!: Homemade Geiger Counter with Thorium coated Lantern Mantle

Saturday, 19 February 2011

Homemade Geiger Counter with Thorium coated Lantern Mantle

!±8± Homemade Geiger Counter with Thorium coated Lantern Mantle

My german army model sv500 geiger counter (really good for more powerful radiation sources) and my homemade geiger counter with digital counter (atmega8+lcd) are measuring the activity of a thorium coated lantern mantle. the mantle is stored in a duct-tape sealed ziplock bag, and a epoxy and tape sealed red bull energy shot bottle to prevent any radon gas emission. and you can also see my homemade lead shielding from rolled up lead foil, with an additional insert for more powerful radiation emitters such as pitchblende. overall lead thickness is 12mm, which effectively blocks all beta and gamma radiation from the mantle. even the plastic blocks some radiation, i get about 1mrad with my sv500, and before sealing the whole thing i got about 1,6mrad . my more sensitive homemade counter goes nuts, the overall tube volume is far far greater compared to the tiny sv500 counter tube.