EEVblog Electronics Community Forum
Electronics => Projects, Designs, and Technical Stuff => Topic started by: SpectrHz on September 03, 2013, 02:08:10 am
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So today I built up this ZVS flyback driver to drive a high voltage triode that I picked up off eBay. The tube I picked up has an x-ray warning printed on it and the datasheet mentions 2.5 mr/h of x-radiation. Not a great deal but certainly enough to experiment with and also enough to require appropriate shielding and detection. This is a step in a larger project that I have been planning. I received an x-ray intensifier from my dentist upon request and wanted to put it to use in some way. After tearing down my Fluorescence spectrometer I figured a good experiment would be to cut a piece of intensifier out and put it in the Photomultiplier chamber. I will use that to detect the extremely low light levels of high energy waves illuminating the screen such as cosmic rays and x-rays. X-rays will most likely saturate the photomultiplier due to the fact that the intensifier is designed to illuminate when struck by them. I will also use the rest of the intensifier to take x-ray scans of objects of course. Not living things, but perhaps everyday objects such as a cell phone, or remote control. Aside; X-rays can be dangerous if one does not take into account x-ray safety. More importantly, The incredibly high voltages can be lethal, so care must be taken when working with them.
ZVS Flyback driver (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzIL-xDdRoE#)
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your going to mess with xrays? make sure you invest in lots of lead shielding please. its nothing to take lightly. personally I'd not even bother with it, its just too dangerous.
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You'll find some discussion of homebrew X-Rays here http://4hv.org/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewforum.php?10 (http://4hv.org/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewforum.php?10)
Bear in mind that with a glass tube, you're going to need a pretty high drive voltage (as non x-ray tubes go) to get anything past the glass - not sure a TV flyback would be a viable source.
And just because it has an x-ray warning doesn't mean the electrode geometry will produce a spot small enough to usefully image anything. You can pick up used dental X-ray heads pretty cheap these days.
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I'm not sure on how well it will work either, but I should be able to produce high enough voltages from the zvs as the datasheet tells that shielding is needed as low as 30 kv. I'm not going to be exposing film with this probably, but I would imagine that the photomultiplier would pick up the light emitted from an X-ray cassette, even if extremely low level. I'm aware that it won't be a point source, and I definitely will pick up a dental x-ray head when I get some spare change. I just wanted something to play around with, the imaging was just wishful thinking :P