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When it comes to awesome Raspberry Pi projects, there are enough to keep you busy until Vault-Tec sends in the bombs. We’re not quite at the point where your Pi can save you from the post-apocalyptic ravages of Vault-Tec’s great cleansing, but there is a project you can cobble together that will give you a little bit of warning before it happens: the Raspberry Pi Geiger counter.

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If you order one of the pre-built Geiger counter kits, it should come with everything that it needs to work within minutes of taking it out of the package. But we don’t want a mere noisemaker. We want data, remote access, and a cool interface, and for that we’re going to need our trusty Raspberry Pi.

Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+

RadiationD v1.1 Geiger Counter

Connecting the Raspberry Pi and the Geiger counter

Assuming you buy the Geiger counter mentioned in this article (RadiationD v1.1 from Cajoe), this will be the easiest part of the whole project. We have to connect the Raspberry Pi and the Geiger counter with three female-to-female jumper cables. The pins we’re looking for on the Geiger counter are on the opposite side from the power switch and are labeled GND, 5V, and VIN. We’re going to connect the GND pin to one of the Pi’s GPIO ground pins (pin 6), the 5V pin to the Pi’s GPIO 5-volt power-supply pin (pin 2), and the VIN pin to one of the Pi’s other GPIO pins, we’re going to use pin 7 here so we don’t have to make any changes to the software we’re going to install on the Pi to take this project to the next level.

Source: GitHub/Chrisys

Setting up the software for the Raspberry Pi Geiger counter

To set up our new Geiger counter, we’re going to use balenaCloud and balenaOS from the same people that make the balenaEtcher software, used for flashing OS images to your SD cards. The balenaCloud platform is basically a web interface that lets you manage large “fleets” of identically programmed IoT devices. In this case, we’re using it to manage just one device.

1. To get started, on the device that you’re using to configure your SD card for the Pi, go to the GitHub repo for the project and click on the Deploy with balena button.

   

   You’ll need to have an account with balenaCloud to proceed.

2. Once you’re signed in, select your device type (Pi) from the drop-down menu, then click Create and deploy.

   

3. Now you have to wait a couple of minutes while balena puts together the Geiger counter web server and its balenaOS.

   

4. Once that finishes, select the Devices tab on the left sidebar.

   

5. Click on Add device.

   

6. Scroll down to the Network section and select the Wifi + Ethernet radio button.

   

7. Input your network’s SSID and password.

   

8. If you have the latest version of balenaEtcher installed, you can click Flash to flash the image onto an SD card. If you don’t, click the arrow to the right of the Flash button and opt to download the image instead, so you can flash it with a program of your choice.

Once you’ve finished flashing your SD card, slip it into your Pi and turn it on. If you’ve wired everything up correctly, your Geiger counter should power on at this point. We still have to wait a few more minutes for the Pi to connect to our balenaCloud account, which will finish installing all the needed software for our web-enabled Geiger counter.

As soon as you see your device’s status appear as Onlineyou can access your Geiger counter’s web dashboard via your Raspberry Pi’s IP address, which will be displayed on your balenaCloud dashboard.

How does a Geiger counter work?

Most of the magic of our Geiger counter happens in the glass tube called a Geiger-Müller tube. The G-M tube consists of two electrodes, the negatively charged walls and a positively charged anode running through the center. Inside, it is filled with a low-pressure gas mixture. When a subatomic particle of sufficient energy collides with one of these gas molecules, it knocks loose an electron which knocks loose a couple more, triggering a cascade effect inside the tube, creating a temporary electrical signal that manifests as a click from your Geiger counter.

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The tube on your Geiger counter can detect both beta and gamma rays as indicated by the β and γ symbols printed on the G-M tube. Although your Geiger counter has no way to differentiate them, of the two, you are least likely to detect beta radiation. Beta rays are generally produced by nuclear decay, and they can be blocked with a sheet of aluminum, so they’re probably not bouncing around inside your house.

The vast majority of detections will likely be from gamma rays. Some of these gamma rays come from outer space, although our magnetosphere protects us from most extraterrestrial gamma radiation. If you live at a higher elevation, you can expect to see higher counts from your Geiger counter. Some are produced by minerals like uranium and thorium. Uranium is one of the most common elements in our crust and thorium is in just about everything.

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So what’s a normal reading? Well, it’s called a Geiger counter because it counts the number of ionizing rays that pass through the G-M tube. This software we have now will keep a running tally of the total number of those events in the past minute. That count per minute (or CPM) rate is then converted into microsieverts per hour via a known ratio based on the G-M tube we’re using.

A sievert is a unit of measurement that represents the probability of developing genetic damage or cancer from ionizing radiation. So if you receive one sievert of radiation all at once, that’s bad news. I get around 0.3 µSv/h which is about 2.6 mSv/yr. The average exposure in the US is about 3 mSv/yr at sea level, and 4 mSv/yr in a high-altitude city like Denver. If you stood next to the containment building in Chernobyl, you would receive about 8 mSv/yr.

Prepare for the future

In the event that Vault-Tec does reset the world, your Geiger counter won’t give you much advanced warning, but you can use it to avoid the fallout and manage your total exposure so you don’t end up wandering the wastelands as a ghoul. Good luck out there, Vault dwellers!