Professional Documents
Culture Documents
by Atomic.dave Atomic.Dave@yahoo.com
This is a one of a kind custom hand-made Geiger Counter built by Atomic.Dave. It is based on a kit designed by John Giametti (username: Brohogan) I have been building his DIY Geiger counters for over two years having built and sold around 70 of them. All information for this kit is available at the developers website. As I have said before, this is more of a kit for someone who knows a little bit about electronics but doesnt have the time or patience to build it, or would rather someone else do all the dirty work. Having been built by me, of course there will be some imperfections, although as minimal as possible. This particular one is a culmination of all of its predecessors. It is certainly one of my more advanced kits having more options then all accept the Cadillac, and I will do my best to explain how to use it. Once you have used it a couple times, it will be a piece of cake. OPERATION Four Triple Pole switches- ALL OFF IN CENTER POSITION. SELECT ALARM SCALER POWER ON OFF/USB CHARGE LIGHT ON/ON OFF ON/OFF ALARM ON/ON OFF ON/OFF SOUND TONE OFF CLICK NULL TONE RESET
UP CENTER DOWN
A. SELECT switch does 2 things. When you first power on the unit, you will see first
port, and into a USB on your mac or PC, then follow instructions to run those programs. It also serves as an mono audio output for silent listening with headphones, or with the included 3 conductor to 3 conductor M-M audio cable, you can run sound based data logging software. C. On the right side of the GC is the Mini USB FTDI output/input for programming in Arduino. This also is used to charge the internal Lithium Ion battery (with the power switch in the bottom position.) Or it can be used to power the GC for extended periods, however when you power it this way, I would advise to turn off the LCD backlight. But its ok to turn it on once in a while, but I wouldnt leave it on for extended periods. D. EXT and INT? this refers to the geiger tubes. EXT is for the probe that plugs into the BNC connector and INT is for the internal tube (CI-180G). When going from EXT to INT, please turn off the unit before toggling between the two. The toggle not only changes the anode connection from one tube to the other, but also changes the system uSv to CPM conversion rate. I have set the EXT conversion to 100. So you wont have to do any programming. Please remember that the internal tube is Beta Gamma sensing only, but the EXT is full range or Alpha, beta, gamma, xray. DISPLAY BAR GRAPH: The display has a new bar graph style with placeholders and is much more responsive. It now updates 20 times per second. The tone is also updated at this rate when used. Auto-precision - decimals are dropped from the displayed dose rate as it gets larger. Beginning with v10.1 the LOG PERIOD can now be set to intervals of less than 1 minute. Valid settings are OFF, 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s, 6s, 10s, 12s, 15s, 20s, 30s, and 1 minute intervals up to 720 minutes. ABOUT DOSE UNITS: The menu allows you select the name of the dose unit that appears on the display. However, to be clear, there is no built in conversion between them. Instead the CPM->[DOSE] RATIO is adjusted depending on the name of the DOSE UNIT selected. For example, 175.43 is the default set for the SBM-20 with uSv as the dose unit. Suppose you pick "mR" as the dose unit name, and want to measure in milirems. ("mR" more correctly abbreviates as milliroentgens but is used to save display space.) The rem is defined as .01 seivert. Therefore, to use the same ratio that was designed for the tube, you would multiply that ratio by 10. You would enter a CPM->[DOSE] RATIO as 175.43 x 10 or 1754.3. Likewise if you wanted microrems ("uR") you would divide the ratio by 10 and enter 17.54. If you do want to use roentgens (used in older instruments) this source states that they are .96 rem in soft tissue. So the CPM->[DOSE] RATIO for actual mR would be 175.43 x 10 x .96 or 1684.1. (for uR it would be 16.84) PLEASE REFER TO THE DIY GEIGER COUNTER DEVELOPERS WEBSITE FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:
Select options
Adjust Conversion factor to your tube: 123 for LND712 175 for SBM-20 360 for LND7317 Select I/O Settings
Auto Adjust OFF (you may need to play with this setting) RMS Window 1 Delay Window 30 Volume Thresh 20000
Ultrafast Rates ON
GO TO: https://sites.google.com/site/geigerbot/
HARDWARE 1. DIY Geiger counter kit V5.1 by Brohogan, Running operating system 10.1 2. Internal CI-180G Geiger Muller Tube, and External RED probe with LND712 GM tube. 3. Power System by Seeeduino, Sparkfun and Pololu (please charge the unit until the RED light goes out) A. You can power the Geiger in a couple different ways 1. With internal Lipo battery (Power switch in UP position) 2. With PWR switch OFF (middle), USB cable plugged into USB port on RIGHT side of geiger, USB PWR switch on right side of unit switched UP, then plug USB cable into: a. Computer or laptop USB b. Wall charger block (included) c. Standard 5v USB Cigarette adapter d. To power and operate the unit this way for long periods, TURN OFF BACKLIGHT
POWER and OTHER SYSTEM ITEMS: This system is capable of producing 900+ volts, so be careful or you may get zapped when handling the system while it is powered on. A. Seeeduino Lithium Ion battery - 3.7v 3000mAh http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/lithium-ion-polymer-battery-pack-3a-p-588.html?cPath=178_183 Full recharge in 3 hours, provides approximately 40 hour constant use of geiger counter with backlight off. Charge with PC/USB will take about 5 hours or more. B. USB Lithium Polymer battery charger https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10401 C. Pololu 5V Step-Up/Step-Down Voltage Regulator S7V7F5 http://www.pololu.com/catalog/product/2119 D. Sparkfun 5V FTDI Basic Breakout https://www.sparkfun.com/products/9716 HIGH VOLTAGE ADJUSTMENT AND MEASUREMENT When you remove the battery hatch on the lower part of the bottom of the unit, you will see three small holes on the top lip of the compartment. These are the HV checkpoints, Negative and Positive, and a screw head that is used to decrease and increase the amount of HV this unit is sending to the GM tubes. You will need a Multimeter with aligator clip ends, that is capable of handling this. Please go the the HV Test & adjust section of the DIY Geiger Counter website. In this section it will explain in more detail. I am providing you with a free 1Gig ohm resistor probe that plugs into the test point holes as shown below. Then use the aligator clips on your multimeter to clip to the Red and Black leads on the probe. I have set it to about 450V since that is about midway between the two tubes. This is also used for calibrating the unit.
ENCLOSURE Dimensions: New Age Enclosure - S784114 - 7.8" x 4.1" x 1.4" (not including handle or feet) http://www.newageenclosures.com/files/784114_r5_2.pdf REPAIRS: If the unit fails for some reason with six months from purchase, I will be more than happy to do any maintenance you need at no charge except shipping. PACKAGE CONTENTS: In your package you will find: Geiger Counter, LND712 Probe, (4) Cables: Geiger bot 3 to 4 conductor, Audio 3 to 3 conductor, 2ft BNC Cable, Mini USB to standard USB2 with wall charger and 2 FREE BNC connectors. CD with software and documents, Manual, RAD sticker, and extra faceplate labels. Rad samples upon request provided in micro lead pig. BONUS- 1G ohm resistor probe for HV measuring. If you ever need to replace the faceplate label, you will need to open up the unit, remove the bnc, toggle, and handle. Remove the old label, then place the new label on, they punch holes thru for these parts that you removed.
HIRO+plus
EXT
S E N SI
INT EXT
TI
Tube Select
AM
U MA s
CI-180GP
RADIATION DETECTOR
atomic.dave
L
P
HA
A s BET
s
BRD FTDI 5V
1 3 5 6 4 2 1 3 5
5V Boost IN
2 4 6
1 3 5 6 4 2
Blue LED POS LED BRD POS Blue LED POS OPEN S Red LED POS OPEN OPEN Piezo Jum mp B Jump LCD Jump L BRD Pin 15 5 BRD Pin 15 OPEN Piezo Jum mp A Jump
LCD Jump R
Board Pin n 12
FTDI 5V
OPEN
A
LIGHT NULL
TONE Reset
E VEN NT EVENT LED LE ED
270 OHM RESISTOR RESISTOR
1 3 5 6 5 6 5 6 4 3 4 ALARM PIEZO PIEZO 2 1 2
B F
1 2
C
ALARM
AL ARM ALARM LED
300 OHM RESISTOR RESISTOR
D
SOUND
SPEAKER TONE OFF CLICK LED/SND ON/ON OFF ON/OFF
E
+
1 2 4
SELECT
LED/BKL LT LED/BKLT ON/ON OFF ON/OFF
POWER P
_
3
LIPO
FTDI
O ON
L R
8 9 10 11 12 13
EX T EXT
O ut Out
INT
1 3
2 4
GM T& GMT C onversion Conversion R ate SELEC T Rate SELECT T oggle o S witch Toggle Switch
14 15 16 17 18 19
INT
EXT EXT