Metal Detecting Paradise 2010

[wjbaumchen]

Ok since the companies that make and sell detectors want to sell you know ones they keep reinventing the wheel instead of perfecting it!!! What I mean is that many of the old timers reviews I read preety much say the same thing. That these newer detectors offer more fetures but not better performance then their older gear. It does not matter if they are talking about Whites,Fisher or MineLab. Many of the favorite detectors are 15 years old or older and they keep going back to those when they do not turn anything up with the newer models. The reason I think this is is the same as int he auto industry which I have worked in most of my life. Since IC's are so cheap and the cost of faster processors and memoory keeps falling like a rock it is easy to add feature to the product for close to zero additional cost since their is so much extra memory and processing power available. So instead of giveing you a more power or more sensitive unit wich would increase their cost significantly they give you more bells and whistles which may or may not be of use to you. They are also able to package the devices into smaller and smaller packages due tot he the density of the IC's and transistors per square inch.

So why do we as purchasers keep falling for the trade sell buy trap. How come we do not demand more depth and discrimanation instead of allthe bells and whistles? The price is also artificaly high. Their is no way that anything Tesoro makes or MIneLab makes that has a higher production cost then my COmputer,Monitor,ptinter combo. Seriously You can get a Core 2 Duo desk top with a flat pannel 22 inch screen and a printer for less then $600 loaded with big hard drives nioce graphics and lots of memory. In fact all of us are paying about 2X to 4X what these devices should actualy cost . Have you noticed that the average price of a TV set has not changed much in the last 20 years. Same thing for fridges and washing machines and metal detectors. Yet I can get a computor that that is 1000X better then my first $2000 dollar computer for $500 bucks!

Is someone came out with a product line up that was as good as Tesoro,Whites,MineLab but cost 1/2 a much and had a good warranty and good build quality they could sweep the market! The best way to market them would be to do grass roots shot outs and competitions with them against their competition directly! ANy print add's would need to focus on output power,depth, descrimanation and cost! Offer puls induction models for $400 or less and mine lab killers for $300 and an entry level model for $100 that was insanely good and solid like a Tesoro Compadre or $1212X etc.....Really it is doable for a company to clean up with moderate price with lots of volume and conquest sales it just ahs to be marketed properly which does not mean spending a boat load on traditional advertiseing either. They would ahve to have at least 3-4 rock solid performers with good solid build quality and performance!

I know I will never see it happen though!LOL

[Ben]

Well the biggest thing is the market just isn't large enough to mass produce these better detectors. You aren't going to sell 100 million detectors so it's a very limited market. This will keep the price high on quality machines.

As far as depth goes I think they are about as deep as then can be at this point. You really get to a point where the only way to increase depth is with larger coils. There is a place where more actual RF power into the ground has little effect on the receiver. We are starting to see more computer use in detectors though so more features are coming. Not sure how I feel about that anymore though. I thought bells and whistles were the thing when I bought my Minelab Explorer but now I usually pick up a simpler machine and do just as good. Of course if I'm doing serious relic detecting I'll still take the EXII...

Anyway if there were as few computers sold as detectors they would be WAY higher than they are.

Ben
_________________

Hi!

[Vandecar]

This is an intersting topic. Ben makes great points. I have only been into detecting about 3 years. One thing I noticed quickly was how everyone constantly wanted a better detector. That puzzled me. People with very good units still want a bigger better deal. I dont know if this new grass roots company would work either because so much of detetcting success is based on the user. You always have the poor user badmouthing a good mahine.
I think right now there are tons a very capable machines in the hands of amatures. I see it on md'ing boards every day. Guy with a $100 machine goes and buys a $1200 machine and his finds increase, but just modestly. I also see a few guys with middle of the road, used machines, outfinding the tails off of everyone else. You sometimes see web poster people finding a gold ring in 2" of wood chips, and giving the machine all the credit. We all know a $20 machine would find that.
I do feel that many detectors are overpriced for what they are. Even the one I use. But Oh well, I have fun with it and that's what matters.
_________________
Tesoro Vaquero
Bounty Hunter Pioneer 505

[JB(MS)]

George Payne discovered the phase shift principle that allows ground balance and discrimination, and invented almost every single feature on modern detectors including tone ID, ID meters (needle, LCD and LED) manual ground balance, motion detectors, the first computerized detectors and the first auto ground balance detectors. Every feature on modern detectors, except possibly multifrequency, are basically modifications of his designs. George pretty much hit the performance limit for VLF detectors in the late 1980's. His Teknetics SST is still a standard against which depth is measured, and his Mark I had features that allowed discriminating and ID'ing targets about as well as the best of the current detectors. All of the "improvements" since then have been in ease of use, weight reduction and more features. Below is an article from C-Scope's Plain Truth series that explains why more depth can't be achieved using current technology, followed by a statement from Dave Johnson, who designed most of the Fishers, newer Whites, Shadow X5, several Tesoro models and the current upper end Bounty hunter models including the T2 and all the new F model Fishers, that confirms the C-Scope article.

From C-Scope
"It is in the fundamentals of electromagnetics where the laws of physics establish limits which cannot be exceeded. Metal detector R&D engineers all understand these laws very well and they all have to develop their detectors within the same constraints. To demonstrate the point furher.......it is possible to put the cheapest metal detector in a controlled laboratory situation and you can tune it to detect a coin in air at one metre! However, if you take that machine outside and try to use it on the ground it is absolutely useless and won't detect a thing. This is because the huge amount of energy in the search coil is simply detecting the ground

Doubling the gain of the detector doesn't give you twice the depth but it does give twice the ground signal! (The magnetic field from the transmit coil to the target diminishes as a cube law. This magnetic field induces circulating eddy currents in the target and these eddy currents produce an opposing magnetic field, which also diminishes as a cube law. It is these which are detected by the receive coil. - So we are talking of a 6th power law of signal against distance (3rd power out and 3rd power back) . So to double the depth of detection requires a transmit current (or receive gain) increase of 2 to the power 6 (ie x64 whic equals 64 times as much!)

This also explains why you cannot get more depth out of a metal detector. Any detector manufacturer who tells you that they have a new development which gives dramatic increase in depth has to be treated with a lot of suspicion. You CANNOT get around the laws of physics!"

From Dave Johnson
"Getting extra depth out of a VLF, multifrequency, or PI machine is very difficult, because these machines follow an inverse 6th power law relationship between signal voltage and depth. If everything else is maintained equal, doubling the depth requires 64 times as much signal. If this is done by increasing transmitter power, doubling depth requires 4,096 times as much battery drain. That's the basic reason why depth increases come so slowly in this industry. The biggest impediment to getting usable depth in the ground, is interference from magnetic and electrically conductive minerals in the ground, which can produce signals hundreds of times as strong as that of the metal target you're trying to detect and hopefully identify."
_________________
.
Visit the Hungersite daily....

[pastfinder1]

I think I'd like to add a thought to the post above. JB(MS). I think that the improvements in depth that we've seen in the last 20 years or so may be because detector Manufacturers have improved the filtering circuits. Filtering out the effects of the iron minerals may allow the discriminating circuit to more effectively analise the return signal from very weak eddy currents. Same theory as ham radio receivers that can isolate a very weak RF signal from all the electromagnetic interference. I did meet George Payne once about 1985 at an organised treasure hunt in Seymour, Indiana. Ken Wray used to host " Treasure Week " at his place in Seymour every 4th of July. Some of you may remember. Anyway, Mr Payne is a super nice guy. Sharp as a tack.