the swinging technique seems ridiculous

bruiser, you could be onto something here. If the GPX 6000 incorporated a shaft that swung from left to right with a small mechanical thing built into it, your idea of saving energy not having to swing could work. Wouldn't it be a great advancement in detector design to have the option of mechanical swinging with slow or fast options! And of course an option to leave the shaft fixed for manual swinging for shrubby areas, or for those here who insist on doing things the old energy-expending way.

With lithium batteries getting lighter and holding more charge, I don't see why it couldn't work.

I once versioned in this direction but gave up on it rather quickly. For one: the more movable parts you have on a device, the more complicated the set up gets the more vulnerable it gets to a part failure. The other reason and much more concerning in the result was and is: The moving part in front of you needs to be counterbalanced by the elbow and sholder, creating additional stress on the joints, chords and muscles as they naturally counter balance any movement.
For some reasons there is a limit of improvement on an already simple system, trespassing the limit even in good intention can become counterproductive for the final result.
Practically, from the view of filed use I came to the conclusion it would be rather difficult to operate it as the senses, ear, works cooperatively with the complete nerve and muscle system, the receiving sound cause an immediate reaction to the body motoric of not only to the holding arm. Anything working mechanically independently away from it and request additional action, like a manual shutdown would therefore rather pose a hindrance in smooth operation.

The most genial add-on tool to the detector creating an ease for the physical system of the dectetorist remains to be the hip-stick.
But I don’t want to keep anyone away from engineering out his ideas. Some of the most profound developments and inventions were created in a garage laboratory.

Cheers
ALL-AU

Just recovering from my 2nd spinal compression injury in 12 months so this topic is what I've been pondering for weeks! How the heck am I ever gunna be able to detect again? Moved here to do it & by jove I will find a way!Devising & scrapping all sorts of mad ideas at the moment. Sit on a non-shod quiet old horse & extend the 5k's shaft & perform weird dressage moves...train the Golden Retriever to live up to her name...invent an all-terrain plastic solar powered wheelchair...sweep an area, then sit on ground pinpointing & reduce scoops of dirt resting GPX on a Y stick... Went bush yesterday to see if I could work thru the pain barrier and nope...hard enough just walking (aided by a wooden stick & dragging along a camping chair - so more clutter to cart) let alone any proficient swinging technique! Grrrr.

Thinking of getting an old Kombi camper - that way I can at least lie down every 10 mins & not have to terminate gold getting mission altogether.

Suggestions welcome.

[quote="authere"]Hi All,

In Bruisers defence, what do you think happens when you drag a coil behind a Quad bike- no swingin goin on there!!!!

And, on dead flat ground and a lot of area to cover a 30x7 turned 90 deg on the mount would make the job a lot easier.

A coil is not carried by the arms, it is suspended off the shoulder with a bungy and if set up right would be less a burden on the user than swingin a 30x7 coil all day


This idea has a lot of merit and I made and ocaisionaly use a harness to carry a 40" mono coiltek drag coil .
Worked well on a GP extream and I will give it anorther go with the 5000.
I have pinged a bit walking back to camp ( not swinging ) with a 17" mono , so who says it cant work !
Maybe authere's idea will work for goldylox
DB

Adrian ss wrote:
I see your point but I think that if you get into the physics of it all you will find that the energy expendure is the same for both situations.

I pretty rarely log in, but i feel compelled to offer an alternative viewpoint..

If we take, as a thought exercise, the following scenario.

• A patch 150 meters wide, by 150 meters long.
  
• A detector, with a 100 meter shaft, that weighs 1 kilogram. when swung across 120 degrees, this detector covers a 150 meter wide arc. The coil is 1 meter in diameter.
  
• A prospector, who weighs 100 kilograms.

To cover the patch, the prospector can either walk forward swinging the detector, or walk back and forth not swinging the detector.

Swinging the detector, the prospector will have to move 101kg forward 150m, plus the energy to swing 1kg back and forth 150 times.

Not swinging, the prospector will have to move 101kg forward 150m to cover a 1m wide strip, then repeat that 150 times. (ie, he has to move 101kg for 22,500 meters ).

The bottom line is, unless your detector weighs a significant proportion of your body weight, it is much more efficient to move the detector coil than your own bodyweight.

Goldylox that is a tough situation you have to take here and I am sorry to hear about it. I did paragliding some years back, spend almost every weekend up in the air, was my passion and I could not think of anything else better to do in my spare time. It was close to an obsession. Then I suffered a substantial pneumonia, ever since the gas exchange of my lungs is out of scale and I won’t get enough oxygen in the blood circulation from a certain altitude on. Had to give up on it and sold all the equipment.
I can’t come up with a technical advice for you, just, if a hobby cannot be don anyway else then under pain and suffering, and living with it day by day is certainly difficult enough, than I have to surrender and can give you no other advice than spare your health and wellbeing before finally ending up in a wheelchair.

I know this advice won’t help you much.

Cheers
ALL-AU

All-AU, you are a reasonable thinker, thanks for your thoughtful reply.

Maybe the hipstick is the answer for a few, but not for people like me with problems with hip joints as well as shoulder pain from detector swinging. Who would want to transfer their shoulder pain from repetitive swinging down to increase their hip joint pain using one of those hipsticks? Not me. That's why I like the new thoughts here.

Goldylox, you must have seen those Cooper Tyre adverts running all over central Victorian TV lately? If they can give you some all-terrain wheel-chair tyres (with a bit of sweet-talking and promotion for them), you could surely find some young folk (or even me) to slowly walk you over gold ground, testing out your detector techniques? I think you've got some gold in you yet...

Hi Goldsniff,

No I haven't seen the Cooper tyre ads - but could imagine the incredible challenge to some company to help get disabled folks detecting efficiently! Tricky if you can't bend to dig without a team of personal paramedics standing by. My manual wheelchair just cost me $250 in new solid tyres but it's still not suitable for the bush without a slave (I mean willing pusher) & neither is my gimpmobile (mobility scooter) which has some sort of loose wire contact problem after I hooned off a near vertical dam wall on it a couple of weeks ago. Oooops. Not quite dead yet! There are powered wheelchairs which can go on the beach these days - but they cost as much as cars - doubt they could handle the bush & all the debris. Minelab need to make a remote control robot detector/digger which goes off & digs for the still hopeful. Hopefully it would return to base camp with the booty & be able to tazer any potential muggers.
Nothing really beats human legs, a healthy strong back and LOTS of pain meds.

Hi Goldylox, it looks like you've decided your porridge is too cold, your bed is too hard and your chair is the wrong size. If you get enthusiastic about getting out detecting again, just let it be known here and you will likely get some helpers or companions to go out with you.