Bounty Hunter Quick Silver EX /Pioneer EX dismantling and board pictures

[nonkapo]

As i promise yesterday i take apart my Bounty Hunter(mainly from curiosity) and today come up with some photos how to do so as well as one of the PCB. I hope i post it in the proper thread.

ATTENTION, VERY IMPORTANT!!!
If you do this your waranty will void. The author do not bear any responsibility if you do something wrong, hurt your self or damage your equipment when you follow the instructions. You do this at your own risk. If you have no experience please go to the otorized workshop or technician.

1. After disataching the coil you must unscrew two Philips head bolts and the device is disatached from the shaft.
2. The battery cover (if batteries are installed) must be open and the coil DIN socket unscrewed.
3. There are two hiden screws below the decorative sticker of the front panel(see the picture). You must unstick it very carefully(maket knife or credit card my do) as the buttons are on the same and unscrew the two screws with Philips head.

[nonkapo]

4. After unscrewing the headphones jack you can pull towards your self the panel, together with the board.
5. If required you can remove the ribon cable and after unscrewing the two small black screws the board is apart from the front panel.

The assembly is the reverse of the same.

I hope this is helpfull to someone. Enjoy.

[nonkapo]

Here are the active components which i can identify from the board pictures:

1.PIC16F722 microcontroller;
2.LM339 comparator by ST;
3.TL074 quad op amp by ST;
4.27M2BC dual op amp by TI;
5.HEF4053BT multiplexer/demultiplexer by NXP.

Unfortunatelly not much can be traced from the board and i'm not very familiar with the way all of this is working. It will be interesting to know what are the differencies between Pioneer EX and Qick silver as they look externally the same. Anyone who posses one of these and do not bother to share?

[dbanner]

Very good.

[nonkapo]

Thanks for the info. Here comes the confusion for me. As i bought the item second hand, the owner was not aware which model it is. I do some research for manuals and schematics and it may come that i have the Quick Silver, but not the Pioneer EX. From the manuals it is visible the main difference is the shaft and the coil. The other difference i can see is the missing headphone jack on the Pioneer which is confirmed in the manual as well(no remarks for headphone use in the Pioneer pdf). Look at the manual links for details(https://www.detecting.com/manuals/MQ...-%20Reader.pdf and https://www.detecting.com/manuals/ME...%20Reader.pdf). The price difference new at the Bounty Hunter site is just 10 dollars(139 for Pioneer vs 149 for QS). Still hoping someone can confirm whether i'm right or wrong.

[nonkapo]

After using the detector for several months can share some feedback. It is more of a toy, rather than serious machine, however if you dont need dept more than 30-35cm it is not that bad. Looks like the sand in the desert here is not mineralised, so i barely get any false signals. Discrimination works, however you cant rely on it 100 percent(depends on the target angle). After i recover my mobile, i pick up alot of Coke cans, foil, nails and wire, concrete reinforcement bars, but finally have in three days in a row few coins. It might be my experience improving or just the slight difference in the location i move to. Thats the place where we embark/disembark the vehicles, so it is avaiable only now(off season). Needless to say the foil and coke cans usually give very distinguishable signal which spread wide area even if the target is small. Will post few pics to show you the coins(nothing old or special). The crazy part is that i pick up more than 20 valve cores(we deflate/inflate the tires when entering/exiting the desert). Still not playng much with the discrimination as i'm loosing sensitivity that way. Waiting to do the first test and comparisions with my surf PI when i complete the mechanical work for it.

[nonkapo]

Pics as promised. Note some of the coins are rusted (might be there from longer time) when others are as new.

[dbanner]

Very cool. Much appreciated. Pictures of detector and overall impressions. Some nice finds.

[nonkapo]

Huh, i show only the nice one ;-). On all these coins i've got around 15 coke cans, bunch of foil, 12 valve needles, 7 metal valve caps, alot of wire and countless coke caps;-). Soon i'll follow the coil data, however i'm affraid to open it as this one is sealed - suitable for underwater search. At least will try to take the induction and resistance.

[nonkapo]

Two quick questions. Do you think it is worth changing the DIN coil socket to the one with locknut ring? Read somewhere this way you might be able to use some Fisher coils?!?

[nonkapo]

I just cut off the DIN socket and will convert to screw on type. Look the below attachment with the cable colors and locations. Strangely only one coil appear despite I'm thinking is co planar. Should i look for capacitors as well?

[Skippy]

That looks very much like the Fisher F2 coils, which are actually Bounty Hunter ones. The 2.4 mH coil is the receive coil, nothing unusual about it. The other coil , that you show as a resistor, is in fact 2.4 mH, in parallel with 240 nF capacitance ( 220nF + 20 nF ). This makes it tuned to 6.6 kHz.
Search the forum, you will find more details of this coil.

[nonkapo]

Thanks skippy. Yeah i'm aware the F2 and F4 coils can be used and are a good upgrade even,however the search on this using f2 or f4coil does not return anything. The other issue is i cant find any pinout info in the web?!?!?!? Even the DIN to GX12 adapters does not show what is connected where. I have a feeling even F5 might work. They say 7kHz though not 6.6?!?!?
These are the topics i found:

https://www.findmall.com/read.php?37,1462918

http://bountyhunterpros.blogspot.com/2014/08/bounty-hunter-metal-detectors-are.html

http://thehuntergt.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=9

[nonkapo]

I run in to another problem. After replacing the DIN with screwinn type connector, i receive the F2/F4 coil and the pinout does not match?!?!? Anyone here with the 5 inch F2/F4 coil ?

[Skippy]

You're a pain in the azz! Give me a day to find out the pinouts.