Beat Balance Metal Detector
Description:
A Beat Balance Metal Detector made from discrete components.
Circuit Notes:
Various embodiments of the BB metal detector have been published, and it has been widely described in the press as a new genre. Instead of using a search and a reference oscillator as with BFO, or Tx and Rx coils as with IB, it uses two transmitters or search oscillators with IB-style coil overlap. The frequencies of the two oscillators are then mixed in similar fashion to BFO, to produce an audible heterodyne. On the surface of it, this design would seem to represent little more than a twinned BFO metal detector. However, what makes it different above all else, and significantly increases its range, is that each coil modifies the frequency of the adjacent oscillator through mutual coupling. This introduces the "balance" that is present in an IB metal detector, and boosts sensitivity well beyond that of BFO. Since the concept borrows from both BFO and IB, I have given a nod to each of these by naming it a Beat Balance Metal Detector, or BB for short. Happy hunting!