Rock hunting

[dc1rdb]

When looking for radioactive rocks in the wild, I always found it annoying to keep my eyes on the display of whatever gamma detector I was using. Concentrating on small changes in click rate is also less than ideal.
On the other hand, the human brain / ear can easily and subconciously detect very small variations in tone pitch.
So I hooked up the Trigger/TTL output of the Mini SiD to an ESP 8266 programmed as a voltage controlled oscillator:

The sketch for the ESP 8266 is also very simple, I'm sure there is lots of room for improvement:

void setup() {
  pinMode(12, OUTPUT);
}

void loop() {

  int frequencyinput = analogRead(A0);
  frequencyinput = map(frequencyinput, 55, 1023, 100, 5000);
  tone(12, frequencyinput);
  delay(10);
}

The output (pin12) of the ESP 8266 is connected to a passive piezo buzzer.

This is the result:

VID_20230611_185616.mp4

[NuclearPhoenixx]

Love the idea and the finished device. How do you get power to the ESP? Are you using batteries or a powerbank?

[dc1rdb]

The ESP is a Lolin D1 mini pro with included battery connector and charging circuit. A small Lipo sits between the Mini SiD and the veroboard and the Mini SiD is easily being powered thru the ESP. Battery charging via USB

[NuclearPhoenixx]

Oh I see, now that you mentioned it ;)

[dc1rdb]

I`ve just finished a unit that incorporates a rotary encoder for threshold adjustment and utilizes a 40 mm dia x 40 mm NaI(Tl) scintillator coupled to a 2x2 SiPM array (MICROFC-60035-SMT-TR). With around four times the scintillator volume compared to my first unit, the sensitivity is significantly improved.
More details can be found here: /~https://github.com/dc1rdb/RockFinder