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Some ideals for Fisher...
Posted by connortn
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Some ideals for Fisher... September 07, 2012 11:03AM |
Registered: 14 years ago Posts: 301 |
I am sure I do not get to spend as much time at my hobby as many of the forum members here, but I may be above average for the length I am willing to go to make my hobby more enjoyable. I have modded a few detectors to get better performance out of them and probably my favorite one is the disassembling of an Auvio wireless headphone transmitter, building a miniature voltage regualtor for it and hardwiring it inside my favorite detector. I did this to eliminate the corded headphones and w/o having to tape/wrap something to the outside of my detector to get the wireless feature. I really liked not having to put up with a headphone wire or attachments hanging on to my detector.
I say this to hopefully give an ideal of the lengths I will go to get a product that I want, and being that it's 4:30 in the morning and woke up early with detecting on my mind, I though I would give some ideals of what I would like to see Fisher impliment on their next detector. We've had these posts before, and I've even given my ideals before, but I've been detecting a bit more lately and learning what would actually be desireable in my next detector. Of course, these are one mans opinions and there are many here that have different needs of their detectors, but for the most part, I think these ideals would be desireable for most everyone that enjoys this hobby as much as we do.
So in no special order of listing...
1. Wireless headphones. If I can add this feature to a detector then there is no reason for a large company to not be able to do so. You will be amazed at the freedom that wireless headphones give you in the field! It's like having a Photon microlight on your keychain. You will never want to do without it. ...and yes, still put a waterproof/resistant headphone jack on the unit for those times when your wireless headphones are having trouble or you forgot to replace the batteries in them. I understand you are limited to the companys headphones with the internal transmitter, but maybe the company could offer a small plug-in adapter to attach to your best headphones. If you have headphones with an output jack on them instead of hardwired cord, you could possibly plug the receiver directly into the output jack.
2. The ability to control the volumn of iron audio when listening to it. Let's face it, theres 1000's of times more iron in the dirt out there than the more desireable metals we seek, and having to listen to all that iron blasting your eardrums for hours can take a lot of enthusiasm out of the hobby. If every detectorist knew how easy it was to add this feature to a metal detector (during design), they would be furious at not having it on their next detector. It's kind of like "Oh, you want a volumn control on the radio in your auto?" thing!
3. Light weight. We can now put a room full of equipment inside a wrist watch for the price of a vacuum tube! We now have lithium batteries that weight practically nothing and last far longer than previous ones. What weight is in a detector should be for strength and protection, not bad design.
4. Balance. This is an instrument you will be swinging unsupported for hours at a time at the end of your arm. This thing needs to swing naturally. Try holding just your arm out as if you were detecting but w/o a detector. You will quickly see just how tiring this is in just a few minutes, not hours. Now add 3 or 4 lbs in your hand and try it. A well balanced machine will take the weight of the coil and extended shaft which is pulling down, and transfer it to the arm cuff, pushing up, and the handgrip should be only a balance point, not to be used to hold up the machine. The muscles in the stronger shoulder should be what holds everything up.
5. A coil design with upcurved bottom at the outside perimeters and rounded outside edges. This will help keep the coil from digging into the sand so much during beach hunting. If you will notice, beach sand is not smooth like a Japanese garden! It's been trodden on, kicked at, dug in by kids, played on and looks like a minature mine field. All these high peaks keep you from getting closer to the ground level and so we have a tendicy to scrubb the tops of these peaks with our detectors. When you do, sharp flat edge designs on your coils will dig in like a claw hammer and stop your natural swing. If they were slightly upturned at the leading edges for a few inches back and round outside edges, a lot of this could be eliminated. I'd rather my coil bounce a little when hitting the soft sand peaks instead of digging in like a runaway truck hitting the emergency sand pits.
6. Straight shafts. This may fall into preferrences, but I think that most, once tried, will prefer a straight shaft instead of a curved shaft that wants to wobble in your grip. I think they may be better suited for balance also.
7. Get rid of the iron falsing! I'm told that the ID circuit of a detector is like a full circle, and that iron is very close to the top end of the good conductors scale. If this is so, then at least clip off (or give us the ability to do so) some of this top end that does little but find big fruit jar lids and soda cans anyway, and give us a little more elimination of iron. I always hunt with the last notch eliminated on my detectors if they have the ability in trying to eliminate the iron falsing. The best choice, of course, would be to better design the circuits to ID iron much more reliably and keep the signal confined to "iron only" on a detector, with choices of turning it completly on/off and as stated above, the ability to control the volumn level of the iron if you should chose to listen to it.
8. Finer/smaller notch elimination settings. If you're looking for gold rings, and need to eliminate some pesky and numerous bad targets, its hard to do so with a wide elimination notch w/o eliminating too much above or below the bad target range. We don't need to eliminate at the top end of the detectors range of silver coins, we need to eliminate small areas where pull tabs are found. If your meter begins to ID foil at 40 out of a possible 100, design the disc with only 1 to 2 notches of elimination each and only going up to 60 or 70. I know some detectors will only detect coins at the far extreme end of their scale. I think this is desireable as about the only coins I would want to descriminate out would be zinc pennies, so the disc could stop there. That would give a larger scale to eliminate undesireable targets via fine notching.
9. I once read something that said "A man can do much if he is single minded enough" The saying didn't say "simple minded", but "single minded". Don't design it so simple we don't have choices, but don't design it so as to be too complicated. There is such a thing as having too many choices. When that happens, the user often finds him/her self never knowing if their choices were the best or not for their conditions.
10. Rainproof to the point that dropping your detector in the water and grabbing it as soon as possible would not be a great risk of detector failure. Something like submergable for a few feet but not for the more serious minded who dive with their detectors. I rarely go out in the water at the beach unless the ocean is glass calm where I can move slowly with no current to fight against. I think most detectorist like the ideal of water detecting more than actually doing it once they have tried it.
11. A lighted front!!! We now have LED's that have very little amperage needs compaired to the old filiment bulbs. So many times I have been detecting when it began to get late and needed to see my detector readings. I still try to have a headband light with me at most times, but I use it mainly to find my target after digging. A lighted meter face would be a GREAT benifit to those found detecting after daylight has fallen.
Well, maybe something here will help any metal detector designers know what one person would like to see anyway. I'm sure there are things others would like to see that would be better suited for their envirement and style of hunting. My thoughts on these things are from someone who detects primarly in soil but enjoys occasionally going to the beach where digging is much much easier. I probably am a bit more serious about detecting than most people are whom I know that have metal detectors, but I think these ideals would benifit even them. I know I've forgotten some things and if this thread goes very long, I'll try to add to them if I think they are important enough.
Tks for reading...
C.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/07/2012 02:49PM by connortn.
I say this to hopefully give an ideal of the lengths I will go to get a product that I want, and being that it's 4:30 in the morning and woke up early with detecting on my mind, I though I would give some ideals of what I would like to see Fisher impliment on their next detector. We've had these posts before, and I've even given my ideals before, but I've been detecting a bit more lately and learning what would actually be desireable in my next detector. Of course, these are one mans opinions and there are many here that have different needs of their detectors, but for the most part, I think these ideals would be desireable for most everyone that enjoys this hobby as much as we do.
So in no special order of listing...
1. Wireless headphones. If I can add this feature to a detector then there is no reason for a large company to not be able to do so. You will be amazed at the freedom that wireless headphones give you in the field! It's like having a Photon microlight on your keychain. You will never want to do without it. ...and yes, still put a waterproof/resistant headphone jack on the unit for those times when your wireless headphones are having trouble or you forgot to replace the batteries in them. I understand you are limited to the companys headphones with the internal transmitter, but maybe the company could offer a small plug-in adapter to attach to your best headphones. If you have headphones with an output jack on them instead of hardwired cord, you could possibly plug the receiver directly into the output jack.
2. The ability to control the volumn of iron audio when listening to it. Let's face it, theres 1000's of times more iron in the dirt out there than the more desireable metals we seek, and having to listen to all that iron blasting your eardrums for hours can take a lot of enthusiasm out of the hobby. If every detectorist knew how easy it was to add this feature to a metal detector (during design), they would be furious at not having it on their next detector. It's kind of like "Oh, you want a volumn control on the radio in your auto?" thing!
3. Light weight. We can now put a room full of equipment inside a wrist watch for the price of a vacuum tube! We now have lithium batteries that weight practically nothing and last far longer than previous ones. What weight is in a detector should be for strength and protection, not bad design.
4. Balance. This is an instrument you will be swinging unsupported for hours at a time at the end of your arm. This thing needs to swing naturally. Try holding just your arm out as if you were detecting but w/o a detector. You will quickly see just how tiring this is in just a few minutes, not hours. Now add 3 or 4 lbs in your hand and try it. A well balanced machine will take the weight of the coil and extended shaft which is pulling down, and transfer it to the arm cuff, pushing up, and the handgrip should be only a balance point, not to be used to hold up the machine. The muscles in the stronger shoulder should be what holds everything up.
5. A coil design with upcurved bottom at the outside perimeters and rounded outside edges. This will help keep the coil from digging into the sand so much during beach hunting. If you will notice, beach sand is not smooth like a Japanese garden! It's been trodden on, kicked at, dug in by kids, played on and looks like a minature mine field. All these high peaks keep you from getting closer to the ground level and so we have a tendicy to scrubb the tops of these peaks with our detectors. When you do, sharp flat edge designs on your coils will dig in like a claw hammer and stop your natural swing. If they were slightly upturned at the leading edges for a few inches back and round outside edges, a lot of this could be eliminated. I'd rather my coil bounce a little when hitting the soft sand peaks instead of digging in like a runaway truck hitting the emergency sand pits.
6. Straight shafts. This may fall into preferrences, but I think that most, once tried, will prefer a straight shaft instead of a curved shaft that wants to wobble in your grip. I think they may be better suited for balance also.
7. Get rid of the iron falsing! I'm told that the ID circuit of a detector is like a full circle, and that iron is very close to the top end of the good conductors scale. If this is so, then at least clip off (or give us the ability to do so) some of this top end that does little but find big fruit jar lids and soda cans anyway, and give us a little more elimination of iron. I always hunt with the last notch eliminated on my detectors if they have the ability in trying to eliminate the iron falsing. The best choice, of course, would be to better design the circuits to ID iron much more reliably and keep the signal confined to "iron only" on a detector, with choices of turning it completly on/off and as stated above, the ability to control the volumn level of the iron if you should chose to listen to it.
8. Finer/smaller notch elimination settings. If you're looking for gold rings, and need to eliminate some pesky and numerous bad targets, its hard to do so with a wide elimination notch w/o eliminating too much above or below the bad target range. We don't need to eliminate at the top end of the detectors range of silver coins, we need to eliminate small areas where pull tabs are found. If your meter begins to ID foil at 40 out of a possible 100, design the disc with only 1 to 2 notches of elimination each and only going up to 60 or 70. I know some detectors will only detect coins at the far extreme end of their scale. I think this is desireable as about the only coins I would want to descriminate out would be zinc pennies, so the disc could stop there. That would give a larger scale to eliminate undesireable targets via fine notching.
9. I once read something that said "A man can do much if he is single minded enough" The saying didn't say "simple minded", but "single minded". Don't design it so simple we don't have choices, but don't design it so as to be too complicated. There is such a thing as having too many choices. When that happens, the user often finds him/her self never knowing if their choices were the best or not for their conditions.
10. Rainproof to the point that dropping your detector in the water and grabbing it as soon as possible would not be a great risk of detector failure. Something like submergable for a few feet but not for the more serious minded who dive with their detectors. I rarely go out in the water at the beach unless the ocean is glass calm where I can move slowly with no current to fight against. I think most detectorist like the ideal of water detecting more than actually doing it once they have tried it.
11. A lighted front!!! We now have LED's that have very little amperage needs compaired to the old filiment bulbs. So many times I have been detecting when it began to get late and needed to see my detector readings. I still try to have a headband light with me at most times, but I use it mainly to find my target after digging. A lighted meter face would be a GREAT benifit to those found detecting after daylight has fallen.
Well, maybe something here will help any metal detector designers know what one person would like to see anyway. I'm sure there are things others would like to see that would be better suited for their envirement and style of hunting. My thoughts on these things are from someone who detects primarly in soil but enjoys occasionally going to the beach where digging is much much easier. I probably am a bit more serious about detecting than most people are whom I know that have metal detectors, but I think these ideals would benifit even them. I know I've forgotten some things and if this thread goes very long, I'll try to add to them if I think they are important enough.
Tks for reading...
C.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/07/2012 02:49PM by connortn.
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Re: Some ideals for Fisher... September 07, 2012 01:28PM |
Registered: 15 years ago Posts: 3,859 |
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Re: Some ideals for Fisher... re: Dan September 07, 2012 02:23PM |
Registered: 15 years ago Posts: 41 |
The blending of the two lines has been mentioned before I just hope that Fisher really has something like this in mind. I am sure I will be excited about anything they decide to pursue but this blending really has potential. Some of the ideas above are nice too. just got to wait them out. Hoping for some Christmas news from Fisher myself.
Don
HH
Don
HH