PICKINI V4 - an easy to build, self adjusting PI detector

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The 35 nails you mentioned represents 35 holes dug. My back wouldn't last that long.
The non ferrous objects you found may have as well been found with a discriminator.
But the nicest thing about pulse machine is that it doesn't leave much behind.

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I do dig every piece of iron. Four times after removing the iron there was an old coin still in the hole.
Also, I have found several pieces of iron that are 1700's table ware and other old interesting items.

Today's hunt yielded 59 iron pieces but also pewter spoon, iron fork, 4 old shot shell heads, an ornate brass something and a 1903 Barber quarter.
35 iron items are square nails. This was a very good hunt.

Wow, didn't realize it could be that productive.
I tried my pulse machine one time and it was almost useless. Every little piece of anything iron from tiny rusty nails to wires to whatever else. I found couple of old coins and a spoon!
From there on, I always use VLf discrim.
I guess it depends on the field one is hunting.

[waltr]

I do dig every piece of iron. Four times after removing the iron there was an old coin still in the hole.
Also, I have found several pieces of iron that are 1700's table ware and other old interesting items.

Today's hunt yielded 59 iron pieces but also pewter spoon, iron fork, 4 old shot shell heads, an ornate brass something and a 1903 Barber quarter.
35 iron items are square nails. This was a very good hunt.

[dbanner]

Great report Marty.
These detectors do work in other places than the beach.

Sure, if you don't mind digging every piece of scrap iron. Or if you're out in the middle of the desert.

[MartyJ1963]

Thanks Waltr,,,,,I've got a few homemade VLF's to test out as well,,,my mate and I have finally got some farmland permission in July but he can only give us a 2 week window because he's planting again. It'll give me time though to test my T2 and home built VLF's out and see how they perform. Regards . Marty

[waltr]

Great report Marty.
These detectors do work in other places than the beach.

[MartyJ1963]

Hi everyone,,,,I finally got around to my first ever go at 'Metal detecting'! I've been building the available projects here on Geotech for about 2 years,,,and bought a T2,,,and never been Detecting until Thursday 27th, 2018. My partner and I booked a coach trip to Whitby for the day and I took along several detectors I'd built to see how they performed. The detectors I took were Minipulse Rev-E/Minipulse Rev-D/Surf PI 1.2/Barracuda/Felezjoo and the Pickini 4. I got to try them all out except the Felezjoo which will have to wait until next time now,,,not enough hours in the day!! They all performed great and I was really chuffed with having built them myself too,,apart from the Minipulse Rev-D of which Andy (Silverdog) kindly repaired for me (Cheers Andy). I'll not pipe on too much about the other detectors with it being the Pickini 4 thread but I was really amazed with the performances of all of them. Firstly, the coils I used were homemade 3DSS Coils. The elliptical coil:- 12" x 9",,[email protected],,The round coil:-11",,[email protected]. I didn't find many things (limited time) or anything exciting, but finally getting to go detecting for me was exciting enough,,lol. I found a 1p coin with the Rev-D,, a 1p coin with the Surf,,the remnants of a telescopic 'Selfie' stickwith the Barracuda,,a beer cap and a boat nail with the Pickini. The beer cap was an amazing 14 inches under the sand and the boat nail was about 10 inches deep. I've got a few things to check on my Pikini like the sensitivy po,,I dont know which way round I soldered the pot but Bernard has quite kindly guided in checking this amongst other things. I can't remember off hand without my notes but the 1p coins were 12+ inches deep in the sand and I found the selfie stick in a diagonal standing position at 10 inches. I can't get to go detecting again now until the 27th of July,, in which I'll be able to try all my PI's more thoroughly because I've booked my mates caravan for 3 nights on the East coast In Aldborough,,,he's warned me though to be careful on the beach there because the military used to hold training there and they have controlled explosions there every month,,,,,Can't wait to do it again,,,Thanks again to everyone on geotech cos' theres so much more to learn (and build,,lol). Thanks Bernard for a great little detector,,I'm in the midst of building my partner one now. Regards Marty

[BC547]

Some pictures of a 1 hour beach hunt with Pickini v4 last Saturday, just before the game of Belgium against Tunesia:






Some old coins, a lot of tent pegs and a ww2 shell case.
Bottle caps, pull tabs,...
Unfortunately no golden earrings this time.

[MartyJ1963]

Hi all,,,,yes, it was a bit of a headache getting it sorted, but I'm glad I perservered with it, I learnt quite a lot of new things too. Apparently not all the Mplab versions automatically update firmware. I found that out searching the net for answers and most of the problems I saw all related to the Pickit 3;- original Microchip make and the Pickit 3 clone. Mplab is supposed to load the firmware and install it for you but some versions don't. I installed about 6 different versions of Mplab before finding this out. Here is the forum page I found this information on- https://www.microchip.com/forums/m808413.aspx. I followed this to finally get it to work for me. Also, the software notified me that my target board needed 4.5v and not the normal 5v,,once I set the it to 4.5v, ticked the box and load the hex file, I pressed 'Program' and it erased the chip and programmed it with no more problems. I've ordered some more chips now to try my hand at some other projects. Hopefully my next venture with PICS and programming should go a little more smoothly,,lol. It was very kind of everyone to help me a long the way as well,,,much appreciated. Thanks. Marty

[waltr]

Wow Marty, I would not have guessed thees issues.
Good you finally got it working.

[6666]

Glad you got it sorted, now you might be able to teach us how to program these 8 pin and up AVR's that I hate so much

[MartyJ1963]

Hi all,,,,,..Success!....I finally sussed everything out. After downloading several different versions of Mplab and hours of installing and uninstalling,,I learnt a few things. My pickit 3 clone didnt seem to like windows 7 32 bit and also, on some versions of Mplab I installed, it warned that it may not work properly on a 32 bit OS. I found my old laptop out and luckily it was in the specs of windows 7 64-bit,,,,so I installed it. Some versions of Mplab wouldn't update the firmware for the pickit3 automatically and I needed to find a file called PICKIT3.JAR,,,unzip it, and load the firmware manually. To cut a long story short,,,I installed Mplabx v4.20 onto my 64-bit system,,,this version of windows allowed Mplab to 'see' my pickit 3 clone,,,it also allowed the target board to be powered from the Picket 3,,the target board had to be powered at 4.5v instead of 5.0v to work though. I recopied the hex code from Bernards home page (In case I made a mistake the first time) and saved it in Notepad++ as a hexfile. I then followed the instructions given on Geotech by everyone and got it to work. I want to thank you all for your help with this and to Bernard (F117) for a great project,,,,,Can't wait to try it out now!,,,,Thanks all. Marty

[MartyJ1963]

Hi all,,,,Well, I was up all night again with it last night till 9am this morning. According to the screen of mplab, it seems to have programmed the chip finally, but I won't know for definite till I check my Pickini PCB because I'm not getting the voltages on the pic16f1824 chip socket or the lm318 socket either(according to Voltages on Bernards homepage),,,,I'm going to take my time going over my board and checking everything before I try the chip and see if it programmed ok or not. I think the software and Pickit 3 clone must have not liked 32 bit cos when I re-installed windows 7 64 bit on an old laptop it recognised the pickit 3 and gave voltage to the board etc,,and seems to have programmed it cos' at the end of the sequence it displayed programmed/verified complete. Like I say, I wot know 100% till I've sorted those voltages and tried it. Thanks again all for all the help. Marty

[waltr]

Yea, there were to types of issues I ran into with the PICKit3. None of these with the PICKit2 and I also upgraded to program newer PIC processors.

From reading microchip user forum these issues are NOT just with the clones but also with the REAL PICKit3. Seems there are possible OS and/or App software issues.
The review also states about applying External Power which is an EASY workaround.

[BC547]

One of the customer reviews of such a cheap clone Pickit 3 here:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/PICKit3-Microchip-Programmer-w-USB-cable-wires-Pic-Kit-3-/331941067077?_trksid=p2349526.m4383.l4275.c10#viTabs_0

mentions updating the pickit firmware AND applying external power:

I had concerns about buying and, more importantly using, the PICkit3 programmer. After using this for a while now wish I had not waited so long to purchase it. It is a great programmer. The only things you should know is... it works much better with MPLAB 8 than MPLAB X. The problem has with MPLAB X is that there are voltage errors (saying that the microcontroller is not getting as much voltage as it should) even though it is connected directly to the programmer via a breadboard. The fix is fairly easy, just apply external power to the microcontroller. Yes, kind of stupid, but manageable. The only other issue that I have faced is when switching between families I had an issue where I could no longer program any microcontroller. Searching the web there was a lot of "bad or improper connection" issues that was not an issue. I finally found that someone mentioned manually downloading the firmware update to the PICkit3 so I did this in MPLAB 8 and it fixed that problem. I loved my PICkit2 clone but I really kind of like this PICkit3 clone too. Really only switched because I needed to program newer microcontrollers that the PICkit2 no longer supported because they no longer update the file that contains the necessary information to support newer microcontrollers. Get it, use it, enjoy programming your creations.