Let's build the perfect detector

SkiWhiz

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upstate New York
Me like many of you can only dream about detecting now because of winter falling on us. I thought it would be neat to put our time into something fun - idea's on the perfect detector. Detectors have come so far from where they once were: well built,light,good battery life,good discimination,deep seeking,etc. Can the detectors get even better? Lets have some idea's, maybe if we come up with something good,one of the "big" manufacturers might use some of our ideas.
One thing I thought of but probably would be impossible is:
Make a detector that used solar power to either run it or to keep the batteries charged. Hey it works with calculators, but I suppose the solar panel would have to be half the size of Texas to keep it running. Just my idea. Lets hear some of your's! Thanks, Steve.
 
Ok, here's mine. I would love to see the makers of all the major brand machines have upgrades available. I own a DFX, and if Whites comes out in the near future with an upgraded version, I would like them to be able to upgrade the machine you have rather than having go buy a whole new machine. Now to me that wouldn't be that tough of a thing to make happen.
 
SkiWhiz said:
Make a detector that used solar power to either run it or to keep the batteries charged. Hey it works with calculators, but I suppose the solar panel would have to be half the size of Texas to keep it running. Just my idea. Lets hear some of your's! Thanks, Steve.

that isnt such a bad idea actually, building a small solar panel or two into the control housing wouldnt be that hard, I doubt youd get near enough output to power it completely but if it helped keep the batteries charged and extended the battery life it would be worth it
 
How about an imaging display that actually shows you the size and shape of your target? It would really help you decide whether or not to dig those iffy signals if you could "see" that the target is in the shape of a coin or a ring rather than a pulltab or other piece of recognizable junk.

Harley-Dog
 
Harley-Dog said:
How about an imaging display that actually shows you the size and shape of your target?  It would really help you decide whether or not to dig those iffy signals if you could "see" that the target is in the shape of a coin or a ring rather than a pulltab or other piece of recognizable junk.

Harley-Dog
If I am not mistaking Garrett has this feature in some of it's detector's. Correct me if I am wrong. Steve.
 
How about making the display larger for us older folks and make the housing of the machines stronger and not as toyish.
HH, wes
 
Yeah Hoser, kind of like a Bios upgrade on you PC? Maybe have swappable chips that held the programming. Then you could just buy the chip.
 
the very same kind of upgrade happened on the XP Goldmax Power when it went from the version V3 to V4... instead of having to buy a whole new machine you bought an upgrade chip for ?9-95 and swapped it yourself.

Made the machine a new animal and for a miserly sum that nobody cud moan about. shame the rest of the majors dont follow suit and do summit similar
 
halogen lights at the 12, 3,6 and 9 position on the coil, to be used for night hunting. And to get crazier, a built in voice, i.e. "you got mail" could make it say, dig, do not dig, and "it,s a pulltab"
 
I think the upgradeable idea is a good one but I doubt any detector manufacturer would be interested. Like a car manufacturer their money is in selling you a new car. They really don't care if their products can be upgraded.

Enter the aftermarket dealer. Now I do believe there is a need for aftermarket detector upgrades.

One thing I'd like to see, and it should be fairly easy, is a USB port on a detector. It could be used for USB add-ons like a flash drive, to make adding new programs simple, USB headphones, which have the ability for much higher quality headphones. With a USB port some aftermarket detector add-on company could make better displays you just plug in to the port. Or how about a pinpointer/probe you plug in to the detector, via USB, and you could probe for your target with the display and sound from your detector.

A USB port could also make upgrading your detectors BIOS and software a possibility.
 
In response to one of the other posts, Garrett has an LCD screen on their newer high end models that shows what size and object is, which is very helpful in determining whether to dig or not. They (meaning the detector industry) have the capability to image an object, but then you get into much more expense precessors like on $23,000 ground imagers. I personally think that the best feature would be a totalling new approach in how a object is detected.

Currently they are stuck on frequency or pulse induction technology for detectors. I'm not sure what ground imagers use, but it would be great if they could get the price way down on them. I know if engineers really put their heads together that they could come up with a new technology that not only detects metal, but other materials such as diamond, flint (arrow heads), and other materials. I'm not sure why currently they can only get frequency detectors to send signals in a cone shape either. I don't know if pi's detect the same way or not. You would be able to recover many more items if the signals were transmitted in a cylindrical shape, or in the form of whatever shape coil you have. I wander if sonar technology can be used in solid materials like dirt or rock.

Maybe a combination frequency, sonar, pi machine could be made. Of course you would be looking at much higher prices if this was done. But, if they were able to perfect a whole new technology, prices might be able to stay about where they are, but with much more efficient technology. I've been kicking this thought around myself ever since I got into detector's. Maybe I'll start really researching a new approach to detecting.
 
One more idea, how about the detectors that have a visual display on them add a clock display. Wait a minute that might not be such a great idea - that way we would not have any excuse for being late when our wife tells us to be home at a certain time. Steve.
 
Detector said:
One thing I'd like to see, and it should be fairly easy, is a USB port on a detector. It could be used for USB add-ons like a flash drive, to make adding new programs simple, USB headphones, which have the ability for much higher quality headphones. With a USB port some aftermarket detector add-on company could make better displays you just plug in to the port. Or how about a pinpointer/probe you plug in to the detector, via USB, and you could probe for your target with the display and sound from your detector.

A USB port could also make upgrading your detectors BIOS and software a possibility.


that isnt a bad idea either...

kind of along the same line, it would be kind of cool to have a GPS system which mated to some kind of online USGS mapping system/program for your computer
you could use any type of map you wanted(standard, aerial, topo, hybrids) and see exactly where on a certain area you've been and what area, or amount of an area, you've covered
it would also be helpful for marking and recording new sites that are found(especially old "out of town" homesteads), marking bounderies on prospect sites and recording various info about a specific site
there would be alot of uses/possibilities for a system like that
 
My perfect detector would be a combination VLF (a la Nautilus), PI unit, and hand held/towable magnetometer in a waterproof casing either hip or backpack carry with a multi position rod/chest mounted control/display. Rod, coil, and display would weigh 2 lbs or less. Cordless, lightweight headphones (waterproof of course). It would detect single 1/2 oz. gold coins or nuggets at 3 feet and quart sized silver/copper caches at 6 feet. :lol:

Some new features that would be nice would include all visual ID - a display/vibrating grip.

All audio ID - a sexy female (male optional :lol:) voice in the headphones to describe the target and offer encouragement. The pinpoint mode might be a little risque for some folks though :lol:

A visor or sunglasses with HUD display to replace the LCD screen on the rod.

Some hovercraft technology on the coil to float it over the ground :lol:

I'd better clam up now before someone steals my ideas. :lol:

Ditto to Detector and Bear and Hoser.
 
How about a gps system in the unit that would log location of hit, depth, and VDI number of hit. You could put on a bigfoot with a fast sweep and map out an entire area. Plug into a usb port on your pc and print out a treasure map for the area. Go back and spend more time recovering finds. Most importantly a BLUETOOTH connection for headphones.

Jack
 
OK, so far this new detector is costing how much? :lol: I'm really liking the USB ides to download data to a program. That's cool! That way you could analize the data from the field and see where your targets where. And, with bluetooth being so popular, it seems do-able for headphones.
 
I think I thought of a good "realistic" idea - how about instead of just having the usual beep when we go over a target, having a computer generated voice saying what the probable id is, nickel it would say nickel,dime it would say dime,and of course pulltab would say pulltab or maybe say not another one :( Well you get the picture. Steve.
 
SkiWhiz said:
I I think I thought of a good "realistic" idea - how about instead of just having the usual beep when we go over a target, having a computer generated voice saying what the probable id is, nickel it would say nickel,dime it would say dime,and of course pulltab would say pulltab or maybe say? not another one? :( Well you get the picture. Steve.

I am pretty sure my metal detectors have this feature...as I hear little voices all the time. :shock: :wow: :?:
 
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