Hey Tanner- a tip for improving that solder sucker. I’ve got one just like it and I slipped a little bit of silicone aquarium tubing over the front. It gives it a better seal against the board and the silicone doesn’t melt even if you press it right up against the iron.
Good job following the circuit. Another tip when you have something shorted or drawing high current, use the current limiting part of your supply and lower the voltage below operating voltage. Replace the fuse or smoked component if it's easy then slowly bring up the voltage while watching the current. Try to keep the current down just enough to follow the heat but not burn anything else out. Sometimes you can feel the components, use an infrared thermometer or camera (if you have access to one) and the heat will show you the component path. Keep at it. I wish I had youtube and the internet when I was your age. That White metal detector is a good one, a prize find. Hang on to it and you'll have it functioning perfectly. I'm sure of it. Keep your eye out for a meter that includes capacitor testing. Also look into a transistor / capacitor ESR tester. Those can be inexpensive. You don't need the most expensive test equipment. There are a lot of bargains out there that will serve you fine.
Hi Tanner. Looking at the circuit around the µA78S40, I believe it to be a step-up converter. The rest of the circuit are all IC's capable of greater than 5V supply. If you look at the application examples in the datasheet and first figure out whether it is in fact a step-up converter, which I think it is, and figure out the feed-back resistors, you will be able to calculate the actual operating voltage of the device. If it turns out it does operate at a higher voltage and you operate it at that voltage, it will increase the dynamic range and possibly the sensitivity of the detector.
I have a detector that needs to be fixed. Would you consider fixing it while doing a vid on it? Please DM me with your rate if you decide to take on such a project. Thx and keep up the vids, you did a great job in explaining what all was done and what you used.
Tanner Tech I have a question, I’m building my own capacitor bank for the purpose of blowing things up. Shorting our electrolytic capacitors creates a high current surge that can damage the cap. Would it help to put a very high power resistor in series with the banks output to limit the current?
I know about many components (resistors, capacitors, transistors, etc.) but have had lots of trouble figuring out how they all fit together in complex circuits. Do you have a specific resource that helped you learn?
www.allaboutcircuits.com/ This free website is a really good source. I have learned a lot from here. Wikipedia as well. Just start diving into topic and go from there
Great Stuff..... I have PSM 26 Automatic (similar) metal detector, but my wires conncetion between control (battery) box and where broken (total 5 wires goes to the metal connection port), and I don´t know now which wire goes where .....I was looking online for some kind of scheme, but ended up with nothing. Your help will be highly apprecited by email, social or anything else really. Thanks!
@Rotten Brainz No, because the voltage output would vary with the current variations in the circuit. It needs a v-regulator. He could have just used a 5v regulator (LM7805), if he had one. The LM317 works fine as well.
