[Louis Kriedemann]

just finished building another successful Barracuda pi.
working beautifully first time out

built a spider weave coil for it as well....(took a whole afternoon to make the coil winding)
its not called a spider weave for nothing
its a pretty intricate weave and you cannot lose concentration for a moment and you have to count every slot you use and the amount of turns in each section otherwise its undo all and start over again

still wondering what I will do with all the detectors
I now have 2 baras, 3 and a half surf pi's, my F75 and CZ20
and.....4 scoops

and I can only use one at a time

am I silly or am I just getting old

[Paul van Heerden]

Good work Louis! You are not going crazy, you are just doing what you love. You should make and sell Detectors to people. Pi machines are so expensive at the moment. Sell them for a few thousand. I am sure there will be people willing to buy. Especially if they are waterproof

[Tony Curnick]

You have them because It's just Lekker Louis !!......welldone on the build,how about a pic or two?

[Tony Curnick]

I suppose the half PI is the one I deft fully created under the influence of Hansa Pilsner ??.....".Beer makes you to smart to understand electronics"

[Louis Kriedemann]

I suppose the half PI is the one I deft fully created under the influence of Hansa Pilsner ??.....".Beer makes you to smart to understand electronics"

  spot on Tony

[Louis Kriedemann]

You have them because It's just Lekker Louis !!......welldone on the build,how about a pic or two?

have just finished the pcb and external wiring and a coil
not built into a housing yet. hope to start that over the weekend
must also make a template to vacuum mould the coil housing for the new coil
then i will take a couple of pics

[Louis Kriedemann]

Good work Louis! You are not going crazy, you are just doing what you love. You should make and sell Detectors to people. Pi machines are so expensive at the moment. Sell them for a few thousand. I am sure there will be people willing to buy. Especially if they are waterproof

making a completely waterproof detector is one hell of a job if its to be done right and you need waterproof pots and all and they are pretty expensive.
made a waterproof housing for my surf pi and it works pretty well but only tested in about 1m of water
(modified 60mm mortar housing)

[Barney]

Hi Louis,  how does the Bara compare to the SurfPi?  I am tempted to build the Bara but I don't see any PDF files on Silverdog's site wrt the assembly.

[Louis Kriedemann]

Hi Louis,  how does the Bara compare to the SurfPi?  I am tempted to build the Bara but I don't see any PDF files on Silverdog's site wrt the assembly.

Hey Barney. the bara and surf are very similar designs although the bara has a slight edge over the surf
there is not much info on the bara build although they are pretty straight forward
if you want a good challenge and an excellent detector to build which has full build documents available you should get the MPP
(mini Pulse Plus)
the complete step by step build docs are available on Geotech1. join up and go have a look see. its a great technical site to be on and browse through anyway

[Tony Curnick]

Do you thinks they would let me build one with my less than appropriate  electronic history ??

[Paul van Heerden]

Do you thinks they would let me build one with my less than appropriate  electronic history ??

Sure.....you could then have half a bara as well

[Louis Kriedemann]

Do you thinks they would let me build one with my less than appropriate  electronic history ??

of course they would Tony......but they WILL lock your beers away until you finished

[Tony Curnick]

Thanks for the confidence boyz..Especially  Paul.....But I've hung up the old soldering station for good....So there will be a hole lot more IRF's, IC's, resistors and caps to go around!!!

[Louis Kriedemann]

finally got the bara together with the spider weave coil. the air testing and setting up went quite well and i managed to get pretty amazing depth indoors.
I took it down to the beach this afternoon for a short test in the wet and dry and black sand and the sensitivity is amazing.
dug out plenty of tiny pieces of wire and junk with loud and clear signal
its as stable as a rock and dead quiet in the wet or dry and even bumping the coil on the wet sand had no sound effect
the coil is not shielded as the spider weave is designed to be self shielding, which it most definately is
the detector is pretty sensitive to EMI(electro magnetic inteference) though as most pi detectors are
I will take the control box apart and do some internal shielding in the box and see if that will help
the interference was very localised and only bothered me on a 20m stretch of beach, as soon as I move away from the area all is quiet again

i have not got around to making a coil housing for the spider coil yet
I just wrapped the coil in 2 layers of fibre tissue and resin and made the centre mounting fom the same material.
finished with a good layer of jel coat.  I have not yet bothered to smooth it down. might do that later

[Paul van Heerden]

That looks awesome Louis! You really have the knack of making good detectors. Now you just need a few more arms to swing them all