xray

15 Articles

A selection of materials sits on a counter. There is a fluorescent light bulb, two papers stained with dyes, and a few other pieces of paper with no obvious staining.

Building Your Own X-Ray Detector Screen

June 14, 2026 by 8 Comments

Fluoroscopy is probably the best-known method of X-ray imaging: an X-ray beam passes through the subject to be imaged, and the transmitted X-rays illuminate a phosphor screen. Dense objects, such as metal or bone, cast a shadow on the screen, which provides a real-time image of the subject’s interior. Already having access to X-ray sources, [MarcellF]’s next step was to investigate common phosphor materials, then synthesize his own.

Most common materials that fluoresce under ultraviolet light showed no activity under X-rays: fluorescein, quinine, UV fluorescent paint, and common fluorescent minerals emitted no noticeable glow under 80 kV X-ray stimulation. However, strontium aluminate phosphors did fluoresce well, with a strong afterglow, as did the phosphors in a fluorescent light bulb, some LEDs, and an electroluminescent panel. The electroluminescent panel, which used a zinc sulfide phosphor, was almost as bright as the gadolinium oxysulfide screen from a CT scanner’s detector and had no noticeable afterglow.

Continue reading “Building Your Own X-Ray Detector Screen” →

Raspberry Pi 5 Goes Under The X-ray

December 10, 2023 by 1 Comment

Most Hackaday readers will know to some extent what lies inside their computer, even if this is only at a block diagram level listing the peripherals. But what is physically on a modern computer board? [Jeff Geerling] has subjected a Raspberry Pi 5 to a medical imager, and shares with us the many layers of parts and PCB he found there. With a six-layer board and a heap of large BGA chips on it, there’s a lot to look at.

For readers who are used to working with printed circuit boards, it’s likely the techniques involved in the design will not be new. For us, the magic lies in the scale. The sheer number of interconnects on the board is impressive enough, but when it becomes possible to peer into the SoC package it becomes evident that there’s an internal PCB with some of the smallest vias we have ever seen. [Jeff] goes on to show us part by part around the board, on the way reminding us that some of the earliest Pi boards had to be reworked to replace Ethernet jacks without magnetics.

There’s a beauty to these ghostly images which might not be apparent to anyone who hasn’t stared obsessively at a PCB in a CAD package while it takes shape. The images show the work of the PCB designer’s art at a fine scale. We’d almost go as far as to suggest they be viewed as fine art instead of industrial design. Take a look, the video is below the break.

If this art is a bit big for you, then look at ASIC design – which takes things down to the microscopic level of the doped silicon structures within these amazing chips.

Continue reading “Raspberry Pi 5 Goes Under The X-ray” →

2000-Year Old Charred Manuscripts Reveal Their Secrets

November 2, 2023 by 38 Comments

Imagine trying to read a 2000-year old scroll from an ancient civilization. Now imagine that scroll is rolled up, and in a delicate, charred, carbonized form, having been engulfed by the fiery eruption of a volcano. The task would seem virtually impossible, and the information in the scroll lost forever. Right?|

As it turns out, new developments are changing that. Modern scanning techniques and machine learning tools have made it possible to read fragments of the heavily-damaged Herculaneum scrolls. Hopes are now that more of the ancient writings will be salvaged, giving us a new insight into the ancient past.

Continue reading “2000-Year Old Charred Manuscripts Reveal Their Secrets” →

Homemade CAT Scan Shouldn’t Scan Cats

August 7, 2022 by 32 Comments

[Pyrotechnical] thought about buying a CAT scanner and found out they cost millions of dollars. So he decided to build one for about $200 using a salvage X-ray tube and some other miscellaneous parts. A scintillating detector provides the image for pick up with a camera phone. The control? An Arduino, what else? You can watch the video below, but due to plenty of NSFW language, you might want to put your headphones on if you don’t want to shock anyone.

Of course, you need to be careful when working with energetic X-rays. To keep away from the X-ray source, [Pyrotechnical] used a Roku remote and an IR sensor to control the device from afar. The electronics is pretty easy. You just have to rotate a turntable and trigger the camera while lighting up the X-ray tube.

Continue reading “Homemade CAT Scan Shouldn’t Scan Cats” →

Better History Through X-Rays

October 15, 2021 by 7 Comments

Even if you aren’t a giant history buff, you probably know that the French royal family had some difficulties in the late 1700s. The end of the story saw the King beheaded and, a bit later, his wife the famous Marie Antoinette suffered the same fate. Marie wrote many letters to her confidant, and probable lover, Swedish count Axel von Fersen. Some of those letters have survived to the present day — sort of. An unknown person saw fit to blot out parts of the surviving letters with ink, rendering them illegible. Well, that is, until now thanks to modern x-ray technology.

Anne Michelin from the French National Museum of Natural History and her colleagues were able to foil the censor and they even have a theory as to the ink blot’s origin: von Fersen, himself! The technique used may enable the recovery of other lost portions of historical documents and was published in the journal Science Advances.

Continue reading “Better History Through X-Rays” →

a very slapdash x-ray machine on a table

Building An X-Ray Machine

September 9, 2021 by 57 Comments

While we typically encourage hackers to make their own tools or machines when practical, x-ray machines don’t usually make that list. Despite the risk of radiation, [William Osman] has done just that and built a homemade x-ray machine. After receiving an eye-watering medical bill, [William] resolves to make his own x-ray machine in the hopes of avoiding future bills. Thanks to his insurance, the total owed was smaller but still ridiculous to those who live in single-payer health care countries, but it got William thinking. What if he could make an x-ray machine to do cheap x-rays?

Armed with a cheap high voltage DC power supply he acquired from an online auction house, he started to power up his x-ray vacuum tube. A smaller power supply energizes the cathode and forms an electron beam. Then the high voltage (30-150kv) is applied as a tube voltage, accelerating the electrons into x-rays. Safety measures are taken somewhat haphazardly with Geiger counters and lead sheets. With a finger bone cast in ballistic shell [William] made his first x-ray with a long exposure on a DSLR. The next items to go in the x-ray “chamber” were a phone and a hand. The results were actually pretty decent and you can clearly see the bones.

We’ve seen homemade X-Ray machines here at Hackaday before, but not one that is constructed perhaps so haphazardly — his approach makes this obvious: don’t try this at home. Video after the break.

Continue reading “Building An X-Ray Machine” →

X-Ray Sleuthing Unveils The Fake In Your Adaptors

July 15, 2020 by 36 Comments

Lets face it, the knock-off variety of our favourite adaptors, cables and accessories are becoming increasingly challenging to spot. We would be the first to admit, to have at some point, been stooped by a carefully crafted counterfeit by failing to spot the tell-tale yet elusive indicators such as the misplaced font face, the strategically misspelled logo or perhaps the less polished than expected plastic moulding and packaging. When you finally come around to using it, if you are lucky the item is still more or less functionally adequate, otherwise by now the inferior performance (if not the initial cost!) would have made it pretty obvious that what you have is infact a counterfeit.

[Oliver] recently found himself in a similar situation, after acquiring a seemingly original Lightning to Headphone Adaptor. Rather than dismay, [Oliver] decided to channel this energy into an excellent forensic investigation to uncover just what exactly made this imitation so deceptive. He began by comparing the packaging, printed typeface and the plastic moulding, all of which gave very little away. [Oliver] concluded that atleast superficially, the clone was rather good and the only way to settle this was to bring out the X-ray, of course!  

The resulting images of the innards make it blatantly obvious as to why the adaptor is indeed very fake. For a start, compared to the original adaptor, the clone hosts a far more thin BOM count! If you are really serious in getting some training to better spot counterfeits, check out a post we featured earlier on the subject!