Sciencemadness Discussion Board
Not logged in [Login ]
Go To Bottom

Printable Version  
 Pages:  1  2  
Author: Subject: Cheap radioisotope sources
Hunterman2244
Hazard to Others
***




Posts: 105
Registered: 6-6-2018
Member Is Offline


[*] posted on 25-7-2018 at 17:47


Quote: Originally posted by MultiplePersonality  
And they must be proton or ion accelerators, that is needed for entering into "nuclear dimension".
All you really use different from normal chemistry is much higher voltage (about million times) than for standard stuff like electrolysis. And really you won't lose any energy by doing such experiments, because only proportions are important. While it is true that you need high voltage, you also get free energy from nuclear reactions, and you can use it as heat for distillation or heating or drying. Of course dangerous just like everything.

You again?
View user's profile View All Posts By User
symboom
International Hazard
*****




Posts: 1143
Registered: 11-11-2010
Location: Wrongplanet
Member Is Offline

Mood: Doing science while it is still legal since 2010

[*] posted on 26-7-2018 at 00:59




I remember some people build fusors
I donnt think i have seen a homemade one produce neutrons
Element transmutation now that sound like fun.

The only source i could think about is americium wrapped in a sheet of lithium aluminum alloy the alpha particle passes through the aluminum and beta particle is left and combines with the lithium. Produces tritium and that fuses with the ather isotope of hydrogen.

Alpha emitters
Thorium
Americium

Alpha particle accelerator?

Just dont do a renactment of the nuclear boy scout







View user's profile View All Posts By User
Hunterman2244
Hazard to Others
***




Posts: 105
Registered: 6-6-2018
Member Is Offline


[*] posted on 27-7-2018 at 05:25


I found 6 lb thing of uranium ore on eBay for $44.
View user's profile View All Posts By User
Ubya
International Hazard
*****




Posts: 1247
Registered: 23-11-2017
Location: Rome-Italy
Member Is Offline

Mood: I'm a maddo scientisto!!!

[*] posted on 27-7-2018 at 07:27


Quote: Originally posted by Hunterman2244  
I found 6 lb thing of uranium ore on eBay for $44.



GG man!
now you can crush it and remove uranium, thorium and radium :)





---------------------------------------------------------------------
feel free to correct my grammar, or any mistakes i make
---------------------------------------------------------------------
View user's profile View All Posts By User
stamasd
Hazard to Others
***




Posts: 133
Registered: 24-5-2018
Location: in the crosshairs
Member Is Offline

Mood: moody

[*] posted on 5-8-2018 at 10:24


I have a big bag about 50lbs of radioactive material. I bought it at Home Depot. :)

(spoiler: it's KCl sold as water softener. The 40K contained within makes a Geiger counter click merrily away, many times above the background)
View user's profile View All Posts By User
Frankenshtein
Harmless
*




Posts: 25
Registered: 20-11-2018
Location: ahead
Member Is Offline

Mood: oligomerized

[*] posted on 22-9-2020 at 08:20


On radioactive waste, perhaps putting it back where you got it is reasonable. The problem is when it's around unexpected places and near civilization, and that all your equipment is also said waste.

Imagesco also sells all kinds of sources. It would be really cool having a microscopic piece of polonium. Not worth the money though.

I looked at inertial confinement fusion a while back because I wanted to know how they got so many kiloamps and watts into their systems. Apparently its like a big room chock full of capacitors discharging, IIRC. Kiloamps just seemed crazy to me. Takes some pretty big wires...

Btw, homemade fusors, by way of neutron radiation, actually turn the equipment (vaccuum chamber and anything else it touches) into radioactive waste. Like, it will make the stainless steel or aluminum chamber parts emit radiation.

[Edited on 22-9-2020 by Frankenshtein]
View user's profile View All Posts By User
TriiodideFrog
Hazard to Others
***




Posts: 108
Registered: 27-9-2020
Member Is Offline


[*] posted on 26-11-2020 at 18:34


Smoke detectors have a bit of radioactive foil inside, usually americium. Just make a quick trip to Walmart and get a few smoke detectors. \

You can also blowtorch lantern mantles to powder and mix the powder with some lithium from a battery and wrap it in foil. Then,
drop the foil into a tin can filled with cooking oil. Finally, blowtorch it one last time. This will give you radioactive thorium.
View user's profile View All Posts By User
itsallgoodjames
Hazard to Others
***




Posts: 276
Registered: 31-8-2020
Location: America Lite
Member Is Offline


[*] posted on 3-12-2020 at 06:44


The issue with smoke detectors is they contain less than 1 microgram of americium. They're fine as alpha* sources, but if you want sizeable amounts of americium, smoke detectors aren't a great source. Not that there's really any other options for americium though.

Sidenote, if you're in Eastern Europe, a lot of Soviet-era smoke detectors contain a small piece of plutonium. Probably the only way to get plutonium legally.

*(If I recall correctly, I'm pretty sure americium 241 is an alpha emmiter)




Nuclear physics is neat. It's a shame it's so regulated...

Now that I think about it, that's probably a good thing. Still annoying though.
View user's profile View All Posts By User
clearly_not_atara
International Hazard
*****




Posts: 2781
Registered: 3-11-2013
Member Is Offline

Mood: Big

[*] posted on 3-12-2020 at 08:23


If you want to order some thorium or depleted uranium so that you can observe their unusual and interesting chemical properties, be my guest. I don't think it's too difficult or regulated or something.

If, however, you are thinking about working with high-activity isotopes such as... anything else, stop right there.

Chemists are used to dealing with certain kinds of dangers. Usually things smell bad, or give you a headache, or bubble, or make noise, or something else. But radiation isn't like any of that. A lethal radiation injury is generally not noticeable until hours after it is too late. (Death is generally slow and painful.) And lead shielding isn't always the right choice. And if you think you're going to use a Geiger counter to keep yourself safe while working with radionuclides, you need to maybe review the Wikipedia article on what those are actually for.

That's not to say that you can't work with radiation. But if you're thinking about doing any kind of experiment with any radiation source other than 238U, 232Th or 40K, you need to set your ego down and spend a few months [at bare minimum] taking online courses until you:

- know what a characteristic X-ray is
- know the difference between Gy and Sv
- know what the attenuation factor mu and mu/rho is for common materials and where to look it up
- know AT LEAST what ion chamber, OSLD and diode detectors are, and which one you use (and how) to make sure you're not about to kill yourself
- know what kind of radiation source you're planning to work with, what kind of radiation it emits, what contaminants it produces, and how to properly contain/dispose of those
- know the local laws, procedures, and certifications required to do any of the things you're planning on doing, because fun fact, all of this stuff comes with LONG prison terms

Source: currently doing a PhD on this stuff and I wear a dosimeter when I go into work every day, don't ask me anything, I'm busy

[Edited on 3-12-2020 by clearly_not_atara]




Quote: Originally posted by bnull  
you can always buy new equipment but can't buy new fingers.
View user's profile View All Posts By User
brubei
Hazard to Others
***




Posts: 188
Registered: 8-3-2015
Location: France
Member Is Offline

Mood: No Mood

[*] posted on 4-12-2020 at 05:28


look for Uranium glass on ebay

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Green-Vaseline-glass-dragonfly-cand...

really cheap vintage glasses with vitrified uranium oxyde




I'm French so excuse my language
View user's profile View All Posts By User
violet sin
International Hazard
*****




Posts: 1480
Registered: 2-9-2012
Location: Daydreaming of uraninite...
Member Is Offline

Mood: Good

[*] posted on 26-2-2021 at 13:37


I watched a YouTube vid ( https://youtu.be/3BA5bw1EV5I ) about some horrible personal health products and paused the vid to see if I could find one for sale... yep. Search aliexpress for "nano energy point zero wand"... They are about 9$ US and I just picked up two. Took a month to get here but hey, they register about 250 CPM on a GQ GMC 320+ v4 with an M4011 tube.

The packaging did NOT read hot after removing the items so.... That's nice. It's not just poorly pressed in and leaking radioactive dust.

You want a sample, there you go. Be reasonable with them, keep it someplace outta the way etc. I'm sharing this to show it's possible to get a cheap source, not so someone can go tear it open and spill powder all over. I'm not opening any of mine. I've not done chem on any of the samples I've collected. Just placed my geiger counter on them and logged the data for a few hours with geigerlog software found on sourceforge. It's a python program talked about on the GQ forum for their geiger counters.

IMG_20210225_082815217~2.jpg - 1.6MB
View user's profile View All Posts By User
Mailinmypocket
International Hazard
*****




Posts: 1351
Registered: 12-5-2011
Member Is Offline

Mood: No Mood

[*] posted on 8-3-2021 at 11:35


For $10 you can purchase a “Geiger counter test card” from United Nuclear. They ship internationally (I’m in Canada). The item is pretty basic, a sealed card with a blob of epoxy-like material on the back with small black flecks in it. Curious as to what the material is, I emailed to ask and was told it’s a mix of uranium acetate and uranium oxide in epoxy.

It’s fairly active and reads on average 1500 CPM on the GMC-320 counter.

For the price it’s a decent source of radioactivity.



EF410249-09A2-4430-A00C-F397AEB13A8C.jpeg - 134kB 842956AD-AA43-49DB-96DA-B43BB5ED9F96.jpeg - 102kB 168B1B36-79E5-4522-9503-76AF0692E57C.jpeg - 105kB

[Edited on 8-3-2021 by Mailinmypocket]




Note to self: Tare the damned flask.
View user's profile View All Posts By User
violet sin
International Hazard
*****




Posts: 1480
Registered: 2-9-2012
Location: Daydreaming of uraninite...
Member Is Offline

Mood: Good

[*] posted on 9-3-2021 at 00:43


Mailinmypocket, that's a nice hot sample for a really reasonable price!

That's probably the most reliable bang for your buck option around. I've ordered from united nuclear a couple times, but opted for a vial each of pebbles/grit. $12/$18. Still affordable. Was tempted to dump out the pebbles for a good look, but no. The bigger ore chunks for 45$ aren't so pretty but seem effective for a hefty sample.

My last purchase was some thorianite from minresco.com new owner Michael Shannon. Nice black pebbles. Paid more than I wanted, but it's a cool material and he didn't have a ton left. There's wisdom in keeping your samples few, the money... But I swear if you don't buy it when you have a chance, you find yourself wishing you had.

Off point question, have you noticed sensitivity to sunlight with your GQ 320+? I tried opening the back some time ago after reading on the forum, but there was no change in background readings. Just Sunday, I noticed that if I turned the device to the sunlight just right, not open... It picked up to about 40 cpm, I could find tune that into 50-80cpm. Up from standard 12-17 cpm. With the back off it topped 180cpm in 2pm sunlight, northern california.

Shouldn't be a problem, never noticed diffuse light to affect it. Has me thinking about doing some different position testing. The logging software would show any wavy excursions throughout the day.



View user's profile View All Posts By User
Mailinmypocket
International Hazard
*****




Posts: 1351
Registered: 12-5-2011
Member Is Offline

Mood: No Mood

[*] posted on 10-3-2021 at 10:52


I’ll have to wait for a sunny day to try that out. I noticed the mention about light sensitivity in the forum but didn’t really think to test it out. Stay tuned and I’ll let you know. Some of the tubes are apparently painted black but mine isn’t...

I find the data logging software made by GQ to be quite crappy. For some reason when the CPM gets too high the data output is glitchy and the numbers don’t seem to make any sense. I intend on trying some experiments with GeigerLog as soon as I get around to figuring out Python and all that stuff, have you used this?




Note to self: Tare the damned flask.
View user's profile View All Posts By User
violet sin
International Hazard
*****




Posts: 1480
Registered: 2-9-2012
Location: Daydreaming of uraninite...
Member Is Offline

Mood: Good

[*] posted on 10-3-2021 at 13:39


Yeah, I've been using geigerlog and it's great. I'm not familiar with python, so it was a pain, but the outcome was nice :) the program is easy and fun. Python wasn't too hard to get working and he's since upgraded geigerlog to 1.2 I think.

I'm not terribly impressed with the purchased software compared to the free. And geigerlog is set to do readings from a number of other sensors now. Can't wait to figure out how to record a pile of tracks simultaneously. Although, the readme file is... 100+ pgs so I've some reading to do.

I couldn't get the config file to like my 320+ because every time I edited it with note pad, it changed the header and made the file unusable. It crashed. Left it as was, and I had to handshake the counter to the computer. Buddy said use note++, it's been downloaded but not run yet.

IMG_20210305_011131337.jpg - 5.1MB IMG_20210305_001946359.jpg - 3.4MB

I was incrementing the nano energy scalar wand (lol) every ten min 1cm to find the sweet spot. It read it from a ways away and peaked out over like <1" space :( not much in there I'd guess. Both the blue peaks were an attempt at the same thing... You can see where I fell asleep on the first curve as it goes till morning low and flat.
View user's profile View All Posts By User
pantone159
National Hazard
****




Posts: 589
Registered: 27-6-2006
Location: Austin, TX, USA
Member Is Offline

Mood: desperate for shade

[*] posted on 10-3-2021 at 14:46


Fwiw, I find Notepad++ to be millions of times better than Windows Notepad.
For one thing (as you sort of discovered), N++ can handle various text file formats (i.e. character encoding like I think you encountered, and also UNIX line endings instead of Windows ones). Many other improvements.
View user's profile Visit user's homepage View All Posts By User
DokterChaos
Harmless
*




Posts: 6
Registered: 19-12-2019
Member Is Offline


[*] posted on 15-4-2021 at 00:29


Quote: Originally posted by Mailinmypocket  
For $10 you can purchase a “Geiger counter test card” from United Nuclear. They ship internationally (I’m in Canada). The item is pretty basic, a sealed card with a blob of epoxy-like material on the back with small black flecks in it. Curious as to what the material is, I emailed to ask and was told it’s a mix of uranium acetate and uranium oxide in epoxy.

It’s fairly active and reads on average 1500 CPM on the GMC-320 counter.
For the price it’s a decent source of radioactivity.

[Edited on 8-3-2021 by Mailinmypocket]


that's interesting, and much safer too.
I got a few grams of uranium ore on Ebay, and the small plastic bottle already cracked. it was stored in a ziplok bag in a bigger glass bottle. weird.


[Edited on 15-4-2021 by DokterChaos]

[Edited on 15-4-2021 by DokterChaos]
View user's profile View All Posts By User
Xanax
Hazard to Self
**




Posts: 54
Registered: 28-8-2003
Location: Sweden
Member Is Offline

Mood: Curious

[*] posted on 17-5-2021 at 10:38


I bought radium in form of fingers from old clocks att eBay. But then they removed all stuff like that. Here are some from my collection...




But then the SWAT-team and the Swedish Radiation Saftey Authority just came and took all my radioactive stuff, so I wasn't interested of it anymore, but I still searched at eBay for fun, and I found this one...

Wow!




Then, they also stoled my trithium...



[Edited on 2021-5-17 by Xanax]

[Edited on 2021-5-17 by Xanax]

[Edited on 2021-5-17 by Xanax]
View user's profile Visit user's homepage View All Posts By User
Mailinmypocket
International Hazard
*****




Posts: 1351
Registered: 12-5-2011
Member Is Offline

Mood: No Mood

[*] posted on 17-5-2021 at 11:56


I feel like their level of paranoia around very innocuous radioactive items is extreme and unwarranted…



Note to self: Tare the damned flask.
View user's profile View All Posts By User
pneumatician
Hazard to Others
***




Posts: 411
Registered: 27-5-2013
Location: Magonia
Member Is Offline

Mood: ■■■■■■■■■■ INRI ■■■■■■■■■■ ** Igne Natura Renovatur Integra **

[*] posted on 23-5-2021 at 02:10


The ashes of a corpse??? potasium

40
View user's profile View All Posts By User
pneumatician
Hazard to Others
***




Posts: 411
Registered: 27-5-2013
Location: Magonia
Member Is Offline

Mood: ■■■■■■■■■■ INRI ■■■■■■■■■■ ** Igne Natura Renovatur Integra **

[*] posted on 31-5-2021 at 18:03


and check silverware around you!

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Government+to+Dispose+of+Radioacti...

you never know what you can find!!!
View user's profile View All Posts By User
DokterChaos
Harmless
*




Posts: 6
Registered: 19-12-2019
Member Is Offline


[*] posted on 11-9-2021 at 02:53


Quote: Originally posted by Xanax  
I bought radium in form of fingers from old clocks att eBay. But then they removed all stuff like that. Here are some from my collection...

But then the SWAT-team and the Swedish Radiation Saftey Authority just came and took all my radioactive stuff, so I wasn't interested of it anymore, but I still searched at eBay for fun, and I found this one...

that's crazy. how did they track you down, through the vendor they busted?
Right now I see watch dials on Ebay France. Let's see what that gives...
View user's profile View All Posts By User
DokterChaos
Harmless
*




Posts: 6
Registered: 19-12-2019
Member Is Offline


[*] posted on 14-9-2021 at 04:21


Quote: Originally posted by DokterChaos  

Right now I see watch dials on Ebay France. Let's see what that gives...

they don't disappoint. with 140CPS background reading, one goes to 2200cps
Nilered posted a video, of an entire jar of them.... I struggle to believe there's nothing illegal about such quantity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhYHBnQ-uc4

[Edited on 14-9-2021 by DokterChaos]
View user's profile View All Posts By User
neptunium
National Hazard
****




Posts: 989
Registered: 12-12-2011
Location: between Uranium and Plutonium
Member Is Offline


[*] posted on 16-11-2021 at 07:34


Does anyone know about beryllium 7 ? As a constantly generated radioisotope it is sometimes used to determine the age of sediment or even estimating how long a murder victim has been laying on soil .
you can fairly easily detect it from used furnace filters (along with radon decay chain isotopes like polonium)
Since we are entering a new cycle of solar activity, I would not e surprised to find it in slightly higher quantity almost everywhere...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BYvKcIcWLU
and confirmation here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYEIXMNMgE0
View user's profile Visit user's homepage View All Posts By User
neptunium
National Hazard
****




Posts: 989
Registered: 12-12-2011
Location: between Uranium and Plutonium
Member Is Offline


[*] posted on 16-11-2021 at 07:35


here is also a few long live natural isotope
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_RW4UUTCzc
View user's profile Visit user's homepage View All Posts By User
 Pages:  1  2  

  Go To Top