Subject:
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Re: Custom sensor current drain - use two sensor ports?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics.rcx
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Date:
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Thu, 30 Jun 2005 15:44:11 GMT
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Viewed:
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3966 times
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In lugnet.robotics.rcx, Jonathan Wilson wrote:
> Wow cool, where are you going to obtain radioactive material (legally and
> without gettting in trouble with the authorities) to test your counter? :)
As Philippe noted, there are various legal sources, but even without a source
there is always natural background radiation to look at, so one idea I have is a
device that records the local background level with a sliding pen on a rotating
paper-wrapped drum (like a seismograph), leave it running for a few days (or
weeks), and the result should be a nice ink-on-paper chart of background
radiation for that period. See if the levels change, if it does, whether any
correlation can be found to weather or whatever :-) If the reading gets
unexpectedly high, I could have it beep and flash lights (which in all
probability would roughtly translate to "quit waving that checksource at me
Justin - I'm trying to measure the background here!" :)
In lugnet.robotics.rcx, Philippe Hurbain wrote:
> > I now have a Mindstorms geiger counter. :-D
>
> Nice!!! I hope you'll publish your work ;o)
Thanks :)
I have a strong suspicion that the circuit as it stands is not something that
will work without several of the weirder components being the exact same ones as
I'm using, meaning someone would have to shop for their parts the same places I
do, which would kind of suck for trying to duplicate it. (If there wasn't the
15mA limit, this wouldn't be a problem, but running so close to the limit,
everything had to be just right). But I'll see how things go. Currently I'm just
crossing my fingers that I don't screw up fitting it into the lego exterior -
that's what happened the last time I tried to miniaturise high voltage circuitry
like this, all it took was a gap between two components being slightly too
small, and the air between them ionized, and then ZAP! zapzapzapzapzapzapzap,
the semiconductors were toast in less than a second :-(
With that 15mA limit, I'm hoping there won't be enough power for it to instantly
destroy itself even if I do screw up, but if I accidentally plugged it into a
motor output, right now it would definitely be toast. (I plan to put a limiter
in to prevent this!)
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