K75-LND7317/GPS Cadillac+plus Geiger Counter by Atomic.dave Atomic.Dave@yahoo.com

This is a one of a kind custom hand-made Geiger Counter built by Atomic.Dave. It is based on a kit designedby John Giametti (username: Brohogan) I have been building his DIY Geiger counters for over a year and a halfhaving built and sold around 73 of them. All information for this kit is available at the developers website. As I havesaid before, this is more of a kit for someone who knows a little bit about electronics but doesnt have the time orpatience to build it, or would rather someone else do all the dirty work. Having been built by me, of course there willbe some imperfections, although as minimal as possible. The first one like this took close to a year to complete. It isone of the most advanced kit of all that I have created, with most of the features available.

OPERATION1. LCD DISPLAY: Push the large yellow button to turn on the unit. The LCD backlight display light comes on, andyou will see the words:

Atomic.Dave K75CADILLAC+plus

This customized first welcome window can easily be changed if you want, by doing a little programming in Ar-duino. Refer to the DIY site for directions at the SOFTWARE section.

The second window will show this:345 CPM = 1 uSv Running at 5.05V

The first line refers to the conversion rate of CPM to uSv/hr for your LND7317 tube (345) this can be changedeither in the program sketch, with Arduino, or with the Sony wireless remote control which I will explain later. Thesecond line refers to the current voltage that your system is running at. This is a 5 volt system. The 3000mAh 3.7vlipo battery is boosted to 5v with a pololu booster. Everytime you start up your GC (geiger counter) it will show youthis so you will always know your current voltage.

The third window will look something like this:Log file:GPSLOG17.csv

This is the confirmation that the SD card is inserted in and it is currently available for writing data logs. Thenumber is the log number. You can set how manytimes per minute or per hour you can write to the card automat-cally. There is also a button just above the Backlight switch on the top left that is used to write whatever data is onthe screen to the SD card. Information such as CPM, uSv/hr, battery votage, GPS coordinates, date and time arerecorded. If the SD card is not inserted you will get an error message like this:

CARD!On the first line is the current CPM and its corresponding uSv/hr to the right of it. The second line is the default

date and time which will always be this when you start up as the GPS has not synced with a satellite yet. (signifiedby a solid red LED at the very top of the GC) Once the GPS syncs, the LED will blink, and the date and time willupdate to the current one. However, you will have to make sure your time zone is right (which can be adjusted inthe sketch, or with the remote) the clock is a 24 hour clock.

CPM 24 0.0711/21/12 22:36

2. LEDS: Right away, you will hear the beeping of the piezo as your LND7317 GM tube picks up radiation events.There are two LEDs below the LCD. The right one is RED for the Alarm which will only light up when a set alarmthreshold is reached. The piezo for the alarm has a mute switch allowing you to have a LED only silient alarm. Theleft LED is BLUE which is for radiation events and coincides with the beeping piezo which can be muted with themute switch.

3. SWITCHES, SLOTS, LEDS, BUTTONS, PORTS, DIALS:A. Starting on the left topside of the GC is the LCD contrast dial used for controlling the contrast of the LCD

from time to time it may or may not need to adjusted with a small screwdriver. B. Next is the SD Card slot. Please take special care when inserting and removing the card. Once you have it

in the slot, with the very tip of your thumb, push the SD card into the slot until you feel it click into place. Use thesame positition of the Thumb to release it. Once you take out the SD Card, use the included SD card adapter andplug it into your mac or PC. There will be a .csv file that is compatible with Microsoft excel. Open the file with Excel,and you will see all the information listed. The button on top marked SDLOG is used to write to the card. Push it,and the display will say LOGGED!

C. INPUT Next down, left side, is the Mini USB FTDIport for programming in Arduino. When uploading any newchanges to the program sketch, you will need to turn off theGPS in order to do that as they share the same serial port.The Switch for the GPS is located on the face on the farright. Once the edited sketch is uploaded you can turn theGPS back on.

D. CHARGE Below that is the USB charge/powerswitch. This is a toggle switch. When the USB is plugged in,switch up will allow you to power the unit and bypass thebattery (yellow button power off the unit) switch down, theunit goes into charge mode (also yellow button power off)There is a tiny RED LED on the lower left side of the GCthat is the charge status. When the battery is fully charged, the light goes out.

E. GPS- On the very top center of the GC is the GPS status LED. Blinking when synced, and solid when not.The Antenna and GPS is just below it inside. It syncs pretty easily indoors. Below that is the wireless remote IR.When using the remote, point it to that location. Sometimes if it does not sync, you may need to get outside or ifyou are underground you may not sync at all. As soon as synced, the display will alternate between Normal screenwith the CPM and Converted uSv/hr on top line, Date and time on second line, and the GPS screen with the sametop line, but with your current speed and altitude on the second line in either metric or standard.

F. OUTPUT at the bottom right side is the output multi-port used for Geiger Bot (with the included G-Botcable), and for Geiger Graph and RAD OSX with the included audio cable. Just plug in the Geiger Bot cable intothis with the 3 conductor plug, and the 4 conductor into your iphone or ipad. It also serves as an mono audio outputfor silent listening with headphones.

G. P-SAVE This is a new switch. A power saving option. In the up position, it will turn off the display and the piezofor long period scanning. Only the BLUE LED, the GPS status LED, and the Alarm will work (both LED and Piezo)

H. MICRO SD CARD USE Push the top left most button to send logs to the SD card for recording, or with thewireless remote you can set what intervals it will automatically write to the card- zero mean no logging (See item 3below in the remote control area). You can take out the SD card at any time, but I would suggest doing so with thepower off. After you take it out, insert into the supplied SD card adapter and insert into your mac of pc. Then you canopen up the CSV file with Microsoft excel. There you will see the captured logs with GPS coordinates, time, date,CPM, uSv/hr, and unit battery power.

SWITCHES AND BUTTONS ON THE FACE1. SD LOG- This is used to send all info to the SD card writer. 2. BACKLIT- Turns on and off the backlight for the LCD display. This saves battery life, and the life of the display.3. EVENT- Turns on and off the corresponding click to the blinking BLUE LED above it.4. YELLOW POWER BUTTON- Push in for on, and push out for off. Turn this off when charging and when poweringthe unit with the USB.5. ALARM- Turns on and off the alarm piezo. It also corresponds to the RED LED above it.6. DOSE- This is a momentary switch. Hold it down, and the LCD display will show timed scaler mode for as longas you hold it down. There are two by default it is set for 1 minute and 10 minute averaging and changes as timegoes by. You can adjust these amounts with the remote control. You can also toggle this to be on all the time wherethe display will go back and forth from regular display mode with CPM and uSv/hr and scaler mode. 7. GPS- Turns on and off the GPS. This is another way to save battery life. And also when programming the unit it isnecessary to turn off the GPS, upload the edited sketch, then after turn it back on.

REMOTE CONTROL SYSTEM:It adds some conveniences such as the ability to adjust certain things on the GC without the need to plug into

your PC or mac. All you have to do is push the power button to start. As soon as you do that these options will popup. Use the channel button to move thru each option, and use the volume buttons to move up or down within thoseoptions. You can also use the number pad to input numbers rather than using the up down of the volume. After youreach the desired amount you push ENT to enter it into the system.

1. SEC DISP PERIOD is the number of seconds before the display refreshes. (5 seconds is a good setting. Displayis now based on a "running average" like the Geiger Kit.)2. 1= DOSE MODE ON - Dose Mode shows the running average of CPM & uSv/h on an alternate display thatcomes up after 4 display periods have passed. It can also be activated by closing DIP switch #1 on the board. Notethat Dose Mode will only begin to display once 1 minute has passed.3. MIN LOGGING is when to write the log data to the MicroSD card (in minutes). Zero means no log. (Since thesetting is in minutes, logged results will not be subject to rounding errors.)4. CPM->uSv RATIO is ratio for the type of GM tube used. 175 is the default for the SBM-20 and 100 is for theLDN712. 334 for LND7317. Unlike the "default sketch" only one ratio is supported, but now it can be easily changed.Just type in the number, and push ENT to confirm.5. ALARM > CPM when the CPM is greater than this value the alarm LED and Piezo will go off. (or only the LEDwhen the alarm piezo is turned off) 6. ZONE (>12= +) you need to set your time zone because the GPS provides time in UTC format. The time zonecan be anything between -12 and +12, but avoid the complexities of entering negative numbers, values between 0and 12 are considered negative, and above 12, positive. So if your zone is +5 you would set 17.If for some odd reason the remote does not work, hit the mute button and when the IR OK! shows up on the dis-play, you are synced, hit the power button then start hitting the up down on the channel button. Other options canalso be added if you know how to program in Arduino.

DIY GEIGER COUNTER DEVELOPERS WEBSITE: (this websiteis the kit which this geiger counter is based on. At this site you will findmany good sources for your unit and many other subjects having to dowith Geiger counters and what this unit is capable of)http://www.sites.google.com/site/diygeigercounter/

ARDUINO Software and Serial-USB connection information:ON the cd you will find the FTDI driver and Arduino program ver-sion 1. Install both and restart your mac. Copy the GeigerSketch folder to the same folder as your Arduino program is andremember where that is as that will be where you go to saveyour sketch everytime you make a change to it. There will alsobe a Library folder that will also need to be in the same folder.Just remember that the folder has to be the same exact nameas the sketch name is. And also within Arduino, you will have togo to preferences and show Arduino where your default sketchfolder is. The major difference with this unit is that because thisis the shielded kit, only system version 9 can be used and/ormodified. You cannot upgrade to the newer system software butonly modify and resave the sketch.

ARDUINO SETTINGS:1. Open Arduino2. Open the saved sketch .ino file, connect your Geiger counterto the USB with power switch off.3. Verify the file by clicking the little check mark icon.4. Click TOOLS, and Select Board type as Arduino UNO, and select serial port as the top tty choice.5. Click Serial Monitor (top right looking glass icon). Set Baud rate to 9600 and you should see the CPM, uSvand geiger counter voltage data coming up once per minute.For more info go to website under Software section on the DIY geiger counter website. Or go to Arduino.cc

GEIGER BOT SUGGESTED SETTINGS: (You may have to play with it to get it just right)http://sites.google.com/site/geigerbot/S

POWER and OTHER SYSTEM ITEMS:A. Lithium Ion Polymer battery - 3.7v 3000mAh

http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/lithium-ion-polymer-battery-pack-3a-p-588.html?cPath=178_183 Full recharge in 2.5 hours, provides approximately 20 hour constant use of geiger counter Charge with the wall charger (make sure cable is to the left, and the red light on the adapter comes on) Charge with USB will take about 5 hours or more.

B. Sparkfun LiPo Charger Basic - Mini-USB PRT-10401 https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10401

C. Pololu 5V Step-Up/Step-Down Voltage Regulator S7V7F5 http://www.pololu.com/catalog/product/2119

D. Sparkfun 5V FTDI Basic Breakout https://www.sparkfun.com/products/9716

E. Adafruit EM-406A GPS Module http://www.adafruit.com/products/99

LND-7317 GEIGER MULLER TUBEInstalled inside this nicely planned out kit is a PANCAKE LND 7317 whichsenses Alpha, Beta and Gamma. The pancake tube is mounted to the case bya solid copper bracket, with a galvanized 1/8" mesh for protection and siliconfeet. It has a handle that was placed in a well balanced position. I will be In-cluding and shipping the Geiger Counter inside a Pelican 1150 atmosphericcontrolled case to protect the pancake from high altitude and pressure implo-sion during shipping.

http://www.lndinc.com/products/17/

ENCLOSUREDimensions: New Age Enclosure - S784114 - 7.8" x 4.1" x 1.4" (not includinghandle or feet)http://www.newageenclosures.com/files/784114_r5_2.pdf

CARRYING CASEhttp://www.pelican-case.com/1150.html

REPAIRS:There is a very exact order to opening and closing the case, that I can explain to you if you need to but I would not suggest it. I will be more than happy todo any maintenance if you need at no charge except shipping.

PACKAGE CONTENTS:In your package you will find: Cadillac+Plus Geiger Counter, Pelican 1150 Case, Lead Pig w/ Samples, Sony RM-EZ4 Remote Control, SanDisk 8GBMicro SD disk and Adapter, (3) Cables: Geiger bot 3 to 4 conductor, Audio 3 to 3 conductor, Mini USB to standard USB2. (2) Chargers: Cigarette adapter& 5V white wall charger. CD with software and documents, Manual, stickers, and extra faceplate labels.

Select options Select Geiger Counter Select LND712 CS137 Adjust Conversion factor to your tube:

123 for LND712175 for SBM-20

360 for LND7317Select I/O Settings

Auto Adjust OFF(you may need to play

with this setting) RMS Window 1

Delay Window 30Volume Thresh 20000

Ultrafast Rates ON

atomi

c.dave

RA

DIA

TIO

N D

ETEC

TO

R

ALPHA s B

ETA

s G

AM

M

A s X

-RAY

ALA

RM

EVEN

TB

AC

KLT

SD

LO

GD

OS

E

INPU

T

CH

AR

GE

OU

TPU

T

P-S

AVE

GPS

CA

DIL

LA

C+p

lus

LN

D 7

317

87

6

4

3

2

5

+

+

14

17

18

19

16

15

12

2 6

1 2 3

1 2 3

1 2 3

BACK

LIGH

TB

SOUN

DC

ALAR

M

DPO

WERE

F+

_

EVEN

TLE

D

ALA

RM LED

In

LR

Out

2 4 6

3

DOSE

1 2 3

GPS

POW

ER S

AVE

WRI

TECH

ARGEA

GH

I

12

12

10

11

5V U

p/D

own

BOO

ST

LIPO

CHARGER

ALARM

PIEZO

1K O

HM

RESI

STO

R

56K

OH

MRE

SIST

OR

3.5m

mSo

cket

MU

LTI-P

ORT

.1 u

FCa

p.1

uF

Cap

270

OH

MRE

SIST

OR

300

OH

MRE

SIST

OR

13

1 5

4

51

9

LIPO

FTDI

12

34

IR S

ENSO

R

3

GPS

LCD

CONT

RAST

POT

ALA

RM

EVEN

TB

AC

KLT

SD

LO

GD

OS

E

GPS

A

I

BG

CD

F

H

E

1. G

ND

2. V

CC

3. R

X4.

TX

5. G

ND

6. N

/C

GN

D

VC

C

RX

TX

GN

D

N/C

Pin

#1

is o

n th

e R

IGH

T

6 5

4 3

2 1

+