My Modified Sovereign:cam:

[D Wes]

After much work, I have finished my Sovereign and I'm pleased with the results, The Balance and weight is very good and comfortable to swing all day. The Shaft assemble is A Whites XLT and the Middle Shaft is from Whites Beach Machine. Three piece Pole assembly that can be broken down easily for travel. The little Black Box is A experimentally device under going Testing. No results or information to give at this time.
I appreciate all of you Looking at my Hard work and I welcome any Comments you might have or advice to improve my Sovereign.
I Thank Whites and Minelab for there help and support to complete my Project. Have A Great Day Detecting!
D Wes

 

[adam in cal]

I am very curious as to what the ''experimental'' black box is ........No info ??? come on .....give us a tidbit......

 

[Ron from Michigan]

Nice detector,but I would suggest a stand to keep it off the ground.Your straight shaft what metal detector did it originate from.

 

[D Wes]

I really Like your stand and I will be making me one this week, I would like to have a meter like the one on yours as well. Good looking Machine!
The Upper section Shaft is from A Whites XLT and the Middle straight shaft is from Whites Beach Machine. I am trying to find and buy a 11 inch Coin Search Coil. Thanks and Have A Good Week.

 

[D Wes]

Hi Adam, I am a little nervous about saying any thing yet, because I haven't had the time to test it enough to give a True and Honest report.
I will say it does increase the Sensitivity, most certainly at that. When I turned the Dial past one o'clock, it turned my Sovereign in to a Super Charged All Metal in Disc Mode, I had to turn down the Volume, It screamed at every thing in the ground including Iron, what I have learned is that it does help to find targets closer to Iron. It picks up targets where it wouldn't with out it. I'm just now learning how to adjust it properly to not pick up so much Iron by setting it to hear the Iron as scratchy or just to the point as to not sound off on all the Iron but right to the edge so to speak.
The ground is very dry and fluffy I'm testing it in and I believe it has gained back the sensitivity it loses from moist ground conditions, the only weakness I have found with my Sovereign. It rained here to day so I'm looking forward to Detecting with it tomorrow. I run my Sov in silent mode, no threshold. Thank You for your kind words and I hope you dig allot of Keepers.
D Wes

 

[Dan-Pa.]

From pervious experience have found the farther back the control box the better weighting and ergonomics..Without swinging yours couldn't say....but would move the box back even further on the rod...

 

[D Wes]

Thank you for the advice, I have tried moving the control box at all possible positions, to achieve the best balance. I to believed mounting it further back would be better, but to my surprise it made the coil want to swing up off the ground and difficult to provide a smooth swing.
I looked at many other Mods and all were mounted closer to the Back so I chose to do the same but with poor results.
I cant explain why mine has the better balance in the lower mounting but it really is easy to swing and Balanced, It doesn't make my arm sore at the end of the day like it used to. Yea! I'm working on A slide mount that will allow me to slide the control box up or down when I use different Coil sizes that will effect the balance. Thanks Dan-Pa

 

[madaboutmike]

Nice set-up for the Sovereign. I have one that died unexpectedly and is going back to the shop. The digital meter never calibrated to 550 as described in the manual but I've worked around it. Also had trouble with the 10" Tornado coil. It was shorting out on swings. I opened the male jack, found a soldering point contacting the inner diameter - filed a bit off and worked fine. I noticed your control unit attached to the underside of the cuff. I've reduced fatigue by attaching a tote bag strap to the rainproof bag and slinging the control box bandoleer style across my chest, letting my shoulder do the work instead of my bicepts. When getting down to dig, the box is out of the way, out of the dirt and controls are always available.

Have tried but failed with Minelab to described bench tests. I'm a piano tuner. Using an electronic tuning device accruate to .001 of a cent, tones produced by running coins over the coil are different. Zinks, dimes, and quarters sound similar but they are not. For ex., a a quarter reads approx. 24 Cents below A-440. Dimes register 4-6 cents less, and zinks 16 cents below tonal reading of clads. It would've been nice if engineers were interested in basing response tones on A-440 pitch, a pure tone. Must note that I know my cent readings are off because passing a coin over a coil does not produce a sustained tone. Good hunting with your device. mike

 

[Dave Lotek]

madaboutmike, Thanks for the insight about the pitch changes and types of targets. What if you had an independent tone generator tuned exactly to the metal detector's pitch. When you detected metal, it would remain the same but the detector would lower in pitch resulting in beats. Beating frequencies would tell you what type of target. A quarter would beat rapidly, something else would perhaps beat less, just like piano tuning.

Dave Lotek

 

[Rick(ND)]

This is a XS2 I am building up and added the new 180 Minelab meter and the new Sun Ray S-1 probe as you notice the probes are black now. I still have a little work to do to it yet, but it seems like it is balancing out real good and should be fun to use as it wont wear me out as much. I also added the little stand that clamps on and the hand grip will be adjustable to change postion when you change to a lighter or heavier coil to keep a good balance. If this works out good I will do my GT next.
[attachment 68086 sovmod.jpg]

 

[D Wes]

It's A great Looking Detector and well Done, really Like the way you mounted the meter. There is no other Detector Like the Sov's
for Custom Building. Do you have A pin Point switch under the meter.

 

[Rick(ND)]

This is a shaft that a guy is building and have a few things to work out and probably be sold by a few dealers. At this time I don't have a pinpoint switch set up yet, but working on a idea. This XS2 has the switch on the back of it for single tones, so I may make this my remote pinpoint switch for now. I did one before with the pinpoint switch on top of the hand grip, but the meter was in front on the hand grip. I like the meter on top of the hand grip after I tried it.

 

[madaboutmike]

Dave, Interesting suggestion. Sounds like you have a music, engineering or tech background. A tone generator can be calibrated. For example, a minelab tone of a quarter at 10 hertz below A-440 can be calibrated on a tone generator and then set as pure, resulting in accurate comparative pitches for other coins and pull tabs. Will give this a lot of thought. ( Hate the idea of buying another tuning tool-got too many!) I'll be interested how my Sov. will be after it comes out of the shop and they give me the meter it should have come with. Keep thinking the good thoughts. mike

 

[UK Brian]

Device looks like a early version Pre Amp booster. Mines internal and draw current from the normal battery pack.
Re the balance/control box position I have mine set right at the back of the shaft as my Sovereign is used mainly on the beach with the 12" SunRay or 14" Penetrator coil and thats where its needed to balance their weight.

Brian