? on detector technology

Aaaahhh! In search of the better mouse trap. Sometimes there are things in this world that are hard to improve on. I am biased of coarse. I own a DFX! I am tempted by the SE however? Damn technology!

Keep Swing'in
Jack

Hey Jack
I was tempted by the DFX but wanted a water machine to. So I found the GTI2500 on craig's list for 500 and picked up the PI Pro from Tony for a total
just over a DXF new. I was just wondering for as long as they have been in production that uproseesor must be runing at 10 - 100 times faster now.If you look at what has happened to digital sound and vidio during that time.
Just seems we're behind in technology .I will be busy for a long time learning to use the machine I have , and having fun.Bottom line you guy that are having 100 coin day could do it with any detector and those of us that are still on the bottom of the learning cruve will still only find a few with the same equipment.But we can all have fun swing and digging.good hunting to ya.
steve

Detector technology often advances in minor features that tend to work their way down the models, but every now and then make a major jump at the top.

Right now in my opinion the major tech feature is multiple frequency and filtering. Those who have used detectors with these features may not fully understand the advantage, but most know they do have an advantage.

The Minelab Exp and Whites DFX, the two "top dogs", have this newest technology. When a newer technology hits the top dogs these features will filter down to lower priced models.

One thing that has always bothered me is why none of the detectors manufactures use processor power as advertised feature. Processor speed is very very important to the performance of a detector. For example the DFX's up to 6 filters is major player in technology but without a fast processor to quickly process this incoming data, the feature could be worthless.

It seems to me when I was choosing a detector and comparing the DFX and Exp II I did find that the DFX's processor was quite a bit faster than the Exp II's. This could explain why I've heard people say the Exp II must be run slower. The slower a processor is and the more data that must be processed, that slower a detector must be operated to give time to process the data and return the correct response.

Hello Detector
Thanks for the reply. I was surprized to hear the DFX has a faster processor.
I maybe wrong but is'n the Dfx older then the SE2?I would design around the fastest processor avalible at the time . If you look at what proceesor speed has done for digital sound recording they have made major jumps
even for thr home recording market.

steve

I believe the processor is one of the updates on the SE. But, like most things (cars,shoes,golf clubs etc) it is how you use the equipment that either gets the maximum benefit of the technology or not. Heck, you could take a Ferrari out for a ride but.... if you don't know how to shift a standard you won't use much of it's capability's.

Carol and Vlad (and others) have said that knowing what your machine is telling you is often the most underestimated "tool" of the trade. And I agree.

Back to the subject at hand: I don't think any of us can realize what kind of technological improvements we will have over the next 30 years. We have a lot to look froward to.

Jeff

t=md2 said:

Hello Detector
Thanks for the reply. I was surprized to hear the DFX has a faster processor.
I maybe wrong but is'n the Dfx older then the SE2?I would design around the fastest processor avalible at the time . If you look at what proceesor speed has done for digital sound recording they have made major jumps
even for thr home recording market.

steve

Click to expand...

Steve,

Processor speed comes at the expense of power. Detectors must run on batteries and the total weight is also of primary concern. So, the designer has a "power" budget to design within. This includes not only the processor, but the rest of the electronics and LCD display.

If ML designers decided to burn more power in another area of the detector (eg. the larger LCD display), they need to burn less power elsewhere for a given battery pack size/weight. This may mean using a slower processor.