially when I don't care about ergonomics, I'm not paying a massive amount of money for a GPZ on a diet. I doubt I'd even buy the new CTX unless there was some dramatic improvement in performance and the Manticore which I did buy isn't really that great big jump over the Equinox, and in many ways for my needs still well behind the CTX that's a decade old. Maybe their engineers have finally hit the wall when it comes to performance.

now you're just showing off 🙂 Cool detector, well before my time and look like a Gold Bug 2, It certainly does look pristine, congratulations on the find.

Wow, looks like they did a dodgy solder job on that one.

It's more than seemingly smaller lesser known companies are producing better more advanced detectors by far than the much bigger companies from the US. Outside of the US the detectors from the US are more insignificant than they are to people in the US. Just saying as an outsider looking in, it's different to being an insider looking out. It's easier to buy a Quest here than a Garrett or First Texas machine, in fact First Texas no longer even has a dealer and the Garrett dealers never had any stock. I'd find it easier to get a Rutus than an F75.

Brands out of Europe often get forgotten such as Rutus, they've made detectors far beyond any US manufacturer and they rarely get talked about, that indeed shows how far the US manufacturers are behind the ball when brands in other parts of the world although far superior aren't even mentioned. If Garrett came out with the Rutus Atrex people would be super impressed. This towers over anything a US manufacturer has released in the VLF space lately. It really does demonstrate how far behind US manufacturers are though when a detector this good is not even on many peoples radar in the US.