PI for small gold

[Guest]

Iv been following a few topics on other forums talking about PI detectors and tiny gold now it isn't 'new technology' that's just been invented with the SDC 2300. It has been possible for a long time to detect gold under 0.1gram with a PI, just not in a production model detector. Now we know that the new minelab is up for grabs for $4000 what I want to know how many people would buy a detector at that price for finding fly $#it? Is this the sort of detector other company's should invest in? And what would people expect to pay $1000-$2000?
Now I realize that there's GMT's,GMZ's & the Gold bug 2's but let's say the ground is so hot they don't work and we need a PI
Because no one else has been able to detect there and there's only tiny gold to find.
What do you all think is there a market for such a detector?

 

[Goldtarget]

I tell you this i can't wait to hire that sdc for the spot i was in today, i had 6 at .01 or.02 on the board in an hour, but its to hot for a vlf, so it has its place. A mate tried running a GMT down it without much luck keeping it stable. A Pi on subgrammers would be great at a decent price for those like me that love chasing the alluvial, being able to find a decent spot without sampling the whole length of the water course would be a dream, checking the tailings and any surrounding mulloccks would be great, alot of places i get in are hot ground and ironstone. But Minelab have out priced me to consider there offering, I'd be pushed to justify it.

 

[PhaseTech]

It has often been discussed about certain types of gold that PI's respond poorly too, but high freq VLF's sing off on. However as mentioned above, a VLF can be difficult to tame in mineralisation.

Now, one thing people seem to forget is that having more sensitivity doesn't just mean more "small" gold. It means you can pick up targets that respond poorly, i.e. a specimen with 1 oz of find gold speckled through it. I once gridded an area after finding a nice nugget in a new spot. I was using a Mono coil and Enhance. The ground was sort of medium, so I tried Normal and it was too noisy. Came back to the spot with different mono coils and still no more gold. A few months later I was in a nearby gully with my 15x12" DD running Normal and I remembered the previous spot, and realised I had never tried a DD in Sensitive Extra (a combo that worked very well on the GP series).
So I went over the the spot, and found that I could run the 15x12 DD in Mono mode, and Sensitive Extra and it was purring like a kitten. Within ten mins I got such as crisp signal I couldn't believe I'd missed it. The target popped out and was a 3g nugget, nearly totally encased in Ironstone. So, I think the change in timing certainly had a greater effect than trying with different coils.

Sure, 0.1 grams and smaller have been easy meat for GPX's (and even GP's) for a long time, but if you look at all the small ones that are found, they are all solid and lumpy. It's the prickly type gold that hasn't been weathered much that has been very difficult for a PI to detect and I'm sure there's plenty of this stuff still in the ground.

 

[Guest]

It has been possible for a long time to detect gold under 0.1gram with a PI, just not in a production model detector.

GPX series can/do pick up gold under 0.1gram. Would like a SDC2300 but not at $4k for something that will not get used too often. Being waterproof & compact are the only advantages I can see over GPX series but there will be a market there, just like the ATX. I can see a lot of more full time prospectors that would already have spots earmarked for it getting one.
Agree with Goldtarget that it may be worth hiring to hit spots of interest for a day or two to "mop" it up but in saying that it looks like it will go ok for some bigger bits too. One report already of a 2+ gram speccy @ around 8" deep with the SDC.
If the Whites SPP can pick up sub grammers in hot ground, with no or little effect from EMI, price wise that would grab my interest more than spending another $4k.

 

[Guest]

Though the SPP is impressive on price what I want to see is the same unit same price but for tiny gold tiny as in under 0.1gram with some sort of depth' yes one could buy a GP3000 cheep now but they don't detect consistently under 0.1 in the real world the GPX will but struggle for depth and once they get down to 0.02 the depth has dropped to just surface. In moderate soil a GMT & GB2 will flog a PI on the tiny stuff now I really think the SDC is the answer but the price doesn't interest me at all.
So that's all I want to know who would buy the SDC? And who would buy a similar machine if it wasn't much more expencive than a GB2 or GMT?

 

[Guest]

If someone comes up with a machine capable of what the GMT can find (& the GB2) that has the ground balancing abilities of a PI machine, EMI resistance & good depth at a price not much more expensive than a GMT or GB2 then they will have trouble keeping up with production cause I reckon they would fly off the shelf :lol:

 

[Coyote]

The SDC2300 really does interest me due to the storage size. Being a keen motorcyclist, it would fit comfortably in my topbox for travelling. $4K is the big stumbling block.
The idea of hiring one first would appeal more so I could better judge the worthiness of the expenditure. But still it has raised my interest.

Cliff