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Is there anyone that does meter rescaling?

I wanted to have one done at one time. Then I decided to put it on Ebay and purchased a used 180 later. I have seen them sell for as little as 70.00.
 
You can upgrade it yourself if you have soldering skills. I found this on the forums a while back. I never had to rescale a meter, so I have not tested this, but others have. Three resistors, and a potentiometer are replaced. with ones of a different value.
regards
Ed
 
only one resistor needs replacing, the replacement depends on which original resistor you have, and also the variable one
 
I sent you a PM, but see that you are new to the forums so not sure you got it or not. I have the parts needed to do this if you cant find them locally as the 1% resistors are hard to find, I also have the right 1K pots too so if you need them give me a E Mail at Lschroe929@aol.com
 
Rick, Thanks!! I can not believe I can get all the parts from someone in one package! I gave up twice the past 2 years! . Many thanks and i hope the original poster looking for this contacts you. IN your debt, sam in ms
 
Thanks from me also Rick. Glad you corrected my post. The picture that I had found didn't have instructions, and I thought it meant changing all three resistors. Good you cleared it up. On another note, I'm a fan of Minelab, but pricing the VDI meter at almost $200 to me is out of line. I understand it's not a large volume sales item, but Geeeez, I can buy a TV for $200. I paid $185 for mine and like using it, but it hurt putting out that money for what it is. JMHO
again, thanks Rick
Ed
 
I've noticed that the 180 meter goes above 180 but i've never thought to see how high it will go. Will it give more resolution if you turn it higher than 180 for a quarter? Do you know how high it will go? Maybe a non-issue if it only goes to like 185 or something.

J
 
Turning it higher won't give more scale. The entire scale moves up with it. On the other hand, I do believe there is enough scaling or resolution between numbers to perhaps indicate target identity. I can tweak the meter to about -507 (or sometimes the "high" end of -506) and get a 181 on a silver dime where as a clad will stay 180. You can also tweak it so clad quarters will do a 181 if you want, which is handy if clad popping. The best way is to sweep over a coin to set it, but often I just adjust it to -507 or so when the meter resets while hunting. That's a handy way to set it if you don't feel like flipping a coin on the ground. This is the DigiSearch meter. Others may differ.

Yea, $180 for a volt meter is way too much. I bet that thing costs about $10 to make or less. So far as I know nobody is making aftermarket external meters for it anymore. A shame, because at say $40 or $50 they would sell well and they'd still make a nice profit off them. Here's my idea- Instead of having the coil plug into the meter, and then that thick heavy cable for the meter to the control box....Why not have a coil plug on the meter that screws into the control box like normal, and on the back of it is another coil socket for the coil cable to screw into. The wiring from this "inline" coil connector on the meter would be smaller, just needing 3 or 4 wires. Make it spiral wire. Provide a mount with it that snaps on and allows it to mount right on top of the stock grip, and also another mount that snaps on the V-clip in it's stock location but raises it above the grip for people who want it there. Provide some velcro with a sticky back for people who want to speaker mount it on the outside of the speaker grill. Now you've got a cheap and more compact meter, thinner cable, and three ways you can mount that puppy. The final clincher would be a 4th digit with enough resolution to tell slight differences in targets such as perhaps various coins. The GT must have some for of internal scaling in order to tick up from say 179 to 180. Whether that's outputed in 1/10 increments or say 1/3rd ones doesn't really matter so long as it does exist...Which it does based on my tweaking the meter for a 181 response on silver.

The problem with the home made meters is they mod the coil cable and most be done that way for each coil. With this inline style meter connector no cables get modded, and the machine isn't dedicated to some internal meter that can never use an external one again. Also, there is a wide assortment of very compact volt meters on the market, so the box would be about 1/3rd or less the size of the standard DigiSearch meter.
 
n/t
 
The said 170 so they wouldn't look like they were copying Sun Ray, who was the first I think to make a 180 meter. That number became popular and charts started popping up for it, so everybody scales to 180. It doesn't matter where you set it, the scaling will still be the same just lower or higher in terms of numbers. Like I said, though, I think it might in fact be possible to see slight variations in a 4th digit after the first three so long as the meter has enough resolution. Since I can get silver or say a clad quarter depending on which I calibrate to to read 181 versus 180 for a clad dime, I'm pretty sure this is possible. It's just a matter of just how much resolution between the numbers the machine is actually putting out, along with having a meter that is sensitive enough to read these slight variations. That's a project I'm working on in the future here and will be reporting back on it when I have something.
 
What was the problem with the original meters that were something like in the 500 number range? Why wasn't more resolution better AND...

there should be a way to mod a 180 meter into a 380 meter, just doubling the resolution. I bet is is a matter of a resistor change or two and double the resolution might be better even if the original was too much.

I wish I could get a meter for the SovereignGT that would have an expanded range from 150 to180... I think that would be nice, maybe even from 140 to 180 to include nickels but I guess it would have to be completely incoupled from the audio... but FTP does that with the T2 and F75 so, it can be done... however if they do it with software then maybe it ain't something that can be done on a GT but I bet it is done in a circuit, not a chip.

J
 
I would like to mod my 550 meter but don't know how to open it to check the resistors. Can someone post simple details to this?
 
The old 540 meters were said to be jumpy by most people. Much like the Explorer or Etrac, that kind of scaling is looking too close at targets IMO. The 180 meter gives you more than enough scaling to tell pull tabs from nickles or rings. Tabs run roughly from 149 to 169 on the meter. That's a 20 digit spread. How much more resolution do you want? It's higher than the M6/MXT/And I guess the DFX uses the same number scale. When a higher number meter you are expanding the lost and mid range numbers, but everything above copper pennies will still go into the highest number on that scale. What I think you would need to see "between the numbers" at 180 would be a 4th digit that is measuring 1/1000 of a volt. On a 180 meter 1 is one volt, 8 is 1/10th, 0 is one hundred, and so I believe a 4th digit would be 1/1000th. In order to see that accurately the meter needs to have enough ability in seeing that slight of volt change, and as said much depends on just how much scaling "between the numbers" the Sovereign is putting out. It must have some form of slightly increased output to click up from one number to the next. Since I can get a silver dime do go 181 and a clad one to stay 180 there has to be some form of resolution in this respect. How much I'm still checking into as my winter project.
 
I prefer the 550 on the beach when i use it, being 3 times the 180, at the top end of the scale you can seperate lead fishing weights, silver, bottle tops and tin can bases/tops, whereas they all read 180-181 on the smaller scale one. I will say its not always as steady and can bounce a bit, but you learn the way it tends to bounce too
 
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