Category Archives: Kits

Kits

Processing sketch displays realtime Geiger Counter data

Leave a comment

Paul Allen sent in this neat Processing sketch that displays data collected by my Geiger Counter kit in real-time.  Counts per minute is displayed in both linear and logarithmic scales, and CPS is also shown (the white trace in the plot above). Nice work, Paul!

The only change I had to make to get this to run on my PC was to change the COM port number on line 43 (I had to set it to COM13 on my machine, yours will probably be different).  I haven’t verified operation on operating systems other than Windows.

(By the way, you’ll need an FTDI TTL-232R-3V3 USB-serial cable to connect your computer to the Geiger kit!)

Kits

Geiger Counter Kits are back in stock

2 Comments

Geiger Counter with Case

Geiger Counter kits are back in stock and shipping again.

My apologies to everyone who has been waiting to place an order, it took a little bit longer than I expected to get all of the parts for this batch.  I’m not sure if I’ll be able to keep up with the demand around the holidays, so if you’re thinking about giving a kit to someone (or yourself) as gift, it might be a good idea to order now.

To learn more about the kit or to place an order, head on over to the Geiger Counter kit page.

Kits

Flying with the Geiger Counter Kit

7 Comments

Shortly after my Geiger counter workshop at the Chaos Communications Camp in Germany, @tatzelbrumm sent me this video of his kit chirping madly on his flight home to the United States.

If you squint at the laptop in the video, you can see that his geiger counter is reading over 400 CPM!

Exposure to cosmic radiation is a well-known side effect of commercial airline flights, and is even documented in the xkcd radiation dose chart (click for a large version):

Christoph sent me his data logs, which clearly show the effect of altitude on radiation exposure:

The red trace is the background level on the ground in SFO and hovers around 20 CPM. The blue trace is the measured radiation over Greenland on his transatlantic flight. The peak readings are 25 times the background radiation at sea-level!

Caution: Unless you like being hassled by the TSA, I don’t recommend flying with the Geiger kit in your carry-on luggage, much less actually using it on the plane! On his DIY Geiger Counter site, Brohogan posted some good advice about traveling with a Geiger counter.

Look! Geiger Counter Kits! And shiny new cases!

Have you done something cool with your Geiger Counter kit? If so, post about it in the forums!