US$436 @RadiumBLE Geiger-Muller Counter - How a Pancake Tube makes a Portable Geiger-Muller Radiation Detector

“When most people think of Geiger counters, they either think of the black boxes that are only used inside nuclear reactors or nuclear submarines to check for excessive radiation, or bulky devices that are both expensive and difficult to use. Radium tries to be different – after almost a year of research, our team completed the development of a next-generation device that aims to be affordable and extremely easy to use, without compromising the quality of the provided measurements.”

Amsterdam based Russian engineer Sergey Vladimirov Commenting on his recently kickstarted Radium Geiger Muller Counter

First there was a Consumer Physics US$199 SCiO Portable IR Spectrometer that ran a successful Kickstarter Campaign for a device that could identify virtually any complex chemical compound as noted in my blog article entitled “Consumer Physics US$199 SCiO Portable IR Spectrometer – Star Trek Tricorder that can scan the Molecular World”.

Now come yet another Kickstarter campaign for a detector, this time for a portable Geiger-Muller Counter aptly named Radium as described in the article “Radium: A compact radiation detector for a post-Fukushima world”, published February 24, 2015 By Drew Prindle, DigitalTrends.

Designed by Amsterdam based Russian engineer Sergey Vladimirov, he kickstarted his campaign on Wednesday February 18^th 2015. As of the day of writing of Friday February 27^th 2015, his campaign has amassed some eighty four (84) backers who have pledged some US$26,846.77 (€23,979).

With a goal of US$111,959.52 (€100,000), this project might just succeed, if it could pick up a little more pace. However, if and when it does succeed, expect this product to ship in early May 2015 to late June 2015 for US$486 (€389).

What makes his kickstarter so interesting is that the Radium Geiger-Muller Counter is portable enough top fit into your pocket. This is because the Radium has a pancake shaped Geiger-Muller Tube that enables it to detect alpha, beta, gamma and X-rays.

The results are then communicated via a Bluetooth connection to your smartphone as noted in the article “Radium Easy To Use Professional Geiger Counter Hits Kickstarter (video)” published February 20, 2015 By Julian Horsey, Geeky Gadgets.

With a May 2015 shipping date, perhaps this is the kickstarter you may be looking to support. When compared to the [price of those large, hefty Geiger-Muller counters, US$436 does sound like a fair price for a state-of-the-art Geiger-Muller Counter .

You can also purchase a Developer Kit to build your own implementation of the Radium Geiger-Muller Counter to be use in everything from Drones to portable Radiation Detectors at checkpoints in a factory. This project will be of interest to hobbyists and persons concerned about Radiation in their Food and I for one love this project to bits

Here's the Link

Radium Geiger-Muller Counter

Radium Geiger Muller Counter Facebook Page

RadiumBLE Twitter Page