F-75 - updates, names, etc.

When I first saw Fishers announcement of the newest version of the F-75 I have to say my first reaction was Gee whiz - what's it called? It seemed odd to me that this big a change didn't get a distinctive new model designation. After the comfusion around the introduction of the LE and SE versions and which model had which features, i thought "here they go again confusing us".

Today I was out walking in the desert near my house, thinking, as I often do about metal detectors, and a thought occurred.

They have already announced that there will be some kind of upgrade program available for existing F 75's. Of course we don't yet know the terms of this, how much it will cost, what machines are eligible and what machines are not, etc. A lot will depend on how much hardware change there has been from the original F 75 through the LE/SE models and the newest greatest software they just announced.

Perhaps the reason Fisher has not given this new development a new model number is that they consider it merely to be a software upgrade. We now know that the new F 75 version shows the software version (selectable between 9.0 or 9.1) when you do a factory reset. The upgrade – if it didn't involve any hardware modifications – would seem to be no more then flashing the new software onto the machine. If this turns out to be the case then hopefully the charge will be very minor since the work only involves opening the case connecting to the motherboard and flashing software.

When I got that far in my calculations I realized that if this is the case, Fisher is doing the same thing that XP is doing with the Deus except that the connector is not on the outside of the case and therefore the upgrade is not doable except except at the factory. This, of course makes a big difference. The detector owners are glad of a chance to upgrade but the cost and inconvenience are a barrier. Fisher has the problem op setting a price low enough to be attractive while high enough to cover their direct labor and handling plus the impact of a potential swamping of their service center with upgrade work.

The next logical step in product development at Fisher would be to provide an external USB port so that future software upgrades could be downloadable from the website and installed into the machine. Of course some program would have to exist whereby the data could be ported over to the detector and I'm not smart enough about this kind of stuff to know whether the software/program that Fisher uses to load new software on the detectors is something that could be out on the web and used by owners to upgrade their machines.

Rick Kempf
Gold Canyon AZ- where there is no gold



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/19/2014 06:09PM by lytle78.

Any company that does not get on the downloadable software upgrade bandwagon for the premium models at least is nuts. Especially honestly companies like First Texas that seem to do constant version upgrades after initial model releases. It sure alleviates the fear of immediately buying a new model knowing that half the time there will be a software change later.

Perhaps the firmware is flashed onto a eprom that is socketed(or just soldered) and not directly upgradeable aside from removing the firmware chip and replacing it with a different one.

Ed-CZ Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Perhaps the firmware is flashed onto a eprom that
> is socketed(or just soldered) and not directly
> upgradeable aside from removing the firmware chip
> and replacing it with a different one.

If that's the case than they (Fisher) would be wise to change it. Thanks to XP, many of us on this forum and others are expecting much more out of any mfg. flagship models. I loved my F75, it is a great platform to start with. Upgrades would be much welcomed.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/19/2014 07:29PM by triplehooked.

Quote:"....then hopefully the charge will be very minor since the work only involves opening the case connecting to the motherboard and flashing software."
You've forgotten the testing of the upgrade to check it works properly, then there's the business of the machines serial number being programmed into the micro. Maybe this step is skipped on re-programmed customer machines, but if it isn't, then someone has to read off the existing serial number, and enter it into the programmer. Maybe add some new stickers to the machine? Then there's the re-packaging etc. I can't see it being as cheap as you hope for.

Quote:"Perhaps the firmware is flashed onto a eprom that is.... not directly upgradeable aside from removing the firmware chip"
No, it's a flash-programmed micro-controller, much like camera memory cards (SD, Sony MemoryStick etc) in the way it is accessed. EPROM's fell out of use in the late 1990's.

Nice to know the Fisher F75 S.E. with DST upgrade will be an option for existing F75 owners.

An update after seven years come on man...In order to have a detector that can be updated you have to have updates and updates that work. DEUS all the way for now at least..

LowBoy

TAKE A LITTLE TIME KICKBACK AND WATCH SOME OF MY DETECTING VIDEO'S BELOW ON YouTube

[www.youtube.com]

If you don’t dig it, then how are you going to know what you’re missing!
How can you have your pudding if you don’t eat your meat!

Rah, rah, sis boom bah.

You have to wonder what software version the first F-75’s ran. I only got one recently and mine was 7.something. Now we are at 9.0 and 9.1. fisher has stedily improved the F-75 over time with only the LE/SE change being a "model rev". Now they are rolling out a major upgrade and clearlyly identifying it as a software upgrade. OK, it's not as cool as XP's online upgrades for the Deus, but it's pretty good.

If someone doesn't understand that for VLF detectors, hardware changes are pretty much a dead end and that digital signal processing and user interface technology are the only technical way forward, then I guess they'll Complain that it doesn't offer ground penetrating radar, PI discrimination or molecular discrimination.

As far as the Deus - I have one, I put in about 40 hours in the field with it in Denmark last month. My arm thanks me due to its,feather weight, even with the 11' coil, but frankly, I found its VDI to be not terribly useful and perhaps it's my tin ear but i dug far too much deep iron which sounded good and - guess what - danish farmers apparently like danish beer - a lot - and toss the caps as they plough! I found a few hundred of these too.

Is that a criticism of the Deus? Not particurlarly, but I don't think that it did a better job than my F-75'would have done.

When my new F-75 arrives next week, I plan to do a "Thunderdome" on it and the Deus - two detectors in - one detector out.

Rick Kempf
Gold Canyon AZ- where there is no gold



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/20/2014 02:43AM by lytle78.

Good post Rick!-----One thing that keeps coming to my mind---Is there going to be anything that this new F-75 LTD2 can do that the Deus CAN'T do?---Time will tell, I guess.-----Another thing I consider (barring the detector price)---it took FT sooo long to make this "update" on the F-75.----XP has those super neat (free) updates on the Deus & probably more to come.-----It just seems to me that XP is leaving FT "in the dust".------I like value for my money, even if the product (initially) costs more--as I'm sure many of us do.-------So to repeat my question to you, Keith, Tom, or ANYONE-----IYO, is the new updated 75 going to be able to do anything the current Deus can't do/will it "best" the Deus in ANY area? (talking about performance--not price).----------Del

The new F75 and the old F75 can do several things a Deus can't.

First it can be operated whilst wearing gloves, and I mean 6 mm neopprene gloves.
You can easily fit a non DD coil in non mineralised soil, so bottlecaps in parks aren't a problem any more.
And in heavy trash where the deus is handling a mix of bottlecaps, nails and pulltabs with the 9" coil. Simply add the 5" coil.
Again it isn't a very sharp DD at that, so you aren't high tone digging every flat piece of iron.

If you love the Deus,... that's great. But leave some message space for the other guys using other machines.
We don't need remembering on every thread how GREAT it is!

HH
Johnb

I agree John. I have been using my new Deus faithfully. Been out prospecting with it. Been coin detecting, got my first Buffalo nickel in a while with it. Nice machine, no doubt about it. But frankly I still prefer the F75 so far. I like that I can just toss four fresh AA batteries in any time and get back to work. I like having a bunch of coils for the cost of one Deus coil. And oddly enough the F75 weighing more balances such that it feels better on my arm. I like the Nokta for many of the same reasons. I am not knocking the Deus. Just saying that for me at least it did not obsolete everything else.

Lawrenzo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> An update after seven years come on man...In order
> to have a detector that can be updated you have to
> have updates and updates that work. DEUS all the
> way for now at least..


think they are kinda late!..got rid of my "standard" f-75 years ago!
they should have offered upgrades beginning with the (ltd)..as mentioned before
in a previous post,one had to take a vicious "bath" on the "standard" to up grade to a (l.t.d.) because "no" up grade
was offered at that time.they didn't have to offer an up grade,because xp was not a serious competitor at the time,now it
is!..way it is!..i'm just sayin'

(h.h.!)
j.t.

In a nutshell......... any/all the F75's have more raw power than the XP series....
(unless there's fairly high mineralized dirt).

The following is submitted at the considerable risk of flogging a dead horse --

It will be interesting to see which F-75’s will be eligible for the upgrade. Ir may very well be that there was a significant hardware change on the circuit board between the original F-75 and the SE/LE making the cost of an upgrade impractical since it would have necessitated a new circuit board. A bit more transparency on Fisher's part, however would have been nice along with some kind of discount or other consideration for folks who bought the original F-75 in - say the 6-12 months immediately prior to the new model introduction. A sort of "send us your old F-75 and we will send you a new one for $XXX". In this sort of arrangement, Fisher would destroy the returned machines to keep them from cannabalizing new model sales (and maybe take some kind of clever tax deduction for it).

If the upgrade now is reasonably priced (say $100 - $150), then it is likely software (and maybe some bits like ferrite beads or shielding in the case). In this case, the cut off of machines eligible will likely tell us where a major hardware change (if any) was made in the life of the F-75 platform.

Having said that, modern electronics equipment is seldom upgradable from previous to new models unless it is only software that is upgraded, and even then, the most recent software is often not able to run fully or at all on older versions of the hardware. Whenever this happens, the manufacturer is then accused of "crippling" the older model deliberatelly in order to sell new product. In fact, it's just a sad fact of digital life - the only way to avoid it would to make no progress on the hardware side.

As far as XP goes, prior to the Deus none of their machines to the best of my knowledge were software upgradable. If you bought a Gold Maxx, you were "old news" when the Gold Maxx II came out. They did have to offer an option to "re-chip" a couple of the Goldmaxx series however due to customer dissatisfaction with tones - apparently a simple software change was not possible.

One last pet theory of mine - Fisher kept the f-75 name for this latest model because they want their next top of the line "F machine" to have a different number and a new platform entirely. This would involve at a minimum - user installable software upgrade path, wireless headphone option and perhaps revised form factor involving rods, etc. For this reason, I suspect that this may be the "Last Tango in El Paso" for the F-75 platform develpoment wise.

Rick Kempf
Gold Canyon AZ- where there is no gold

NASA-Tom Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> In a nutshell......... any/all the F75's have more
> raw power than the XP series....
> (unless there's fairly high mineralized dirt).


I completely agree. The deepest detector I've owned yet, and it id's well at depth, too. I will be taking a long look at Fishers multi frequency detector when it finally makes it to us....

One thing that doesn't get a lot of press with the new units is the digitally embedded serial number because it doesn't have anything to do with performance. But it does tell us that Fisher (1st Texas) has enough of an issue with conterfeiting of their products that they are actively seeking ways for their customers to tell the genuine from the conterfeit.

Because of that I don't see any USB connections or internet downloads for software updates in their future.

HH
Mike

lytle78 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> but frankly, I found its VDI to
> be not terribly useful and perhaps it's my tin ear
> but i dug far too much deep iron which sounded
> good
>
> Is that a criticism of the Deus? Not
> particurlarly, but I don't think that it did a
> better job than my F-75'would have done.
>
> When my new F-75 arrives next week, I plan to do a
> "Thunderdome" on it and the Deus - two detectors
> in - one detector out.

appreciate your posts Rick and really looking forward to your honest appraisal of the two machines. The usable VDI is what I will be very interested in with the new F75, esp
in FA mode...

Mike Hillis Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Because of that I don't see any USB connections or
> internet downloads for software updates in their
> future.
>
XP and Minelab have processes in place that make this workable/safe....I agree with Steve H on this, i.e. it really should be on the next High-end unit announced (at least)....

I'm getting a warm feeling that some of my speculations about where this whole thing is going are on the right track. Mmaybe Santa will come early for us in the F-75 crowd.

Rick Kempf
Gold Canyon AZ- where there is no gold

lytle78 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm getting a warm feeling that some of my
> speculations about where this whole thing is going
> are on the right track. Mmaybe Santa will come
> early for us in the F-75 crowd.

I agree, Steve H has already given us a good positive writeup on the new version....
As I've said I'll probably be buying one next April for the spring thaw up here in the great white north (Toronto, anyway).
All of this should be settled out by then and hopefully we'll have some new rumors/intros/releases to consider....

[www.ebay.com]


look nice like to have one



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/21/2014 12:01AM by skinner.

Mike Hillis Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> One thing that doesn't get a lot of press with the
> new units is the digitally embedded serial number
> because it doesn't have anything to do with
> performance. But it does tell us that Fisher
> (1st Texas) has enough of an issue with
> conterfeiting of their products that they are
> actively seeking ways for their customers to tell
> the genuine from the conterfeit.
>
> Because of that I don't see any USB connections or
> internet downloads for software updates in their
> future.
>

That would be a shame, as it would eventually cost them my business at least. There is no excuse for not having it on detectors that sell for over a grand. Low end detectors, of course not. But high end machines it should be a given in the future. You can almost bet the new F75 will have a software revision after the general public gets their hands on it. What then, mail it in again? Or just have customers again not thrilled to know they have a unit with an older revision software?

My phone, my computers, my TV, my Blu Ray player, etc all are software upgradeable. We get told detectors are consumer electronics, well, then they should act like it.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/21/2014 02:44PM by Steve Herschbach.

That may be their next machine upgrades new platform and something very different...time will tell

LowBoy

TAKE A LITTLE TIME KICKBACK AND WATCH SOME OF MY DETECTING VIDEO'S BELOW ON YouTube

[www.youtube.com]

If you don’t dig it, then how are you going to know what you’re missing!
How can you have your pudding if you don’t eat your meat!

Steve Herschbach Wrote:

> You can almost bet the new F75 will have a
> software revision after the general public gets
> their hands on it. What then, mail it in again? Or
> just have customers again not thrilled to know
> they have a unit with an older revision software?
>
and if there is a new SW version in the future, you could still be shipped 'old stock'....gee, that's just like it is now....
You'd have to be very careful and have a (agreeable) dealer unbox stock, add batteries and power up to see
if it had the newer SW 'just in case'. what a pain....

Fisher hopefully will have 'depot' level facilities in Canada/England to facilitate the upgrades....

just curious, has anyone cracked open their F75 to see what kind of connector they use on the PC board for downloading the SW?

Can anyone tell me what the present software version is. I bought mine 10 days ago, on reset it boots up as version 8.0, is this the latest before the new upgraded model?.
How many versions have there been?.

Bear in mind that minor software revisions are done for all kinds of reasons. The digital signal processing that goes on sits "on top of" analog components and their activity. A matter as small as needing to use another supplier's part, even though it is nominally a substitute, may change the circuit characteristics enough to require a software tweak. This change would be unnecessary for units using the original part.

There was just a kerfluffle on one of the Deus forums when one user reloaded the v.3.2 software and claimed better performance than with the "old" 3.2 software.it took one of the "insiders" contacting Monsieur Loubet to confirm that the 3.2 version on the website is the same as it always has been.

I am reliably informed that all the F-75's which have the 9.0/9.1 software with the new features will have boxes which clearly identify them as such.

Again, I respectfully suggest that you find a dealer you like and respect and I Believe you will find that he will deal openly and honestly with you.

Also keep in mind that with the multi level distributor/dealer marketing setup used by most manufacturers, the dealers are often not as up to date on the latest news/rumor as us enthusiasts who hang around on the forums!!!

Rick Kempf
Gold Canyon AZ- where there is no gold



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/21/2014 06:31PM by lytle78.

Quote Canslaw:"has anyone cracked open their F75 to see what kind of connector they use on the PC board for downloading the SW?"

Why do you ask? I'm inside mine so often I just use tape to hold the case together, not the screws, though I have photo's of the PCB if you really want to see, just PM me an e-mail address, I'll send them.

I hope this upgrade is robust and thoroughly tested, I've got memories of the chaos caused by the Deus V3 revision.

But it would be interesting to see if it's worth discussing on here any further ideas that might viably be incorporated into the F75/T2 platform. I think there's definitely more that can be squeezed out of it. Edit: the F70 is also potentially 'upgradeable' in the same way, though whether it will ever happen is another thing.

"Deus/GMP audio" mode may be achievable, for example.

One mildy irritating feature of the F75 that I've not mentioned before, even though I come up against it all the time, is this one: After releasing the pinpoint trigger, the audio returns immediately to normal mode operation, BUT, the VDI display stubbornly displays the last depth indication, for about 3 seconds, during which time I've swung the coil 5 times over the target and I've still got an "Inches Depth" on the display...if this was corrected, it would be nice.

Here's another idea: "Stat mode" displays target ID if the signal is strong enough, or a blank display normally. It would be useful if there was a 'pinpoint mode like' depth indication, possibly indicating out to 18 or 20 inches (to match the heightened sensitivity of the audio report). I think it's possible to offer both these options, eg. by turning the rotary knob cw/ccw when in "Stat mode", or using a quick prod forwards of the toggle-switch to flick alternately between the two display modes.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 11/12/2014 07:42AM by Pimento.

Hey Pimento,

How about letting us in on the secret. What kind of connector arrangement is on the board fro flashing new software?

I'm not knowledgeble enough to know what besides an external USB connector is required to make a detector capable of uploading software feom the web anyway, but I'm still curious.

Thanks

Rick Kempf
Gold Canyon AZ- where there is no gold

Nothing at all special, connector-wise, just a plain 14-pin (2 rows of 7) 0.1" pitch socket, with all the essential JTAG ICSP signals, CPU reset, and power supplies on it.
Here's the micro in question, with the datasheet, programming guide etc:
[en.wikipedia.org]
[www.ti.com]
[www.ti.com]



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/21/2014 07:33PM by Pimento.