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

[nick holas]

Hi Bernard how are you?
Very good video,hère we can sée your very good métal détector capacities
Will send you photos,now i m in weekend!!!!! Ouf!!!!
Finishing enclosure ans shaft

[6666]

The video on reply #108 has no sound, but the video on f117 website works ok

[Tim]

Thanks Bernard. That is OK, but maybe some tweaking is required. Still a great project well worth pursuing,. I will be trying a smaller and lower inductance coil first.

[BC547]

Can you estimate at what distance it can detect that coin on the rock please?

A 10 Eurocent coin is harder to detect with a PI detector than a (smaller) 5 cent coin, that is basically copper clad iron.
The 10 ct coin can be detected at 20-25 cm with the 28 cm (11 " ) coil you see in the video. A 5 ct coin ( the iron one ) will give slightly more depth.
The main disadvantage of this coil is that I sometimes end up digging deep holes to retrieve a soda can...

[Tim]

Video worked fine for me. Volume was Ok too. Thanks very much Bernard. Can you estimate at what distance it can detect that coin on the rock please?
I have been busy, but I am reasonably confident to burn the chip, now understanding jumpers, and thanks to the information from 6666, which I have now had time to digest.

[ripsdevala]

Nice video bernard, need to buffer it first to play, cant open from mobile device for the ogg. Mov video is downloading here on android, not playing

[eclipse]

http://users.telenet.be/willaert/MD/pickini/pics/v4/PickiniV4.mov

[BC547]

Added a .mov file = H264, next to the ogg format.
I assume that one of the 2 should work in your browser.

[BC547]

Cant open the video

I tried with Chromium and Firefox. Both worked fine.
It is an .ogg video file.

[ripsdevala]

Cant open the video
In few days the ic will arrive, looking forward to this

[BC547]

I made a short video in 2 parts:

1. Pickini V4 swinging over a heavily mineralized rock from our garden ( a stepping stone, or something like that... ). A normal induction balance detector like my XP GoldmaxxPower will detect the rock and give a clear signal. Since Pickini V4 is a PI detector, it does not detect the rock. You should only hear the idle "tick" sound at 1Hz. Unfortunately, my video skills are very limited. I hooked up a small loudspeaker to the headphone jack to pick up the sound with my digital camera, but it is heardly audible.

2. A 10 Eurocent coin is placed on top of the rock. Pickini V4 detects it. The detection sound is also audible when you crank up the volume.
Then, the pinpoint button is pushed and the coil hovers over the rock, detecting the coin continuously ( no motion mode ).

With my apologies for the amateuristic video. I tried to upload it to youtube, but after logging in, I got a constant error :
Sorry, an unexpected error has occurred. Please try again later.

I tried "later" a couple of times, but it didn't work.

Instead, I placed the small footprint video on my own web space:

http://users.telenet.be/willaert/MD/pickini/pickini_en/V4/technical.html

Enjoy,
- Bernard

[BC547]

Needless to say, this contraption needs a new IC socket now and again...
The LED is just an indication that power is provided from the PICKit programmer.

[BC547]

I have been using a simple 8 pin socket on a piece of breadboard as the interface to the PICKit3 for years now, with different sorts of PICs.
The 8 pin devices simply go into the socket, the 14 pin devices have their top 8 pins inserted - pin 1 = VCC and pin 14 = GND.



Pinout to the PICKit 3 controller ( with pin 1 of PICKit = triangle )

PICKit --------- socket
1 -------------->4
2 -------------->1
3--------------->8
4--------------->7
5 -------------->6
6 NC

[Tim]

Great help thanks 6666. That is a very helpful format of instruction for me. Very much appreciated. Hopefully I will get to it later today.

Thanks Bernte- I didn't even look at that. Yes, mine too has the outlines and tracings on the back, and I now notice about A/B positions on J2-J7.

Thank you both very much!

[6666]

I have made some pictures to try and help, buzz with meter before you plug into laptop
if all buzz's ok
the chip i think should plug in where shown you will get the idea
next connect the ribbon cable so vpp lines up with say the blue wire on pickit and iscp, thats matching the white triangle
the ribbon cable only plugs in 2 ways

if it buzz's ok next plug the pickit cable into usb

start mplab I use v8.76
in configure select chip
in programmer select pickit
then in programmer - then settings select power and tick "power target circuit"
at this point you may get a message saying that some software needs to be downloaded to pickit, select yes
if all is well you should see an ID come back from chip in OUTPUT WINDOW
now go to file, then import and navigate to folder where you have the hex file, select the file
on the right of the top line of program you will see 7-8 little symbols, as you move your mouse over each one it will tell you the function of each one
such as program and erase

I always erase the chip first

so hit erase
you should see some actiivity in the OUTPUT screen window
if all good chip should erase

then hit program, you should see some activity in the OUTPUT screen window

if all good you should get a message saying done or complete something like that
hope this helps and I have it all correct good luck