Arduino Muon Detector

September 3, 2009 by Zach Banks 22 Comments

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[Sebastian Tomczak] was borrowing a homeade muon detector from his friend, and managed to hook it up to his computer through an Arduino. The detector itself uses 3 fluorescent tubes to detect radiation. Three separate tubes are used in order to filter out terrestrial radiation; cosmic radiation will fall in-line with the tubes and pass through at least two of them, whereas terrestrial radiation will only hit one. There is some basic circuitry to amplify the signal and then perform the OR operation.

[Tomczak] used an Arduino to take the raw data and feed it into his computer. He then used Max/MSP to analyze the data and filter out background noise, leaving only the cosmic ray data. He didn’t mention what he was going to use the data for, though. Maybe he’ll hook it up to a synthesizer.

Related: Digital Geiger counter

[via @littlebirdceo]

Digital Geiger Counter

November 19, 2007 by Will O'Brien 12 Comments

Worried about radiation levels? I’m not, but I still want to build one of these. Mr. Fission here was built by the same guy that’s behind the OpenTracker project. [Scott] based it on the Bargraph Geiger counter built by [Russel E. Cliff]. Both use a standard Geiger tube like the LND712. The tube works with high voltages – easy enough with older electronics, but it’s a slightly tougher challenge with todays low voltage gear. [Scott] used the high voltage power supply from the original project, and built the rest around a good ol’ Motorola HC86 series processor. [Scott]’s idea of using an inverter supply designed for a cold cathode lamp is definitely an interesting one.