SandPig update

[Anonymous]

I took my modified SandShark to Florida to try it in the surf. I had replaced the 3.57MHz crystal with a 6MHz crystal, which shortened the sample delay down to about 15us. The side effect is that it also raises the audio frequency, although it is not significant and I hardly noticed it.
Tropical Storm Bill had just gone by, and the surf was pretty rough all week. However, the SS performed just fine, I could not see any down-side to using the higher freq. crystal. Salt was still ignored, detector ran smooth. I still hate those flat-disc coils, flopped all over the place in the surf.
- Carl

 

[Anonymous]

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[Anonymous]

Did they originally use a TV Color Oscillator Crystal? (3.579mhz) They would have been very inexpensive to use and they were easily available practically anywhere. I think at one time Radio Shack even sold them <img src="/metal/html/smile.gif" border=0 width=15 height=15 alt=""> ) <img src="/metal/html/smile.gif" border=0 width=15 height=15 alt=""> What was the original Pulse Delay on the Sand Shark? Also did you have to make any other modifications to make it work with the 6mhz crystal?
Thanks
HH
Beachcomber

 

[Anonymous]

No other mods, and the freq. info is in other posts in this forum, look for the topic "SandPig". The crystal is a surface-mount Panasonic and is hard as hell to get off.
- Carl

 

[Anonymous]

[No message]

 

[Anonymous]

Unfortunately sometimes manufacturer's glue as well as solder the surface mount parts in place. It can make it really tough to get them off. Thanks for the info. I will read back through the Posts about your mod.
HH
Beachcomber