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I guess I must have the concentration span of a gnat as I bought the board for this from Silverdog several years ago and have only just got it to the stage of a working detector.
Along the way several other detector designs have served to distract me, each having a different purpose in mind – a surf pi for beach wading, a Baracuda (still unfinished!), Pickini for snorkelling and micro experience, a still unfinished Pirat and an assortment of test equipment and various coil designs.
It’s hard to say what I enjoy most about metal detectors – the challenge of building the electronics or the the simple pleasure of getting away from it all on a beach or around an old ruin or gold mining area just poking around ‘looking for stuff’, but the part I have to push myself with is the hardware. Needless to say, this part seems to end up pretty basic. As long as it serves its purpose I am satisfied.
And my MPP is no exception.
Most of it is made of 20mm PVC electrical conduit made to look almost presentable with a spray of
black acrylic lacquer. Still, it feels well balanced and the whole thing only weighs in at 1.2Kg including the coil, control box and batteries.
The electronics are sandwiched between a couple of sheets of copper clad pcb to provide some shielding (yet to be connected up) and the 3 Li cells (ex laptop battery pack) mount onto the top pcb shield for easy charging access. I plan to add an led voltmeter next to them to monitor their state of charge. I have also fitted protection boards to each cell. The cells are individually charged in a Nightcore charger so they should remain balanced.
From the photos it can be seen that the control box is mounted to the shaft using plastic conduit clips which enable the configuration to be easily adjusted by clipping it to a different position.
The coil is a 3DSS wrapped with polyethylene packaging foam and then glassed with epoxy resin. The feedline is twisted pair fed through clear plastic tubing.
So, thanks George for a really well presented project with most comprehensive instructions.
Along the way several other detector designs have served to distract me, each having a different purpose in mind – a surf pi for beach wading, a Baracuda (still unfinished!), Pickini for snorkelling and micro experience, a still unfinished Pirat and an assortment of test equipment and various coil designs.
It’s hard to say what I enjoy most about metal detectors – the challenge of building the electronics or the the simple pleasure of getting away from it all on a beach or around an old ruin or gold mining area just poking around ‘looking for stuff’, but the part I have to push myself with is the hardware. Needless to say, this part seems to end up pretty basic. As long as it serves its purpose I am satisfied.
And my MPP is no exception.
Most of it is made of 20mm PVC electrical conduit made to look almost presentable with a spray of
black acrylic lacquer. Still, it feels well balanced and the whole thing only weighs in at 1.2Kg including the coil, control box and batteries.
The electronics are sandwiched between a couple of sheets of copper clad pcb to provide some shielding (yet to be connected up) and the 3 Li cells (ex laptop battery pack) mount onto the top pcb shield for easy charging access. I plan to add an led voltmeter next to them to monitor their state of charge. I have also fitted protection boards to each cell. The cells are individually charged in a Nightcore charger so they should remain balanced.
From the photos it can be seen that the control box is mounted to the shaft using plastic conduit clips which enable the configuration to be easily adjusted by clipping it to a different position.
The coil is a 3DSS wrapped with polyethylene packaging foam and then glassed with epoxy resin. The feedline is twisted pair fed through clear plastic tubing.
So, thanks George for a really well presented project with most comprehensive instructions.
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