Pulse Star II (first analog version)

[ivconic]

Lately I've been enjoying watching TV programs like "National Geography, History channel, etc.)
On one of those TV channels, the series "Australian gold hunters" is broadcast...
Well, that's a completely different story!
A typical example, a married couple, with a couple of Minelab machines, get into a big off-road truck, drive far into the wilderness and in a few days/weeks collect 1-3 kg of gold nuggets.
That is something completely different! That makes sense! But I don't live in Australia... so I can only see it from here as a nice story.

[ivconic]

Since the detector business "died" a long time ago, there is no justification for wasting time on more serious work... except for hobby purposes.
And today in the era of cheap processors; it is much smarter to deal with programming instead of tedious reverse engineering of other people's work, especially when it comes to such a outdated detector as PS2.
However, a good magnetometer/gradiometer, with multiple sensors, with good software, can provide much more than even the deepest PI detector.
Magnetometers do not "see" desirable metals, one would think.
But if we reduce the story to essential facts from real fields;
there are very few cases (if any) that valuables are buried at great depths by themselves without additional material that surrounds them (metal boxes, cash registers, ceramic containers, smaller spaces walled with ceramic materials, etc.).
In the past 40 years, I have heard of many cases of finding valuables. But I don't remember ever hearing that those valuables were found alone, as such, in the ground.
There was always a "box", a "container", a "room". Something that always has enough material with good magnetic properties in its composition.
And that's what a good magnetometer/gradiometer can see.
So the practical question arises; why would I invest a lot of work, effort, resources... in the development of a PI detector: if I can achieve much better results and much greater depths with a magnetometer/gradiometer?
Almost ten years ago, I asked myself this question. And since then I've been much more interested in magnetometer/gradiometer technology.
For "shallow" finds I still have a dozen good VLF I/B detectors and a couple of PI detectors, and for serious deep finds; so far I have not seen anything more effective than a magnetometer/gradiometer.
In my opinion, the effort in designing a better PI detector only makes sense when it comes to very fast PI detectors that will successfully find gold nuggets at shallow depths.
It is precisely the area that Minelab deals with and in which Minelab has gone the furthest.
The time has come when it is much smarter and cheaper to save money and buy such an advanced Minelab; rather then to struggle and delude yourself with illusions that you can achieve something more than what Minelab has achieved so far.
The choice is made easier for me by the fact that I don't have gold nuggets in my area (if there are, I'm not too interested), so my interests are primarily focused on ancient finds.

[ivconic]

As an operator I say that it is a good machine,
it is really useful especially for us here in the
Balkans, it has passed through my hands 3 times and so I can compare with others.
for me personally the Lorentz x3 is much better, but that does not matter.
But as an electronics engineer, its construction is not at all familiar, it does not comply with
the standards of how a construction of this type should be, at all.
I believe that there is some point in the circuit that deserves attention,
If the printed circuit board is redesigned and some modifications are made
I believe it will work even better, but that takes time for construction and testing.

The PS2 has a really interesting concept. A lot would be gained by adding GEB.
As far as Lorenz is concerned, my experiences are poor, I have had the opportunity to use only one older model DeepMax.
I noticed that it is much "stronger" than the PS2 and is more prone to the influence of soil.
My brother-in-law found gold earrings with it, but he had to keep the coil almost 50cm from the soil surface.

[Orbit]

https://youtube.com/shorts/4aLsPUmg2...71gUckFHS-C4F3. https://youtube.com/shorts/m2DYWhcvv...po9bp0jrc_TV3i

[Xtrem]

As an operator I say that it is a good machine,
it is really useful especially for us here in the
Balkans, it has passed through my hands 3 times and so I can compare with others.
for me personally the Lorentz x3 is much better, but that does not matter.
But as an electronics engineer, its construction is not at all familiar, it does not comply with
the standards of how a construction of this type should be, at all.
I believe that there is some point in the circuit that deserves attention,
If the printed circuit board is redesigned and some modifications are made
I believe it will work even better, but that takes time for construction and testing.

[ivconic]

If someday I have the opportunity to have the original Pulse Star 2, I would do tests with a 28-coil so that the colleagues who make the board know what to expect and how the original works.

I bought my first Pulse Star 2 Pro sometime in the early 2000s.
I sold it to a local friend sometime around 2008 if I'm not mistaken.
A friend still keeps it and uses it.
I had coils 45cm and 2x2m.
Only later, a couple of years later, I heard that before the "Pro" version there was a regular "2" version, analog, without a processor.
The "Pro" version has a couple of flaws. It is unstable, often giving vague silent and unstable signals.
Even then I realized that I don't have much use from its "Discrimination".
But that is why it is exceptional as a "depth" detector. Of course, on targets of medium and larger size and mass.
The method of working with the PS2 (and Pro) versions is such that you achieve "stability" by raising the coil a little higher than the surface of the ground (the same as several Lorenz models that I later had the opportunity to use).
PS2 is not used for detecting individual coins and smaller finds.
PS2 is only used for rough locating of larger targets, at greater depths.
My brother-in-law successfully discovered a pair of gold earrings from the Roman period with the Lorenz DeepMax (he later bought it), but due to the enormous instability, he carried a 45cm coil at a height of 50cm from the ground!
Lorenz DeepMax is even worse and more unstable than PS2. Because it has a much stronger output stage.
It is very difficult to get it to work calmly and quietly. Usually you tune the Lorenz so that it emits a constant quieter sound and monitor the changes in sound that will be caused by the presence of an object in the ground.
Today, after so many years, we see that even the most modern Minelab PI detectors work similarly.
Why am I writing all this and mentioned Lorenz and Minelab?
Because these descriptions are a good guide for handling with PS2 as well.
Many years later when I made a couple of PS2 diys, I deliberately left out the "Disc" pcb for the reason that that accessory is absolutely unnecessary under the conditions described.
Today we have modern VLF I/B detectors to help us discriminate. And PS2, like most "deep" PIs, only serves us for deep targets. At such depths that discrimination will not work reliably anyway.
In your video you show how your PS2 reacts to ceramics, that's to be expected. Because the ceramic is very close to the coil. In realistic sarching conditions, this will not happen so often.
The coil will be at least 30cm from the ground. And the response of ceramic will always be much weaker than the response of metal.
That's the price you pay with a detector that doesn't have the optional GEB.
In other words; if you expect "miracles" from PS2, you are wasting your time.
The PS2 is a project from the '90s.
Quite backward and with many flaws.
Still usable but with the prior knowledge described above.
I posted these pictures on the forum many years ago as well:
(I tried to find the old threads on the forum but I didn't succeed.
Carl can answer this, has the forum suffered any losses in the meantime, has the forum database been damaged or disappeared, etc.
Because many of my threads and hundreds of pictures that I once posted are now impossible to find.
This is a very bad situation because you cannot give reliable irrefutable proof to the claims of who had what when, knew and gave it as material evidence.)

[kt315]

really I do not know a coil size and target size PSII gives sure discrimination. when i repaired the detector i used just small coil with ferrite core for testing, in video you see it, but disc mode worked fine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyFI...EuhjkLt4AaABAg

[Orbit]

If someday I have the opportunity to have the original Pulse Star 2, I would do tests with a 28-coil so that the colleagues who make the board know what to expect and how the original works.

The original pro Pulse Star 28-inch coffee box with a diameter of 10cm detects a maximum of 110cm - 120cm, a military helmet 140cm, I have it written and 1 Roman denar how much it detects, I don't remember by heart, I compared the pulse old and the pulse old pro last year with 27cm, they have exactly the same depth of detection and exactly the same discrimination as one makes a mistake, so does the other. I have had a Puls Star 2 Pro for three years with a coil of 45cm or 28 inches where there is a lot of iron waste, it is impossible to work, that's why I decided to sell it. It is better to work with it in reality with either a smaller coil from 25cm to 27cm or with a 1x1 meter, the hardest I could control it on polluted ground with that medium coil.It is very important which cable you use, the original cable from the coil to the device is silicone rg 58, it is also important which wire you use, it affects the stability of the device. I almost tried the cable with protection from the outside, but not the rg 58, which disturbed the stability and moved the first sample to 17us. Next, I believe that many do not have instructions in the manual, there are some not insignificant things about the settings, it is also stated that the discrimination only works for objects larger than 10x10cm, although I know from experience that it makes mistakes even then. It would be best if you download the instructions and read it regarding the rejection of minerals or red brick, it is actually artificial because then it reduces the depth, it is recommended that if a brick is detected, you move close to the coil at the distance at which the operator holds the coil during the search and when we have moved closer to the brick, then press the reset button, the device will remember that and will no longer detect the brick, unfortunately it loses depth when set this way. Or if there are disturbances from interference, take a small nail or some metal on which the device gives a weak signal, hold the reset and thus the range is reduced, but the interference is eliminated.

[algan]

If someday I have the opportunity to have the original Pulse Star 2, I would do tests with a 28-coil so that the colleagues who make the board know what to expect and how the original works.

[ivconic]

I don't know what's going on. My detectors didn't behave like that.

[algan]

Here the test is with the right hand without a clock, delay mode 2
https://www.tiktok.com/@algankarakas...35241993866518

[kt315]

The Pulse Star 2 has no ground balance and would not work well on ore. It would be better to develop the topic of improving the detector in this regard, I suppose, then maybe the discrimination would work in a more correct way. I have not tested its discrimination yet.

yup, I see you are beginner...you do not see that other people sure see.
the concept is to decrease of number of "krutilki" to minimum. Delta Pulse have them much and everybody is always in indignation asking what is "the pot does".
you CAN delete SECOND STROBE DELAY pot from DP too. either, you can add SECOND STROBE DELAY pot in PSII.
I had changed all names of the pots to clear understanding into kitchen wife level. so pot POWER is not now POWER - DEPTH.
FIRST STROBE DELAY is DISC. SECOND STROBE DELAY is GEB.
BTW, DEPTH is really TX PULSE WIDTH.



you can do what you want to do.

[kt315]

thank you much for the files Ivconic. and no thanks Orbit. you sure know - I do not do aliens projects boards to sell.

[ivconic]

I read again your post Orbit.
My sight is not that good, so I skipped some lines, now with glasses I can read better.
Orbit, there are ~80 milion Turks in Turkey.
The man from Turkey you colaborate with; doesn't need to be the same man who sent me the files.
I don't know who is who. It is usuall thing such info to leaks all over the local forums, what do I know?
Anything is possible. Many times pople give a word that "this is hot, nobody have it"... and day after I see the same all over the forums.
So I don't know how the man who sent me the files got them at all.
But when I saw that files are not done completelly neat; I simply hesitate to start working on detector. I put it aside and almost forgot it.
Until you mentioned it in our conversation much later.
That's the truth, believe it or not.
Why would I lie?
It is too banal thing to lie about.

[andon80]

not ok detects ceramics and baked brick
https://www.tiktok.com/@algankarakas...10471155895574
https://www.tiktok.com/@algankarakas...10646993669398

You should take off your watch and try it with your other hand.