Mobile GPS logging Geiger Counter Project Pt.1

Archived from radmon.org - originally posted 17/03/2016

I recently bought myself a DP-66M from ebay, then another one, then a NetIO GC-10 and I have another on the way. Maybe a different one soon? It's fair to say I have been bitten by the Geiger counter bug!

I am building a static outdoor monitoring station at home, monitoring 24/7, but currently waiting on parts from China. In the meantime I have been playing with the GC-10 and built a prototype mobile GPS logging unit to take on my travels. I live not too far from Heysham power station and the Westinghouse Springfields nuclear fuel manufacturing site, so I will be having a drive around them soon to see if there are any elevated levels

The unit uses an Arduino Pro-mini at the core, with a GY-GPS6MV2 GPS receiver module and a Catalex SD card module. All are cheap as chips on ebay from China. The Arduino takes the GPS data via RS232, the CPM from the GC-10 RS232, does a little processing and parsing of the data and shoves it on the SD card in a CSV. Each time the logging is started it creates a new filename generated from the date/time so should be easy to get the data and upload it to Google maps or something similar (I haven't gotten round to that part yet). There is a bi-coloured LED that changes from red to green when a good satellite lock is acheived and it will not start to log the data on the card until a valid date/time is received from GPS. This keeps the CSV files nice and tidy with proper logs only.

In testing I have had issues with the batteries (2x AA via a 5v boost converter to the GC-10), but I think that was down to bad batteries, so I am currently testing on fresh batteries. I checked the current and it is pulling just under 4mA at the batteries, so whilst they won't last long, it should be enough for some walky-walky monitoring. I plan to add an external GPS antenna/socket and maybe a couple of 18650 Lipo batteries and charger/protection circuit/module. I think it would be nice to be able to power from either the car 12v or maybe a 5v USB type power input that would charge the batteries when plugged in, but that is for another day.

A zip file containing the source/schematic etc. can be download here: GPS Geiger Counter. Please note this was a long time ago and may contain old library code, so may not compile as is.

Contained in the zip are some photos of my prototype build, the Arduino source and schematic so anyone that wants can go build one also! Some knowledge of electronics/arduino will probably be needed as I have not, nor intend on doing a step-by-step.

ETA: I forgot to mention that this can be used with any Geiger counter that spits out the CPM over RS232, such as the counters to connect to Radlog.

AETA: I also forgot to mention that some of the code is a little clumsy and probably not very efficient, especially the LED part for changing the colour etc, but that said it does seem to run well on the Pro-mini.