Pul;se Devil at Ganes creek

[TerryinHawaii]

I just returned from a two week trip hunting for gold nuggets at Ganes Creek Alaska. The second week Dave Emery showed up with his new Pulse Devil PIB prototype detector. I have attached a picture of Dave using his Pulse Devil prototype. Some of the people came with guns incase of problems with bears. Dave had a new pistrol that was given to him by his wife.
The 2nd picture shows the 0.455 ounce gold and quartz nugget that Dave found next to a piece of iron that people using a MXT missed. The Pulse Devil was able to show that there was two target close together and identify that one was iron and the other target was not iron. Dave also found a nugget using the MXT since the prototype Pulse Devil is not water proof.

Terry in Hawaii

 

[Paul (Ca)]

Hi Terry,

Many thanks to people like Eric and Dave for bringing fresh ideas to the table, Both men are the best and have allot in store for us in the future.

I've always known the Pi will be the future machine for relic and other types of hunting, Good targets masked from iron will not affect a pi that other machines would normally see the iron instead of the good target. It's going to take a tone Pi to set the pace. Or, A single tone Pi that can disc out the iron yet see the good target.

Even a single tone pi that can disc out the iron yet see a coin, relic or gold nugget would be a great major step, Fantastic what Eric and Dave have been doing to keep us on the upper edge.

All the best, Paul (Ca)

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Paul, read Terry's wording again: he said the nugget was found "next to" a piece of iron. I don't think the machine can see "under" iron, as you are implying. Hopefully someone can chime in though, and clarify.

Terry, in your well-known experience in turf/park hunting, do you think this machine could ever be a turf hunter? Like, you know, passing tabs and iron, and getting deeeeep silver from the parks? Or is like any pulse, which can 1) not tell low from high conductors, and 2) prefer iron over conductors in general? On the beach, it's no secret that a good pulse machine can get a dime or quarter at a foot deep. That depth is un-heard of in turf hunting, unless someone elected to go into all-metal mode. Can this new Pulse Devil go into the parks, and pass iron and low conductors (yes, we'll skip the nickels foil and tabs for now - hahaha) yet still get great depth on silver and copper?

 

[TerryinHawaii]

Since Dave and I shared a cabin together. I had the time to take a good look at the Pulse Devil. Dave explained it to me pretty well. This is what Dave told me.


The Pulse Devil has a full range adjustable discrimination control just like a VLF. It is also possible to add a notch accept / reject to the detector although this feature was not on the detector I saw. There is a switch which either selects the full range discrimination control or sets the discrimination to Ferrous / Non Ferrous.
Dave said that he is working on an additional circuit which will allow the detector to ignore iron altogether. This he has not yet tested other than on the bench.
Dave said that the Pulse Devil is a true PI. It will discriminate using a balanced coil such as a DD or a coplanar but it will also work as a regular all metal PI using a mono coil.
The Pulse Devil has two switch selectable ground balance controls. The first is a VLF style 10 turn control and the second is a single turn control for salt water.
The prototype uses two meters. One meter indicates all metal signal strength and the other is center reading and swings left for reject targets and left for accept targets. I suggested to Dave that he combine the two functions in one meter.
Dave said that the detector can be used in either zero motion or auto tuned without any overshoot blanking. There is a retune speed control and a push button for instant retuning which is used for pinpointing etc.
Dave pointed out that this detector is still very much a prototype. It is going to take some time for him to complete it.

So Tom to answer your question if it can be come a turf hunter. Yes, it should be able to when Dave get every thing working right.

Terry in Hawaii

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Terry, thanx for the reply. To clarify, when you say it can be made to "ignore iron altogether", did you mean reject, as like a VLF discriminator does, or to "see through", ala Compass 77b style? Some people use the word "ignore iron" when referring to regular discriminators...... but we all know that while it rejects the iron, it's also rejecting (masking) goodies underneath it. Which will it be for the Pulse Devil?

Next, since this is a pulse, will favor low conductors over high conductors? I know that pulse units on the beach now, report depths of up to a foot on dimes, and deeper still on nickels. Do you think this machine could pass up low conductors and iron, yet still get a penny/dime/quarter at a ft. deep? What's the expected depth on high conductor coins?

Right now, it seems that the deepest seeking park machines (the Explorer) max at about 10 to 11" (and that's with a lot of liberal guesswork and chasing some ghosts). For more accurate correct calls, it's more like 9" to 10" max for regular park hunting on silver. Do you think the Pulse Devil can exceed that, and reliably pass junk?

 

[Paul (Ca)]

Hi Tom,

Most of the higher end pulse detectors will not detect a penny, dime or quarter as deep as the upper end VLF detectors, The newer more advanced Pi's are geared for gold a much lower conductive alloy. Now, With the tone Pi's coming out I can image depth will be the same with all conductors.

I've had a small taste of a tone pi, The Garrett Infinium was my recent tone Pi. However, Even though it's not near the machine as Eric's new tone pi or Dave's pi it was enough to give me my first taste of what a tone pi can do in a iron laced site.

The down side to the Garrett infinium it's impossible to tell an iron signal from a high conductor such as penny, dime and quarters or silver, It did separate the lower conductors from most of the iron but the larger iron pieces would bleed through but for the most part it did a decent job of avoiding the masking of medium to small iron near lower conductors. Even covered a nickel with square nails "completely covered" and the Infinium still seen the nickel without responding to the iron nails, To me, the Infnium was a crude detector compared to what Eric and Dave have come up with. Also, The Garrett infinium tones drove me nuts!

Based from this, I new right there the future tone pi will be the machine to use in sites of iron with a much better chance of getting good conductors masked by iron. You're a relic hunter tom with allot of older sites of mission era, What Eric and Dave have in store for us in the future will us enable us to go back to our old sites and pickup stuff our VLF detectors had missed due to iron masking.

HH, Paul (Ca)

 

[Paul (Ca)]

Hi Tom,

Hope Terry doesn't mind me hopping on board here, Since I am a turf hunter as you here's my two cents worth

To be honest, Different machines for certain types of hunting have always been our why of life. For me, I would use the machines Eric and Dave have designed or any future machines they have in store for beach, gold nugget or relic hunting in mineralized soil or iron laced sites. I feel the upper end VLF machines will always have their place such as deep turf hunting, But, when the soil get's nasty and full of iron the future Pi will be the detector of choice for these types of conditions.

HH, Paul (Ca)

 

[desertdon]

I do not think it will be so definitive with tone to detect coins, the decay rate along with the tX pulse length and sampling time will determine how detectable your coins would be, right now there are set more for small gold, even though you can with the Infinium dig Low-Hi and not do bad, Steve Herschback tried it one time, you might read his site at Alaska mining and Supply to find out more. Don

 

[Tom_in_CA]

ok, so the "long and short" of this is, that no pulse machine is being developed that can see high conductor coins (penny/dimes) deeper than a standard VLF discriminator. Right? Then for silver, this is not the better mousetrap for park hunting, right?

The only other land use I can see then, is if it truly can "see through" nails (vs "reject") to get both high conductors and low conductors. If that were the case, depth would not be an issue. Relic hunters (ghost towns, demos, ruins, etc...) would pay big bucks to get a machine that can do that. We use the 77b for that at present, and has poor depth, and is a bear to keep balanced.

If "seeing through" iron for both high and low conductors isn't gonna happen with the Pulse Devil either, then that only leaves it as a beach or nugget machine.

 

[TerryinHawaii]

QUESTION:
when you say it can be made to "ignore iron altogether", did you mean reject, as like a VLF discriminator does, or to "see through", ala Compass 77b style? Some people use the word "ignore iron" when referring to regular discriminators...... but we all know that while it rejects the iron, it's also rejecting (masking) goodies underneath it. Which will it be for the Pulse Devil?

I was not with Dave when he found the gold nugget next to a piece of iron. But I did some air testing to see that it would identify iron as iron. Dave is working on a circuit that he says will be able to ignore iron while telling you what is below the iron. But I am guessing that it would depend how big the iron items in relationship to the good target below it on how well this circuit will work.

QUESTION:
since this is a pulse, will it favor low conductors over high conductors? I know that pulse units on the beach now, report depths of up to a foot on dimes, and deeper still on nickels. Do you think this machine could pass up low conductors and iron, yet still get a penny/dime/quarter at a ft. deep? What's the expected depth on high conductor coins?

Dave told me that the Pulse Devil uses long transmit pulses which will give it more depth on other coins then nickels. This will be a great feature for old silver coin hunters. But the machine will still be very sensitivity to small gold. If I remember right, he said that it should have gotten 11 or 12 inches on a dime with a 6 3/4 inch coil. A course with a larger coil, it would be able to get much more depth. The Pulse Devil also has a full range discrimination control which goes all the way from nails to nickel.

QUESTION:
Right now, it seems that the deepest seeking park machines (the Explorer) max at about 10 to 11" (and that's with a lot of liberal guesswork and chasing some ghosts). For more accurate correct calls, it's more like 9" to 10" max for regular park hunting on silver. Do you think the Pulse Devil can exceed that, and reliably pass junk?

Dave had placed the Pulse Devil in his luggage. It appeared to either damaged in shipping or else security has open the Pulse Devil to see what was inside since Dave has shipped it with both batteries packs installed. So Dave was not able to demonstrate the depth that he claimed it would get if working properly. We took the Pulse Devil a part to see if we could find the problem but could not. Dave e-mailed me after he got home that a couple of surface mount resistors were missing. This caused the Pulse Devil to have greatly reduced sensitivities. But lucky, all of the features still did work.
Dave has been working on this design for 5 years now. He did take a prototype to England last year and found a lot of good items. But he did make some major changes in the circuits based on what he learned in England. Dave has been working on this machine for over five years. The Pulse Devil is a labor of love to him.

Terry in Hawaii

 

[TerryinHawaii]

Tom,
There are different people designing PI machines to do what you are hoping for. But it takes time and money to develop these machines.

Terry in Hawaii

 

[Mark Pauls]

Hi Terry
So you met Dave, great guy, I will meet him later in September this year in UK. We have meet ones a year for the last 3 years. Dave and me have shared friendship, lot of Ideas and technical informations during the years and I love his "out of the box" thinking.

I know what Dave is doing, its simple, instead of trying to copy everybody else or try to rebuild older circuits with modern, Dave simply started from scratch. He trow away the old circuits used logical thinking to build a new 100% stable and fully noise free circuit. Dave build from the two viewpoints "Do not build a noise receiver" and "Do not create the noise yourself" .

Dave then said to himself, "If a circuit can eliminate ground, it would also depending on the right adjustment remove Iron". Dave managed to do that, as a kind of ASP or Analog Signal Processing, instead of DSP (Digital) as most would think to be the logical step.

When a circuit do NOT see ground and Iron, what would it see then? simply the other stuff, thats it. Thats why Dave's Pulse Devil walks over Iron, with full sensitivity.

Dave has run into high walls, but he climped them or broke them down, I have rebuild small part of his circuit during time and now exactly why its working and also that it is working. In my opinion it works because, Dave have the best analog brain I ever has come across.

Best regards
Mark

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Terry, in the form you saw it in now, can the Pulse Devil discern the difference between high conductors and low conductors, while still nixing iron? Or do high conductors sound the same as nails?

 

[TerryinHawaii]

Tom,

At the present time, the Pulse Devil does not have tone ID. Dave said that he can add tone ID if wanted. Or he could set it up with three tones. Say a low tone for iron, medium for low conductors and a high tone for high conductors.

Terry in Hawaii