If You Intend On Doing Business With Elsec, Littlemore Scientific - READ THIS FIRST!!

[NikiZanzo]

Hello ROB... not RON!

I'm sorry about that; I typeth before I thinketh...

All the best to you,
Niki

[Tinkerer]

Non Motion type PI

G’day,

What I actually need to be sure of … will this new Elsec underwater MD produce a constant audio response if held stationary over a target? Diving MDs usually are non-motion MDs … but I just need that confirmed as non-motion is an essential requirement I require in a MD.

I’d looking forward to seeing some posts on this forum in future on how the new Elsec 5000 diving detector preforms in the field.

And while I’m posting I’d just like to add that I’ve found that Elsec Littlemore Scientific is an excellent company to deal with as they were prompt with their email reply’s to my enquiries and were willing to fully disclose requested information on their detector so an informed decision can be made on a purchase. Their professional responses to my enquiries gives me confidence they would be a good company to deal with if one of their detectors should later need to be sent back to them for repairs. Prompt and professional responses are a particularly important consideration for me as if a detector of mine needs to be repaired and sent back half way around the world, its essential I get good service and am not messed around with as I have previously been with other UK companies. My previous experiences of poor service include one company sending me back a MD with a fault it didn't even have when I sent it away to be repaired for another fault … and it all took months! And its impossible to deal with any company that’s essentially a one-man-band and takes months to answer a simple email enquiry (even more incredible when the enquiry was relating to purchasing one of their products).

Regards,
Rob (RKC) New Zealand

Hi Rob,

Non motion PI's are not very common nowadays. The Elsec 2000 that I used many years ago, were of that type. I used them to find treasure from old shipwrecks in the ocean.
Would you be so kind and explain the advantages of the non motion PI detectors in your use?
Do you work in the ocean or in rivers?
I would be much interested to hear of your experiences with the Elsec 5000.

Tinkerer

By the way, the Elsec 2000 shown on an earlier post is for sale.

[RKC]

G’day Guys,

Your kind responses to what must have seemed to you as a dumb question is very much appreciated … thanks, this is a great forum!

My use for a non-motion (and non-groundbalacing, or should I use the word ground-compensating) PI Metal Detector is probably rather unique.

What I’ve learnt over a number of years and after trying a number of different types of metal detectors here in New Zealand, is that a fully waterproof non-motion PI Metal Detector is the best type of Metal Detector to go after sizeable gold nuggets in some New Zealand goldfields. Which must seem ridiculous to any detectorists reading this who go for gold in the desert goldfields of Australia and North America . However, the best areas in New Zealand for large gold are in the highly vegetated areas with lots of scrub (primarily the West Coast of the South Island ) where the detector coil can’t be swung and must be slowly moved among the vegetation and as close to the ground as possible. Trying to use a conventional motion detector such as my Goldquest SS in these heavily vegetated areas is frustrating to say the least, with the signal coming and going, and it can produce spurious signals as the coil brushes against wet vegetation. Detectors such as my Goldquest SS are also much too sensitive with their low pulse delay and they don’t ignore the small pieces of rubbish that my Aquapulse, with its pulse delay of about 250, will ignore.

The ground in every New Zealand South Island goldfield is the quietest ground in the world. New Zealand is geologically the youngest country, and any non-groundbalacing Metal Detector will get just as good depth, as, say … one of the ridiculously expensive ground balancing Minelab PIs. Australia in contrast to New Zealand, is the oldest continent, which has been subject to erosion over many millions of years and which played a large part in the fact that Australia has the hottest ground in the world to Metal Detectors (Minelab wrote an excellent article about the differences in ground noise in different countries that is on the web somewhere … but I can’t seem to find it at present. BTW: the article does not refer to the ground conditions in New Zealand and the Minelab salespeople here in New Zealand have mistakenly been telling the punters for years that New Zealand has “highly mineralized soil”).

Depth is particularly important in New Zealand and only PI detectors will get sufficiant depth ... a VLF detector gets only a fraction of the depth of a PI detector in quiet ground.

My Aquapulse AQIB is my present detector of choice to use in New Zealand but has a number of hardware disadvantages. And when I first read the specs of the new Elsec 5000 what immediately impressed me was that this new detector had design improvements that solve the hardware problems that exist in my Aquapulse. And something else I am really impressed about with about the Elsec 5000 is that Elsec are willing to sell the PCB separately, which means that a spare PCB can be on hand to replace the PCB in the detector if the detector is damaged or should become faulty. Thus if an Else 5000 became faulty, all I would have to do is take out the faulty PCB and mail it back to Elsec in the UK by inexpensive airmail and put in the replacement PCB so I can use the detector while the faulty PCB is away being repaired.

Any PI metal detector that is intended for use on New Zealand's Wet-West Coast must be fully waterproof as we detect here in downpours and heavy rain is common at any time of year.

Apart from the land use of any detector, I also need to be able to use the same detector in freshwater streams (freshwater streams). My Aquapulse has a probe which I have found is more effective in small streams to probe into crevices and which gets better depth than a round mono coil (such as a 10” mono coil), because the physical size of a conventional round coil prevents reaching down into a crevice. The only disadvantage I can see of purchasing one of the new Elsec 5000 detectors is that is does not have a probe. It might be something for Elsec to consider. I understand they are intending to make a bigger range of coils for the 5000 in future which are larger than the single size presently offered.


For many, many years now I've known the goldfields where the sizeable gold can be found but have been walking over nearly all the gold because I did not have a suitable detector. There is nothing more frustrating than leaving an area knowing you are leaving sizeable gold behind still in the ground.

I haven’t put in an order for an Elsec 500 yet … but will after I sort out a few things. I’d really like to read here of any-one elses experiences with the 5000. The only remaining question about the Elsec 5000 I have is its preformance in detection distance (but thats probably only something I could be sure of after I have used one myself ... in the field).


Regards,
Rob (RKC)

[Qiaozhi]

The only remaining question about the Elsec 5000 I have is its preformance in detection distance (but thats probably only something I could be sure of after I have used one myself ... in the field).

Regards,
Rob (RKC)

There is a brochure here -> www.elsec.com/acatalog/5000.pdf
that gives detection depth details. Is this what you're looking for?

OK - I tried pasting the link, but it doesn't seem to work, so I've attached the document directly.

[RKC]

G'day

The detection depths refered to in the Elsec advertising brocure look impressive to me! And these depths can probably be related to what I would actually get in the New Zealand soil. I've previously found that any depth indications I get from air tests are transferable to what I get in the ground because New Zealand soil is so very quiet.

When I mentioned above that I'm after sizeable gold I'm not expecting nuggets of the extremely large sizes that have been detected in Australia over the last 20 years or so. But New Zealand gold can nevertheless be sizeable. The largest size nugget detected in New Zealand in recent years was a 20 ouncer (found with a Minelab PI detector) and which would be a good size for anyone. And the largest size nugget ever found in New Zealand was around 100 ounces (found over 100 years ago). There are enough quarter ounce pieces and even the occasional larger sizes being found (there was a 40 ouncer found in recent years but I don't count that one as it was found by a commercial miner using trommel plants).

Regards,
Rob (RKC)