Bounty hunter tracker 4 battery conversion.

[Orangefever]

Good time.

I have a tracker 4 that is hard on batteries. After spending another 40$ on 9 volt batteries, I finally decided to try and sort out my power situation... with an upgrade!

I want to use my drill batteries , as they should last an eternity compared to 9 volt cells.

I've poked and prodded my detector enough to see that it runs with a 9 volt circuit , and an 18 volt circuit too.

I was wondering if anyone has considered or seen what I have drawn in my pictures here.

I am going to supply 18 volt to one half and 9 volt to the other half of the board that needs it.

I have a dc to dc converter to drop the voltage from 18 to 9, and a voltage shutoff board to keep my batteries from overdraining.


Any input or thought is welcome.
This isn't really a project about frugality or managing efficiency, but to help me grow and learn in the electronic world.

This is my first post, of hopefully a few more as I progress through my project!

Thanks for stopping by.

 

[yatahaze323]

I commend you on your work!

For simplicity I'd recommend just buying rechargeable 9v batteries, thats what I did when I got tired of buying 9v for my pinpointer.

Since you're interested in electronics you should check out Geotech's website.

Forums - Geotech Forums

Geotech Forums

www.geotech1.com

Its run by Carl Moreland who's also written "Inside the Metal Detector" books,

Thread 'Inside the Metal Detector - Third Edition'

Dec 12, 2024

The new edition of (@Carl-NC ) Carl Moreland's book, Inside the Metal Detector - Third Edition is now available. He mentioned on DP that it is mostly re-written and greatly expanded from the Second Edition. I ordered on Amazon today. Looking forward to reading it.

Inside the Metal Detector

- Dave

• UT_Dave
• Replies: 17
• Forum: All About Detectors

• 

 

[MuddyMo]

X2 on the KISS solution of rechargeables. They work well.

 

[Orangefever]

Thanks for showing me that cool site, I like stuff like that. Those guys over there seem to be doing some pretty crazy upgrades.


Maybe someday I will too !

 

[Orangefever]

I was starting to get frustrated, at midnight , and it is now 1:30 in the morning , but I can confirm that I have a working detector running off m18 milwaukee batteries.

I interfaced with the original 9v connections on the detector , meaning I can readily switch to using regular 9 volt batteries at any time.

Everything is solid and connected, but I'm missing a few things to make it perfect. Still needs some wire loom or heat shrink tubing and a few things to spiff it up.

I let it sit on for a bit to make sure it didn't melt, burn up, or let the magic smoke out of anywhere!

(DO NOT TRUST THE COLOR OF MY WIRES FOR NEGATIVE OR POSITIVE WITH THE 9V AND 18V CONNECTIONS, SOME ARE INVERTED FOR THE SAKE OF CONNECTIONS)

I have some pictures of the next stages of the project.

One is showing my setup for the battery voltage monitor and the inline step-down voltage converter in a little box.

One is everything outside the detector, before I made it pretty and presentable.

One is of an image I found on Google
(Source : https://poszukiwanieskarbow.com/galerie/PCB/trackerivnowy.jpg)
Of the tracker 4 circuit board that I overlayed my 9 v and 18v scribblings over.

And finally, a few with everything all mounted and happy on the detector.

It's not the prettiest prototype, but it's a proof of concept at the least.


I know it works on my test bench ( my kitchen table ). Tommorow I hope to try it if it's not pouring rain outside again.

I'll keep you posted with any updates or issues that come from this and my path to solving them. Maybe I'll post a wishlist of future things I want to do to finish off this mod, and maybe new ones !

I'll try to answer any questions I can about this too !

Thanks, I'm off to bed !

 

[Orangefever]

It works great, almost like batteries don't exist anymore !

Some thoughts after using the detector In this configuration.

I would like to mount the battery in a different way, as it moves around.

I would also like to find a way to make it easy to set down the detector.
Maybe something like a tri pod , or something on the probe to keep It from tipping over when set down.