Safecast Logging Geiger Counter Kickstarter

Hi hackers,

I’ve been looking at this Kickstarter: Safecast bGeigie Raku

For a logging Geiger based off an Arduino, $800 USD seems really expensive.

They’ve open sourced their bGeigieNanoKit: GitHub - Safecast/bGeigieNanoKit: bGeigieNano is a kit version of the bGeigie mobile survey geiger counter designed to fit into a Pelican Micro Case 1010. and they sell the kits for $550 USD https://shop.kithub.cc/products/safecast-bgeigie-nano

Any thoughts on really costs for building this? Would this make a good VHS project?

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I think this is great idea for a VHS project.

I enjoyed Luka Mustafa talk which covered his hardware contributions to SafeCast

Mark

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Twenty years ago, I built a Geiger counter from a kit that I got from Electronic Goldmine.
Cost me around $50.00 US. Looks like they still sell kits in that price range ( $79.95), ok, that’s taking two decades of price inflation into account… You can buy raw Geiger tubes for as little as $15.00, so, if you are willing to build your own 400V DC power supply from junk box parts, it’s possible to build a Geiger counter complete with Arduino clone, for under $75 US.

http://www.goldmine-elec-products.com/products.asp?dept=1473

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“For a logging Geiger based off an Arduino, $800 USD seems really expensive.”

You are right. Even $550 is too much for a kit. And that’s US$…

Look up the Brogan kit and its evolution. Good history, good documentation, plenty of users (make sure to take a look at the enclosure gallery!) all over the planet.

This popped up on Hackaday today.

Also

Geiger counter is kind of not very useful, boring thing. A kind of toy you got bored with in 1 hour.
$800 can get you a usable gamma spectrometer so that you can see what a you are looking at - Radium, Uranium, Cesium, and so on …
Some links:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Portable-NaI-Tl-30x40-Well-Scintillator-Gamma-Spectrometer-for-iPad-iPhone-PC-/322508725962?hash=item4b17049eca:g:LOEAAOSwONBZD4yy

and this dude’s channel where he have fun with his spectrometer which is I think a scintillator connected to ENERGY spectrum analyzer (don’t confuse with RF one): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnAhUiJynSNpHLNVa4nZfoQ

Someone is selling “SEI Inspector EXP” on ebay for $2300, last time I looked there were several for around $870.

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I guess it sort of depends on your intended purpose… If your equipping a fallout shelter or mineral prospecting.

You are right.
Speaking of fallout shelter. I have heard that by looking at spectrum from you can even find out what hits you - Indian nuke, American, Russian, Chinese or it was just a garbage from Homer Sipson’s garage etc. Cannot find examples of charts that can be used as examples. Perhaps looking at samples from respectful test sites would make it clear.

This set of tools looks pretty awesome as well:

I especially like the City model with the Air Quality sensing:
https://www.uradmonitor.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/comp_model_CITY.jpg

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