Geordiedan

@abenson did you see NASA Tom's comment in response to someone sharing your video over there? I still can't post on his forum due to registration issues but I follow Tom's posts wherever I can

2013 MacBook Air here and it doesn't detect the machine with either USB port. I'll try another cable later but same laptop has been fine for my equinox updates.

I love a 15" coil but I'm sure someone posted on one of the UK forums that it was going to retail at £330 😮

The standard headphones work well enough but will be too warm when it gets to summertime. The lack of waterproofing is a concern as well, currently getting round it by wearing a hoodie or hooded jacket that I can pull over them if needed but I'd prefer to be able to use some wireless waterproof buds like I did with my nox.

This was posted on one of the UK forums - a post from Facebook where a user received a reply from ML confirming a new software update is on the way: "Okay, so here it goes...my first impressions are that I am having problems deciphering the language of the Manticore in heavy iron so far. My main issue is that the Manticore will constantly produce, stable sounding (with stable VDIs), 2-way repeatable signals, with no Iron grunts or red VDIs. However, adjusting the orientation of my swing on said targets by merely a few degrees will then produce iron grunts, red VDIs irregular target-trace shapes, etc. Sometimes, the iron targets will even sound good through nearly a 90 degree rotation. What this means is that every single target that sounds good, I am having to more so thoroughly interrogate, much more so than I ever had to on the Equinox. I am not having noise issues and I am running my detector at 20 sensitivity or below. I have even bumped the sensitivity down as low as 10 to determine if that impacts anything - and it doesn't. I am coming from an Equinox 800. I will admit that the area I'm detecting is extremely challenging but I never experienced this behaviour with my Equinox. What are everyone's thoughts or experiences? I've only been out a few times so far so obviously no final judgment has been made but I wanted to post my impressions so far and reach out for any feedback. Thanks in advance!" "Excessive Falsing in Iron - Minelab Official Response. I contacted Minelab and was happy to receive a very thorough reply: ***The MANTICORE is a very different detector to the EQUINOX, despite some similarities. It was specifically designed with heavily hunted-out sites in mind, which are now much more common for most detectorists, and where finds are becoming increasingly sparse. It is intentionally much more aggressive than the EQUINOX 800, and is designed to stop users on iffy detections more often, but also to provide the user with more information on which to decide whether to dig. We would expect an experienced MANTICORE user to dig iron more often than with an EQUINOX 800, but over time should also find some targets that an EQUINOX 800 might overlook. The consequence is that the MANTICORE can be a more challenging user experience, and we find that most experienced EQUINOX 800 users need to go through a period of adaption to get the most out of a MANTICORE. Heavy iron sites like you describe are very common and a lot of users see this, even more so at European sites where habitation extends back thousands of years in some cases. Some users (more so in North America than Europe it seems) are having particular difficulty with iron. Certain types of iron, combined with low soil mineralisation like what you describe (and is quite common in North America) seem to make this the most difficult. (Interestingly, users in higher soil mineralisation seem to have much less difficulty.) Iron targets often exhibit non-ferrous falsing when the coil is off to the side of the target, particularly when mixed with some ground noise (for example from weakly mineralised ground). With the MANTICORE, the signals are stronger, and so what sounded like a choppy audio response on the 800, can be a stronger, clearer 2 way response on the MANTICORE. However, we find that in almost every case, when the coil is over the center of the target, the response is ferrous. You might say that the EQUINOX 800 choppy audio response is better in the case of iron falsing, and perhaps this is so for iron falsing. But iron falsing is very difficult to distinguish from co-mingled targets, and the EQUINOX 800 will also give you a choppy response on many co-mingled targets, and in many cases won’t be enough to stop you. We can suggest a couple of things that may help. In the short term, on sites like this, I recommend using Pinpoint Mode to locate the centre of a target and quickly checking it again in detection mode with the coil centered on the target. A consistent ferrous response on the center of the target which turns to non-ferrous off to the side is a giveaway that you have iron falsing. A couple of seconds in Pinpoint mode is one of the best ways to distinguish between 2 targets, and one piece of falsing iron. Many experienced users don’t think they need to use Pinpoint, but it can give you more than just target location information. You can also expect a software update in the near future that will provide a setting that helps you distinguish audio signals that have a good chance of being iron falsing. I believe you will find this update will significantly help you in the scenario you describe, and make detecting much easier.***"

There's at least one beta/almost ready new software version out in the wild being tested as has been seen on a few YT videos (ferrous ID numbers all in red rather than underlined, red crosshair on 2D screen showing the most recent object traced etc), and I know NASA Tom mentioned he's running a version 5? or so version numbers ahead of the launch software. I'm sure there will be a few releases as and when they take feedback on board from the userbase 👍

Looks a better design than the 800 for swapouts 🙂

FWIW I'm using the orange carrot with my Manticore and it works perfectly. No interference/EMI issues etc all just works.

On the manticore it’s called “all tones” as presumably there’s more than 50 now to match the 0-99 VDI

The cynic in me wonders if that's being held back for a CTX-4040 with 2d map and "detailed FE-CO target technology" 😄 Would be a great thing to see in an update though, maybe suggest to NASA Tom over on his board as he seems to have the ear of the development team as a whole.

Great reply, thanks @steveg That affirms what I thought to be the case, and while I guess Toddy in that video may have his reasons for wanting literally everything to sound conductive, I think I'll run with something more like NASA Tom's suggested settings this weekend. On the plus side, this was one of the key reasons I was interested in the Manticore. With the 'Nox, setting Iron Bias to various degrees all I knew was that "some stuff" was being notched up as being more likely to be iron with each setting. I ran f2 for a while but never really gelled with it (I've never dug a bottle cap in my life) so ended up back with regular Fe set at either 0 or 1 depending on the area. With the Ferrous Limits and a suitable amount of trial and error (or, in time, cribbing the settings of the professionals once these have been out for a while in your native country 😄 ) then it should hopefully be possible to come up with some amazingly specific settings to isolate your preferred targets from the surrounding trash. (Edit to add - I'll also be following the main Manticore thread over on Tom's board to see what he has to say on your tones query 🙂 ) Thanks again to all for your thoughts, it all helps me with my learning curve 👍 Dan

Certainly not the case with the UK orders - they hit the dealers and were shipped onwards from there. I had a call from the lady that wrapped mine and the shipping was tracked from their hometown 👍

Thanks guys, coincidentally (?) there's some relevant discussion over on NASA-Tom's forum along similar lines with member steveg - is he on here? (Edit- yes he is, paging @steveg ) I can't sign up to that board due to the security etc being broken so I just have to watch from the sidelines 😞 When asked about running a wide-open screen Tom came back with: "I always start to hunt a new site with FL Upper = 6 & FL Lower = 3. (((And...... I usually end up STAYING on these aggressive settings........unless there is a unusual extenuating circumstance.....forcing me to make SLIGHT tweaks))). These are highly aggressive settings; yet, with a little experience.....your skillset will rapidly improve. These settings on a EQX would equivalate to a F2 = -1. "Why" do I use these settings? Because the unmasking (in iron) abilities are tremendous. " Which makes sense in the context of what I was asking above - I'm planning on setting one of the Custom FL profiles up at 6/3 and seeing how it runs on some of my familiar fields 👍

Watched this video from a UK (Scotland) Minelab dealer/user who has an unusual approach to setting Ferrous Limits for his new Manticore When I hunt I never use iron discrimination (all metal mode ON all the time) but I do run various degrees of iron bias. On the 'Nox I tended to use FE set on either 0 or 1 depending on the fields, and with the MC I've just been trying it out at default settings but looking to lower them a little to get back towards my old 'Nox settings. NASA Tom has mentioned that: "Manticore Ferrous Limits Upper = 8 & Lower = 3......is...... EQX F2: '0' equivalent. On paper......the numbers are slightly different; yet, in the real-World Upper 8 & Lower 3....... produces nearly identical real dirt performance resultant. " So I'd had in mind to work towards something a little like that 🙂 Enter the youtube video - This guy Toddy has advocated running with the upper ferrous limits at about 3, and the lower at zero, i.e. completely wide open screen. Now that had never even crossed my mind as the purpose of ferrous limits is to make the tone of the target with ferrous characteristics sound like iron. So running like this anything at all in the lower FE sector is going to chime up based on its conductivity on the x-axis only. Am I missing something or are there additional benefits to doing this that I'm overlooking? By running in all-metal with some lower limits configured I'll still be hearing that there are targets there, just with the iron buzz when they're showing as being ferrous. I'm not sure I get the idea behind having those all sound like good tones. Video in question: https://youtu.be/RlBvfcTeOkk

Yes I don't think there's any rules on this board about naming - I went with Joan Allen here in the UK. Great sales support and very enthusiastic detectorists that work there 🙂