New bGeigie Nano kit source?

[Cyrus Kalbrener]

Now that KitHub in the US has discontinued stocking the bGeigie Nano kit, are there any other sources for the kit left, or do people need to now scrounge for the parts themselves?

I had to source the parts for my unit myself, and while DigiKey had a lot of the parts, the LND-7317, the PCB, and the laser-cut acrylic parts were a pain. The iRover HV board was a particularly hard part since I had to call and talk to the company owner directly, and the part itself ultimately failed anyway.

I realize that this project is now almost 10 years old, but I would like to think that a kit source for these materials is still an option for people who are interested such a unique and useful tool. At the very least, updated sources for the materials should be made available.

[Sean Bonner]

Honestly it’s unlikely there will be a new source for kits. The reality is that as a 10 year old project the parts have all gotten harder to source and the original goal of selling the device at essentially cost as disaster response isn’t viable 10 years later. Every distributor so far has lost money on it, though they were happy to do that as a kind of donation, it unlikely that anyone else will move into that space. With current costs and demand it would need to be double or 3x in price for it to make financial sense to any company to get behind so it’s likely going to remain an unsupported kit design, hopefully inspiring new designs and projects (some of which are already in the works). 

-Sean

On Jan 4, 2021, at 5:49 AM, Cyrus Kalbrener <cyr...@gmail.com> wrote:

Now that KitHub in the US has discontinued stocking the bGeigie Nano kit, are there any other sources for the kit left, or do people need to now scrounge for the parts themselves?

I had to source the parts for my unit myself, and while DigiKey had a lot of the parts, the LND-7317, the PCB, and the laser-cut acrylic parts were a pain. The iRover HV board was a particularly hard part since I had to call and talk to the company owner directly, and the part itself ultimately failed anyway.

I realize that this project is now almost 10 years old, but I would like to think that a kit source for these materials is still an option for people who are interested such a unique and useful tool. At the very least, updated sources for the materials should be made available.

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[Cyrus Kalbrener]

Sean,

Does this mean that the Raku or some other design may get resurrected? I'd love to see similar devices continue to be developed and made available to everyone.

[jan.he...@gmail.com]

Hi,

please, do not forget CzechRad:

https://groups.google.com/g/safecast-devices/c/2extZt-8fTA/m/IQ1hLXp0AwAJ

the project is in progress :-)

Jan

Dne pondělí 4. ledna 2021 v 16:49:46 UTC+1 uživatel cyr...@gmail.com napsal:

[Cyrus Kalbrener]

Jan,

Cool. Is there a repo or site where we can follow this project?

[Sean Bonner]

The Raku has been in constant development so “resurrection” isn’t really right word. Hopefully it will be released in some format in 2021. But yes there are projects (ours and others) that were inspired by the bgeigie nano which hopefully should pick up where that leaves off. The thing to remember is that Safecast is an all volunteer non-profit so the work that we do has to fit into the spare time of volunteer, and situations in 2020 caused people to have less spare time and our funding disappeared almost entirely so it’s slow moving. In 2011 there was a big disaster that everyone was focusing on responding to so dev cycles are a bit different now than they were then. 

-Sean

On Jan 4, 2021, at 7:49 AM, Cyrus Kalbrener <cyr...@gmail.com> wrote:

Sean,

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/safecast-japan/8f35b604-a036-49f1-bc5a-0a14341db94an%40googlegroups.com.

[jan.he...@gmail.com]

Hi,

not yet. I will discuss it with my boss so I could put some information page on our institute wiki.

Jan

Dne pondělí 4. ledna 2021 v 17:04:53 UTC+1 uživatel cyr...@gmail.com napsal:

[robouden]

For the current progress on the Raku look at https://github.com/Safecast/bGeigie-Raku.

Here under a render of the current design. M5Stack based. Minimum hardware

. 

[jan.he...@gmail.com]

Hi,

we just started an English information resource about CzechRad here:

https://github.com/juhele/CzechRad

but be patient as it will need some time to put all the information there.

regards

Jan

[Lugul banda (Lugulbanda)]

i didnt noticed kithup went down with begeige was a very good sorce . and helpfull guys
so any news on this if i see the last responce was 2021 it dosent look good, special i got my new iphone and noticed the app is gone to from the shops....
@sean i remember the bgeige had a high price because the need of people wich want truly work with it, i cant imagine a tripple price, on this...
i buyed mine around 600 tripple would mean around 2000 for something u have to still solder together wich makes it hard for not technical kowing people..
in my country wich i was allways thinking we have anything alot of parts ar not availible cuz of Nato regulations and secrety from ages past, wich are outdated today but still in place..
knowing stuff around radiation is still counted as knowlege about building a bomb, and so ur not be able to get some important parts...
what i realy dont understand, is whats so special in the radiation trapp part, its a ages old technology build in times humankind had no iphones no interenet, why is it so hard to get something like this what someone soldered together in his backyard in the past...
why sticking to that old design, if there are other designs out in the world used for other radiation detection products.. ?

special now with the war in russia the radiation trap delivery became something else...
wich is somehow a funny thing, cuz russia is sanctioniced in many ways, but not a single bit in products from the Atomic sector...

[jan.he...@gmail.com]

Hi,

there is no problem with restrictions. However there is still problem with supply chain delays - for the CzechRad we had delivery time changed to several months in cases where the "pre-COVID" delivery time used to be up to one month... :-(

So there is no problem with Russia - both Safecast and CzechRad use LND detector and Pelican case from USA and the rest of the components is mostly produced in China and other Asian countries.

Regarding the design, the new bGeigie Zen is quite different:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safecast#bGeigie_Zen_by_Safecast

in case of CzechRad we did not want to increase the sice and weight of the device so it fits the same box as bGeigie Nano, but the inner electronics is completely different. Check the photos here - the last batch is direct comparison with bGeigie Nano:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/96541566@N06/albums/72157718229095692

regards

Jan

[robouden]

Jan,

Thanks for sharing the information. The CzechRad is looking nice. Did you ever consider using the E-Paper display as in early prototypes of the AirNote ,to have even a better readout in daylight and to save energy?

BTW, the Zen is not only hardware different, the software is competently rewritten. The bGeigieZen has built in wireless charging and BLE and Wi-Fi connections for real-time monitoring/sending data to the data servers.

The bGeigieZen website info as at https://bgeigiezen.safecast.jp/

Regards,

rob

[jan.he...@gmail.com]

Dear Rob,

E-paper did not offer us any significant advantage for this use but would be much more expensive than common monochromatic LCD.

regards

Jan

Dne neděle 4. června 2023 v 1:14:19 UTC+2 uživatel robouden napsal:

[robouden]

Jan,

Safecast as an E-Paper on early Aitnotes beta and I think those are great for reading in full sun. 

Agreed, a bit more expensive.

Regards,

Rob