Gravity: Geiger Counter Module – Ionizing Radiation

We knew Makers have radiant personalities; just look at our radioactive environment. It’s true, radiation is everywhere in our lives, but unfortunately, our sparkling personalities aren’t the only type. Much of background radiation is harmless in the small doses we receive by answering a phone call, using a microwave or drinking a glass of water. Human cells are rather remarkable at repairing damage from the radiation around us every day. It is fascinating to find these hidden sources with environment sensors. However, certain types of radiation are more worrying with prolonged exposure or overexposure leading to safety concerns. While ionizing radiation is found in atomic bombs at obviously disastrous levels, this type of energy release is also naturally occurring in the soil, water and vegetation. Ionizing radiation has been used for great benefits through medical devices like x-rays with careful calibration for our safety. If you are interested in discovering the hidden sources of ionizing radiation in your life, the Gravity: Geiger Counter Module is designed for detecting these radioactive spaces you may want to avoid.

The Geiger Counter is responsible for the tell-tale crackling you’ll hear when you move your Gravity Sensor Module near ionizing radiation. The ingenious tubed device creates this sound as a reaction to the atomic energy resulting from the ionizing radiation in an area; however, it will not show you exactly where the original source of the radiation is or the specific type of radiation. This small Geiger Counter Tube is a sensor made for hobbyists looking to learn about radiation sources or teach general principles or these interesting invisible forces. We don’t recommend this simple module for professional measurement or directly monitoring personal safety. That said, this Geiger Counter Module is a fun tool to experiment with and give your DIY projects a radiation detector with up to 1200μSv/h range.

The Gravity: Geiger Counter Module has another out-of-the-box use for generating truly random numbers from undetermined high-energy particle ionization around us. Makers use this module to take advantage of the random entropy of this radiation to produce numbers with far more randomness than a fixed random sequence or random algorithm could provide. The Gravity: Geiger Counter Module is compatible with Arduino microprocessors like the Arduino Uno R3 for creating mind-blowing projects right in your Tinkerer’s workshop.

Warning: The Geiger tube is a fragile piece of technology that is highly sensitive to strong light. Please avoid direct sunlight on the Geiger tube as this may cause extremely high readings. Additionally, the Geiger tube itself is driven by a high voltage of up to 400V and must not be touched when turned on.

Please Note: This Gravity: Geiger Counter Module can only detect ionizing radiation typically found in x-rays, and it cannot detect electromagnetic radiation, such as microwaves or mobile phone radiation.

Additional Resources:

• For more information, resources, safety guides, and tutorials on how to take advantage of this Sensor Module, we invite you to check out the original DFRobot Gravity: Geiger Counter Module Wiki Page.

As self-proclaimed “Robo-holics”, DFRobot is a company comprised of over 100 staff members, of which 30% are engineers who love to build robots. It was started in 2008 with the goal of embracing and promoting open-source hardware, with a core focus on Arduino, Raspberry Pi and their very own LattePanda development boards. Since then, DFRobot have manufactured over 1300 unique modules, sensors and components that all work together and complement each other, allowing users like us to enjoy a full spectrum of cutting edge robotics and electronics without having to pay premium prices.

With the primary goal of developing and manufacturing great quality products, while making them accessible to as many people as possible, DFRobot are rapidly becoming one of the most common-place brands in the world of open-source robotics and electronics. With more than 1300 products developed in-house, and an impressive range of different categories and specialisations, there are few brands in the world who can compete in terms of quality, accessibility and genuine innovation.