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Simple, Sensitive Metal Detector: Phil Wait
Simple, Sensitive Metal Detector: Phil Wait
Phil Wait
The metal detecting hobby is enjoying quite a boom at the
moment and treasure hunters are not just after gold. Though the
price of the precious metal has fallen in recent months, at
around $600 an ounce its worth going after. Old coins and rel-
ics fetch high prices too, so there’s lots to find out there...
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control is often featured with these
detectors. As the strength of the
received signal also varies, depending
on the ‘target’ object’s characteristics,
this effect may also be included in the
detection process.
Clearly, an IP detector presents many
problems to the home constructor.
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technique and a few other fillips can varying the supply rail voltage had over a range of about ten percent. We
overcome these problems. drawbacks. After some experimenta- have provided two controls, the FINE
Hence, our new metal detector is a tion with oscillator configurations we control providing a variation of about
BFO type incorporating some modern hit on a discrete component oscillator one-tenth that of the COARSE control.
refinements. It has proved to have simi- which we found behaved much as we The search oscillator is loosely cou-
lar sensitivity to our IB detector, the were seeking. pled via a 47p capacitor to a following
ETI-549, but is generally easier to build The search coil in the circuit we used CMOS Schmitt trigger and two invert-
and set up, there being no critical is the inductor in a Colpitts oscillator. ers which square the output. The loose
adjustments. However, this particular circuit may be coupling isolates the oscillator from the
a little unfamiliar to many readers. To subsequent circuitry, further enchanc-
Design features increase the RF current in the coil, it is ing die stability of the search oscillator.
Our new metal detector has three con- placed in the collector circuit of Q1. For the reference oscillator, we chose
trols: COARSE frequency adjust, FINE Feedback is between collector and emit- to use a crystal, because of its inherent
frequency adjust and VOLUME on/off ter and the base is effectively at RF stability. It has been argued that if an
The coarse frequency control is used to ground. The frequency determining ordinary LC circuit is used for the refer-
initially set the frequency of the search capacitance of the tuned circuit is ence oscillator it will have similar drift
oscillator, compensating for the various ‘tapped’ to provide feedback, C2 and characteristics as the search oscillator
factors affecting any drift in this oscilla- C3 performing this function. Careful and the overall drift will be reduced. In
tor (mainly temperature and battery attention has been paid to the basic fre- fact, the reference oscillator can be
voltage). The fine frequency control is quency stability of this oscillator. Good made using a standard 455 kHz IF
then used to set the note to a low pitch quality styroseal capacitors have been transformer. In practice however the
when the detector is placed over the used for C2 and C3. These have a tem- two tend to drift at markedly different
ground, permitting compensation for the perature coefficient roughly opposite to rates. We think the best approach is to
effect of the ground on the frequency of that of other temperature influences on make both oscillators as stable as possi-
the search oscillator. The volume con- the frequency of the oscillator. In gen- ble. Hence the crystal — which is an
trol adjusts the loudness of the output eral, the short-term stability of this easily available type and cheaper than
from the speaker. oscillator is quite good. an IF transformer!
The two main design problems this The particular circuit configuration of The reference oscillator is a simple
type of detector presents are the fre- the oscillator gave us a very useful ‘inverter’ crystal oscillator built around
bonus — dc control of the oscillator fre- one gate from a CMOS quad NAND
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Murray/Modern Magazines, reproduce for personal use only
ETI: How To Build Gold & Treasure Detectors, 1981 — Copyright
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Murray/Modern Magazines, reproduce for personal use only
gate, IC2. This has a square wave out- The secret of our metal detector’s speaker. The search and reference
put and drives a divide-by-four circuit, overall sensitivity lies in the mixer cir- oscillators must be well decoupled from
IC3, via the other three gates in IC2, cuit. This employs one section of a each other and buffered from the mixer
acting as buffers. 4013 flip-flop. The reference oscilla- stage to prevent ‘pulling’ of the oscilla-
The crystal we used is a 3.579545 tor’s divider output (at 890 kHz) is tors, which would result in erratic
ETI: How To Build Gold & Treasure Detectors, 1981 — Copyright
MHz type (NTSC chrominance sub- applied to the D input of IC4a and the operation, especially when set for a low
carrier frequency) commonly available squared-up search oscillator’s output is frequency output. We have used supply
from a number of suppliers. We used applied to the clock input. If the clock line decoupling as well as buffer stages
one in our Electronic Tuning Fork (ETI frequency (i.e the search oscillator fre- after each oscillator. We also found it
606) published November 1979. The quency) changes by 1 Hz, the output necessary to use a separate battery for
output of IC3 is at a frequency of about beat (from the Q output of IC4a) will the audio stage to prevent the very
890 kHz. The exact frequency is unim- change by 8 Hz (see ‘How it Works’), short, but high current pulses to the
portant, just so long as its stable. thus considerably multiplying the small- audio stage affecting the oscillators.
The search oscillator operates at a lit- est changes in oscillator frequency.
tle above 100 kHz, about one-eighth of The output of the mixer is fed to a The search coil
this frequency. simple audio amplifier driving a loud- The most important characteristic of
the search coil is its size. Surprisingly
enough the actual inductance doesn’t
seem to have much effect on sensitiv-
ity. The greater the coil diameter the
greater the penetration depth, but the
less sensitive it is to small objects. As a
general rule the penetration is about
equal to the search coil diameter, while
the sensitivity is roughly proportional to
the cube of the object diameter (as
expressed as a function of the search
coil diameter). Sensitivity is also
inversely proportional to the sixth
power of the distance between the coil
and the object.
All this means is that if the object size
is halved the sensitivity is reduced to
one-eighth. Also, if the depth is dou-
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mm diameter electrical conduit about to the search coil. To secure the foil tightly around the
850 mm long and make a bend about The pc board and controls are coil, and to make connection to the
100 mm from one end for the grip. To mounted to the ‘lid’ of the box. Posi- shield, wind a length of tinned copper
do this, heat the point of the bend over a tion the controls on the side that suits wire around the shield with about a
flame (not in the flame) until it softens your handedness. Our model was made 10mm pitch (i.e: about 10mm between
and then carefully bend it about 60° for right handed operators. successive turns). The end of this wire
from straight. Now for the search coil. This is is taken out at the same place as the coil
A length of aluminium tube may also wound so that it can be tucked inside connections.
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be used for the handle. The bend for the the rim of the up-turned plastic pot Now wind another two layers of insu-
grip can be made by first flattening the stand. First make a cardboard former of lation tape around the whole assembly.
point of the bend somewhat with a ham- the appropriate diameter. Roll a strip of Drill a 3 mm hole in the side of the pot
mer then placing the short piece in a heavy cardboard around the rim such stand and then press the coil down into
vice and carefully making the bend. A that it fits loosely and tape or staple it the rim with the connecting wires adja-
section of wood dowel or plastic tube securely (to avoid it popping open at an cent to the hole. Pass the wires through
should be placed between the search awkward moment). the hole. Pour quick- setting epoxy over
coil and the end of the metal tube to Lift the former off the pot stand and the coil to hold it in place.
keep the mass of metal about 200 - 250 then wind the coil onto this former as The search head is mounted to the
mm away from the search coil. A piece per the details given in the parts list. stem using two right-angle brackets and
of wood dowel of the right size, Leave a short length of wire spare on a bolt passed right through the end of
jammed in the end of the aluminium each end to make the connection. Tie the stem. Small pieces of metal here
tube, is generally the easiest way to go the coil up with a few lengths of string don’t seem to adversely affect the oper-
about it. at various places and then slide it off the ation of the detector.
We used a small aluminium box former. Now wind two layers of insula- Solder the coil connections to the
which comes in two pieces. We drilled tion tape around the coil, leading the twin shielded cable, the Faraday shield
a hole in either end of the bottom of this two ends out at the same place. connecting to the cables shield, and glue
box so that it could be slipped over the Next, wind the Faraday screen. Cut the cable and wires underneath the pot
stem (see accompanying photograph). A some aluminium kitchen foil into strips stand to hold them rigid. If you wish,
nut and bolt was used to secure it to the about 15 mm wide and wind this around the ‘underside’ of the pot stand may be
stem on the side ‘below’ the grip. The the coil to make two layers but leaving completely filled with epoxy.
ETI: How To Build Gold & Treasure Detectors, 1981 — Copyright
small speaker is mounted in this part of a small gap about 5 mm to 10 mm wide Wind the cable around the stem to
the box, before it is secured to the stem, where the coil ends come out. It is very keep it mechanically rigid and pass it
on the end which faces upward toward important that the two ends of the Fara- through a grommeted hole in the box.
the operator. A small hole is drilled in day shield do not connect as this would Terminate the cable to the pc board.
the opposite end and a grommet make a ‘shorted turn’ and the coil
inserted. This permits entry of the cable would not work as intended.
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Using it soil. Use the fine frequency control to hematite may show the effect. With the
When the construction is complete, set the beat to a low pitch and sweep search oscillator set on one side of zero
turn on the detector, advance the vol- across the surface. A metal object will beat, metal objects near the search coil
ume control and rotate the coarse cause a change in the pitch which is will cause the pitch to increase, while
frequency knob. You will hear a num- clearly audible. magnetic minerals will cause the pitch
ber of ‘heterodynes’ or beats, one being The ear is more sensitive to changes to decrease. With the search oscillator
very strong. This heterodyne is the one in pitch at low frequencies than at high set to the other side of zero beat, the
commonly used, the others being odd frequencies and thus it is best to adjust opposite will occur.
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multiples of the reference signal beat- the fine frequency control to a low pitch You could try a few experiments to
ing with multiples of the search that can be heard at a comfortable vol- show up this effect.
oscillator. You may find that some of ume from the loudspeaker. Enough theorising. In general opera-
these weaker signals are more sensitive Theoretically, the frequency of the tion, try to keep the search head a
to buried objects than the stronger one. search oscillator should increase when a constant distance from the ground and
Set the fine frequency control to non-ferrous object comes within range sweep from side to side in a regular pat-
midrange and set the course frequency of the search coil and decrease when a tern. The right technique is easily
control to near the strong heterodyne ferrous (or diamagnetic) object is within developed with a little practice.
with the search head held away from the range. This effect is difficult to detect in There are a number of books on metal
ground. Lower the detector to the practice as eddy currents in ferrous detecting available and these show the
ground and you will notice a frequency materials swamp the effect and they sort of techniques the successful trea-
shift. This is the effect of the ground react much the same as non-ferrous sure hunter employs.
and will vary between different types of metals. However, minerals such as
ETI: How To Build Gold & Treasure Detectors, 1981 — Copyright
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