afaitken Posted February 9 Share Posted February 9 On 1/27/2024 at 5:42 AM, Jeff McClendon said: ***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. Hey Jeff, looks like you did well price-wise on the Axiom. The Axiom retails here in Australia at $7,385 or on sale at $7,185 which is not only way overpriced, but unfair that Garrett charges international buyers such a premium. It's the same for coils - so at $3kUSD you got a fantastic bargain! Also, there is a growing amount of us that are having endless problems with the Axioms not to mention faulty coils. I went out and got another Minelab GPZ 7000 yesterday as the Axiom has been nothing short of disappointing for the last 6 months, and useless for 90% of your prospecting day. We have collectively sent back our detectors "again" to Garrett Australia for testing. I personally wont ever use it again. The GPX 6000's are known for poor EMI shielding, but aftermarket modifications to fix the shielding and earthing removes those issues from the 6000. Also, more after market coils for the 6000 have been released and keep coming. Minelab applied a conductive coating to the inside of the GPX 6000 box but "forgot" to earth it back to the PCB properly amongst other things. One thing for sure, the Minelab range really is without competition. They were built and designed by people who live and breath gold prospecting, especially in the Australian environment. My plan is to strip back the 7000 and Frankenstein it into a lighter body and lighter battery. My research says it can be done, especially running the lighter X-coils....If the Axiom worked anywhere near as good as my wife's GPX 6000, I'd probably would never had got another GPZ 7000 - but they are such a good detector, you can't loose! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phrunt Posted February 9 Share Posted February 9 Here is a teardown video from Woody of the E1500, interesting to the techie types, also very impressive. 5 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nedkelly Posted February 9 Share Posted February 9 28 minutes ago, phrunt said: Here is a teardown video from Woody of the E1500, interesting to the techie types, also very impressive. Ha ha Woody just couldn't help himself, had to see what makes it tick LOL. There goes his warranty ? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phrunt Posted February 9 Share Posted February 9 No stickers to prevent him opening it, although they're not valid anyway, they can't void warranty for damaging the "warranty void if removed" stickers, at least not in our part of the world. They're just a deterrent, a scare tactic. I'm sure his warranty will be just fine, although I doubt he'll need it, and it appears he thinks the same, a top notch PCB with a killer processor. Digital Signal Processing Microcontrollers based on the Cortex-M7 rely on its built-in, advanced DSP hardware accelerators to process signals using mathematical calculations. The DSP hardware accelerator can process any analog signal, such as the output signal of a microphone, the feedback from a sensor embedded in a motor control system, or outputs from sensor-fusion applications. Thanks to Digital Signal Processing, fewer cycles are required to run control-loop algorithms, therefore contributing to the performance and the power efficiency of the application. Fixed point and double precision float are both implemented in hardware on MCUs running on a Cortex-M7. They typically offer much higher performance than MCUs based on the Cortex-M4, doubling the performance levels on FFT, FIR, IIR and other key algorithms. With increased DSP performance and higher achievable maximum frequency, the Cortex M7 matches the requirements of the most demanding signal processing applications, including audio & voice recognition, motor control, digital power, artificial intelligence and sensor fusion. All STM32 Cortex-M7 MCUs embed the DSP with the optional double precision floating point. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nedkelly Posted February 9 Share Posted February 9 17 hours ago, phrunt said: No stickers to prevent him opening it, although they're not valid anyway, they can't void warranty for damaging the "warranty void if removed" stickers, at least not in our part of the world. They're just a deterrent, a scare tactic. I'm sure his warranty will be just fine, although I doubt he'll need it, and it appears he thinks the same, a top notch PCB with a killer processor. Just jokes. He seems impressed though, they all look the same inside to me. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
palzynski Posted February 9 Share Posted February 9 He didnt show if the E1500 was still working after having reassembled it .. ? 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Jeff McClendon Posted February 9 Popular Post Share Posted February 9 16 hours ago, afaitken said: Hey Jeff, looks like you did well price-wise on the Axiom. The Axiom retails here in Australia at $7,385 or on sale at $7,185 which is not only way overpriced, but unfair that Garrett charges international buyers such a premium. It's the same for coils - so at $3kUSD you got a fantastic bargain! Also, there is a growing amount of us that are having endless problems with the Axioms not to mention faulty coils. I went out and got another Minelab GPZ 7000 yesterday as the Axiom has been nothing short of disappointing for the last 6 months, and useless for 90% of your prospecting day. We have collectively sent back our detectors "again" to Garrett Australia for testing. I personally wont ever use it again. The GPX 6000's are known for poor EMI shielding, but aftermarket modifications to fix the shielding and earthing removes those issues from the 6000. Also, more after market coils for the 6000 have been released and keep coming. Minelab applied a conductive coating to the inside of the GPX 6000 box but "forgot" to earth it back to the PCB properly amongst other things. One thing for sure, the Minelab range really is without competition. They were built and designed by people who live and breath gold prospecting, especially in the Australian environment. My plan is to strip back the 7000 and Frankenstein it into a lighter body and lighter battery. My research says it can be done, especially running the lighter X-coils....If the Axiom worked anywhere near as good as my wife's GPX 6000, I'd probably would never had got another GPZ 7000 - but they are such a good detector, you can't loose! Around $5500 AUD would be a fair price for the Axiom. That's twice as much as the E1500 and I am starting to wonder if the Axiom is twice as good. One day the Axiom impresses me and the next day I take it to near the same location but add in some soil moisture and things get weird. GPX 6000 costs $9,970 AUD here in the USA. I doubt the GPX 6000 is three to four times better than an E1500. I had similar weird occurrences with the GPX 6000. My GPX 6000 got the EMI/speaker system "fix" by Minelab USA Repair and it helped. I like and very often need to use a DD coil for EMI and ground conditions. You said "Also, more after market coils for the 6000 have been released and keep coming." So far, all of those have been Mono coils. Which super intelligent group of people created a detector with 2 soil timings normal/difficult, three modes to use them- one mode for Mono coils and two modes Salt and Cancel for DD coils then only planned to release one 14" DD coil? So two thirds of the detector’s operating modes are basically useless due to that one ridiculous DD coil which Minelab says "is not recommended for general detecting" in its own "Coil Selection" GPX 6000 video......WHAT???? Basically, I feel ripped off by these two giants of the metal detecting industry more often than not. I appreciate AlgoForce releasing a PI that will satisfy a lot of people's PI needs without it costing as much as a decent used car. 12 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phrunt Posted February 9 Share Posted February 9 I think everything else is now extremely overpriced. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post abenson Posted February 9 Popular Post Share Posted February 9 Yea the new price for the GPX 6000 at $6499 is almost laughable, at least to me. I had a hard time justifying what I paid for it almost 2 years ago. But it does find the gold. Once the Algoforce hits the US market priced at under $1800, it will most likely require some companies to lower their price or lose market share. I'm not a full time gold prospector, in fact I only gold hunt for probably 20 or less days a year. Luckily I'm well enough off I can afford to spend 6k on a metal detector just for the fun factor. But I'd rather spend the money and be able to go out and find some gold every time I go rather than settle for second best and get frustrated. I know a lot of people that hunt gold nuggets way more days a year than I do and would never spend even $2500 on a new GPX 4500 to compliment their VLF. The VLF finds them plenty of small stuff. From the sound of it, the Algoforce won't find as small of gold as a good VLF but will to allow us to find small gold a VLF won't find at greater depths in mineralized ground. So I foresee a good portion of those VLF users jumping up to an Algoforce who wouldn't buy a SDC2300 or Axiom. 10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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