~j0ule

This is a project I took from conception, to sketch, to working design in about 4 month’s time. It is the most powerful handheld x-ray source in existence. You can build one too!  [url=https://github.com/gigaj0ule/portable_xray]https://github.c

In 1895, a professor by the name of Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen discovered a source of invisible rays which were capable of penetrating materials not normally translucent to ordinary light. Not only this, but these mysterious rays also caused certain chemicals

The goal of this project was to build an inexpensive portable x-ray machine, since such a device didn’t seem to exist! Odd, since such a machine could prove to be very useful in remote or underequipped areas such as army camps or poorer countries. T

Invented in 1913 by William D. Coolidge, the Coolidge tube is by far the most popular method used to generate x-rays. Essentially it’s just a thermionic diode, but one optimized for high voltages and high powers. Like a thermionic diode a Coolidge tube

The 2x2A is a vacuum rectifier that, before the advent of the silicon diode, was used to rectify the high voltage needed for fun things such as television tubes. Now the silicon diode replaced the 2×2 nearly 40 years ago at the time of this writing, but

Nonionizing radiation, the stuff of microwave, infrared and visible light doesn’t have the energy needed to break chemical bonds, so we may sit out in the sun and get bombarded with a thousand watts and feel no ill effects. Once we reach ultraviolet tho

By far the most common radiation detector, the Geiger-Müller tube itself is nothing more than a highly modified neon lamp. Its method of operation is rather simple. The GM tube is a partially evacuated tube containing low pressure inert gas; typicall

This was a short experiment in cone-beam CT reconstruction. I built a scanner from craigslist parts, which was capable of reconstructing a package of hot dogs with only 60 milli-roentgens of radiation, far less than what you’d need from a modern commerc

Recently I’ve been restoring a Ludlum Model 12 rate meter. What is that you might ask? The best ratemeter on this side of the valley, that’s what! I say this, because it’s one of those rare instruments built with “user serviceable” in mind,