Stamp BS2 Microcontroller metal detector

GoldDigger1950;

Now you are talking, Ive come up with a 100 plans, at least, on how to get that TV (LCD 4x5 monitor,) on a piece of pipe, in front of me.... of course, all 100 would not have worked. I now have the germ of an idea for a pull type thingy... push-pull?? Well, nothing on paper yet, but it would be VERY low tech.

The discussion, on FFT, got me thinking... I have been tossing around ideas, for measuring gravel deposit depth, or depth to a discontinuity, such as a lacustrine deposit, such as often serves in place of bedrock, to hold alluvial gold. FFT might be the answer, for assesing echoes, as I had only been considering using the time of the shock wave, to fix depth, which is relatively simple. If it works for radar, it should work as a seismic tool.

Ive often wondered if one could get a subsurface picture with a powerful fish finder... some of those are VERY powerful and the circuitry and program is an accomplished fact. (using a big rubber bag with water, or?)

I did some Googling and found there is all kind of code, out there, for the PIC16F628, of which I have a bunch... I dont have to write a program, just assemble and program a flash register, heh. It might be worth experimenting with. So far, its just a thought.

Brian AKA goldigger



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GoldDigger1950;

Nope. Just got them 2 days ago, even though I ordered over a month ago. I have a kit, from the UK, for a small  frequency counter, from a magazine article, that uses a PIC16F628.... then I lost the article, so it sits, waiting until I get my mags organized.... I spend too much time doing things, like this forum, to do that! Me, organize?

I got a whole bunch of stuff a month ago, and it includes a bout 6, Garmin, hockey-puck, GPS receivers, which were cheeeep. I want to build a survey logging system, with at least one. i probably wont get back to that project until winter, when I cant go anywhere.

The 16F628s were fairly inexpensive, too, and I know there are a few projects, around, I could build. I even found a GPS project, Googling, last nite. I am going to have to DIGEST what I got, on the net... a lot of the links were broken, especially for something interesting. Murphy, you know. I just need a couple of programmers.

There were all kinds of metal locators, FFT projects, web servers, frequency counters, DDS signal generators, packet projects, cw decoders, packet ENcoders, and on and on...

I find, if I look again, in about 24 hrs, I find a whole batch of new stuff. I would like to set up a small HTTP/Telnet server.... I have three small cameras, so I could do a web cam... visible and IR (to watch the deer.)

Could be fun..... almost as much as gold and coin hunting.

Brian AKA goldigger

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GoldDigger1950;

Microchip... I have several of their CDs and lots of ancient MPASM stuff as well as assembler stuff for about any microprocessor made!

I like to pick up CDs from the bargain bins, so have acquired a lot of older stuff, for win3.1 and win95.... havent been able to use some of the newer stuff, until I bought this lap top, and FINALLY got my XP table top going! HOWEVER... now I need an USB-to-RS232 dongle!!

What I have been thinking, is to link my XP to my Win3.1, via modem, and use the RS232 on it.

Could be fun....

Brian AKA goldigger

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GoldDigger1950;

PCMCIA? Doubts it Ralf! Does it have RS232... that is what I need for 90 or 95% of my programming stuff; I can make a dongle or I can buy a dongle, I would still have to buy a PCMCIA system, unless my card reader works on PCMCIA. But how would I use that... still requires a dongle.

Jameco HAD a PCMCIA system that went into a drive bay.... I saved up.... then it disappeared from the catalogue! Never got it. No, a dongle is the easiest/cheapest solution, for my XP, which WILL use a lot of win3.1 programmes, by the way; it does have a parallel port, for a printer. (Im a pensioner, been a pensioner since 1976, because of a car accident, now Im a SENIOR pensioner, at double the income of a disability pensioner.... it allows me to dabble, a bit more, in gold/coin/bottle/insulator hunting.)

What I really need is a way to stick a thumb drive (or SD card,) into a home made piece of survey equipment, to record each LINE surveyed.... guess I have to break down and play with PICs.

If the data saver/logger is made to take either 300/1200 Baud packet data (AX-25), raw RS232 or parallel (TTL) data.... it would be transportable to different equipment and uses.... I have NEVER seen anything like that, anywhere... the closest being some kind of logger.

For my logging, I want to use a Tiny Trak 3 or 4, to get GPS data. The TT3/4 is triggered by every data save (using the PTT function,) thus sticking in GPS data with every data read.

So far, Ive come up with a simple solution: save it all, as packet data,  on a digital sound recorder (good for 32 hrs... overkill.) Then download to a sound card TNC (a NOMIC, preferred) and save on the HD.

Solution 2 would be a low power packet transmitter (DSB to conserve battery power) and send directly to a base rec/computer, for saving to HD. The neatest solution! Since I am a Ham, I can do that... call is VE7EQP.

To survey a line across a claim cell (about 460 Meters) I only need about 1/2 Hr for a round trip - survey one-way and walk back. I would only be able to do 6 or 10 surveys per day, which means 120 to 200 minutes of recording per day (recharged batteries, daily,) and up to 3 miles of walking.

With a thumb drive, the data only needs a few seconds of battery, every 2 to 10 meters; a 1 gB thumb drive will do the whole cell, for 10 years over! So, having said that, I expect a serial memory chip would do, and download evey line, while resting, Ha.

It all comes back to PICs.

What I plan to do with the data is process it with a simple program to assign a PIXEL value, to each reading (0 to 255, colour) and view it as a colourized map.

I could do the same with magnetometer data, deep locator data or just permeability data, make mylar over-lays, to scale, and fit-to-map, or each other. (How do you save dowser data?)

One other thing we have here.... lots of trees and bush and it is NEVER flat, any survey equipment has to be narrow, strong and able to bend around trees.

So, thats where I am, stuck in the muddle, again.

Brian AKA goldigger

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GoldDigger1950;

I got it! Miss cue! The dongle I need, is to convert USB to RS232... I got lots of USB ports, 3 on this laptop, 5 or 6 on my table topper, with a 6 port hub.... no, I NEED RS232 and dont have it, on either XP machine. I have a little 4 port hub, on my lap top, so I can download into 2 thumb drives (actually, one thumb drv. and on flash memory stick.)

I see the card slot, it takes SD, etc., cards on my machine, and may take a PCMCIA. Now, if I could get a PCMCIA with an RS232 (commonly called serial, but so is USB,) it might accomplish something.

Nuts and Volts has been running a series on different ICs that translate USB to RS232 and vice versa, but that is for winter projects (as long as it doesnt get too cold to solder. Heh. The shivering makes it difficult for surface mount soldering.)

I used to have a subscription to Pop Tronics, when they first started, then I got ELEKTOR, and EPE mag, now I grab the odd N and V, if its interesting... they get too technically pedantic! The useful magazines have thinned out. Oh, I buy CQ, occasionally, being a Ham.

Most PIC data loggers are serial. Of course, the memory is serial, and it only takes 2 pins for serial... I hate serial, give me good old parallel! Ive looked at a few 386 imbedded types, the learning curve is not so steep and long, because I have years of it, dinned into me. They take more power, and are bulky, unfortunately.

I will now spend 20 minutes trying to post this... from 12 noon to about 2 PM (PST) the local solar noon, has the sun shining right into the satellite dish and overloading it with solar microwaves (darn, and no way to save them,) it swamps the puny satellite signal and makes for multiple data resends! (To ACK or not to ACK...) The graphic download representation fiddles up and down and slowly gains on it. Downloads are normally over 100kbps, and can drop to about 3kbps..... then it fails.

Here goes...

Brian AKA goldigger

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