I have an update on the new GS-PRO-V5, all components except the aluminum enclosures have arrived so I am doing my best to get everything ready for assembly once it does.
China is currently suffering a massive COVID pandemic and it is affecting supplies for everyone, I know this first hand as my wife is Chinese and 100% of her family in Shanghai have contracted the virus in the last 10 days.
As previously announced the new GS architecture is similar to the GS-USB-PRO, but compressed onto a smaller board with various improvements.
- Quality 100 x 100 x 35 Milled Aluminium enclosure
- Laser engraved indicators (including the switches underneath)
- Slotted circuit board for preventing high voltage arcs.
- Pin for 5V Logic pulse with adjustable threshold
- New 4 digit 7 Segment display
- Arduino Pro Mini (5V) Micro Processor
- Mode button to switch display function
- Display counts per minute
- Display counts per second
- Display total counts
Industrial design is something I am quite passionate about, so I just want to highlight a few of my ideas for this design. First of all I wanted a case which not only looks good but also feels good. Something milled from aluminum would look great, but how to make such thing without a lot of waste ? I found 100 mm square Aluminum pipe is a stock item, so if I could fit my circuit on a 90 x 90 mm board, it might just work. Using a slice of 100 mm square pipe significantly reduced waste and all I needed was two milled end pieces.
Unlike most consumers my clients are pretty unique, they usually open the devise and mess with the circuit (which is perfectly okay), so rather than hiding the screws and making it difficult, I designed the case with a single hex bolt, which also makes it super easy for me to assemble (The GS-USB-PRO had 8 tiny screws). I also supply a hex screwdriver with the unit.
Since I expect customers will open the box, I did my best to make to board look good with all parts neatly laid out on a white PCB with black part numbers.
As with all my designs I try making them aesthetically pleasing with all dimensions in Fibonacci ratios, in this case 100/1, 100,3 etc. If you are not familiar with this system, it's simple, you just divide the base length (usually the longest side) of any project by a sensible fibonacci number, try it on your next project.
Micro Processor Functions
It should be noted, these additional functions I have included were an after thought. The main reason I included the microprocessor was to drive the 7 segment display as a voltmeter, but since it was already there, I figured why not also utilise it as a simple rate meter.
In order to use the Arduino board as a rate meter I needed a logic pulse, something to switch on and off with every pulse, I realised it was already on the board. The LM6142 dual opamp was only used as a single current sensitive preamp, the second output was not used. The only component I had to add was a simple voltage threshold to function as the LLD (Lower Limit Discriminator). The LLD is the blue trimmer potentiometer (P05) on the board. The logic output from the opamp goes via an RC filter to the pin with the green wire, which in turn goes to pin 2 on the Arduino.
A small momentary button is located under the board and is accessible through a hole in the enclosure, by default the display boots up in voltage mode, pressing the button consecutively switches the function from volts, cpm, cps, total counts and back to volts.
Obviously in total counts mode a 4 digit display will quickly run out of digits when a scintillator is used, but when used to count neutrons it can be most useful.
I have uploaded the current version of my code to Github, so anyone can download it, edit it and if required apply future updates to their GS units.
https://github.com/ssesselmann/GS-PRO-V5
PS: The Arduino Pro Mini does not have a USB connector, to update it you need an Arduino USB to serial devise, but they only cost around $5.00
My best shipping estimate for the new GS is around January 16 2023.
In the mean time I shall leave you with a quote from Oscar Wilde... "Be yourself, because everyone else has already been taken"
Steven Sesselmann
- GS-PRO-V5 (Top View)
- GS-PRO-V5 (Front View)
- GS-PRO-V5 (Bottom view)
- GS-PRO-V5 (Open case)
