Small Gold

[Anonymous]

What is the difference in PI units that are for small gold and those that are not? Is it a frequency difference? I feel nugget and beach machines are both after small gold so they would be basically the same. I'm in So. Cal., and we have lots of black sand at the beach and in desert nugget areas. Thanks, Pete

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Pete,
Both nugget hunters and gold jewellry hunters like a detector to have good sensitivity to small items. Any differences are really determined by where those items are. Nuggets are often found in areas of high iron mineralisation, and the detector has to both ignore and see through this type of ground. Beach detectors have to work against a background of the conductivity signal from wet salt sand. This latter, in particular, limits the small object sensitivity that can be used. Sometimes, as you say, there is both salt water conductivity and magnetic sand to cope with. I have used an SD2200 successfully on the beach with a special waterproof coil, although its performance is not so good on very small jewellry items and thin gold chains.
The pulse frequency is not that important. The whole circuitry, both transmitter, receiver and coil has to switch faster to achieve improved small object performance.
I have just improved the search coil windings in the Aquastar and because of the lower winding resistance, I had to drop the pulse frequency from 3000 pulses per sec. to 2500 p.p.s. to keep the current consumption the same. No change in performance though. Aquastars and Goldquests are on their way to Mr Bill right now, and both of these PI detectors have excellent response to small gold. Check them out on the Surfscanner website.
Eric.

 

[Anonymous]

Thank You, Eric.