If you put it on a scale, it's not "light as a feather", in fact it weighs more than a lot of machines out there. When you pick it up and start swinging it, that's when it becomes "light as a feather". Especially if you use it as intended, with the searchcoil level with the ground about 6-12 inches in front of your toes (and you aren't wearing steel-toed boots, right?). Swinging at a natural rhythm, not trying to cover an acre in 15 minutes. The response characteristics of the electronics and standard searchcoil and the software signal processing are tuned to the mechanical resonances of the mechanical package. Minimum effort and maximum beep going together.
Scientifically engineered ergonomics. It didn't happen by accident.
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A bit of background: the overwhelming majority of metal detector mechanical designs are based primarily on stuff the manufacturer already has kicking around. Makes it easier to build prototypes and cuts the cost of tooling. Since the T2 package was introduced approx. 2007, we've done a lot of new mechanical packages, some of which have darn good ergonomics. But they are just "good designs" based in large part on things we could do using stuff we already had. We don't publish ergonomic spex.
True "blank slate" designs are very expensive, and therefore not very common in this industry. The T2 was a "blank slate" design. That's what made it possible to put ergonomics at the top of the objectives of the mechanical design.
The other thing was knowing how to pursue that objective scientifically. Anyone can pick up a T2 and see that the design intent was achieved. And I'm quite sure our competitors have done that! The missing ingredient is that even with a T2 in their hands, they don't know what makes the design work, and therefore they cannot do the same thing themselves with their own designs.
The irony is that we publish the parameters, and our competitors are still not so much as even pretending to play that game!
--Dave J.
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Dear fellow forum denizens: a slight apology for the over-the-top gloat. It's just that Mr. B's "light-as-a-feather" statement pulled me back 8 years where it all started, and reminded me how vindicated we've been on that revolutionary new mechanical design.
