? Community Altoids Scintillation Det. Project

What can you make fit into a mint tin?
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This is for things you've managed to miniaturize to the point of slipping into a pocket easily.

Re: ? Community Altoids Scintillation Det. Project

Postby Doug Coulter » Mon Aug 22, 2011 5:00 pm

Alex, if you want to take this on and run with it - go for it. You'll find this community fairly frustrating sometimes when you want to do a useful detector project, since no one thing can be all things to everyone. I'd originally created this particular forum for things that were so miniature you wouldn't believe it possible (even being a techie) and in response to friend Joe Sousa's propensity to do things like that - so tiny you can't believe they'd fit into a mint tin. You started bigger than that, and then got bigger yet, with ideas for removable/replaceable sensors and such like. Those things have a need to exist, I grant you. But they're not altoids tech, they're just tech and we do have a metrology thread, hardware and software forums and so on. I'm trying really hard to keep this organized as a book editor would do for I think good reasons, so it's best to put things where they fit best, or so I think.

I started out with a standard counter vision, simply for personal safety around fusors and to count things we activate with the resulting neutrons, in a way that it's calibrated and the numbers are comparable across labs. Now, look at all the comments on that thread-set, which have thankfully died. One guy wanted to prospect for uranium -- utterly ignoring the vision statement. Another wanted super sensitivity and ability to discriminate alphas/betas/gammas and with energy readout...the next guy wants us to try some newfangled new detector scheme with no track record, because he's all talk and no action and wants to live vicariously though our doing all the work. So, frankly, I DON'T suggest you ask for suggestions much except at first, because these guys will get you so off track you'll wind up with something the doesn't satisfy your original vision, or any one elses. I had to just ignore all that and do the right thing instead for that project (which is about to be available for sale -- we do around here, not just talk).

As Henry Ford once said, "if I'd asked what my customers wanted, they'd have said a nicer horse carriage". Or something like that. If you want info on what detector works best for what sort of desired detection, we can all help with things like that. But stay true to your vision or look out! Use the board to learn how to do what YOU want to get done, and then go do it -- ignore us after that. Else the performance demands will get so out of line you'll never get anything at all done if my experience on this is any guide.

I strongly suspect that such a thing as you want ain't agoin' to fit in a mint tin, but that doesn't really matter for the board as a whole, just this subforum. Which as it says in the pink line above is for things *already finished* and intended to be a showcase thereof.
Posting as just me, not as the forum owner. Everything I say is "in my opinion" and YMMV -- which should go for everyone without saying.
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Re: ? Community Altoids Scintillation Det. Project

Postby Alex Funk » Tue Aug 23, 2011 10:41 am

OK, Doug, duly noted. Will move this to the best place I can find in the Metrology forum. I don't really have an agenda on the Altoid can thing, except that this may be a good place to move the price/performance bar up a notch for hand-held devices. And considering most of the heavy lifting will be done in software on some wi-fi enabled Android platform, I think we have a chance at putting it into a pocketable form factor.
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Re: ? Community Altoids Scintillation Det. Project

Postby Doug Coulter » Tue Aug 23, 2011 11:21 am

Just start another thread there to discuss. Get some info and ideas, then run with it. If it does get *easily* into a pocket -- the total system, then the final boast goes back here someplace.
I'd think the first thing you want to determine is some trade-off between what you'll detect, how sensitive, and how much discrimination between types and energies of radiation you'll require.
For example, while I'd love the quality of info one of my big NaI's will deliver, the sensor head alone is a gallon jug and must be, else there is so much compton scattering of energy out of the crystal before turning it into detectable light you don't get any resolution anymore. BGO is inherently worse rez, but can be as good or better in small sizes (and this is just for scints). Plastic is worst rez, but real sensitive -- and light weight....and the trade-offs go on - thin windows let alphas in, but are fragile. A slightly thicker one will let in betas, but ruin the energy accuracy for them. Radio waves for wifi are going to really eat batteries, increasing size and weight over a self contained solution (cpu power is cheap now, look at mips/microwatt in pics for example). It's heaven for a guy who likes to work the trade-off space, but the result rarely makes everyone happy, due to the nature of the beast. Personally, while a stealth key-chain size detector definitely has uses (JoeJ turned out an impressive one) my own leanings are more towards -- think what I could pack into one of those old CD hand-held boxes with today's tech...but that's me. You gotta be on fire with your own project and vision or as we know, it won't get done, and this place is all about getting real things done -- we want to show others it's possible, and how we masters do it.
Posting as just me, not as the forum owner. Everything I say is "in my opinion" and YMMV -- which should go for everyone without saying.
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