Conductive Carbon Fiber Lower Rods

[phrunt]

Gold prospectors are used to paying high prices for detecting equipment, look at the GPZ and 6000 pricing, so a bit of money for a shaft isn't going to break the bank.

[Chase Goldman]

4 minutes ago, steveg said:

Anyone have any thoughts, in this regard?

Would that extend the length of the lower rod such that it would impact it's ability to be fully collapsed or necessitate compensating for the longer rod by shortening the extension of the middle section?  Not a deal breaker, just trying to understand what you are proposing.

[steveg]

2 minutes ago, Chase Goldman said:

Would that extend the length of the lower rod such that it would impact it's ability to be fully collapsed or necessitate a compensating by shortening the extension of the middle section?  Not a deal breaker, just trying to understand what you are proposing.

I am trying to flesh this out in my mind as we speak.  So, nothing set in stone, it's evolving as I think.  My thought would be that I'd keep the length the same; I'd trim the carbon tube by 8", is what I'm thinking, to accommodate the 8" plastic "adapter."

Steve

[steveg]

3 minutes ago, phrunt said:

Gold prospectors are used to paying high prices for detecting equipment, look at the GPZ and 6000 pricing, so a bit of money for a shaft isn't going to break the bank.

True.  I just try to keep prices down on my stuff, and this would end up a rather expensive lower rod.  My choices for such a plastic adapter would be injection-molding (and that mold would cost several thousands of dollars -- so I'd never get "return on investment" if I were to go that route), or CNC milling -- i.e. producing those extensions individually, one-at-a-time, from a chunk of Delrin or ABS plastic.  Those would be costly, individually -- an order of magnitude more than a molded part, but would eliminate the need for the mold expense.

Hmm...

Steve

[Steve Herschbach]

All I can tell you is I was recently running a Manticore with 5x8 coil jacked to the max detecting not nuggets, but tiny flakes, and I'd buy a non-conductive lower rod for that machine in a heatbeat.

The thing is there are different markets with different needs. Sure, the stock rod is just fine for a guy on the beach in Florida and so are aftermarket rods that are only emulating what the manufacturers themselves are supplying. How can that be wrong? But for extreme high preformance detecting i.e. chasing tiny gold in hot ground, there are different needs, real or perceived, and supplying product for that niche is a service, end of story. I for one expect to pay more for niche product - we nugget hunters always have the KY Jelly nearby, goes with the territory. 

It goes back to we want what we want, is somebody going to make it, or do I have to make it myself? I was already looking at how to mate the Manticore yoke to an Equinox 800 rod. Or seeing if I could mate an Impulse AQ rod to the Manticore coil.

I really am going to shut up now.

[steveg]

10 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

All I can tell you is I was recently running a Manticore with 5x8 coil jacked to the max detecting not nuggets, but tiny flakes, and I'd buy a non-conductive lower rod for that machine in a heatbeat.

The thing is there are different markets with different needs. Sure, the stock rod is just fine for a guy on the beach in Florida and so are aftermarket rods that are only emulating what the manufacturers themselves are supplying. How can that be wrong? But for extreme high preformance detecting i.e. chasing tiny gold in hot ground, there are different needs, real or perceived, and supplying product for that niche is a service, end of story. I for one expect to pay more for niche product - we nugget hunters always have the KY Jelly nearby, goes with the territory. 

It goes back to we want what we want, is somebody going to make it, or do I have to make it myself? I was already looking at how to mate the Manticore yoke to an Equinox rod. Or seeing if I could mate an Impulse AQ rod to the Manticore coil.

I really am going to shut up now.

Steve,

I really appreciate your thoughts -- no need to shut up, unless you are simply tired of discussing.  The thoughts are helping me to "think through" what might be possible.  I will continue to ponder this.  Very interesting and thought-provoking points you are making...

Steve

[RONS DETECTORS MINELAB]

2 hours ago, steveg said:

The issue is, having that plastic "adapter piece" produced.  I may look into it, but I suspect it would be expensive, and thus would add to the cost of this "specialty" lower rod.  It would also add some to the weight of the lower rod, which is not ideal...

Anyone have any thoughts, in this regard?

Doc’s has a bunch of these Coiltek plastic ends on his legacy GPX rods and Minelab also used a plastic extension with there GPX rods, the Minelab version (on the left) look really nice but just not long enough.

[steveg]

30 minutes ago, RONS DETECTORS MINELAB said:

Doc’s has a bunch of these Coiltek plastic ends on his legacy GPX rods and Minelab also used a plastic extension with there GPX rods, the Minelab version (on the left) look really nice but just not long enough.

Looks like both the Coiltek idea, and Minelab's "longer" plastic portion on their older GPX "yokes" are "sort of" helpful, with respect to this discussion, but probably not long enough to bring peace-of-mind.

I've done a rough design on an extension piece that is 8" long, and have submitted it to my main CNC/plastics supplier for pricing information.  Meanwhile, I have feelers out to a couple of my carbon tube manufacturers to see if they have any tubes that are similarly strong and lightweight, but made of something other than carbon fiber, that are non-conductive (Kevlar comes to mind, and I asked them about Kevlar specifically...)

So, I'm thinking on this...not sure if it can be brought to fruition in a reasonable way, but I'm checking into it.

Steve

[Steve Herschbach]

Well due to forum crash an entire day with a lot of very good posts lost here. Tearing hair out, sorry.  Suffice it to say it all ended with steveg working hard on a possible option for those that want a non-conductive lower rod for the Manticore.