Homemade detector

[pafitis]

Hello to all members here in this forum, im newbie and my goal is learn more about metal detectors,hunting and so on.
Im about to construct a simple but yet effective and stable homemade detector for
hunting small coins and who knows small gold nuggets.
Have seen many circuit diagrams for metal detectors in various websites without any reviews if their working or not.
Someone said that ETI 561 detector its working fine, but suffer from frequency drifting, so it needs knob's tweaking quite often.
Could anyone please help me to find the right one, i will much appriciate.
Andreas, from Cyprus

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Upgraded Night Vision Monocular Digital Infrared Monocular Telescope for 100% Darkness with 8X Zoom - Grab it through Amazon!

[DonDigger]

Andreas, I share your interest in building a detector. I need a detector that is good in salt water but most factory pulse induction detectors are beyond my budget. What I found is a kit from the UK that looks promising. As you live on an island I would think a PI detector would suit your needs as well.
The Surf PI 1.2 Pulse Induction detector kit is available at: Welcome to Silverdog
A discussion of building the detector is at: How to build a Surf PI 1.2 pulse induction metal detector from a DIY kit. | Be cheap and DIY:
There are some videos on building a detector housing and coils using this kit by Frederick Barnes out of Australia. Go to youtube.com and search " Goldfinder XTR " which is what he calls it. There is a video of him using it on the beach with good results.

I would be interested in any feedback from the Forum members if anyone has first hand knowledge of this kit.

Don on the Texas Gulf Coast

 

[pafitis]

Many thanks Don Digger for this site i visited, its quite interesting, ill see if is not very expensive and maybe i try to construct it.
all the best,
Andreas

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Pafitis, in the old days (1960s) it might have been conceivable to home-make a metal detector which would mimick or rival what was then-for-sale on the open consumer market. But those days are long gone. With today's advancements and precision electronics, I would think that even a child's toy detector today (cheapo radio shack, or whatever) would out-perform anything you could hand-make.

A friend of mine, for instance thought he could make his own metal detector coils, to outperform, and perhaps start to market, the ones on the market. He was in for a big surprise, as ..... the mere thousands-of-an-inch coil windings of wire would skew results. You almost have to have lab precision, and controlled assembly line accuracy (where every things comes off the line robotically made with exact-same-specs), to get it right. The variances required are not like yesteryear's "tinker kits" (hobbyist heath kit models, etc...). Whatever you can make in your garage might be able to mimic those yester-year hobbyist types, but are not going to come close to what you can buy for $100 on ebay, for example.

 

[Frankn]

Pafitis, in the old days (1960s) it might have been conceivable to home-make a metal detector which would mimick or rival what was then-for-sale on the open consumer market. But those days are long gone. With today's advancements and precision electronics, I would think that even a child's toy detector today (cheapo radio shack, or whatever) would out-perform anything you could hand-make.

A friend of mine, for instance thought he could make his own metal detector coils, to outperform, and perhaps start to market, the ones on the market. He was in for a big surprise, as ..... the mere thousands-of-an-inch coil windings of wire would skew results. You almost have to have lab precision, and controlled assembly line accuracy (where every things comes off the line robotically made with exact-same-specs), to get it right. The variances required are not like yesteryear's "tinker kits" (hobbyist heath kit models, etc...). Whatever you can make in your garage might be able to mimic those yester-year hobbyist types, but are not going to come close to what you can buy for $100 on ebay, for example.

I have to agree with TOM. I have been in electronics since the 50's so I have lived thru the kit era, which is now past. You will never be happy with a kit detector or home built unit.
If money is short, buy a used detector. Some of those old ones, as far back as 15 years old can keep up with the new ones if you know how to use it. Frank...-

 

[DeepseekerADS]

Andreas,

I agree with Frankn & Tom. Those old detectors, which you can pick up cheaper than you could make one, would serve you better - UNLESS you just wanted to build one for the experience.

My 30 year old Fisher 1260X still blows the doors off the entry level cheap detectors today. I was so disappointed with the Ace 250 I gave it to my brother and went back to using my 1260X - that is until the E-Trac arrived I have no doubt I'll bring that 1260X out again, and again, for the duration of my life - utterly dependable. The only reason I bought the E-Trac is that I love the science of it.

 

[handyman007]

Hello to all members here in this forum, im newbie and my goal is learn more about metal detectors,hunting and so on.
Im about to construct a simple but yet effective and stable homemade detector for
hunting small coins and who knows small gold nuggets.
Have seen many circuit diagrams for metal detectors in various websites without any reviews if their working or not.
Someone said that ETI 561 detector its working fine, but suffer from frequency drifting, so it needs knob's tweaking quite often.
Could anyone please help me to find the right one, i will much appriciate.
Andreas, from Cyprus

Good luck with beach detecting in Cyprus, Andreas! My detector is still in the local police) Ask the Dept. of Archeology in Nicosia first)