Barracuda PCB pics

[South Padre Treasure]

Good Morning Fellow Detectors!
I have been very interested in building a Pulse Detector, I also have heard the Baracuda is one of the best ever built. Will be using in salt water heavy mineral black sand.
I know I should have found this forum years ago, looking at the post most are very old.
Is there someone that would be willing to take the time to help with such a build. I see boards on Ebay but not sure how dependable they are. I see schematics listed i'm sure i can figure it out
with time, but at my age may not have too much time left, lol. Would be very appreciative with any and all help.
If there are kits still available i would be glad to purchase. Sold my Pulse few years back, big mistake.

Thank You!
Happy Hunting!

 

[bklein]

What do you plan to do for a coil? Very time intensive to make your own.
For my southern CA beaches the only PI that has impressed me has been my GP Extreme but the CTX or EQ is more practical. The pi’s like surf and DF for me have been very unimpressive in detecting gold in more normal sand so I don’t see the benefit in black sand... You’d have to convince me that black sand equals better depth than open air or wet clean sand....
I think you should just get a EQ600 and go hunt - I’d like to see a video of it not working well in your sands if that’s the case.

 

[South Padre Treasure]

I was planning on skipping the production of coil and purchase something that would be compatible with circuit.
I met a fellow on my last hunt using a EQ800 he likes it a lot, said he is able to find small gold chains with it. The next day he had just
received a 15 inch coil and was testing. He said it was falsing little more that stock coil in black sand area.

I did own the Whites PI with 950 dive coil, found most of my rings with it. Why i sold it i dont know, asked my friend
to sell it back, but he sold to coworker that forgot to replace seal and flooded. Tried to buy coil and parts since he couldn't use it. He stated
he threw it in the dumpster, what a shame.

I bought a Excalibur II still trying to learn the machine and mod it for my needs, but i need a Pulse machine to have as another tool in the bag of tricks.
I keep hearing of the Manta, but will have to sell off some stuff to afford that right now.

I have a Tesoro Stingray i was going to use as housing and possibly my shaft for build but unsure if this project will ever get underway still in planning phase.

 

[bklein]

I pretty much started beach hunting with a surf pi pro, bought another, and recently got a DF to compare. I had a lot of fun with the surf pi but the beaches have changed. I used to hit pockets of old coins but haven’t seen one of those in 4 years or so. Stuff is deeper or recent drops in the wet or dry sand. So the pi will work for this but I took all of them to my local beach and tested against the equinox, ctx, and Extreme. These blew the pi’s away. Guys say pi’s do better in wet sand than air. That doesn’t make sense to me and I don’t see it in tests. Maybe some truth if the target was inplace for months but I suspect even then the other detectors would do better. Just hold a gold ring under the coil of a pi vs an equinox. With some pi’s you have to be within 4” of the coil. Sure guys have found rings with them at 15” but they have a good example of a machine and I don’t think typical example of a machine. After saying all this though I sold my Equinox after 8 months of trying to be happy with it vs my ctx. I went back to the Ctx and had a 5 ring day. Back to the equinox and just foil bits and dig everything like a pi. It is very sensitive though and I probably was running it too hot. I may get another someday - and sell several detectors it does a good job of replacing.
You could try modding the excal. Ive done two. Interchangeable coils. Have one with a big NEL coil on it and it is super hot and fun to use.
I am in so CA and could put the pcb together for you - I’m just curious to see how it does with my spare df coil. You would have to take it from there though with your own enclosure, coil, battery etc.