Digger_O'Dell
12-16-2016, 02:18 AM
Hi all,
I've been wanting to try out a PI detector for a while but the cost of buying anything decent is prohibitive right now. I had thought about trying to rent one to see how it goes, but haven't had any luck locally finding one. Only out west in gold country, and even then they are $50 plus a day.
Thinking outside the box so to speak, and being technically minded I had thought about a DIY kit that I've seen around. As it turns out most of those are very simple, basic units. Basically like a bit higher power pinpointer. But I found one during some long hard research that may be a good affordable compromise with a few surprising and innovative features such as discrimination and a VDI. Seems the East European countries are the places to look for the best tech lately like the NEL coils everyone swears by. So here's the eBay listing:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/332060418699
I've been corresponding with the seller and the few drawbacks are that it's works only with a mono coil, and it doesn't have great depth on coin size targets. Basically comes down to a quarter size target air testing about 12 inches with an 11 inch coil. The discrimination mode loses about 10% on depth, but I guess modes could be toggled as needed before digging too deep, yet still get max depth. I would also guess in soil or sand that depth would probably increase at least 50% like vlf detectors do. Another thought of course would be a larger coil for depth as well, and the experimentation I think would be fun.
Thoughts anyone?
I've been wanting to try out a PI detector for a while but the cost of buying anything decent is prohibitive right now. I had thought about trying to rent one to see how it goes, but haven't had any luck locally finding one. Only out west in gold country, and even then they are $50 plus a day.
Thinking outside the box so to speak, and being technically minded I had thought about a DIY kit that I've seen around. As it turns out most of those are very simple, basic units. Basically like a bit higher power pinpointer. But I found one during some long hard research that may be a good affordable compromise with a few surprising and innovative features such as discrimination and a VDI. Seems the East European countries are the places to look for the best tech lately like the NEL coils everyone swears by. So here's the eBay listing:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/332060418699
I've been corresponding with the seller and the few drawbacks are that it's works only with a mono coil, and it doesn't have great depth on coin size targets. Basically comes down to a quarter size target air testing about 12 inches with an 11 inch coil. The discrimination mode loses about 10% on depth, but I guess modes could be toggled as needed before digging too deep, yet still get max depth. I would also guess in soil or sand that depth would probably increase at least 50% like vlf detectors do. Another thought of course would be a larger coil for depth as well, and the experimentation I think would be fun.
Thoughts anyone?