PimentoUK

Removing the 1c will place more demand on the next-lowest denomination coin, the Cu-Ni 5c. You don't have cheap nickel-plated steel versions of this coin ( like we in the U.K have for our 5 and 10 pence coins ), and it's way too late to introduce them now, so the only sensible step is to withdraw the 5c as well. Then the lowest-denomination burden falls on the cheap-to-make 10c, which could continue for many decades unchanged. The Cupronickel the government would recover from withdrawn 5c coin has considerable value. Maybe they could use it in the manufacture of 1 Dollar and 2 Dollar coins. Electronic transactions can still be performed to 1 cent level.

If you own / can borrow an electricians cable-finder / plumbers pipe-finder tool, you may find the staples are detectable. As this is going to be an 'annual' exercise, perhaps intentionally bury a couple of dollars worth of 1 cent coins an inch below the surface above the cables, once you have their location determined. They will be easy to find subsequently.

Quote:" If the search coil has a diameter of, say, 10"/25cm, that would give a copper volume of 16.5cm^3 or 1.84g of copper underneath the search coil." It doesn't work like that, unfortunately.Detectors require CIRCULATING currents to flow. In a thin object like a wire, they can only circulate in tiny loops within the wire. It doesn't matter how long thw wire is, currents don't flow down it. That's why making a big complete loop is ESSENTAIL for your search. Currents can then circulate around that big loop. [ I have some test coils of enamelled copper wire, for techy uses like testing / repairing detectors. Typically, 100 turns of 0.25mm diameter ECW, about 50mm diameter loop, about 10 grams of copper there. I can wave these right up against the bottom of my detector search-coil, without a sniff of a signal. My hand gives more of a signal ( because it's composed of lots of salty electrically-conductive water )]

It depends on how the fence is energised, I suppose. It could be a transformer output, it could be capacitively coupled from some electronic switch. That's my reason for saying make the connection yourself, the generator/pulser unit is an unknown.

This 'dog fence' issue came up a couple of years ago over on Tom Dankowski's forum. The buried wire is essentially invisible to metal detectors ..... unless you short-circuit the ends together to make it into a complete loop. Then it should give a decent signal. So disconnect the electric generator doohickey , then using whatever you have, join the loop ends together. Searching in non-motion mode ( eg. pinpoint mode ) with the coil 30cm / 12" above the ground, may be an easier way to locate the wire, as you won't be getting signals from other small junk etc buried in the ground. The weather-station cable is trickier. If you make a loop by shorting both wires at both ends, you will create a loop .... but the wires are so close, that any current in one wire will have its magnetic field near-cancelled by the other. Better to use a separate length of wire, to join the station end to the 'home?' end, keeping them 3 metres apart.

Gotta say, I quite fancied a 'Cleansweep' / Arrow type coil on my Eqx, it was going to be a second choice after a 20-24" round DD. It's VERY hard to make a custom coil, unfortunately. One problem is the TX winding. The original is made from 'pseudo-Litz' - multi-stranded enamelled copper wire, but not properly made from small minor bundles that are then combined into larger bundles etc like true Litz. This stuff is hard to obtain, and only in certain conbinations , so you're looking at making your own. 0.07mm to 0.1mm is a suggested starting point, then calculate the number of strands to suit. Here's a link to a Geotech1 forum thread that may give you an idea ML EQUINOX coil discussion thread - Geotech Forums https://www.geotech1.com/forums/forum/technology/coils/15888-ml-equinox-coil-discussion-thread To un-pot the circuit board, you ideally want to obtain the near-unobtainable : methylene chloride ( dichloromethane ), or failing that, paint-stripper that has this as a main ingredient. Second choices would be non-DCM paint-stripper, or MEK ( methyl ethyl ketone ). All these potentially come with the risk of dissolving the PCB, as it's made from epoxy resin. Other problems include avoiding damaging the components on the PCB. The tiny inductor is super-fragile, in particular.

No, it won't. It is T2 - specific, ( that includes T2-LTD and all the variants ). The F75 ( and F70, and the other equivalent one, Teknetics Patriot ) use a simple single-ended transmit coil winding, like most machines out there. The T2 unusually uses a centre-tapped transmit coil - kinda like an F75 one, but with an extra wire brought out halfway through the winding. That's why there are no concentric coils for the T2 - they are pretty tricky / expensive to make. ( it just MAY be possible to fit it to one of those Deteknix / Quest machines that are 'inspired' by the T2 machine, but this is not an endorsement )

VLF detector frequency is not critical. Targets are not 'tuned', they respond to a fairly wide spread of detector freq in a similar way. So me stating "330 Hz is best" doesn't rule out 150 Hz or 600 Hz as also quite suitable choices. Likewise with PI timings. Eric Foster posted some tech info about the PI equipment he used to locate large silver ingots in the area around a historic shipwreck. That was custom-designed for the task, he had a 'fake' ingot manufactured from pure aluminium to help him test out his machine. But I recall it was slow, used very high coil current, and a coil around 1 metre diameter. Certainly not any modified commercial machine.

The square-hole item is part of a drawer-pull from old furniture, like a writing desk, cabinet etc. I believe the technical term is an 'escutcheon'. They are fairly common finds here in the U.K. It's likely the old furniture would be broken up and used as firewood, then the ashes scattered on the field, including all the screws, hinges, etc.

I think if you're new to detecting, just about all detectors will feel like a boat anchor pretty quickly. Some entry-level machines are pretty light, example the popular Garrett ACE250, but many higher-end machines are more solidly-built ( eg. more metal, less plastic, larger search-coil, ...) and are noticeably heavier. Even ones that have a reputation for being well-designed, ergonomically, will still make your arm ache when you're new. Changing swinging-arm every 15 minutes is a useful skill to learn.

Based on some maths we worked out over on the Geotech1 forum, I estimate the target time-constant for this 100mm diam x 1mm thick silver plate as: TC = 480 microseconds equivalent to a target frequency of 330 Hz This info may help set up an adjustable PI machine correctly. It would also give you a starting point for making a VLF for your specific hunting. A multi-frequency machine running at 333 Hz and 1000 Hz would be an interesting project. Or, if you used the Minelab BBS method ( sequential multi-frequency ), choose one tenth of their freq choice ( Sovereign through to CTX ), and make your new machine run at 312 Hz and ( 8 x 312 Hz ) = 2500 Hz. I would estimate a coil size of around 80 cm would be appropriate for a target such as this 10cm plate.

I think Mr Midalake needs to give more details if we are going to progress. He wants to 'Move' it ... is that move it a distance up or down the existing rod? Or move it to a new rod? Or something else?

PA66 GF The GF will mean it's glass fibre loaded plastic, to give it strength. I think any conventional 3d-printed 'equivalent' will not be adequately strong. I see a potential lathe job there: put the round rod in the chuck, and bore out the rod inside the bonded-on plastic part until it's gone. Maybe a bit of abrasive paper will clean it out, until its suitable for re-bonding on a new shaft.

That's a surprisingly large collection. Other than modern tourist-dropped coins from the Thames foreshore, my only old US coin was a 1913 wheat cent, from a location that had military activity during WW2, and it's possibly a serviceman's loss. Other known military-related sites have turned up more exotic foreign coins, including my only Edward 8th coin, a 1936 British West Africa penny - like a British penny, but cupro-nickel, and with a central hole. Plus a few German coins, badly pickled aluminium pfennigs. I find them in the rejected coin tray of 'Coinstar' change-eating machines quite regularly, particularly 1c coins, as they are so similar to UK 1 pence coins.

Quote: "I hate the push button connectors" What is the specific issue with the spring-pip / cam-lock ? If you are using the shaft with the pip located in anything but the end hole, I can see that getting it located right is tedious. One solution is to drill a new hole in the middle shaft, on the opposite side of the rod. Then you only have to slide the lower into one place, and it won't jump into another hole etc etc. It also doesn't foul on the square cam-lock wedge, too. Additionally, applying a band of electricians insulating tape ( white or yellow ) around the lower rod, just below your chosen insertion length, will guide your insertion. Insert the rod at 90 degrees, slide it in until the tape is indicating the correct insertion, then rotate the lower rod 90 degrees into the pip-hole. [ the positioning of the cam-lock is poor design by FTP. The square hole for the cam-lock wedge should be opposite from the pip holes. Then the pip won't foul the wedge, wearing it down. My new custom shafts were made this way. ] If you were wanting a telescopic shaft, the most obvious way would be to attach the new shaft below the existing upper rod, perhaps attaching just in front of the handgrip, and just in front of the elbow-cup. Such a shaft would somewhat spoil the ergonomics of the S-bend... though it should be possible to fabricate an "offset coil ear adaptor" , to move the effective coil ear position to the rear end of the coil. This would shift the coil forwards maybe 3 inches / 7cm. That might claw back a little of the weight-shift.