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New to this forum, but I've been a detectorist for 10 years now. Unfortunilly I had to sell my XLT this past July to help pay bills after being laid off from my job. Things are getting better though. So much so I'm looking forward to next years detecting season.
Meanwhile, I've come up with a rather interesting project for this winter. Just reciently I was watching a new tech program on military stuff our troops are using, and one of those items was R/C controlled robots to detect mines and bombs. Being a detectorist is started thinking.... As I'm sure many of yours are now!
Now I've been researching this for the last few weeks or so, and just about all the parts are out there to build a robot that will automatically and systamatically cover an area. It's just a matter of mountint them all on a rugged unit and then programing the onboard microprossesor.
The biggest headache I've come across so far is the actual detecting unit. Just to ground balance most of most metal detectors require you to do some acrobatics with the loop before you can start scanning. Any robotic arm that would could be programmed to do this would be very heavy and comberson.
If i could avoid the typical ground balancing proceedure and just have the loop sliding back and forth, I do believe this can be achieve by scuttling an old printer and using some of those parts. Instead of moving a ink carterage and print head back and forth, I'd be moving the arm. If at all possible I would love some schmatics or even an online store that could provide a kit that i can assemble to build such a dectector.
Ultimatly the bot will search a pre-programmed area, while doing this it's my goal to have it send and audio signal of targets back to me, while at the same time have targets plotted out on a map. (I use topoUSA) for most of my treasure hunting and gold prospecting activities. This way I could listen for really good targets and be ready with a higher end detector like a minelab explorer or gold bug 2 depending on what and where I'm detecting at, at that time.
thanks,
jaxom
Meanwhile, I've come up with a rather interesting project for this winter. Just reciently I was watching a new tech program on military stuff our troops are using, and one of those items was R/C controlled robots to detect mines and bombs. Being a detectorist is started thinking.... As I'm sure many of yours are now!
Now I've been researching this for the last few weeks or so, and just about all the parts are out there to build a robot that will automatically and systamatically cover an area. It's just a matter of mountint them all on a rugged unit and then programing the onboard microprossesor.
The biggest headache I've come across so far is the actual detecting unit. Just to ground balance most of most metal detectors require you to do some acrobatics with the loop before you can start scanning. Any robotic arm that would could be programmed to do this would be very heavy and comberson.
If i could avoid the typical ground balancing proceedure and just have the loop sliding back and forth, I do believe this can be achieve by scuttling an old printer and using some of those parts. Instead of moving a ink carterage and print head back and forth, I'd be moving the arm. If at all possible I would love some schmatics or even an online store that could provide a kit that i can assemble to build such a dectector.
Ultimatly the bot will search a pre-programmed area, while doing this it's my goal to have it send and audio signal of targets back to me, while at the same time have targets plotted out on a map. (I use topoUSA) for most of my treasure hunting and gold prospecting activities. This way I could listen for really good targets and be ready with a higher end detector like a minelab explorer or gold bug 2 depending on what and where I'm detecting at, at that time.
thanks,
jaxom