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TimeWaster’s Geiger Counter – A system software for microcontrollers to measure radiation   November 7th, 2011

TimeWaster’s Geiger Counter v1.1

This software is designed to work with the Arduino Uno and the Radiation Sensor Board for Arduino from Cooking Hacks, but should also work with your own hardware design if you adapt either your hardware or the software.
I suggest to take a look at the documentation of the Radiation Sensor Board, it gives a good summary on radiation detection and the hardware used (Especially the geiger-mueller-tube).

TimeWaster's Geiger Counter running on Radiation Sensor Board for Arduino from Cooking Hacks

The software is pretty good commented (this is an excerpt from the introductory remarks):

[...]
 * 
 * The display is divided into 5 measured values:
 * ┌---------------------------------------┐
 * │  "Aver. 2s"  "Aver. 20s"  "Aver. 2m"  │
 * │  "Overall Dosage"     "Time elapsed"  │
 * └---------------------------------------┘
 * The average values reflect the average dosage values in uSv/h 
 * over the last x seconds/minutes.
 * The overall dosage reflects the overall dosage taken in uSv 
 * since activation of the counter.
 * 
[...]
 * 
 * Features:
 *  - 3 different average values with configurable timeframe
 *  - Dosimeter functionality
 *  - Adaptable for different tubes (Attention: mind the conversion 
 *    factors for different tubes, ask the manufacturer of the tube)
 *  - Configurable thresholds for the LED bar in uSv/h
 *  - Configurable which value should be used as threshold
 *  - Configurable overflow value in microseconds
 * 
[...]
 * 
 * This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
 * it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
 * the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
 * any later version.
 * 
[...]

 

Download:
TimeWaster’s Geiger Counter v1.1

Older versions:
TimeWaster’s Geiger Counter v1.0

 

Todo’s for future releases:
- You tell me!

 

Version history:

 * v1.1:
 *  - You can set your name
 *  - Replaced main loop time calculation 
 *  - Replaced overflow check loop with interrupt
 *  - More exact measurement
 *  - Minor bugfixes
 * 
 * v1.0:
 *  - Initial release

 

Have fun and stay safe!

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This entry was posted on Monday, November 7th, 2011 at 00:37 and is filed under Programming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 Responses

December 4th, 2011 at 22:44
Robbie Says:

Thanks TimeWaster! This code is fantastic! Do you know how to get the backlight of the LCD working through your code? So far, I’m just placing a jumper wire between pins 2 & 15 of the LCD screen. It works
but it might be nice to turn it on or off through the code. Any ideas?

Robbie

December 15th, 2011 at 01:35
admin Says:

i don’t think there is a way to do so on the software side. the display bundled with the counter kit has no backlight, but it seems the prepared circuits for the backlight are not attached to the microcontroller.
you could attach the backlight pin from the diplay (pin 15 i believe) to a pin on your arduino, the arduino should be able to handle the power consumption of the led’s (40mA max).
or you could simply add a good old fashioned switch ^^

December 20th, 2011 at 13:09
Robbie Says:

Thanks TimeWaster! They’ve provided a tidy soldered solution for this now as the displays being shipped are now back lighted. heck it here http://www.cooking-hacks.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=2391&sid=250116abb1895dc54f9ad990ae64a61c&start=10 A question for you… is the “overall dosage” in your program the same as CPM?

January 4th, 2012 at 20:53
admin Says:

no, my software does not show CPM at all. the overall dosage is the dosage you have taken in the amount of time the program is running (in “uSv”, NOT “uSv/h”!).

i think i should change it to absorbed dose, which ist the better term.

wikipedia knows more (as always): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absorbed_dose

January 10th, 2012 at 11:25
TimeWasters LCD Framework for HD44780 and Arduino | TimeWaster's Place Says:

[...]   January 8th, 2012 At the moment i am working on my Geiger-counter which is based on this hardware, but has many more features added to it (GPS, SD-Card and Buttons). I will post more information as [...]

January 24th, 2012 at 01:52
tano Says:

Thanks for your soft. I upload it to my geiger counter now. Working good!!
but would you mind to add upto 10 minuites in valueaveragetimes and arduino monitoring functions.
I hope your new featured hardware too.

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