Range of cost of Pulse Devil ?

[Anonymous]

This question is for Mr.Bill or Eric Foster or anyone else who may have any info on the costs involved.
I know it is still very early in the production process for the Pulse Devil and this is a speculative question, but I was just wondering what the approximate cost of the future Pulse Devil discriminating PI detector might be?
I know there are a lot of people waiting for info and possibly stalling their future PI purchasing decisions as we await word on what sounds like a truly ground breaking detector in the works.
So here's my question...will the cost of the "Pulse Devil" be expected to be in the range of the Golquest SS...or in the range of an Aquastar II...or possibly in the range of a Minelab Extreme GP or will it be even higher?
I know it's very difficult to give a precise figure but to those that are waiting and possibly foregoing purchasing a PI unit now in order to save up and get a Pulse Devil when they become available,it would be nice to at least have a very general estimate to know if it will be priced out of our league or not and if so,we can go ahead and possibly purchase a PI unit that may be more in line with our budget.
I'm just looking for a very general idea..to the nearest thousand dollars possibly of what they may cost so I can get serious about saving up for one as it sounds like it will be a phenomenal machine.
Thanks

 

[Anonymous]

That is a hard question to answer at the moment. In the not too distant future, I will be evaluating one to see how it performs in various applications. We have possible land use for coins and relics, nugget hunting in highly mineralised areas, freshwater hunting, beach and shallow salt water, and also deep water diving. Manufacturing costs vary considerably across the different uses, with underwater use being the most expensive because of the pressure housing and sealing required. Quality and reliability does not come cheap, so they will always be fairly high end units, however, my intention is that whatever niches they fill in the market, they will represent good value for money.
Eric.

 

[Anonymous]

Thank you for the response. I am among those who are very interested and waiting to see details of the Pulse Devil and what it's abilities will be.
We will be gold nugget detecting mainly and also beach jewellry detecting as our secondary usage.
We are looking at "gold nugget capable" VLF detectors now and with the limited early info that is available on the "Pulse Devil" we are somewhat stalling our purchasing decisions because the Pulse Devil sounds like it will be an awesome machine that's very suitable to the areas and conditions we will detect in.
I realize the AquastarII/DeepstarII/GoldquestSS are also very capable detectors but having a PI detector that can discriminate as well as or nearly as well as a top performing VLF machine is like having your cake (depth) and eating it too (discriminating junk from the good targets).
I read a post that the 3 grain size is roughly the limit for the Goldquest SS. In many areas half or more of the gold nuggets are this size or smaller. I don't have the knowledge of PI technical limits so I am assuming that nuggets less than 3 grain or so are about the theoretical limit of current PI technology.
Are there other improvements being developed in the Pulse Devil such as even greater depth of detection and greater sensitivity to small gold or is the complete focus on providing discrimination features?
Best of luck on the upcoming PI machines and I hope they deliver what a lot of people on this forum are patiently waiting for.

 

[Anonymous]

Darren
Perhaps you meant .3 gm. ?? Here are some testing Eric did with the Goldquest SS on a few nuggets.
Initially a 0.1gm flat nugget was tested but was not detectable at any range. This is because the decay time of the signal was faster than the 10uS sample delay used in the SS.
0.4gm flat----------3.5in (8in coil)---2.5in (11in coil)
0.5gm irregular--2.5in---------------2.5in
0.9gm flat---------6.0in---------------6.0in
2.0gm flat---------7.0in---------------7.25in
3.6gm irregular--7.5in---------------8.0in
3.4gm 22k ring---13in----------------15in
No disrespect mean to anyone, but waiting for a detector to come out into the scene, and you may miss many months of valuable detecting time. They are many fine VLF detectors designed for nugget hunting on the market already. If your serious about going nugget hunting, it may be very disappointing to you from all the loss time that passed by, that you could have been hunting by not waiting. Certainly the cost of most VLF nugget units are not very expensive, and to have your bases covered one need

 

[Anonymous]

Mr.Bill,thanks for your responses. You make some good points as I do realise that swinging a detector...any detector really...over ground with good targets in it beats reading the forums and researching and waiting to buy one <IMG SRC="/forums/images/smile.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="">
I am new to the hobby and since this is the first time I've really looked into metal detectors in depth I wanted to get a good idea about what is available out there and what different technologies are most appropriate to use in varying conditions. The online forums are invaluable to find out facts and opinions on the various technologies and detectors produced by different manufacturers.
This PI forum in particular is one of the best 2 or 3 detecting forums on the net for depth of information and knowledge it provides to users and detection hobbyists.
The pulse detectors definitely seem to have their place as they detect deeply and see through much of the mineralization and salts that the VLFs may have more trouble with.
As you say...a common practice is to have both a VLF and a PI machine to cover the bases well in all areas and mineralization levels. With the emergence of better discriminating PI's though I would assume that the tide will slowly turn towards PI units over VLF's as PI's will offer everything that the current VLF's do and then some. In my understanding the only area that will most likely still be superior with the VLF units is the very small targets such as very small gold nuggets and flakes.
As far as the sensitivity of the PI's to very small gold I read Eric's tests and also read a few other comments on the GP Extreme using a small coil which also detected gold nuggets a few grains in size. I always refer to grain measures because they are a standard measure and are a traditional measure for gold.
As there are 15.4324 grains in a gram of gold Erics' test indicate that a .1 gram(1.5 grain) nugget is not detectable and a .4 gram (6 grain) nugget is detectable at 3.5" with the 8 inch coil. I would then assume that a nugget somewhere in between 1.5 grain and 6 grain would be the limits of current PI technology and this is confirmed by what I have read in regards to the GP Extreme as well.
Many people say that detecting nuggets smaller than a couple grains is futile anyway as they want to spend their time going after the bigger and more productive nuggets but in my personal opinion any gold is good gold...especially as gold prices rise. In many areas there won't be many big nuggets left so the only thing to be found is the small stuff.
To sum up,I am looking at purchasing 2 detectors and am patiently waiting for details of the Pulse Devil as it seems to be the PI machine to watch for.
Many units now available still offer a lot of bang for the buck as far as nugget detecting is concerned...like the MXT,GoldquestSS,Eureka Gold and X5.
Any of these detectors would definitely perform well in the nugget-rich areas and I don't think any would be poor choices from the comments I have read online. For myself, it's just a matter of having as much info as I can get to make the best informed choices I can about what products to buy and use for the areas I will be detecting in.
Thanks again for the feedback and advice..it's all appreciated.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Darien
Your correct about the forums being a great help, but it can also be a great hindrance to someone just starting out. Lot

 

[Anonymous]

If you can afford a GP, you don't need a VLF.
I have found numerous nuggets a lot smaller than .1 grams using a GP with the 11" monoloop in sensitive. Some of these "bits" are so small you wouldn't even think they're gold if the detector didn't signal them. I'd hate to see how small a nugget the 8" mono or 10" ellipt. will find.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks John, I see that you have had great success with the GP on very small gold. As you say, if a GP is within a person's budget it is a detector that is very hard to beat on almost any size of gold worth detecting.I appreciate your comments about the GP being able to find the very small grains.
The only area left for improvement is full conductivity range discrimination which would make it even better for detecting in trashy areas and more useful in areas such as saltwater beaches as well.
Like everything, improvements come in time and detectorists are benefiting every year by the better and better technology that is produced.
Happy hunting and continued good luck with your GP.