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I had a minor problem with my custom Pinpointer which was that one white led always lit very dimly. I also wanted to increase the range and it turns out these two problems were directly related...
As I traced my wiring etc I reached a point where I disconnected the +V lead to the white leds - and one still lit....spooky huh?
In the past I did a fair bit of work lighting leds from RFID tags etc. When I built the probe I fixed an led either side and a thickish wire ran across (not around) the ferrite to wire the two leds in series. I re-routed the wire using the fine guage copper I use for search coils and the led problem is solved. There is enough of a field close to the probe to just light and led. I am going to play with this.
However, I then had problems setting up the detector threshold because there was a fair increase in the field so I had to make a minor mod to fix that. Now, the range is much better, the Garret coin-on-the-side trick works too ( I am going to make that a bit more tasteful than wasting a 20p like that). 20p ? I can buy half a cigarrette for that.
The whole thing has changed really from ok to wow! Accordingly, I have abandoned my build from scratch - I have spent a day or two on that making progress, but now, well why bother.
As I traced my wiring etc I reached a point where I disconnected the +V lead to the white leds - and one still lit....spooky huh?
In the past I did a fair bit of work lighting leds from RFID tags etc. When I built the probe I fixed an led either side and a thickish wire ran across (not around) the ferrite to wire the two leds in series. I re-routed the wire using the fine guage copper I use for search coils and the led problem is solved. There is enough of a field close to the probe to just light and led. I am going to play with this.
However, I then had problems setting up the detector threshold because there was a fair increase in the field so I had to make a minor mod to fix that. Now, the range is much better, the Garret coin-on-the-side trick works too ( I am going to make that a bit more tasteful than wasting a 20p like that). 20p ? I can buy half a cigarrette for that.
The whole thing has changed really from ok to wow! Accordingly, I have abandoned my build from scratch - I have spent a day or two on that making progress, but now, well why bother.