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  • connect a proton magnetometer to a computer

    Shawn,

    Adequate research? What a joke! More than once I have found treasures in the outlying undergrowth surrounding old farm houses, parks, and school yards as MD'ers were enthusiastically scanning every square inch... resulting from their so-called adequate research. I was just drawn into the woods because that is where the LRL directed me. Most of those treasure were either too deep for any MD, or were glass bottles. In most cases however, the MD'ers were searching where their gut-feeling told them treasures were located. What a waste of energy. Besides, the outlying undergrowth was all grown up... swampy or rocky or too many mosquitoes or whatever other excuses they had. MD operators are prone to stay out of heavy undergrowth with hugh tree roots (gets their new boots too dirty and it's too hard to sweep their heads), or big rocks everywhere (bangs up their precious coils not alone themselve).

    When and where was the last time you used a mag or GPR Shawn. If you have used them recently, did you find either of them to be consistent in all environments and locate exactly what you were looking for as advertised by their manufacturers. Do you really thing the TH'ing hobbyists will purchase a MD, mag, and GPR.

    I agree, "Thank God for science"! As far as the "Black Arts" go, I see no connection whatsoever as to what anyone else believes or states. Just another cop out for those who can't use some common sense and/or get out of the traditional TH'ing paradigm.

    Faith and belief won't find treasures... even for the big boys with huge investments. If you are saying that these guys are "real" TH'ers because of their sophisticated and costly equipment then how many do you know that have been successful. The average hobbyists can be more successful than these "one-shot" big dogs.

    If you spend all of your entire existence trying to prove LRLs can't/don't work and denying yourself the joy and pleasure of enjoying the field... what a waste. The whole world just cannot be a scam, but to some it is and will always be!

    Larry Stier

  • #2
    connect a proton magnetometer to a computer

    Hello,

    I would like to build the Carl's proton magnetometer and I wondered if there was any documentation anywhere about how to connect it to a computer ...

    Thanks a lot

    Karim.

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    • #3
      Re: connect a proton magnetometer to a computer

      Carl could respond to this but I think that the one described by Carl is a 'fluxgate' mag.
      A proton Mag sensor generates a very small sine wave signal (around 1µV at around 2KHz)which must first be amplified using very low noise amplifiers.
      The frequency of the amplified signal must then be measured with extreme precision in order to get a reasonable resolution. The sine wave signal should be converted into a square wave signal and fed into a digital entry of a micro-controller. A counter and a timer of the micro are then used to count the number of periods of the signal during a relatively long time (500msec). This count is proportional to the absolute value of earth magnetic field.

      Willy

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      • #4
        Re: connect a proton magnetometer to a computer

        I just posted a more detailed question relating to interfacing a PC with a proton precession Magnetometer, the gist of which is that a PC's sound card can be used to DIRECTLY process a proton precession Mag's sensor output.

        A 16 bit sound card's theoretical dynamic range is 96 dB (6 db/bit) and realistically should be at least 75 to 90 dB (depending on the quality of the circuit). This is more than enough to do a very credible job of digitally filtering and processing the PPM sensor's output signal.

        The only things the sensor head would need would be a coil of wire, a current gateing circuit, and a simple pre-amp (preferably with a simple 50/60 Hz reject filter).

        The entire 'ring-down' waveform from the sensor would be captured by the PC and then processed using a FFT to extract the precession frequency to about 5 decimal places. Mathmatically you could even do a little better than this, but the 'clock oscillators' on most PC's would not be stable enough to make the data repeatable beyound 5 decimal places. This is still a lot more more accurate than most amateur precession mag's.

        If someone hasn't already done this, it would make a really nice group project, because it would make a high performance proton precession magnetometer available to anyone with only about 5-10 dollars worth of parts (no kidding).

        If anyone is interested I would be happy to lay out the 'sensor head' current gate and preamp electronics.

        Steve B.

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        • #5
          Re: connect a proton magnetometer to a computer

          i m interested to get the lay out of the sensor and pre amp electronics .plz provide me as soon as possible

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          • #6
            Re: connect a proton magnetometer to a computer

            SIR,
            YOUR IDEA SEAM VERY INTERISTING .I AM WORKING ON PROTON PRECESSIOM MAGNETOMETER. I DEVELOPED A DIGITAL MAGNETOMETER BUT WAS UNABLE TO PICK THE O/P OF MY SENSOR. I WANT TO WORK WITH YOU. PLEASE GIVE COMPLETE DETAILS OF YOUR IDEA.
            SECONDLY, I WANT TO KNOW THAT ARE THERE ANY SOFTWARE AVAILABLE WHICH CAN TAKE THE VERY WEAK SIGNAL FROM SENOR AS O/P AND CAN PRCOESS THIS SIGNAL AGAINST VERY STRONG NOISE PRESENT AND GIVES MORE PRECISE AUDIBLE O/P. PLEASE ANY ONE HAVING MORE INFO DO LET ME KNOW.
            HOW YOUR IDEA IS RELATED TO MY ABOVE MENTIONED REQUEST.

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            • #7
              Re: connect a proton magnetometer to a computer

              There are indeed at least two challenges to meet in this project:
              1. Design and Build an audio amplifier chain with HIGH gain, LOW noise and without auto-oscillation and still using standard components easily accessible to kit builders.
              2. Calculate the precession frequency with sufficient precision (at mHz level).

              That's what our small team (SteveB, PhilippeM and I) is now doing. We shall report about our progresses on this forum but the point 2 has already been resolved successfully (with SOME difficulties).

              Willy

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              • #8
                Re: connect a proton magnetometer to a computer

                SteveB, PhilippeM, Willy, all,

                Are there any updates to this project?

                Thanks,
                Brian B.

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                • #9
                  Re: connect a proton magnetometer to a computer

                  The algorithms of point 2 have successfully been proven.
                  The point 1 is in good progress
                  (see http://perso.infonie.be/j.g.delannoy/BAT/PPMGuidelines.htm )
                  This gradiometer project is initially driven at making a stand-alone system with the usual zero-crossing counting/timing but a variation of this project will go for a PC-driven real-time system where the frequency calculation will be executed by a PC program.

                  Willy

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