Graphing to Phones

Geiger Bot:

(Please note that the information given here is what I have learned from others. I have not used this myself)

Geiger Bot is a iOS app that connects to Geiger counters and displays CPM and uSv/h on your iPhone or iPad. It's available free at the App Store.

The Geiger Kit has been shown to work well with Geiger Bot. (Thanks to Atomic Dave for the integration, testing and and the setup materials below.)

The following shows how to make the connection cable and set it up.

Making the Cable

The diagram below shows how you wire up the cable to connect the Geiger Kit to the microphone jack on your iPhone or iPad. (click for larger image)

At the Geiger Kit, the signal side of the cable connects to the interrupt ("pulse in") on the Geiger. This is Pin 2 on the header. You can cannibalize an Apple headset to get the propitiatory 4 conductor plug. You can use the headset cable or some other appropriate cable. Be careful with the type of cable you use, and how it's routed. It can pick up noise and give high phantom counts. The diagram above is just a rough example. Finally, you need .1uf capacitor and the 56k and 1k resistors.

Configuring the Geiger Bot App

The image below shows how Dave set up the App on his iPhone. (click for larger image)

Note that it's best to have Auto Adjust ON for background and non-alpha tubes. However at very high count rates, Auto Adjust should be turned OFF. In any case you may have to play with that setting.

I was messing around with this little Bluetooth module, and one thing leads to another. ;-)

The first thing I tried was to connect the Geiger Kit to my Android. In a short while I had the one minute serial counts going to this app on my Android. Next I searched for an Android app that would graph from Bluetooth. The results are below.

Connecting the BT module to the Geiger Kit:

Use these steps to connect the Bluetooth module to the Geiger Kit for both the Android and PC based BT connections . . .

• Get the little BT module as linked above. I'd recommend getting that one, or one just like it, because I know it works, and it's already preset to 9600 baud and slave mode, which makes it easier to integrate.
• Wire it to the FTDI pins on the Geiger kit. From the BT module to the kit . . .
  • GND to either "-" pins and VCC to "+" pin
  • RXD to the Tx pin and TXD to Rx pin
• When the kit is powered, the red led on the BT board will flash. When you connect to Bluetooth ("pair"), the LED will light steadily.

Here is the recipe for this project . . .

• Get these two apps for your Android - Amarino , and the Amarino Plug In Bundle
• Install both apps on your Android.
• On the GK-B5 you will need to recompile and load a new Geiger sketch after set the #define ANDROID to true. The MeetAndroid lib is included in the library package and must be included in your Sketchbook libraries folder.
• Now get the SensorGraph-1 app. (There is also a SenserGraph project but you need to compile your own Android app. for that.)
• Install it, and reboot your Android device. (I thought it wasn't working until I did this.)
• The SensorGraph-1 app is the one you will be using. The other two are necessary, but they run in the background. Put the SensorGraph on your "desktop".
• Now you need to "pair" your Android with the BT module. It should find a device like "linvor" and the PIN is "1234". Copy down the MAC address of the device - it should be something like xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx.
• Start your Geiger kit (must have ver. 8 or higher SW loaded).
• Start the SensorGraph-1 app. It should list the "linvor" BT module. Edit the default MAC address for your BT module. Touch "Connect".
• The app will switch to the display screen. If all is well, the LED on the BT module will turn to steady red, and you should begin to see counts updated every 5 seconds and a graph forming. Sometimes it is necessary to reconnect a few times before you see counts.
• I reused the PWM slider as a "percent multiplier" for the CPM. So setting the slider at 100 gives 1:1 counts between the graph and the kit. Setting it to 200 gives 2x the CPM on the graph, 50 gives half the counts, etc. Setting it to zero stops the counts. Your last setting of the slider and your MAC address is saved.
• Something a little annoying is that when you rotate your screen 90° you will be disconnected and have to reconnect in the new position.