Big Bud Pro SE

[turtlebowl]

Thanks Merc for your "labor of love" on this timeless classic machine. Thats alot of work your doing and appreciated by us all. I did the same thing and posted it here when Reg contributed the Mark I drawing last year. Remember how hard it was to read portions of that drawing? This is great everyone here helping to preserve George's Classics and making it possible for us all to study his work. You just gotta love the way he posted all those notes, revisions and alternate designs/options on the bottom of his drawings.
THANK YOU George also for allowing your work to be released. I hope it's obvious that we love you George.
Jerrys reciept above shows he purchased 2 PRO PLUS machines. What is that? Was there a model called "PLUS" ?? What was the diff between this and the SE Pro?
Phil

[Merc]

Turtlebowl, it is very time consuming, but worth it I hope. I remember seeing the extremely hard to read Mark I schematic, but I must have missed your cleaned version. I will go back and look for that. Thank you.

Merc

[Qiaozhi]

I'm working on cleaning-up the schematic posted by Reg. Blue prints do not scan well. Here is the progress so far.

Merc

I had also started to clean up the schematic during an idle period, but you are much further ahead. Glad I didn't spend too much time on it!

[Merc]

Perhaps in the future we could divide one into four quarters and each clean up a section. It's possible but I wonder how good it would look when put back together. I'm using Gimp to clean this one.

Merc

[DavidB]

Thanks Merc for posting the schematic. I traced my Big Bud 220 Select and drew the schematic in sections but still had a few things missing when I went to draw them together. This will be some help as I can see the circuit is almost identical. The 220 is a newer detector but for some reason they went back to a zener diode connected to a pass transistor for the regulator. The ground reference is created the same way with the 358 and voltage divider. It has a little more circuitry than the SE because the ID and depth meters are separate. I hope to be posting it soon.

[Melbeta]

Masked chip...

Thanks Merc for sharing and Reg ,,,god bless. I too only had Bill's drawing. The factory circuit is a Gem.
It's always fun to share board pix for comparison. Note that my BBPro SE PCB is a bit different. U6 on my board is masked and also has a ?temp? device attached. Least thats what I assumed it was. Can someone please tell me what that is? Mine also has an external Sensitivity pot wired to the back of the board. Maybe they all did and yours was just removed for some reason. I dunno. Probably other differences too.
Anyways too cool guys. Thanks again for sharing.
Phil M

Phil, I missed your clean up of the Mark 1 too, so give us the link, as I would like that as well. I could not find it on the searching. The chip U6 is an National Semi-conductor chip called a CD4016BCN chip. It bears the MM5616BN mask number. I ignor the date codes, as the manufacturerers buy vast quantities of parts, and used them from one model to another model. They also make up one board, and use it for many models. If you recall the Mark 1 schematic of George Payne, the addition or subtraction of a part here and there changes a model designation. Whites Electronics did it as well.

I remember the old MM series chips from NatlSemi, we cracked their special made secret MM5321 chip, which was a sync restoration chip. It came out from the Oak Industries "missing" signal patents, Oak invented that missing sync signal technology (I still have all of their patents stored), and the satellite providers stole the "missing signal technology" today, to hide the authorization codes. It was where they hid the sync information and that chip would use the a zero reference and the color burst signal, as its "missing sync" signal marker, and from that "found" reference marker, they could find the location for the missing sync signals, then begin to fit in and restore missing sync signals with standard sync signals, based upon hidden data in other areas of the picture information, they were suppressed so that the TV could not find them either. Later on, they even hid the MM5321 inside the large scale Motorola chips. Ha Ha! It drove the pirates nuts. But I had collected all the program authorization signals hidden in the FM band. Still have them stored. I know more of the analog General Instrument authorization commands then any other person in the world. I quit fooling with them when digital came out, as I would have had to begin all over converting analog code to digital code, and it just was not worth it to me. Everyone wanted the information for nothing...

The MM5321 would then restore all of the the "missing sync signals", for the MCU, and then the rest of the circuit and commands, hidden inside the microprocessor chip, would grab it and then recreate all the descrambling of the scrambled CATV signals. They did that in an attempt to thwart the CATV pirates from stealing the scrambled signals. That MM designation brings back old memories! Ah the good old days when business was business. Before technology screwed it all up.
Melbeta

[Melbeta]

I am looking forward to seeing that schematic too...

Thanks Merc for posting the schematic. I traced my Big Bud 220 Select and drew the schematic in sections but still had a few things missing when I went to draw them together. This will be some help as I can see the circuit is almost identical. The 220 is a newer detector but for some reason they went back to a zener diode connected to a pass transistor for the regulator. The ground reference is created the same way with the 358 and voltage divider. It has a little more circuitry than the SE because the ID and depth meters are separate. I hope to be posting it soon.

I bought a 220 to see "what it had in the gears", to use an old hot rodders words, but even though it was pretty stable, it did not have the oompf of the SE unit. I think the blanking circuit, where it can ignor surface trash, yet still go deep at full power, is the legendary "magic wand" that people still seek in metal detectors.
Melbeta

[Melbeta]

Bounty Hunter information text file....

Here is an old Bounty Hunter model information text file, that someone (not me) created in the past, trying to figure out the various models that Bounty Hunter made in the past. It is not entirely accurate, and I have spread it apart at the location where the Tek Ltd ended and the First Texas Mfg company began. As you can see, except for my commented blue text, it is missing the Bounty Hunter Big Bud Pro Plus SE model. I only inserted this obvous missing model, as I have two of them myself.

Were there any of the following models? I am not sure right now...

Big Bud Pro Yes, I know these were sold...
Big Bud Pro Plus??? Not sure here.... I think it did exist. But not sure.
Big Bud Pro SE??? Phil said his is one of this model, I never heard of it...
Big Bud Pro Plus SE Yes, I have two of them myself, and evidence to boot....
Melbeta

[Merc]

A bit more cleaning.

[Merc]

Here is an update but I'm going to need some help. The "Loud Alert" area of the diagram where U13 and part of U17 are. I can't tell where U17 connects. There was a fold right in that area. Could someone please take a look at the original PDF and see if they can tell me U17(the part controlled by pin13) connects to the rest of the circuit?

[Melbeta]

U17 is a 4016 chip....

Merc,
You have several chips, which are 4016 chips, the 4016 is a 12 Pin chip, and one of them is U17. It uses only 3 sections of this chip, the 4th section from what I see, is not used. I think the area you mention is the place where the section using IC17 of 4016 consisting of pins 6, 8, and 9. Those are kind of blurred in that area.

If you follow the lines, of these three pins of U17, you can see where the connections go. I am not sure if that solves your queston or not...

The other two sections of U17 4016 chips consist of one part that uses pins 3, 4, and 5, another part uses pins 10, 11, and 12. The part that has pins 1, 2, and 7 does not seem to be used in any of the 4016 chips in this schematic.

I think there are at least three different Big Bud Pro Plus SE units, and mine seems to have a different face plate from the SE photo that Phil has posted here in this forum posting. I have attached a photo of the face plate of my SE unit. Please look at your SE unit and see if it resembles Phil's unit or my unit. Phil said his SE board differs a bit from your board, so there definitely is two board versions, yours and Phils.

Keep in mind that my model order definitely included a "plus" in the order papers and the Confidential Price Sheets catalog. Reg did a field test on the SE model, according to a guy in the Compass forum, in a Lost Treasure magazine, back in early 1989 or late 1988, he did not indicate the actual date, and I cannot read the date from the small image of the magazine photo... So it is entirely possible there was a Big Bud Pro SE model before there was a Big Bud Pro Plus SE model!

Also in the photo of his case, that Phil posted, as I look at the two silver looking toggle switches that control the blanking and the all metal and discriminate mode, on my verision they are covered with special rubber boots, to keep water and/or dust out of the switches. So definitely my unit differs from Phils SE detector. Compare that also with your SE detector.
Melbeta

[Merc]

Never mind. I figured it out by comparing the schematic to BB Pro SE that is still apart on my workbench beside me. It is VERY similar if not identical to the schematic. The reason for the difference in supply voltage may just be a difference in adjustment of R54 which is marked "Audio". It ties to the voltage regulator U2.

Merc

[Merc]

I think I got most of the hard to read area correct. I had to compare to my machine.

Merc

[Merc]

Melbeta, I figured out my 4016 issue by comparing to my detector. Whatever schematic this is, it matches my detector perfectly so far. I'll keep looking for differences, but so far every IC number, resistor, capacitor and pot have matched up perfectly. Here is the meter face of my unit.

[Merc]

The only thing I see so far is that I don't have the charging circuitry; D3, D4, R76. There are solder pads and silk screened markings on the board for them, but no components. I'm guessing they decided to leave that feature off of this model. Perhaps the hole where the charge connector would have been is occupied by a switch or knob.

Merc