Voodoo Main Discussion

[SilverSurfer17]

I guess you haven't read the sheet on the chip he choose he is running it at 20mhz and it can be run at 24mhz according to the data sheet and im guessing what people are not understanding is that better chips have been mixed in and some can easily be ran at over 80mhz they do it to fill orders so no point in changing chips just check it and yes it is free but a waste of time !

[kt315]

in mandarin using punctiation is absent. - The hieroglyphes, Carl.

[Carl-NC]

Surfer, there is no extra charge on Geotech for using punctuation, and it would make your posts so much easier to read.

[waltr]

Yeah i knew it would change other things speeds and functions you're increasing the timing on everything like fast forwarding threw a movie i just got my first part ironic the on off switch ok ill build the board get it working then ill be back to pick George's brain since he knows the software and hardware and what i want to do with his idea

MDtoday gave you very good answers.
Also, Many of your questions are already heavily discussed in this forum. READ the many threads and posts to get those answers. For one higher coil current makes the receive side much, much harder to do. Build a simple PI circuit and try this.
As for PIC's, overVoltage and overclocking is a bad idea. A much better choice is choosing a new PIC that is designed to run with a higher speed clock. I suggested in a post above porting to a PIC18F26Q10 which runs at 64MHz and have been playing with a PIC32 running at 200MHz, so these options are available. Check the "Programming" sub-forum for discussion of other PICs.
This does require learning how to setup the various PIC peripherals by reading the data sheet. Mods to the VooDoo PIC code can then be done (George has published the source code here so any of us can make changes if desired).

[SilverSurfer17]

Yeah i knew it would change other things speeds and functions you're increasing the timing on everything like fast forwarding threw a movie i just got my first part ironic the on off switch ok ill build the board get it working then ill be back to pick George's brain since he knows the software and hardware and what i want to do with his idea

[Mdtoday]

Lol I get it now most of the people on here are newbs and in the same boat as I am with this and I sure hope not many can’t even get it up and running and tuned I know I can do that any board I ever seen I could copy stuff it burn the files to a eprom adjust the power supply and off and running and tuning it to the coil isn’t rocket science so that’s why I moved ahead to the mods I wanted before I even messed with the board because if there something I should change I don’t want to be soldier sucking parts out that’s why I went with sockets I noticed he is using a 20mhz crystal and I know the micro says 24mhz can be used max and on some chips can go way higher if they where mixed in because of having to fill runs so I’m curious what controls that fly back signal speed if it’s not the micro controller

I wouldn't say "most of the people on here are newbs", there are many members with varying degrees of skill, from newbs to technically competent and beyond.

As to the PIC it is not just a matter of changing the clock speed, you then need to look at how that change affects the different peripherals, one in particular is the ADC setup/conversion time for instance and it's not the only one.
A proportional change in clock speed in a PIC can not really be viewed the same as standard processor with external memory peripherals and wait states.

The TX speed is controlled by the PIC but it is not it's only function and so you will need to study the Voodoo firmware and PIC data sheet to see what changes would be required to suit what you want to achieve. Experiment and start a new thread perhaps..
I won't post anymore on this particular subject in this thread as it is getting a little off topic.

cheers

[SilverSurfer17]

Lol I get it now most of the people on here are newbs and in the same boat as I am with this and I sure hope not many can’t even get it up and running and tuned I know I can do that any board I ever seen I could copy stuff it burn the files to a eprom adjust the power supply and off and running and tuning it to the coil isn’t rocket science so that’s why I moved ahead to the mods I wanted before I even messed with the board because if there something I should change I don’t want to be soldier sucking parts out that’s why I went with sockets I noticed he is using a 20mhz crystal and I know the micro says 24mhz can be used max and on some chips can go way higher if they where mixed in because of having to fill runs so I’m curious what controls that fly back signal speed if it’s not the micro controller

[Mdtoday]

I bought all the best parts I could that digikey had waterproof 5 pin male and female for the RG58U coax all gold contact ic dip sockets all gold test points multi colored screen waterproof push buttons and switch the best caps and resistors I?m at about $240 so far lol I want to make it so whoever just sees it asks about it let alone begs to use it

Lots of questions, some of which you could maybe answer yourself once you build the project as per original design and read back over the book.

A lot of folk are still building so are probably fixated on getting their units up and running, so any answers to questions related to mods at this point in time are not really relevant or high on the agenda.
You can see in post #1 that any errata related notes are posted by Qiaozhi as they come to his attention via readers/builders.

As to your ideas of powering the PIC from 6v or the overclocking, there is no reason to do this, it will gain you a dead chip in the first case and wasted power/ instability in the second.
Yes, you can overclock but you can also introduce PLL timing jitter along with it and in all honesty, for this build and the timing signal and frequency involved, you don't need to overclock.
Absolute maximum ratings are just that, they have a little margin but are not meant for continuous operation at those levels. If you want reliability in a product, stick within a device's datasheet limits.
I'm not sure it makes that much sense to make modifications to the existing design before one understands the functional blocks and has a working unit.
I do get where you are coming from and can see your enthusiasm but when I first read your sequence of posts, I thought you were taking the Micky out of everyone.
My advice is to build the unit as is per design first, then start your mods, don't add to the confusion for if/when things go wrong on the first build.
Bells and whistles are nice but don't always make for a better detector.
No one is trying to discredit you for asking questions and it doesn't mean your ideas should stop flowing, they are best put into context of the thread that's all.


Sometimes, as Qiaozhi has said, it would be best to put your mod ideas/questions into a separate thread as some of the posts don't appear as related to Voodoo.

Please post pictures of your finished Voodoo detector when you have it done , it will be great to see the all different completed builds folk come up with.


Cheers

[SilverSurfer17]

I bought all the best parts I could that digikey had waterproof 5 pin male and female for the RG58U coax all gold contact ic dip sockets all gold test points multi colored screen waterproof push buttons and switch the best caps and resistors I?m at about $240 so far lol I want to make it so whoever just sees it asks about it let alone begs to use it

[SilverSurfer17]

I’m just curious what this forum is for if not to ask questions about it and you your self said you want to see what can be done with it that’s what I want to do and any help doing it would be greatly appreciated like the led idea

[SilverSurfer17]

All of it does considering I bought your board and $150 in parts for it and I’d like to do all of it

[SilverSurfer17]

How hard is to change those frequencies that it?s more tuned for like I live in Illinois I don?t expect to find much gold but I know I will find silver so can I set it up for 5khz for here then when I go the beach in Alabama to my Parents can I set it high for other metals like gold with just another different coil and have a way to switch it without having to change stuff on the board

[SilverSurfer17]

I read that to detect for silver look for a detector that works on 5khz now is that the tuning of the coil or the timing of the pulses or what that makes a detector work on that frequency more then another I assume it’s the windings in the coil then what works better on lower frequencies fast pulses slow pulses one big blast pulse multiple ?

[SilverSurfer17]

Whats faster a mosfet or a solid state relay do either one affect a signals frequency because of the speed of either I dont know but Ill blow some stuff up to find out if I have to Ill build a damn board with just those parts to test it and find out if raising the voltage and amperage with both changes it and learn from it

[Qiaozhi]

I mean you guys are suppose to be experts whats the limits for voltage amperage to coils I know with Tesla coils more voltage amperage the better the coil is tuned to the caps the better it performs and I know it has to be true with MD because they have stuff like those two boxes that detect feet into the ground instead of inches so whats the limit in these handhelds traces on the boards caps resistors transistors all of the above I assume all that can be made stronger and Im not worried about battery size

Please put your thoughts in separate thread, as none of this has anything to do with the Voodoo Project.