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Geiger counters are most commonly used by people to measure radiation levels in different specific places. This is a very popular sensor in other countries like Japan that has active nuclear power plants as their source to generate electricity. This type of sensor is sometimes deployed in different places that are linked to the cloud database to monitor dangerous radiation levels that may occur. EVAL-CN0536-ARDZ is a low-power Geiger counter radiation detector in an Arduino shield form factor that can run on 3V to 5V system supply. It has a low cost, high voltage generation power supply that is robust and adjustable voltage output from 280V to 500V output. One of the key major part of the circuit in figure 1 is to generate high voltage output using Analog Devices precision programmable oscillator that is versatile, compact and easy to use LTC6906 that can be set to run oscillate from 10khz to 1Mhz using single user defined resistor value. This reference circuit design is compatible with most of the Geiger-Muller tube sensors available in the market today with a voltage rating between 280V to 500V.
To set and regulate the high voltage output supply and capture Geiger-Muller tube distinct pulses , the circuit shown in figure 1 has Analog devices LTC1540, a nano power comparator with built in voltage reference to precisely set the user required voltage output and LTC1441 ultralow power dual comparator to translate Geiger pulse to logic level 3V or 5V .
It has also LT6994 robust built in delay block timer chip that generateS the Geiger clicking sound to a regular buzzer. The LT6994 is a programmable delay block timer with a range of 1µs to 33.6 seconds. The LT6994 is part of the TimerBlox® family of versatile silicon timing devices. A single resistor, RSET, programs an internal master oscillator frequency, setting the LT6994’s time base. The input-to-output delay is determined by this master oscillator and internal clock divider.
The circuit also has LEDs indicating radiation levels , reports counts per minute ,microSieverts per minute via USB UART terminal display or via internet through MQTT.
This user guide will discuss how to use the EVAL-ADICUP3029 and evaluation software on how to configure and collect data from the EVAL-CN0536-ARDZ Evaluation Board (CN-0536 Board).
All connector pinouts for the EVAL-CN0536-ARDZ are described in the table below.
Connector | Pin No. | Pin Name | ADuCM3029 Pin Function | CN0536 Pin Function |
---|---|---|---|---|
Arduino DIO High | 1 | SCL | I2C0_SCL/GPIO04 | NC |
2 | SDA | I2C0_SDA/GPIO05 | NC | |
3 | AREF | VREF+ | NC | |
4 | AGND | AGND (Analog ground) | DGND | |
5 | SCLK | SPI0_CLK/SPT0_BCLK/GPIO00 | NC | |
6 | MISO | SPI0_MISO/SPT0_BD0/GPIO02 | NC | |
7 | MOSI | SPI0_MOSI/SPT0_BFS/GPIO01 | NC | |
8 | CS | SPI0_CS1/SYS_CLKIN/SPI1_CS3/GPIO26 | NC | |
9 | RDY | SPI0_RDY/GPIO30 | NC | |
10 | IO28 | GPIO28 | NC | |
Arduino DIO Low | 1 | IO08 | BPR0_TONE_N/GPIO08 | NC (FOR TESTING) |
2 | IO27 | TMR1_OUT/GPIO27 | HV POWER GOOD | |
3 | IO33 | XINT0_WAKE3/TMR2_OUT/GPIO33 | GEIGER DETECT SIGNAL | |
4 | IO09 | BPR0_TONE_P/SPI2_CS1/GPIO09 | ||
5 | IO13 | XINT0_WAKE2/GPIO13 | ||
6 | IO15 | XINT0_WAKE0/GPIO15 | NC | |
7 | TX | UART0_TX/GPIO10 | NC | |
8 | RX | UART0_RX/GPIO11 | NC | |
Arduino Analog | 1 | AIN0 | ADC0_VIN0/GPIO35 | LED1 |
2 | AIN1 | ADC0_VIN1/GPIO36 | LED2 | |
3 | AIN2 | ADC0_VIN2/GPIO37 | LED3 | |
4 | AIN3 | ADC0_VIN3/GPIO38 | LED4 | |
5 | AIN4 | ADC0_VIN4/SPI2_CS3/GPIO39 | NC | |
6 | AIN5 | ADC0_VIN5/SPI0_CS2/GPIO40 | NC(FOR TESTING ONLY) | |
Arduino Power | 1 | NC | - not connected - | NC |
2 | IOREF | +3.3V | IO_VREF (+3V3) | |
3 | RESET | SYS_HWRST_N | NC | |
4 | 3.3V | +3.3V | NC | |
5 | 5V | +5V | 5V | |
6 | GND | DGND (Digital Ground) | GND | |
7 | GND | DGND (Digital Ground) | GND | |
8 | Vin | DC Barrel Jack Power +7V to +12V | +7.5V |
EVAL-CN0536-ARDZ Design & Integration Files
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