New Minelab Manticore

[midalake]

4 hours ago, Nuke em said:

Has Minelab not learned anything about battery tech since the abortion of a battery pack they put in the Explorer all those years ago? Look at the RNB. 

I think minelab has learned. The Manticore has TWICE the battery capacity. [that 50% more power to the coil thing] I think the question is how much weight do you want to carry?  Personally, I do not have enough gas in the tank to hunt a beach for 7 hours. 
 

4 hours ago, Nuke em said:

The arm cup looks less bulk than the Nox one and unless it's made of something else might break like i have seen the Nox one's break

The cuff the looks WAY sturdier to me? 

4 hours ago, Nuke em said:

All carbon fibre stem. Looks good but expensive to replace if that breaks. I think using that in the sea doing beach hunting will put an awful lot of stress on the stem. I noticed that on the Nox even with the aftermarket stems.

I have beach hunted for 25 years in the worst conditions that the Pacific Ocean can dish out. I have NEVER broken a lower carbon fiber stem or coil attachment yoke. 

4 hours ago, Nuke em said:

The Nox suffered from EMI issues when i used it on the beaches i go to and even on many digs too.

Yes, the Equinox suffered from EMI. Minelab has put a lot of effort into the EMI on the Manticore. Time will tell but I doubt it will be worse. With having a maximum sensitivity setting of 35 I am sure EMI will be found at some setting. 

Just bringing this up as talking points!  I will not go out and buy one. A friend of mine has already stepped up to the plate. He will probably get his before many in the United States.[he always does] I should be able to do a salt beach comparison [watch for it]      

[steveg]

12 hours ago, midalake said:

I have beach hunted for 25 years in the worst conditions that the Pacific Ocean can dish out. I have NEVER broken a lower carbon fiber stem or coil attachment yoke. 

 

To add to this, I've never had a one of my shaft users report a broken shaft while ocean detecting, and I have LOTS of dedicated beach hunters using my shafts in the surf...

Carbon fiber -- given its strength-to-weight ratio and the fact that it won't rust/corrode/deteriorate -- should be among the very BEST materials to use, for a shaft -- whether dry land hunting, OR beach/surf hunting...

Steve

[GB_Amateur]

With respect to Dan Fogelberg:

The beer was empty, and our tongues were tired;
And running out of things to say...

Minelab's Manticore European Tour ends tomorrow with the grand finale at England's Detectival.  I think I've watched all the Youtube videos that have included Mark Lawrie.  I'm impressed that they sent an engineer who had major contributions to this detector and on top of it, is a detectorist himself.  (How often does either of those happen?)

Some questions I've seen in this thread have actually been answered by Lawrie in at least one of the videos.  Some of the complaints (even recent ones) are inconsistent with what Lawrie has said.  We may get a few more tidbits from this weekend but the real meat that now remains to be devoured will likely only come from impartial (after the Deus 2 pre-release brouhaha, do I need to emphasize that word?  ) field tests, but even then it's dependent upon the actual field....

We still have a few months before they become available.  Good times ahead, I hope.

[phrunt]

As much as Minelab have their flaws they do make good machines, quality is more of an issue than performance.  They're unlikely to release a Nox replacement that doesn't largely live up to our expectations, it would be a massive reputational hit right at the time they don't need it with competition biting at their heels now in the VLF's.

I think they've looked at the known problems with the Equinox, and resolved them.  We will likely never see another broken coil ear.  I doubt we will see the regular drownings anymore either.   The one flaw it's got is battery life, I liked the CTX design there where I could just plug in the heavier GPZ battery if I wanted longer run time.  I'm sure a suitable USB power bank will be found that attaches to it well, Minelab in their infinite wisdom may even come up with one for us to buy designed specifically to attach to the detector and I'm sure it would sell well as the run time isn't really good enough for many people.  9 hours in conservative settings and approx 7+ hours in higher power usage settings isn't suitable for me for a days detecting, it will likely go flat before I'm ready to leave especially if I'm using it for prospecting, for coin hunting 9 hours is more than enough.

The Nox for me is fantastic, a brilliant detector, and really if there wasn't a new one I'd still be happy with it now and not feel the need to buy any of the competitors machines to replace it and I haven't done so, very rare for me to hold off, I was satisfied with my Nox.  It's still right up there as a top machine in its class half a decade after being released with competition only now starting to give it a run for it's money although for me neither of it's competitors outclass it for what I use it for.  I'm not falling for the Manticore product line thing, that was just a way to boost the price and keep the Nox on the market, it's an Equinox 1000 renamed to an Equinox 1500 to fit with their price to name ratio, no doubt about it.

I think there will be good times ahead for those that get one, as long as they have realistic expectations and don't fall for this 50% more power marketing thing too much and expect too much from that.  I can't see a thing I don't like about the detector so far and it looks like a big upgrade over my Equinox, it may even narrow the gap between the Nox and CTX on deep silvers, and if it does I'll be very happy.  The Nox is unrivaled as a multi frequency VLF gold detector with the competition not quite there yet, hopefully the Mandible is on par with the Nox there or even improved.  Those two things are my needs, small gold and deep silver, with good target ID's....

[GB_Amateur]

22 minutes ago, phrunt said:

The one flaw it's got is battery life, I liked the CTX design there where I could just plug in the heavier GPZ battery if I wanted longer run time.  I'm sure a suitable USB power bank will be found that attaches to it well, Minelab in their infinite wisdom may even come up with one for us to buy designed specifically to attach to the detector and I'm sure it would sell well as the run time isn't really good enough for many people.  9 hours in conservative settings and approx 7+ hours in higher power usage settings isn't suitable for me for a days detecting, it will likely go flat before I'm ready to leave especially if I'm using it for prospecting, for coin hunting 9 hours is more than enough.

Something that's been in the back of my mind is whether ML might have gone conservative in their estimate, just to avoid the bitching that will inevevitably come from people who don't charge it up and then have it run out of juice while they're in the field, or who just are too over-confident in their time estimates, etc. and have similar occur.  An example of "under-promise and over-deliver"?

I know on some detectors, running through the speaker drains the battery faster than through headphones.  Maybe modern electronics eases that issue considerably -- IDK.  Ditto the vibration mode on (some) handheld pinpointers.  Backlighting?  Again, maybe modern efficient methods have made that a non-issue.  I won't be using any of those features, but then again it's only a few times of the year I'm out for 7 hours (let alone 9 hours) in one day, so won't likely be much of an issue in my case as long as I remember to recharge at the end of a session.

We still have a few months to wring our hands, so to speak, on all these details.  ?

[dsb]

Watching Lawrie detect and dig that roman coin was interesting.  He said it's a round piece of metal.  Hard to say how deep but my guess is 8 to ten inches and super dry field with stubble.  The graph showed some ferrous, no idea what coin was made of, bronze?  Not a game changer but improving on one and i like what I've seen so far.  Don't think 50 cm (19.5 inches) dimes are trembling yet.

[palzynski]

15 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

....  I'm impressed that they sent an engineer who had major contributions to this detector and on top of it, is a detectorist himself.  (How often does either of those happen?)

...

--> More often than one would think ...  Alain Loubet , XP's boss,  is a skilled detectorist himself ...

[Shelton]

 

[palzynski]

Very interesting video thx Shelton , the best one I have watched about the Manticore up to now . Those German guys are as always very professional ... 

More details given about the Manti weight , it is 46g lighter than the Equinox . Quite impressed by the shape identification feature , displaying the coin round shape on a screen is something new for me that others dont have  . Looking fwd for the field tests now ..