Pulse Devil testing delayed again

[prospectinginoz]

There is only one answer to this Doug?, The 4000 Exists, I have one in my hands RIGHT NOW and so far have found enough gold to pay for one outright (since returning home I have done a total of 20 hours detecting time for a little over 7 oz on well worked areas)!!!

Show me the detector you are describing, show me it finding gold!! or at the very least get it in the hands of a REAL prospector (not and armchair bandit) who can take it out into a REAL gold field and try to find REAL gold with it!! Maybe then we can start to take you seriously!!

JP

So what! Maybe you or others previously failed to work the area properly!

JP how long did you test the 4000 for prior to public release? Were you first in line or down the list?

Did ML take on board your views on the 4000 or were they going to go ahead and release it regardless?

And stop running away with your tail between your legs when you are asked the tough questions or trying to distract and avoid them by scattering red herrings all over the place. And I love the insults keep em coming! It tells me I am getting under your skin! Obviously you cannot argue on the technical merits or otherwise of the 4000 or PD so you have to resort to the last bastion of a scoundrel, insults. Well as a scientist I have been insulted by the best in the business and I took their insults very seriously as they commanded respect because of their knowledge and publication record and international reputation.You my friend are a mere flyweight even though you I do enjoy your videos.

From the "airchair bandit" and idiotic and insane minelab hater and basher

Doug

Aint happenin Doug, They have no plans of releasing the new GPX from what Ive heard Any time soon.

And Im sure their going to make sure there are NO bugs before release.

Do you think that all the previous Pi models that ML released were bug free?

Doug

[Reg]

Hi Doug,

In your tests of the 4000 at the Dunolly test site the following was stated;

"To reaffirm our findings of our last test, a Minelab 18†round Mono was tested first on the 2 x 4000’s over the 1 oz @ 1;ft in Sensitive Smooth mode, the same surprising result occurred on both machines, not even a signal. "

Now, the next time testing is done at that site can you please have them run an air test with the same coil and same settings to see if the 1 oz is ignored at 1 foot. It is important to know if the same occurs in an air test. If it does, please have the operator try different heights above the nugget to see if there is a window range where it isn't detected and if so, just how wide is the window. That will tell me quite a bit about what his happening.

I really could use this information and do appreaciate your help in this testing.

Reg

[Reg]

AZBob,

No, I have not seen the inside of the 4000. I would like to see it though.

Have you taken one apart?

Reg

[claim jumper]

DOUG, it looks like you will be having this crow for diner.

[prospectinginoz]

JP is it correct that the 4000 at times suffers from EM noise that cannot be tuned out and that you have to live with it or go home?

If this is the case why was this not picked up in the pre production field testing and remedied prior to public release?

Why could a gain control (sensitivity) control not have been incorporated into earlier model machines?

Why has it taken 12 years to see this important circuit control incorporated into the 4000?

Is this due to a very inflexible ML circuit topology, signal acquisition or processing method or a marketing strategy or both?

Why has it taken ML so long to realize the benefits of Li-ion batteries and make them available for their Pi machines?

You see JP the questions will not go away but your answers are in short supply.

Doug

DOUG, it looks like you will be having this crow for diner.

Well as Dave says you do your worst and he will will do his best.

I hope that their are a lot of crows available so that myself and Dave and Whites and Allan W can all eat them.

By the way how do you cook crows?

Doug

Hi Doug,

In your tests of the 4000 at the Dunolly test site the following was stated;

"To reaffirm our findings of our last test, a Minelab 18” round Mono was tested first on the 2 x 4000’s over the 1 oz @ 1;ft in Sensitive Smooth mode, the same surprising result occurred on both machines, not even a signal. "

Now, the next time testing is done at that site can you please have them run an air test with the same coil and same settings to see if the 1 oz is ignored at 1 foot. It is important to know if the same occurs in an air test. If it does, please have the operator try different heights above the nugget to see if there is a window range where it isn't detected and if so, just how wide is the window. That will tell me quite a bit about what his happening.

I really could use this information and do appreaciate your help in this testing.

Reg

Will do Reg.We have some other nuggets including one of about 5ozs that are giving very poor signals on the 3500 compared to some smaller nuggets at the same depth. Have not done any 4000 testing for a while and some of the bigger nuggets from our kit are being sold so we will have to find some substitutes. Now we have multiple test sites we will be better able to test the effects of varying mineralization on depth and sensitivity. But as you know we have other priorities at the moment. Interestingly a team from a well known detector company was at Dunolly last week with detectors and laptops.My lips are sealed!

Doug

[montana]

It is no wonder that there is such a scramble by detector companies and inventors to come up with a detector to out do the Minelab PIs. Many of us have so much faith in Minelab engineering that we don't hesitate to cough up another $4,000.00 U.S. for the latest model. With VLF technology basicly stagnant, and PI technology still in its infancy, the future is surely in the PI direction. There obviously would be more profit selling the more expensive detectors also. As I stated, times are changing rapidly. The next 3 years will see more advances than we have seen since the first really usable gold detectors came out over 20 years ago. With more engineers turning their attentions to metal detectors, the possibilities are endless . These debates on the forums will have an effect also. The questions raised will give direction to the engineering process, as engineers are made aware of what the end user really wants in a detector. We need all the help we can get as soon as possible before we lose more patches to the developers, environmentalists, politicians etc. . I'm all for a better detector no matter who makes it . I'm not getting any younger.----Bob

[rexb]

Why could a gain control (sensitivity) control not have been incorporated into earlier model machines?

Why has it taken 12 years to see this important circuit control incorporated into the 4000?

Is this due to a very inflexible ML circuit topology, signal acquisition or processing method or a marketing strategy or both?

Doug

Well I'm not saying the process couldn't have been sped up, however, as I said with the PD1000, delays can be a mark of quality, innovation takes time, sheesh, we all know the Pulse Devil has taken at least six years, probably more, and I'm sure Dave's not holding out on us and making it take longer just for kicks. Of course it is to his advantage to get it out on the market reasonably quickly (once everything is right) since he does not already have another model on the market. It is an advantage for Minelab to take their time and also release things when they are "right" since they are already making a buck off previous models. Real competition has been too long in coming, but it takes time.

Rex

[Reg]

Hi Montana,

I hate to disagree with you about the PI being in its infancy because that isn't true. Right now, given the basic platform used by the designers today, it is bumping up against the depth limits, just like the VLF has done for a while now. In fact, I believe Candy wrote something to that effect a while back.

The bottom line is you can only put so much current into the coil using the present means and those limits basically have been reached. So, not a lot can be done without significant changes in design. Even then, it will take a whole lot of current to add even an inch or so in depth.

The next generation will be more of a hybrid design or another unique approach where it figurers out how to introduce a whole lot of additional current. Even then, the other signals such as the ground response and external noise signals will still present a problem. In the case of the ground, the signal from that will increase just like that of the targets.

The hybrid design as explained by Allan Westersten on the POZ forum indicates he has seen a significant increase in coil current using that method. I understand air tests are promising but I don't know about in ground tests.

Right now and for some time, the gains in depth have been made in refinements and reduction of noise or overcoming some of the prior limitations such as the "holes" in the detection. General techniques such as that used by the Superfix will make it easier to distinguish targets from noise because it will do the evaluation for us. So, gains can be made this way also.

Unfortunately, such gains will not be dramatic. There is room for more gains in having a PI detect the smaller stuff, but even there, the limitations are not far off.

Quite some time back I mentioned to Rob about a PI design being developed by another engineer. In his design, he anticipated currents of 30 times or more into the coil than done presently. This can't be done without some unique circuitry to can capture all excess energy, otherwise, one would need a pet gorilla to carry the batteries. In the case mentioned, the engineer did indicate he had the battery problem figured out.

Unfortunately, as I have mentioned before, this project was dropped because of noise concerns since the main design was to be used in industry. I would love to know just what he had in mind for the supply and how it was going to be applied. Now, I am beginning to think the design was more of a hybrid somewhat like Allan Westersten mentioned in his patent.

Reg

[montana]

Reg. I wasn't referring to overall depth. It's been pretty well documented that a PI can go three feet in the right circumstances. Anyone who has dug a three foot hole in hard desert soil knows that he doesn't want to dig a 6 foot hole very often . I think that a detector that would pick up every metal target down to 2 feet would result in a lot of gold being found, and this is where the advances will come in my opinion, and apparently the goal with the PD is to plug the holes that we know are there, and eliminate iron trash. To me that would seem like a huge step. If it's all been done then why are so many trying to come up with something revolutionary?----Bob

[Reg]

Montana,

There are techniques that can plug the holes and I am sure ML uses some of them. The problem lies in the possibility the summation of additional signals can result in the hole being shifted, rathern than being plugged, which is what I think is happening on the 4000 at certain settings.

As for "it all been done", that isn't the case. At least, not correctly by any unit being sold today that I know of. Remember, the old TR's used to discriminate but not well. The motion detector was a huge step as far as the operator was concerned, but the technical change was unique but not that dramatic. In fact one of the old Compass units had an extremely fast autotune that would do about the same thing but only supply half of the signal used to determne whether a target is good or not. Most people didn't know that existed.

Today, the idea of discrimination has taken different routes to find a solution. Most are following the same route which is to take multple samples and try to find a signature graph. The problem with that concept is gold is not like coins where all different values fall into clear patterns. So, in my opinion, this route may work so so for coins, but not for nugget hunting.

Both Allan and Dave use unique concepts compared to the norm. Dave's core design is known by a few but not many and I doubt anywhere near as many have an inkling to Allan's idea. It is unique to say the least. Once his patent is available for all to read, more strides may be taken in that direction.

As for detecting all targets within 2 feet in depth, well there are theories as to why that may be more difficult than people realize. If you ever followed the Finders forum, a few years ago, Hakey presented an idea that the signal from the coil extended downward and then was stopped and then went laterally. At the time the idea seemed somewhat farfetched. Ironically, a short time later I stumbled into a research paper that discussed a feature that could possibly cause that very effect, especially in clay ground. Ironically, I have not seen reference to it in any patents, but the factor was included in an answer I received to a particular question I had recently sent to George Payne.

Now, if this condition is the case, can it be overcome? I think so. At least sufficiently that realistic increases are possible.Because of the uniqueness of Allan's and Dave's design, I think they are going in the right direction. However, the only way I will really know for sure is through testing of both detectors, which hasn't been done by me yet.

Right now, I don't think either designer has included that idea as a possible reason for depth differences. Dave allows for a much longer pulse, which should clearly cause stronger signals on copper and silver items as well as very large solid gold nuggets. The extra length pulse signal will not do anything for the more typical gold nuggets we find over here. So, I am betting coin and relic hunters will benefit more from the longer pulse more than we will. Again, all of this is a guess at this point.

Reg

[montana]

Reg. Your above post again leads me to believe that PI technology is still in its infancy. There are problems to be overcome that if accomplished will mean a lot more gold eventually being found. Imagine a discriminator that would eliminate lead, copper, and aluminum which in some areas is a far bigger problem than iron trash. Impossible? Maybe, but it wasn't too long ago that most electronic prospectors would have thought that the PIs were impossible or that we would have coin detectors that could be set to pick out only one denomination of coin from a trashy park. I've gone from the belief that a "GOLD ONLY" detector would never happen in my lifetime to the belief that it is entirely possible. This may come as a side benefit from NASA research where I'm sure that they are working on a quick scan of martian soils to determine exact mineral content from a miniaturized martian lander. Who knows? Maybe a hybrid of VLF, PI, and ground penetrating radar. What was science fiction to us 20 years ago is now in our homes being used daily. In my opinion the only restraint is the small market and lack of huge profits in the detector industry. If everyone was as crazy about detectors as they are about cell phones, we would already have far better detectors than we do now. There just isn't a lot of financial incentive to fund research on a huge scale.

As far as the GPX 4000 having holes in some settings, I assume you are referring to the sensitive/ smooth settings. I could see right away that this was the case , but in some cases these settings exploit previous holes brilliantly. It would be a lousy detector if this was the only option, but there are many other options . It doesn't take long to figure out when the sens./smooth settings will be a benefit or a hinderance.----Bob

[Reno Chris]

Bob:

Actually hand held "gold only" detecting devices which can tell gold from aluminum, lead, silver, copper, etc. exist now, and are commercially available for purchase.

This not some phoney LRL, they are real and I have seen them demonstrated. They are not practical for detecting nuggets, but are used to nondistructivly test house paint to see if it contains lead, do quick field analysis of ore samples, tests to confirm metal content of alloys, etc. In theory, they could also be used to ID questionable "meteorites" to see if they contain significant nickel as well. They could also be used to test nuggets to see what percent gold the nugget contains.

They identify individual elements and the relative amounts of the element that are present using X-ray fluorescence, not changes in magnetic flux like our metal detectors.

Sounds great, but here is the downside: the sample window is only about 1/2 inch square, and maximum penetration is around 1 inch. They also cost around $50,000, and are gun shaped.

Unfortunatly, since even X-rays can only penetrate so far, I doubt that this particular technology will ever be used for detecting nuggets the way we use our current metal detectors.

Chris

[montana]

Chris. There again is an instrument that was only an idea in an engineers mind a few years ago. I said that PI technology was in its infancy . I should have said that gold detecting is still in its infancy. The next big inovation may be a totally new technology that may not have anything in common with VLF or PI detecting.----Bob

[montana]

Reg. Are you still coming to Rich Hill? Lots of rain but getting better on saturday.----Bob

[ledgehill1]

Reg

Having retired recently from a position as a tool maker in for a large company, I can assure you, that I have seen many problems come up that delayed production of several new products for as long as over a year. So, delays, while disappointing, can be expected. I't has been proven to me that it is a good idea to never promiss a deminstration, untill you have the product both in hand, and have proven it will work in private. Then it's time to crow.

Also, it seems that some folks are letting product loyalty out weigh the desire to find a better detector. Who knows, your detector may prove better, worse, or not workat all. never know until it's field tested. As for me, I'm for a better detector no matter who makes it.

Here's wishing you and your friends the best of luck.

Tony

[Reg]

Montana,

Reg. Are you still coming to Rich Hill? Lots of rain but getting better on saturday.----Bob

''

I will am in AZ now and will be at the 24K on Sun. Elly informed me Saturday's events were off. I just happened to be at Octave Friday when it rained cats and dogs. I was told it dropped 1 1/2" of rain then.

So, I will probably just fool around a little Sat in the general area of Rich Hill. Just look for an older White Ford Expedition with Colo plates.

Unfortunately, the PD isn't here with me so it is just me and a couple of my strange PI's.

I did get a chance to check one of the 24K club member's "invisible" nugget Sat with my PI and mine will detect it.

Also, I finally did get to meet Jim French and he had a different invisible nugget that even my unit couldn't detect, so it is back to the drawing board when I get home. Jim was nice enough to leave the gold with me for testing. I will know more as to what it will take once I get a chance to look at the signal with test equipment.

See everyone Sun at the 24K claims if I don't run into you before then

Reg

[Reg]

Hi Tony,

You are right, I should have not been so optimistic and waited until I had a unit in my hand before making any announcements. Hindsight is a great thing and quite reliable.

As I mentioned before, I really thought it was a good idea for a lot more people to see a new detector from the getgo. That way, more suggestions, discussions, etc woud be available almost immediately. At the time I discussed the initial idea with Dave and Allan, neither felt the target date would be too close, time wise. Well, it didn't quite turn out as I hoped.

As I mentioned before, I should have known better and apologize for the inconvenience.

As for a future announcement on either detector, I will wait until I have one in my hands. Personally, I am expecting that to be sooner than later.

Now, on the bright side, all this disucssion and delay led me to try a couple of things which gave me a couple of new ideas I really need to incorporate when I have more time. Both should be signficant improvements in my design.

Reg

[montana]

Reg. I'll be down Saturday(today) and try to find you and Jim French. I'm glad you saw these discussions and critisism as constructive. ----Bob

[Reg]

Montana,

I should have mentioned that Jim said he would probably leave for home this morning, especially if the weather remained bad. It looks like it rained last night, so I suspect he left but don't know for sure.

No problem on the discussions. I fully realize I am not the most polite person at times so I can't expect anyone else to be extremely polite. I believe people should say what is on their mnd. That is the only way to fully understand what concerns people.

Reg

[rexb]

...

[nuggethunting]

Hello Reg,

If you get a chance and read this, I should be up on the claims Sunday. I worked all day today, so I'm going to rest up and head out early in the morning.

Wish I would have seen Jim French again. Been a couple of years now since I saw him.

Talk with you soon,

Rob Allison

[AZNuggetBob]

Hey Reg how ya doin, Ive been thinking about what you said about using aluminum blocks for depth testing and I really have a problem with that. Its always been my experiance that Lead is the real beast for a metal detector. With an atomic # 82 Lead " is" the comparison for lack of gold. Gold is so close with a atomic# 79 Aluminum at #13 reflects an audio responce regardless of thickness and surface area greater than gold by far! As a matter of fact a piece of soda can only a few thousants thick will give a greater responce than gold with the same surface area that is much thicker? So how can you use this for a comparison? Just wondering how you came by this comparison? AzNuggetBob

[sourdough]

Reg, can you post some pic's of what these invisible nuggets look like? Are thay porous (sp) or something different all together? I've heard of them but never seen one. No pun intinded.

[prospectinginoz]

Hey Reg how ya doin, Ive been thinking about what you said about using aluminum blocks for depth testing and I really have a problem with that. Its always been my experiance that Lead is the real beast for a metal detector. With an atomic # 82 Lead " is" the comparison for lack of gold. Gold is so close with a atomic# 79 Aluminum at #13 reflects an audio responce regardless of thickness and surface area greater than gold by far! As a matter of fact a piece of soda can only a few thousants thick will give a greater responce than gold with the same surface area that is much thicker? So how can you use this for a comparison? Just wondering how you came by this comparison? AzNuggetBob

AL has a conductivity very close to gold. AL and gold of similar shape and size have Tc's that are fairly close.It is also what Eric foster recommends for testing and i don't know a much better authority. For testing of very deep targets Silver is very good because it has very long TC's ( more conductive than gold).ML machines really run out of puff on objects when the Tc's are >> Tx pulse length.

doug

[AZNuggetBob]

No way Doug I don't know were you came up with this idea, but If YOU have done any hunting you would know ALUMINUM is so far off GOLD there is no comparison. I have only seen aluminum used to agzagerate a detectors depth capability in the past. Good luck