COOL TOY! The Ion Chamber.

[ultrafire3]

For this neat-o thing you need a small darlington NPN transistor, a can, tin foil, a rubber band, drill, wire, multimeter, 4.7K resistor, and a 9v battery. drill a small hole in the top of the can and stick the base-pin of the transistor through it. Solder one end of the resistor to the can and the other to the + wire of the battery. Now solder a wire to the Collector end of the transistor to the terminal of the battery. Attach the - wire of the multimeter to the wire to the Emitter. Attach the + of the multimeter to the can. Strap some tin foil w/ the rubber band to the open end of the can. "now thats fine and dandy ultra... But when would I ever use this?" This device measures radiation, mainly alpha and beta. get your hands on a fleck of uranium ore and place the can tin-side down on the subject and watch as the numbers on the multimeter climb! leave your comment on how this worked for you!

 

[Fish4Fun]

I followed all the directions but I am having difficulty locating uranium....I put all my stuff in a backpack and went over to the nuclear power plant, I figured they'd have some for sure and might let me have a little bit to test....the security guards were very narrow-minded about my request and insisted that I leave immediately! When I tried to explain I just needed a tiny bit, more guards showed up and things were beginning to look a bit scary. I am not certain how many of them they thought it was going to take, but I am fair certain on how many they were going to use....

LMAO, just poking fun ultrafire3, sounds like a cool project.

Fish

 

[ultrafire3]

lol fish

You know there are websites that sell uranium ore flecks that are save to ship?

 

[davenn]

there's a lot of rocks and minerals out there that have traces of uranium and other radio-active elements in them. I have a few in my collection
Even the good ol' smoke detector found in most homes has a radioactive source
All these things make my Geiger counter tick wildly

Dave