I own several geiger counters. All of them miss a datalogger and a long lasting (rechargeable) battery. They can not be re-programmed for different tubes of for calibration and so on. That is why I have decided to build my own.
The time elapsed from the start of the project to the current state is about two and a half years. I don’t do this professionally, this is just a hobby project.
Before starting, here is a list of the features of my homemade geiger counter:
measures:
– Doserate (µSv/h)
– accumulated dose (µSv)
– long term mean doserate (µSv/h)
– Counts per second (CPS)
– Battery voltage (V)
other features:
– Alarm when doserate is higher than a set threshold
– Graphical diagram of doserate over time
– Datalogger to send gathered data to a computer via USB
– Different display pages with multiple purposes
– Settings menu with adjustable variables
– Updates via USB (Arduino IDE or “RD Suite”) (RD-Suite is not finished yet)
– Display backlight
– Piezo buzzer to make audible clicks if wanted
– low battery alarm
– Very efficient high voltage circuitry
– Battery life of 50 to 70 days when always on and measuring!
adjustable variables (in settings menu):
– Alarm treshold (µSv/h)
– single measure duration (s)
– Light (on/off)
– Sound (on/off)
In the YouTube Video below you can see the assembly.
