Best project for salt water / sand / gold

[barry]

Looking to build my first detector for my new found hobby. I have lots on beach's around me and i wanted to look for lost jewelery at the water line / shallow's. What project is best suited ? The Hammerhead ?

[Max]

Looking to build my first detector for my new found hobby. I have lots on beach's around me and i wanted to look for lost jewelery at the water line / shallow's. What project is best suited ? The Hammerhead ?

Hi,
you need a good , not too hard to do PI detector, and will dig tons of iron... be prepared to that.

Some ideas for you.

EASY (and a bit troublesome during use): BlindSquirrel, Proscan, Stuart I & II

NORMAL: Hammerhead, DeltaPulse, some pulsdetektor.de schematics (tiny etc), Barracuda, some White's like PI-1000... Surfmaster and the like

HARD: XR71 (lack of proper PCB also, schematic is like DeltaPulse, work at 400Hz or more), DPB2010, PD3200, ClonePI, some pulsdetektor.de schematics (some are pesty enough)

UNREAL : GoldscanIV

I suggest you try a normal, not-too-complex and well documented PI with double integrator, like HammerHead (it has very good documentation file) or DeltaPulse (that has a fat thread now, full of good advices), or if skilled enough also e.g. a Surfmaster-PI and similar stuff.

All schematics are here... in old threads and also much more.

Forget about the hard or unreal... e.g. GoldscanIV is well above (for many reasons) the understanding and skills of beginners and as well as average homebrewers.

Kind regards,
Max

[cordius]

I built the stuart1 but does not work well.
A good metaldetector is the surfmaster.

the Deltapulse is good but is not indicated for searches on the beach.

[Max]

I built the stuart1 but does not work well.
A good metaldetector is the surfmaster.

the Deltapulse is good but is not indicated for searches on the beach.

Hi,
yes Stuart I is not so good cause have some mistakes inside... fixing it is about trivial but it suffer much from essential and easy design... good to build it fast but not at testing/searching phase.
Also... too many falses with it.

Personally I didn't like it much... Stuart II is a way better... but sure not like a Surfmaster or other commercial PI units.

The Delta is good if you tune it to work not at 100Hz (like original idea) but at 400Hz or more (around 1Khz is even better), that is good about response time, expecially to thin and small stuff like rings.
That way it behaves about as XR71, cause also they both share really similar schematic/design.

The trick is doing that using small coils like 8''. You then must not use original Delta 1m*1m square coil design (good for depth search only) but smaller coils and with very good shield (fast monocoils for PI).

Another issue is at first delay: you need 15-25uS to be sure you'll not miss small but good stuff, e.g. gold rings etc but this will make also you find tons of aluminium pulltabs.

Kind regards,
Max

[barry]

Wow some great posts there. I have a strong background in electronics, can make my own pcb's and even do my own layout from a schematic and program micro controlers.

I am happy if the project is complicated just as long as the results are worth the effort.

Are any off the detectors mentioned able to distinguish iron ?

GoldscanIV looks like a challenge to me

[Max]

Wow some great posts there. I have a strong background in electronics, can make my own pcb's and even do my own layout from a schematic and program micro controlers.

I am happy if the project is complicated just as long as the results are worth the effort.

Are any off the detectors mentioned able to distinguish iron ?

GoldscanIV looks like a challenge to me

Hi,
If so... I suggest you'll make GoldscanIV, it's the best thing about depth... real monster, but think about... it will detects also (as all other PIs) some hot rocks , fired bricks and ceramics etc... in these stuff magnetic crystals are aligned cause of firing process and so they appear as metallic targets... but they aren't: are just magnetic targets.

The one that is supposed to make some disc is the ClonePI stuff: you can find resources here or in some russian website (ask AndyF).

The ClonePI uses an AVR chip, so you need also software to make it work... and also the original one had some trouble

But I do not suggest you really make a PI if need discrimination: any good VLF is better on that... and PIs, though really powerful machines, lack about a "real" discrimination.

If wanna make GoldscanIV... it has geb control for to exclude soil effect when there are too minerals BUT works just for flat soil matrix, flat content of minerals: any concentration of that crystals (or not-random alignment) will give you false signals like I wrote above.

Kind regards,
Max