Demining/countermine MDs

[RKC]

G'day,

There must be many, many thousands of de-mining MDs currently in use throughout the world and I was wondering what happens to these detectors when they are deemed to have passed their "use-by-date". If the de-miners operated as most government agencies seem to do by taking equipment out of service well before they have actually passed their usefulness, then, are they sold or junked? I have had a look around the Internet to see if second-hand deming detectors are being sold somewhere ... but I could not find anything to indicate what happens to these "used" MDs. So I though I would try a post on this 'international' forum to ask if anyone here knows if second-hand demining MDs are being sold somewhere (I could not find anything on Ebay).

I have done a considerable amount of reading of a number of detailed tests comparing different brands of demining MDs and the one brand of detector that stands out is the Minelab detectors (F3 MD and F1A4 MD). Does anyone know if there are any second-hand Minelab F3s being sold (anywhere in the world). I believe it is a policy of Minelab not to sell new F3s to individuals ... thus this attempt to investigate the possibility of finding a second-hand F3. Anyway ... the way things are at this particular time in history with a massive gold rush underway, even if Minelab did sell their demining MDs to individuals I would probably still have to go on a long waiting list with numerous Sudanese (and countless Mideastern resellers) in the line well in front of me.

Regards,
Rob (RKC) New Zealand

[Max]

G'day,

There must be many, many thousands of de-mining MDs currently in use throughout the world and I was wondering what happens to these detectors when they are deemed to have passed their "use-by-date". If the de-miners operated as most government agencies seem to do by taking equipment out of service well before they have actually passed their usefulness, then, are they sold or junked? I have had a look around the Internet to see if second-hand deming detectors are being sold somewhere ... but I could not find anything to indicate what happens to these "used" MDs. So I though I would try a post on this 'international' forum to ask if anyone here knows if second-hand demining MDs are being sold somewhere (I could not find anything on Ebay).

I have done a considerable amount of reading of a number of detailed tests comparing different brands of demining MDs and the one brand of detector that stands out is the Minelab detectors (F3 MD and F1A4 MD). Does anyone know if there are any second-hand Minelab F3s being sold (anywhere in the world). I believe it is a policy of Minelab not to sell new F3s to individuals ... thus this attempt to investigate the possibility of finding a second-hand F3. Anyway ... the way things are at this particular time in history with a massive gold rush underway, even if Minelab did sell their demining MDs to individuals I would probably still have to go on a long waiting list with numerous Sudanese (and countless Mideastern resellers) in the line well in front of me.

Regards,
Rob (RKC) New Zealand

Hi,
mine detectors are generally made by some (very few) companies cause some government needs new units...

Minelab is just one of these. Another, famous, is Shiebel that made AN-19-2 (US army/ NATO md AN-PSS12).

Why you need one ? usually are good just for mines... have no disc (shiebel's one is PI, have no disc, of course) and so get any iron , steel, whatever... and are also sensitive to soil.

The use of mine detectors is different from hobby detectors... an Minelab F3 , though is MPS thing, is not for general prospecting.

I guess you wanna use to find gold nuggets... it has a small coil and probably would not suffer much from soil in new zealand... minelab is famous for that stuff.

Now: I don't know where used ones are sold... I think, anyway, that often governments choose to sell surplus stuff like these to humanitarian NGO and the like... also in stocks.

I heard that some are used in Cambodia and other places.

Kind regards,
Max

[RKC]

G'day Max,

Thanks for your response. The specific reason I have been looking at demining MDs is that all my present MDs are just not up to the job. These (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...g?t=1261733262) are the detectors I have been using, and all have let me down in some way or another. At present I am using a GQSS V2 with an 8" Coiltek coil to go after float (gold in quartz) on a hill side and it does a reasonable job on specimen gold ... but it will also detect minute pieces of ferrous metal that I would rather not waste time digging. Also the detection depth of the GQSS on large gold nuggets is very poor. So all its really of any use for is to go after specimens of float (and then only in areas where there is not too much small ferrous junk).

The advantages of the latest deming MDs are that they are much more ruggedly built than the "hobby" MDs I have been using. And they are also of a much more compact design with the electronics reduced significantly in size so the circuit boards can fit in the shaft (no attached heavy boxs to get caught up in vegetation and tire the detector operator with the extra weight). Also, the one design feature thats essential for me in particular, is that the detector must be water resistant. These days I detect mostly on the West Coast of New Zealands South Island where nuggets up to 20 ounces have been detected in recent years, and we regularly get heavy rainfall all year round and downpours can occur at any time during the day. A conventional Minelab PI gold detector like the GPX4500 would not last 24 hours here as water would soon get into the circuit board with disastrous results. And this detector is no where near robust enough to survive the knocking about it would be subject to, to get it into the best places to detect (which are all remote heavily vegetated areas). The hobby detectors such as I have been using seem to me only suitable for use in parks to get coins or jewelry, and to use in desert areas to go after small gold where you are detecting not far from where you drive up to in your vehical.

I strongly suspect that the electronics of the Minelab demining MDs such as the F3(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...g?t=1261733571 ) are basicly no different to the electronics in the GPX4500 MDs. The differences of the demining MDs being that are miles ahead in design and strength of construction. And another significant advantage over hobby MDs is that the demining MDs are much simpelier to operated compared to all the dials on a GPX4500 that you have to waste time experimented with before you find the right combination for the ground in a particular area to be detected. We have a major advantage in New Zealand in that the ground here is the quietest in the world and any PI detector can work well here (except occasional in some clay that are rarely come across which, I suspect, even the Minlab PI MDs could not work in). Therefore the main selling point of the Minelab PI MDs of being able to be used over the hotest ground does not apply here and is therefore not an issue to consider when deciding what detector to purchase. I would not even look at a Minelab PI ... except for their demining PI MDs!

Some MD manufactures seem to be realizing that its better to design a MD like the demining MDs (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...g?t=1261733531 ) and the future of PI MDs must be to design them similar to the latest design of the demining MDs.

The demining PI MDs have a number of other advantages over "hobby" MDs including an interesting feature of the Minelab F3 (and also incorporated on a few of the German demining PI MDs) that an adjustment can be made so that all small targets (called "clutter" by the deminers) can be ignored so you are only digging targets of a reasonable size (therefore getting through more ground).

The though occurred to me today that because the demining MDs are used in war zones and by armed forces that there might be some legal restrictions on who they can be sold to. Probably not ... but you never know these days with laws governing just about everything.

Merry Christmas (a fine Christmas day with blue sky's and a max temperature of 22 degrees c has just ended down here in Godzone)
Rob (RKC) New Zealand

[RKC]

G'day,

Well ... it seems the Minelab F3 demining MDs are available to the public after all (it just took a little more digging to find a supplier).

http://www.alibaba.com/product-free/..._Detector.html


PS: On the same web site are genuine Minelab GPX4500s being sold in Indonesia for US$1170-11200 ... but you have to buy a minimum of 10. Looking around the http://www.alibaba.com web site there seems to be countless Minelab PI MDs available for sale. I thought there was a shortage and waiting lists to buy one in Australia and Nth America????????????????

Regards,

Rob (RKC)

[wam]

Be very careful with manufactures and reselers from http://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?...oduct_en&ssk=y

I have very bad expierience.
Regards,

[99thpercentile]

Anyone can buy any of the detectors. I bought a Minelab F3 for work in 2005 for about $3000 USD. I work for the Army, but there a no restrictions on buying one. I also have a Foerster MINEX 2FD 4.530 and I think it was also about $3000 for one unit. Magnetometers on the other hand may be export limited so that could impact your purchasing ability. I think anyone can buy a Geometric G-856 but if you want a G-858 and you want to take it out of the country I don't think you can.

[RKC]

G'day Ryan,

Thanks for the reply. I did a bit of scouting around the Internet since I made the first post in this thread and found some retail outlets for mine detectors such as the F3, plus some of the German detectors, and the Garrett Recon. But I have not yet contacted any to make a purchase inquiry. The Minelab F3 seems that it would do the job I require of it ... however I will read some more of the demining detectors comparison tests first before making a purchase inquiry. What are your thoughts on the Minelab F3 as a detector for going after gold? If the F3 has the electronics of the Minelab GPX4500 then it would be the detector for me.

Regards,
Rob (RKC)

[99thpercentile]

It depends how deep you want to look, the F3 is designed for humanitarian demining so it doesn't need to see very deep. I would assume that you mean gold nuggets and that you are looking deeper that most landmines. I don't know that I can give a good answer since I don't really use hobbyist metal detectors, I only use professional level geophysical metal detectors that log the raw data and position. Then I post process the data and plot it. Depending on what the target is I may also run inverse models on the data to discriminate what the targets may be.

The reason that I bought the Minelab F3 and the Foerster MINEX 2FD 4.530 was so I could log the transmitted and received data with my oscilloscope to see how they dealt with highly viscous magnetic soils as part of my PhD research. My main instrument is a Geophex GEM-3 multi-frequency EMI metal detector, but that cost about $35K.

[RKC]

G'day Ryan,

Thanks for the response!

I guess I've learnt as much as I can about the Minelab F3 without actually purchasing one. Even though this detector is a demining MD it does appear to me as the future of detector design and my dream detector. Well ... if I manage to take the plunge and buy one I'll post here to let others know how it preforms as a gold detector.

I had a look at the Geophex web site and thought the GEM-2 looked interesting.
http://www.geophex.com/GEM-2/GEM-2%20home.htm
If any of the GEM detectors could "see" a sizable gold nugget at a depth of a meter or two, they could actually be worth paying a considerable purchase price for. Discriminating a gold nugget from iron is not really a problem in many of the big nugget areas I detect in at present as there is little scrap iron (they are remote areas that have only previously been hand mined) laying around. There is another quiet sizable area here on the West Coast I would like to detect one day that produced significant quantities of nuggety gold in the late 1800s, however hard rock gold was also found and numerous deep mines were built with all the infrastructure involved. And there is iron scattered everywhere today.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...g?t=1263542820
And entirely because of the trash its virtually undetectable. Not long ago I heard of a good size nugget being detected but I suspect the finder had to also dig a lot of trash ( diminishing the value of the nugget). If a PI MD detector ever becomes commercially available that can truthfully discriminate between ferrous and non-ferrous metals then I will be in as quick as I can to this area. The present VLF (CW) MDs, with discrimination, unfortunatily can't get anywhere near enough depth to be of any use.

Regards,
Rob (RKC)