Treasure Classifieds Forum

Very impressive Sven!  Joe,think you found your guy!!haha

(03-28-2014 07:03 PM)NjNyDigger Wrote: [ -> ]Gotta tell you, Sven, I thought I knew about every make of detector under the sun, but, never heard of a Mirage. Is it real?  Lol.

Care to fill the newbs in (including me) on that detector brand. Thanks!

P.S. - Your mods are stunning. Do you do custom work for others?

Joe

You don't hear about it unless you visit my website. There's 3 years of work into it to get it where I want it to be. I occasionally post a reference to my PI with a picture or so. I don't get into any real detail about it unless you email me. Mostly because folks don't believe a hobby built machines can be any good. And there's lots of forum folks who will drag you down if you make any claims, jealousy.

I am a perfectionist so when I build something, its got to look good in the end. Since I have elbow and shoulder problems, has to be lighweight and balance properly. Has to have depth comparable to a manufactured machine. My PI was originally built to compete with high end water VLF and PI machines that was my competition when living in North Bay, Ontario if I wanted to hunt the beach and water. The White's Surfmaster Pro at the time would  not cut it. And I could not afford a $1500 Eric Foster machine.

After building I eventually decided to name my PI, called it Cobalt after the small silver mining town 3 hours north of North Bay. At the time I built a water and land unit. First water unit worked great, until the box leaked. Took a couple months to find a replacement.
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In the meantime hunted with the land unit I built on the beach. This one made a mold and made a fiberglass cloth and epoxy housing for it.

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Did not realize how good of a machine it was for trash hunting until I put the 7" coil on. From that point on the PI was refined and a number of circuit board revisions were made. After about 7 different circuit boards, current one is the best. I decided to change the name of the PI to the MIrage PI (MPI).

I don't build these as a business or in any quantities because right now, no one will pay me for what they are worth and the amount of time that goes into each one. I did sell my original builds to keep funding my project. Did finish up a water unit for a fellow in Guam because I want to see how they work there and see the treasures  it would find. And built for for Australia, again mostly to see how it handles the mineralization. And the one I recently finished up went to a buddy in Minnesota. He gave me such a fantastic deal on a Minelab Musketeer a few years ago, so he got a deal on the Mirage with 4 coils. Should be in his hands next week. I am hoping he scores big with it.

Every now and then I will put one up for sale if I build a new one for myself.
Now I was building the second land unit that was pictured in my first post for another, they bailed on it near completion. I may put that up for sale when done or keep it as a loaner. Still need to finish up a new board for my water unit and a new land unit for myself that will have a few mods to make it just a bit better with an optional hunting mode. PI's are unlike VLF's and if you put the time in to learn how they work, you might be a convert.

Some pictures of my earliest beach finds that shown me how ell the machine works. That also gave me the motivation to keep going with them.

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Thru my website I did receive numerous inquiries about my PI and requests, so a handful of kits were put together and shipped overseas. The European treasure hunters have a higher PI  interest rate and PI use than the US.

So that's the story of my PI. I'm still in the garage builder stage, actually basement work shop stage. Right where Garrett and White's started. Content to stay there as I like to hunt when the weather is good and when not  working a regular job... Mostly build the PI's when the weather is crap and to keep busy in the winter months.  I'm always building something....LOL
How about a Steampunk Industrial style candle holder?

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I just want to add the at the Mirage PI is based on a solid PI platform originally designed by Carl Moreland, White's Electronics PI Engineer.
Carl's Hammerhead PI was designed as a general purpose PI with the capability to be taken to many different levels. George Overton modified it into the CrossBow Classic PI which was built for depth on copper, silver gold coin, relic, hoard type hunting. The Mirage was re-engineered to find small to very small gold and gold jewelry with respectable depth and performance. Two detectors at different ends of the rainbow.

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http://www.geotech1.com/forums/forumdisp...merhead-PI

The CrossBow are no longer for sale, only 12 were made on  a custom contract
for some European Archies that got canceled. So George sold them off to recoup the investment, those who got one got them at a steal of a  price.

http://www.metaldetectingforum.co.uk/vie...62&t=37836

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That's incredible! Amazing backstory, Sven  Actually...

I've thought about going PI a lot recently. Most of the old coins are very deep here in NJ. We're talking a minimum of 6" or so. Normally deeper. My Minelab tops out on a coin sized object (with the stock coil) at about 10 or 11". If a PI can get me deeper than that, I've now eliminated the competition. I can truly go where others cannot. 'See' things their machines can only dream of. However...

We have an enormous amount of junk & iron at our sites. I don't mind digging my fair share of it to get some keepers (as I normally do anyway), but, even a little discrimination (at depth) would be useful, ie; iron/not iron, as I don't wanna haul out garbage bag fulls of junk on every hunt.

Have you tried the Mirage (or any of your other PI's) on land? What kind of depths are we talking about? I know everyone's dirt is different & that can skew results in certain areas, but, it would give me a good ballpark.

In reference to the capability of these machines, it doesn't matter where they're made, as the technical know-how is the key. They can be made in a bathroom. So, to all the haters who think only the big dogs can make detectors that work, that's crazy. Matter of fact, I believe someone like yourself can make DEEPER units than the well known manufacturers. You're smaller & more nimble. Don't have all of the corporate laws & regulations to pander to. Don't have to engineer a machine dictated on potential future profits, etc.

BTW, you should STRONGLY consider changing your avatar to the one below. Remember him??? Lol.

Joe

I have to say that i am very intrigued. I occasionally see TDI's for sale that fall into my affordability bracket but have yet to pull the trigger on one. I am looking for something that can detect small gold through salinity/mineralization more effectively than my sov-gt. I once came across a small white gold cross in the wet sand and only found it because i saw part of it sticking out. Before i picked it up, i ran the detector over it to see the respone and it barely gave a slight crackle of tone and had to practically scrub the coil on it just to get that. I would be more than willing to purchase a kit or a machine that works good in this type of scenario.

Here's some thing interesting to note regarding iron. PI's have a Pulse Delay adjustment. Most general purpose PI's do not drop below 15us. 15us is a good range to find the larger gold rings and jewelry. 10us or less is for finding tiny gold nuggets, ladies fine dinky gold rings, chains. When you drop down to 10us, you lose some depth on the larger gold but as mentioned sensitivity to tiny gold increases. I usually run about 12us, a good compromise.Now at the other end of the spectrum is 100us, that's iron range, no gold, silver will be detected. You will detect some iron when you are at 10-15us, not much more than if your running a VLF disc right where iron breaks up. Technically, if in doubt whether a  target is gold or not, turn up the PD if it still sounds off its iron. For the most part iron has a different target response than a gold ring or a coin. After about 40 hours you can tell pretty much. I still dig those targets anyways to be sure. At 12us most small foil
will not be heard, the signal decays much too quick for the PI to see it, the gold will still be heard. If you noticed in any of my pictures the lack of foil trash. If I was running my VLF, would have a bag of it besides digging an extra 100 holes.
What about iron, shallow iron will still be heard. Most of that same shallow iron nails, wire will magically not be picked up past 6-7", the PD is in the gold range not the 50-100us iron range. Cool. What about that deeper iron masking a gold ring, it will not. Actually in hences the gold signal a tad. So a 7" ring will still sound off nicely amongst "deeper" iron. If your hunting a clean layer above a deeper iron site with mostly nails. The gold should pop thru.

The Mirage was set up for gold hunting first off. If I wanted silver and copper coins I would want a VLF unit. I'm out for the gold, so depth suffers on anything else. Still respectable on coins of silver and copper, clad, similar to many of the higher end VLF's. The Mirage could be set up to find targets deeper of the coin type but would suffer loss of performance hunting for small gold. The CrossBow would be great for coins etc. From what I heard from a couple owners in the UK, it is not the desired machine in iron infested sites. Knowing that if you wanted a PI to handle gold and deep coins, you would own both the Mirage and CrossBow. I can calibrate the Mirage to be more CrossBow like. That is already planned with a flip of a toggle switch to change the Pulse Width inside the machine to match that of the CrossBow. We'll see how that goes when the next PCB is built up and field tested.

As for depth, the Mirage at the beach managed to still get a very small target signal off my wedding band at 14" using the 10.5" search coil. The ring was buried with a pc. of string tied to it. The hole depth was measured with a tape measure. If there would be any EMI signals present to change the threshold to the same level of that ring signal, more than likely never would have heard it.

Using the 7" search coil the depth on the ring was about 11-12"
Smaller gold rings about 2" less using either coil.
That's good enough for me beach hunting and more than enough when hunting schoolyards and parks. Anything within the 7" range in the way of gold is definitely going to end up in my pouch, with a good target response.

My 5" coil is surprisingly deep only about 2" less than the 7". Separates targets and pinpoints like a VLF concentric coil

One last note, don't know how, if I have two targets next too each other that fools most machines to think there is one larger target. I get a sense there are actually two. With a little finessing of the coil you can find and dig the overbearing target and then get the other or first move that coil the right way and you will see both. Not sure how the brain gets trained to hear it because I can't, do sense the targets.....

I do have a video up that was quickly made last year spring to show what the Mirage sounds like and how it reacts to an iron spike and a gold ring. Not the best quality since I used a digital camera not really equipped to take nice video.
You can see them both at my You Tube site:
https://www.youtube.com/user/PuddlePirateBoats

The Mirage or any other PI's are not the Holy Grail of detectors, they are not for everyone or the casual hunter who hunts for coins, jewelry, relics, who would be better off served using a VLF machine. If you have never used a PI, just a VLF machine, a simple PI such as the Surfmaster or Detectorpro has a very short learning curve. A PI with advanced tuning controls will take a VLF person at least 40 hours to comprehend fully. First time user of such a PI without any other VLF detector experience would find it easier to learn. If you can't give a PI at least 40 hours to learn, more than likely the machine will not end up being for you and you'll be selling it shortly after buying it. Expect to see more used Garrett ATX's on the market by middle summer. A PI is just another tool in the tool box.

I am more than happy to take some one out hunting for the day, letting them use one of my PI's. And if they found a pc. of gold, I would be thrilled.

If your interested in a complete kit, or a PCB, you need to PM me with your email address. I am currently out of PCB's. Takes about a month to get a batch made up. Will only order more if I have at least 5 PCB's sold. 

The Mirage is  a advanced PI to build, for a first build I would suggest building a Surfmaster PI to get your feet wet.
http://www.adrianandgenese.com/blogger/2...a-diy-kit/

If you have some soldering skill, electronics knowledge and oscilloscope and pay attention to what you are doing, building the Mirage success rate will be  100%. I can always supply a complete search coil or you can build your own.

PI's are not as scary to use as some like to suggest.................

Wow Sven, your an innovator from the get go. I considered PI's, as in Detector Pros, when I was going to buy my first machine. You've taken that all the way to the next level. As an underling I don't have the PI knowledge that the above have but see where they are coming from. Thanks for some lessons!

Kind of Excited Myself

My friend just got the Mirage PI I built for him.
He's more than excited about it's capabilities............LOL
As well as getting the hang of tuning it very quickly.
He's found something I didn't know or try to eliminate in the way of trash.
Those pesky alum. juice cap liners. He just finished up a video.
I can't wait till he finds his first gold.

That's f@c$ing impressive, Sven! Why do you think the Mirage was picking up the ring, but not the Tesoro?

Joe

Sven, I have never seen a Mirage PI before. Do you build them for your own use or for sale? From the pictures it looks like a real professional unit.
The only thing is, I am a bit on the lazy side and your unit looks like it requires all manual adjustments with many knobs.
I presently use a 13 year old original Whites Surfmaster PI with the pulse delay. I turn the two knobs to the to the presets and detect. It doesn't false on beaches both wet and dry. It picks up coins in black magnetic sand with no problem. I have found fine gold chains on the beach. I have found a gold/emeral ring on the beach at 10" and a boat anchor at 4'. I have found flour gold bunched up under rocks near Niland Cal.

Now my question is, "What will the Mirage PI do that my 13 year old PI won't do?"

Frank...
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Frank, the older Surf according to Mr. Bill was better than the Surfmaster Pro.
I had the Surfmaster Pro. It was OK but lacked the ability to find small gold and was not up to competing with the Eric Foster PI and a couple other PI's in North Bay. In the water stuff was deep, shallow targets were easy. The deeper targets were being picked up by the others.

I'm not going to make any crazy claims about my PI that's its the best in the world, deepest, most sensitive......no it will not compete with a Minelab GTX5000.

All it is, is a machine that has adjustments to cover a wider perimeter of control.
Your basically running a fixed control setting machine. I have complete control of how I want the machine to respond and any situation I may run into. It's no miracle machine, just another tool. It works for my needs sniffing out gold at a fraction of the cost of a manufactured unit. It works incredibly well hunting school yards, parks, picnic grounds with trash. Pinpoints with VLF concentric coil accuracy. I can go into areas where everyone says PI's are no good at, VLF's are the only way to go. This is where the Mirage shines, contrary to what every one thinks about PI's. Other than that, its competitive with any other PI's.

AS you know most PI's do not false on salt beaches wet or dry and are not bothered by magnetic sands, hot rocks and cut right thru it. That's why for these areas, PI machines are the weapons of choice over a VLF.

If you have used a White's TDI, Eric Foster units or read up on them you know what you can do with it when you have controls to adjust.

Originally built as a water beach PI, has turned out to be a superb land machine where I would normally take a VLF. Remember Carl Moreland's Hammerhead was already a proven machine, that can be taken to higher levels and different directions. His design was given as  a platform to expand and improve upon.
The Mirage is nothing more than a finely tuned Hammerhead re-engineered to find small and very tiny gold. And in the interim, was found to have a great bunch of side benefits depending upon calibration. The CrossBow by George Overton, (Carl Moreland's co-author of Inside the Metal Detector) went the other way with the Hammerhead design for the Archies overseas. George sent me full build information, schematics and Gerber PCB layout files to build the CrossBow.............never got to finish one completely as I was to wrapped up in the Mirage. And handed off 4 of the PCB's to other builders.
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I am sure you're enjoying your Surf as much as I am enjoying my PI. If you are ever up to my neck of the woods, your more than welcome to try mine.......

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(03-30-2014 03:20 PM)NjNyDigger Wrote: [ -> ]That's f@c$ing impressive, Sven! Why do you think the Mirage was picking up the ring, but not the Tesoro?

Joe

VLF and PI machines operate on different principles. These webpages will explain it in easy to understand terms.

http://www.nuggetshooter.com/articles/Un...ector.html

http://www.nuggetshooter.com/articles/Un...ctor2.html

http://bodhi3.files.wordpress.com/2013/0...s-work.pdf

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(03-29-2014 06:40 PM)Ohio Dirt Fisher Wrote: [ -> ]Wow Sven, your an innovator from the get go. I considered PI's, as in Detector Pros, when I was going to buy my first machine. You've taken that all the way to the next level. As an underling I don't have the PI knowledge that the above have but see where they are coming from. Thanks for some lessons!

You can't go wrong with a Detectorpro PI, excellent machine water dry sand hunting machine. That would have been my first choice after owning the White's Surfmaster Pro, just could not find a used one at the time.........