AlgoForce E1500

[Steve Herschbach]

I am shocked, stunned, and amazed that everyone seems to be skating past that this machine is offering the first 0-99 conductive target id ever offered in a real PI.

 

[phrunt]

1 minute ago, Steve Herschbach said:

I am shocked, stunned, and amazed that everyone seems to be skating past that this machine is offering the first true 0-99 conductive target discrimination ever offered in a real PI.

 

Certainly not me, that was a point of great excitement ?  The coin, jewellery and relic hunters in the US that use PI's should be super excited about that.  The other thing is it's reported to be a stable target ID.

[Steve Herschbach]

2 minutes ago, phrunt said:

Certainly not me, that was a point of great excitement ?  The coin, jewellery and relic hunters in the US that use PI's should be super excited about that.  The other thing is it's reported to be a stable target ID.

Read that article I just posted - I am getting one asap, love it, right up my alley, going to have fun with this one for sure!! Go FCC go!!!

[jasong]

7 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

I am shocked, stunned, and amazed that everyone seems to be skating past that this machine is offering the first true 0-99 conductive target discrimination ever offered in a real PI.

I was literally just typing this same thing - just saw this new detector and finished reading this post. I'm buying one the minute it's available in the US for this alone. Not only true target ID, but it says it works in heavily mineralized conditions too. Something that bears testing. But this for $1500, definitely worth testing it out.

I'm also curious about the coil calibration, I just finished reading the manual and it seems to auto calibrate each coil. Which makes me wonder if that gives leeway to coil designers to go a bit outside of the box in terms of design parameters? No clue. Maybe it's just to optimize for slight variations in each coil?

The ambient noise feature is also interesting too. It allows you to still hear outside noises with headphones on. Which is always my major safety concern that causes me to avoid headphones - rock falls, bears, rattlesnakes, etc.

[Steve Herschbach]

Hi Jason, yeah, lots to get excited about here.

I hear what guys are saying about the focus on small gold, but we need a reality check here. The fact is large gold detection capability hit a sweet spot back with the SD2200D and piles of big gold came out of the ground over 20 years ago. Big nuggets despite what people think are not usually hard to find. Just the opposite, and often it is just a matter of being first over it. Massive nuggets were dug just inches deep. It is the nature of how desert placers form. They tend to be shallow surface deposits.

So the dream lives on of having a machine that finds these imagined really large but really deep nuggets. A sad reality many do not want to believe is that they simply do not exist in most locations. Yes, they do exist. I am not saying they do not. But the vast majority that did were easily detected, and in many locations bedrock depth or other limitations means there is nothing big lurking deeper down.

What does exist is huge volume of the smaller nuggets, especially in highly mineralized ground. The SDC 2300 was a big hit and that despite being a clunky ergonomic coil limited mess, because it does one thing really well. It hoovers up small gold with minimal controls. If you want to sell detectors you want people who buy them to find gold, and promising people multi ounce nuggets at depth is a pipe dream for most people that is never, and I mean never going to happen. But if you give a person a good machine capable of hitting tiny gold they will find gold and keep at it. And if they keep at it long enough, they just might be the first person to get their coil over a 1 ounce nugget everyone else missed. Not because it was deep. But because they took that little Sadie coil and shoved it in every nook and cranny they could find where bigger coils can't go. I'll bet more large nuggets exist in those places than at extreme depth. In between roots and in the boulder patches.  I love hunting nooks and crannies and this machine with a Sadie coil will be my new sniping machine. Check back at the end of 2024 and we will see if I was crazy or not. 

[Gold Catcher]

Really curious to see how the ID will work with PI (and mono coil). From what I understand, challenging proposal to get this right in principle, especially with gold nuggets. But if they solved the problem, then they will have an edge over every ML machine.

GC

[Jeff McClendon]

***Lots of posts as I was writing this so, there is some redundant stuff in this post.***

I have been on the budget PI turntable for quite awhile. Under $3000, less than 4 pounds weight with a decent sized coil attached like an 11" round, it won't fall apart if I happen to drop it from a foot off the ground, I don't have to modify it or its power supply to get decent performance, was all I was asking for.

I tried all of the White's TDIs both stock and modified and with modified battery packs, wouldn't ground balance due to single channel ground balancing on tough ground etc, and sensitivity to small gold was a constantly moving target.

The QED, a user interface nightmare, rarely ground balanced on tough ground-single channel again and pressing the up/down button after getting back to MGB from wherever it was set...OMG, great ergos but only with a smaller coil, for God sake don't drop it!

SDC2300, ergonomics of a 4X6X14" slab of concrete, crazy threshold, crazy coil selection, not enough controls.

GPX6000, good ergonomics, poor DD coil selection considering half of its search modes are for DD coils, not enough controls, way too sensitive to EMI, hot rocks and hot ground (again, crying out for more DD coils from somebody!) Ridiculous price.

Now I have an Axiom. I like it very much especially since I got it for really close to the $3000 price since it was a demo unit. Great user interface and display. Great ergonomics too. I still have serious questions about the focused core DD coils and those DD coils and the iron audio function were a big selling point for me since I like to use PIs for coin, jewelry and relic hunting.

I also have a GPX 4000. Took the control box off of the shaft and attached it to my harness right next to the battery pouch. Awkward but it works and since it is a 4000, there are not that many settings to change. I can swing it all day and the coil selection is endless. Love the Mono, DD and especially Cancel functions for EMI.

Now the Algoforce. This detector has some fantastic features like dual channel ground balance one button push ground grab, pinpoint function and conductivity target ID especially for coin/jewelry/relic hunting, vibrating handle for hearing impaired, good search modes, and I really like the coil calibration feature and coil compatability. I don't like no DD coils or a Cancel feature. I especially like the display right there where I can see it like it should be. Yeah, it looks like the PL4 QED but only superficially. The E1500 control unit and display make the QED control box and display look like something from the 1970s.

I don't really care about having the best PI on the planet since that would be made by Minelab and out of my price range at this point whether Minelab releases a successor to the GPZ or not. No, I am not going to be buying or swinging a 5 to 7 pound detector either at my age.

I look forward to seeing reports and some videos of the new Algoforce E1500.

 

 

[Steve Herschbach]

6 minutes ago, Jeff McClendon said:

I don't like no DD coils or a Cancel feature.

Just curious. If mono in general detects better than DD, and if you can get discrimination with a mono coil, what is it that a person needs a heavier DD coil for?

[abenson]

4 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

I am shocked, stunned, and amazed that everyone seems to be skating past that this machine is offering the first true 0-99 conductive target id ever offered in a real PI.

 

Funny how everyone posts this at the same time. I remember mention of it but once I read the manual a light bulb went off in my head and I was like, Wow! This machine should be killer at the beach and relic hunting. The fact that it works well on coils up to 14X9 mono's makes it really attractive as well.

[jasong]

When I first read this I assumed the TID was accomplished through kicking into a VLF mode when you press the pinpoint button. But since they are just mono coils, that seems impossible too. So this must be some brand new PI-based conductive discrim then? Interesting. 

Am I missing something or is there apparantly no patent on this discrim method? Or maybe the patent just isn't public yet? If not, that means Minelab probably already knew how to do this too but didn't put it into detectors (yet)? No clue.

A lot to unwrap with this one. Glad Simon is getting one soon as I expect he'll be going deep into the weeds testing stuff out. ? ?