Weekend Projects reader Robert writes in with his version of the Treasure Finder, a homemade metal detector, including custom board mods and alternative wire coil material. I don’t know where Robert lives, but I hope it’s near lots of treasures, and he cuts us in on any hoards he finds!
I completed this project in about 4 days. I made things harder for myself by not bothering with an etched circuitboard, just wired up on perfboard. Worked first time though!
My capacitors on the coils are very temperature sensitive. If I touch them with my finger, the tone goes crazy. Not sure if this is because I fried them when soldering though. I was going to use a friends oscilloscope but when I wired things up, it just worked and I could fine tune with the brass locknut.
Great guide!
For the coils I used 30SWG ‘kynar wire’ instead of magnet wire as that’s all I could find.
I rushed things near the end as I wanted to be able to take it out and try it. Couldn’t resist adding a power LED though.
Well done, Robert! Have you completed one of our Weekend Projects? Send us an email with your story and get a shoutout on Makezine!
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See all of the RadioShack Weekend Projects posts (to date)
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