PICKINI V4 - an easy to build, self adjusting PI detector

[F117]

Marty,

when you mean this charger circuit:



The answer is definitely NO for LiIon !. It is current limited but is not voltage protected. Overvoltage will kill your LiIon batteries if not worse ( risk of fire, explosion..).
For my latest build, I bought these batteries: http://www.dx.com/p/80405
It includes a mains adapter to charge the battery pack. Unfortunately: US mains plug only. I opened it up and put the small charger PCB into a Belgian style mains adapter.
It has a green/red indicator LED thattells you when the battery is fully charged.
I replaced the battery jack with a cinch connector mounted on the housing and replaced the adapter jack plug with a cinch male plug. I always use cinch connectors on my detectors to charge them.
So far I am quite pleased with the battery: it lasts a full day of searching. Wished I had more opportunity to test them over an entire day though..

Regards,
- Bernard

[MartyJ1963]

Hi Bernard,,,,as always, thanks for info,,,always best to check. I have some of those batteries also that you bought, but never use them because I can never remember if the switch , on the battery pack, has to be 'on' or 'off' while you charge it? Does the LED on the battery pack have to illuminate red or green while charging? Sorry for the silly question,,lol. Regards ,,Marty.

[bang80]

Hi, I am Newbie with PIC. I have a PIC-PG3 card from OLIMEX and my program is PICpgm. How to configure the options of the program for this 16F1824 ?
Thank's for help.

[F117]

I don't know the PIC-PG3 programmer but it still seems to need a parallel port ?
It looks a little outdated at first sight but maybe someone else here can check if it still supports more recent PIC families ?
I normally use the PicKit3 programmer.

If you want to make it easy on yourself to start exploring pulse induction with temporal sampling, you can save yourself a lot of trouble and go to my shop: http://users.telenet.be/willaert/MD/...n/V4/shop.html

Regards,
- Bernard

[kosacid]

ok, I have been testing this detector coins rings and that is fine but bullets and lead it is just not picking them up very well why is that? the bullet casings are fine I just can't work it out why are some metals being undetected

[F117]

coins rings and that is fine but bullets and lead it is just not picking them up very well

When I go field testing here in "Flanders Fields", the battlefields of WW1, they are infested with small lead shrapnel balls and bullets. I have buckets full of them and every detectorist here hates these things. Also on a IB detector, they give a very good signal. So, I obviously envy your setup and would like to trade it in for something that only detects gold and rings ;-)
What are the specifications of your coil ?

[bang80]

Hello Bernard,
I bought your kit yesterday but I will try to build one myself. The PG3 PIC is old but works with the 16F1824, the question is to adjust the PIC PGM software. There are some options to check or not. I will test that. If it does not work I can always delete the PICs ...
Thank you
Ernest (Amiens, France)

[Eddy71]

Try this software for you programmer:

http://picpgm.picprojects.net/software.html

[kosacid]

the coil is .5 copper 350uh I am using a 10k potentiometer that all I could find thats the only differences, and I am testing it using a big chunk of lead and it is not very sensitive to it

[F117]

Can you check all the DC values at the pins of the controller and opamp : http://users.telenet.be/willaert/MD/...ectronics.html
10K is OK for the sensitivity potmeter. Does the sensitivity voltage change between 0 and 5V when turning the potmeter ?
The conductivity of lead is typically close to that of gold, so if you can detect gold, it should also detect lead.
It seems like your PCB is also OK since it detects normally on other metal ?

[F117]

Correction - my mistake: lead and gold are not even close for electrical conductivity.
I mixed up lead and copper. Lead is closer to iron, which is the metal that all PI detectors will detect.

[Bhathu saaii]

WHAT IS THE MAXIMUM DEPTH OF THIS PI LET SAY THE TARGET IS 2feet X 2feet GOLD/PLATINUM/SILVER.

thanks you ^_^

[F117]

WHAT IS THE MAXIMUM DEPTH OF THIS PI LET SAY THE TARGET IS 2feet X 2feet GOLD/PLATINUM/SILVER.

Depth of any PI detector is largely determined by the coil size.
With a 1m x 1m coil you will achieve greater depth than with a classic 8 inch round coil.
A 1m x 1m cable coil would be my first choice if I had the luxury to retrieve a 2ftx2ft gold bar

[bang80]

Hi,
my Pickiny V4 buil with semi kit of Bernard is very good. I want try to buil the SMD version but I have just a .lay6 file. So if somebody can give me the copper layer in PDF file with scale 1:1 because I can only wiew the file with demo version of SprintLayout. Thank yo far all.

[bernte_one]

Hi,
my Pickiny V4 buil with semi kit of Bernard is very good. I want try to buil the SMD version but I have just a .lay6 file. So if somebody can give me the copper layer in PDF file with scale 1:1 because I can only wiew the file with demo version of SprintLayout. Thank yo far all.

please show the smd files here, i can give you pdf print black white from sprint layout