How to Make Homemade Metal Detector (AM radio, calculator, tape)

[bergie]

Interesting...sorry about Star Wars guy in upper left

http://www.geekarmy.com/cool/Homemade-Metal-Detector.html

 

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[An Ri Rua]

Interesting...sorry about Star Wars guy in upper left

http://www.geekarmy.com/cool/Homemade-Metal-Detector.html

Interesting. I've tried this and it worked well for surface materials. Has anyone ever tried this for depth? Reason being, using a metal detector is more or less illegal here in Ireland (convoluted proof of use law). So getting something makeshift confiscated by the law (or a cheap secondhand Bounty Hunter Tracker IV, if I can get one!) wouldn't be so bad.

 

[SHERMANVILLE ILLINOIS]

Bergie,
interesting post.
Thanks

have a good un...
SHERMANVILLE

 

[Roln99]

Very Interesting!!!

How did you come up with this idea

 

[An Ri Rua]

Very Interesting!!!

How did you come up with this idea

I read on an English detecting site only last night where a guy was reviewing an Ace 150 that he and his son had reviewed for garysdetecting.co.uk.

THey mentioned meeting an old man on their riverbank detecting travels and he was also detecting. Anywya, he said that back in the day that they used to strap an old transistor to a broom handle and that was what they used for a detector !!

 

[boogeyman]

Might want to try this for stealth detecting. Received this from a friend as a gag gift. Strap it to the side of your shoe. I only gotta worry about looking like Tinkerbelle swishing my foot back & forth, to & fro. Still haven't figured out how to stealthly dig the find.

 

[An Ri Rua]

Nice one Boogeyman

http://www.wizarddetectors.com/walkseek.cfm I actually may send for one of those. Discreet for checking for clad in certain areas where its likely to gather.Near where drunks pay for stuff or near petrol stations

If the Depression hits, clad could be the new gold!!

 

[ldablo]

i've seen that foot thingamajig.

good idea--bad color.

i'd paint it flat black.

LD

 

[jb7487]

I don't think the foot thing would really work that well. It would only detect where your foot hit the ground. So unless you are going to shuffle your feet like a human "choo-choo" I don't see how you are going to get much out of it. It would be in contact with the ground for so little time that it would probably be worthless. But if you did want to persue this type of covert detector I wonder if it might not be better to just create a coil that could be tacked to the bottom of your shoe? A small 1/2" deep coil placed on your heel (like the heel of a boot) probably wouldn't be too bad. Then you'd run the wires up your leg and into a standard MD control box. It's just an idea.

As for digging discretely, I've thought before about how I would do this in a public area. I would take a picnic basket and make the bottom be a trap door. Then I'd set it over the area and dig the plug inside of it. People would think that you were rooting around for something in the basket. Be sure to take a giant blanket with you and spread it out. You could also use a handheld detector over top of the blanket to find your next target to dig. If you act like you are doing something normal then people won't pay any attention to you at all. Having a "partner in crime" to enjoy your picnic with would help as well. Basically, you'd look like two people having a picnic and you'd end up scooting your blanket by 5' or so every few minutes. You'd cover the area one blanket at a time until you had found whatever you were looking for. It is certainly not foolproof but it might do the trick depending on where and what you are digging.

Going back to the homemade metal detector, I've seen that one before. I remember reading somewhere that doesn't actually work very well and can be hard to tune correctly. The nice thing about it is that you don't need any electronics experience to create one. But if you do have electronics experience, there are plenty of other schematics out there on the web for detectors that would likely work better than the calculator kind.

 

[ldablo]

all this creativity on different ways to detect is very cool.

sooner or later somebody's gonna come up with something really good.

yeah, i thought about that shoe thing. you could get a metaless shoe and cut a spot in the bottom for a small coil and you'd be all set. i'm sure with some experimentation you could figure out a way to search that wouldn't look too strange. kind of a "moonwalking hiker" approach.

LD

 

[jb7487]

kind of a "moonwalking hiker" approach

That gave me a good laugh! Thanks!

 

[dasherhunting]

How about one of those coolers on wheels with the detector mounted on bottom side as you pull it across a civil war battlefield to enjoy a picnic lol