Hello Hugo. Someone asked me to look at this review and advise. I'm a retired nuclear engineer, electrical design engineer, former Certified Professional Health-Physicist and company owner. I want to give you and your viewers a short course in radiation measurements and comment about that instrument. Executive summary: That instrument is junk for anything other than counts per minute or second indication. I will explain. Nobody who deals with serious amounts of radioactive materials or radiation uses the SI units. They are junk and only cause confusion, something that can't be tolerated where there is enough material or radiation to cause harm. We use the traditional Curies, Roentgens, RADs and REMs. That's what I will discuss here. Exposure to ionizing radiation is measured in Roentgens. The definition of the Roentgen or R is 1R = 2.58E-4 Columbs of charge/kg of air at STP. There is no equivalent SI unit. Absorbed dose is measured in RADs or Radiation Absorbed Dose. A RAD is 100 ergs/gram of the absorber. One Roentgen = 1 RAD for gamma rays of typical energies. The SI unit for absorbed dose is the Gray which is 1 Joule/Kg. 1 Gray = 100 RAD. See where the confusion starts to creep in? Which way do I move the decimal point? The amount of energy deposited in the absorber is dependent on the energy of the photon. Here is where the first defect in that instrument rears its ugly head. A Geiger tube returns a constant pulse height irrespective of the photon energy. So a Geiger tube cannot measure RADs or Roentgens or Grays or Sieverts. Only counts per minute or second. The measure of the effect on living tissue is the REM or Radiation Equivalent Man which is Roentgens * Quality Factor. Some Quality Factors: Gamma rays 1 Beta (electrons) 1 Neutrons < 10 keV 5 Neutrons 10 keV-100keV 10 Neutrons 100keV-2MeV 20 Neutrons 2MeV-20Mev 10 Neutrons >20meV 5 Protons >5MeV 5 Heavy particles 20 alpha, fission fragment, heavy nuclei The SI unit is Sieverts and 1Sv = 100 REM More opportunities for confusion. As a practical matter, amateurs will be measuring gamma and beta. Professional thin window Geiger tubes can measure Alphas. Amateurs probably won't ever run into neutrons. Professionally, the neutron survey meter is called the Bonner Ball. It consists of a large sphere of polyethylene about the size of a basketball with a boron-10 trifluoride detector in the center. The polyethylene thermalizes the neutrons ( about 0.002 ev) and the BF3 detector detects thermal neutrons. The only amateurs which might have use of a Bonner Ball are those building large Farnsworth Fusors. Back to the instrument. The instrument uses a glass Geiger tube. A sub-optimal construction. The tube might be sensitive to beta radiation, depending on the energy. High enough energy betas can penetrate the glass wall and register an ionizing event inside the Geiger tube. Gamma photons must interact with mater to register ionizations. The glass wall is primarily silicon and oxygen. Both are low Z materials and thus don't absorb gamma photons well. Normally a gamma-sensitive Geiger tube has a steel or tungsten shell to better absorb gamma photons which generate secondary electrons which actually trigger the tube. The insensitivity of this tube is indicated by the spec of 80 counts per minute/microSievert using Co-60 which emits 2 gamma rays around 1 MeV energy. This is a strange spec since the most common isotope found around nuclear facilities is Cs-137 with a single photo emission at 662 keV. High energy gamma photons pass right through the glass tube with little interaction. As the gamma energy drops, the tube becomes more sensitive since the gammas are more likely to interact with the glass walls. Thus at lower energies, this instrument will grossly over-respond if set to display Sieverts or Grays. The display of Sieverts or Grays is thus fiction and is the first lie told by the chicoms. These two settings should never be used. The ONLY things this instrument can correctly measure is counts per minute or counts per second. When an ionization occurs inside the Geiger tube, either directly from a beta particle or from a gamma photon-induced secondary electrons in the glass wall, the high voltage is high enough that the tube avalanches. That is, it goes conductive until all the energy stored in the capacitance associated with the tube and the associated electronics is dissipated. The tube contains a halogen, normally chlorine, which quenches this avalanche once the voltage on the tube drops below a certain value. From the instant the tube starts to avalanche to the post-quench build-up of high voltage through the high value multi-megohm quench resistor, the tube is totally insensitive to other incoming events. This is called the dead time. The result is a non-linear event rate vs count rate indication. Professional instruments have dead time correction circuitry built-in but from looking at several disassembly videos, I've seen no such circuitry. The next problem is tube saturation or "jamming" in a high radiation field. At some point the fluence of gamma photons will become faster than the tube can recover from dead time. At that point the tube quits generating pulses and goes into continuous conduction mode. The result in amateur counters is that the indication will suddenly drop to zero even though the radiation level can be quite high, a very hazardous condition. Professional instruments have a circuit that detects this continuous current flow and drives the meter full scale. Again, I have seen no indication of an anti-jam circuit in this instrument. Given the price, I have ordered one to reverse engineer. About sensitivity. The chicom data sheet claims that this instrument measures beta and gamma. They lie. A beta particle will travel 4-6 inches in air, depending on the energy and is stopped by a sheet of paper. The tube itself may have a thin enough glass wall to be beta-sensitive but beta will NOT penetrate the plastic case. Therefore this instrument is gamma-only. Another chicom lie. The datasheet claims this instrument uses an energy-compensated Geiger tube. It does not. Yet another lie. Energy compensation means that the Geiger tube is wrapped with a combination of materials, usually polyphenol-impregnated cardboard and aluminum, which is designed to absorb part of the lower energy gamma photons to somewhat linearize the tube's response to photons of various energies. The low level radiation found in a nuclear plant or after a fictitious nuclear attack and resulting fallout, after the radiation has been scattered and partially absorbed, is a continuum centered around 300 keV. This instrument, with its uncompensated ion chamber, will grossly over-respond to this "degraded radiation". This would cause people with no training, especially if the instrument is set to Sieverts or Grays, to over-react and maybe panic. The ONLY things this instrument may be capable of measuring is contamination (counts per minute) or relative radiation levels (changes in counts per minute). I also question its ability to handle high count-rates. The processor it uses should be fast enough but it's critically dependent on both the analog pulse conditioning circuitry and the counting software. When I get my instrument, I will connect a calibrated pulse generator to it and see how it does. I can tell from the slow screen update that the firmware is crude, written by someone who doesn't understand radiation detection. Professional instruments use a rolling average of short sample intervals and some other techniques to cause the display to update rapidly, especially when a significant change in activity is detected. "Frisking" with this instrument to find radioactive contamination hot spots would be difficult with the slow display update. About the highest level of radioactivity a civilian can get is uranium or thorium ore, preferably Pitchblende. I have a collection of every uranium ore and the Pitchblende is by far the hottest sample. I hope this article helps clarify a few things.
Hello John, I don't know how to start to thank you for the time you spent in this reply. I really appreciate it and it was enlightening. I will not become an expert on the subject now 😁 but it will really help to understand better how everything works/happens. Thanks so much for this text!
I caught a mistake. I said "This instrument, with its uncompensated ion chamber," I should have said "This instrument, with its uncompensated Geiger tube". Sorry.
@@itssomebuddy9160 If you're doing something that has you encountering actual radioactive material, as does my volunteer job as the Emergency Management Agency's RADEF chief for E. TN then only professional, industry-proven instruments will do. Only 2 companies survived the nuclear shake-out. Eberline and Ludlum. Victoreen is also a top brand but they got bought out or went out of business or something and no longer make radiation instruments. A used Victoreen is just fine. Eberline and Ludlum are both great companies but I'm partial to Eberline, mostly because of my decades of experience with them. You'll need two instruments. A survey/frisker Geiger counter with a pancake probe and an Ion-chamber-based instrument for measuring dose/exposure. The frisker is to find contamination. Radiation that pegs a frisker presents no dose hazard. If you're just playing around with radioactive stuff, prospecting for radioactive items in antique stores, yard sales and the like then that's all you need. If you think you'll encounter stuff that is actually hot dose-wise then you'll also need the ion chamber calibrated in mR/hr. Stay away from SI units. They serve only to confuse. The power industry has stuck with traditional units so as not to sow confusion and so that the millions of documents and books prepared pre-SI make sense. One of my favorites is the Eberline RO-2 ion chamber instrument. I've had mine about 30 years and send it out every 5 years for calibration. Over that time, no adjustment has ever been made. It is that stable. The only maintenance item is a desiccant pack that keeps the ion chamber dry. When it starts to turn pink from moisture it's time to bake it in an oven back to blue. About an annual task. It uses 2 D alkaline cells which last forever. If you can find a Victoreen R meter with all the chambers, that is an excellent standard to have on hand. It consists of a charger/quartz fiber electrometer readout unit and a series of very high quality ion chambers. The ion chamber of choice is put in the charger and charged to zero indication. The chamber is then put in the radiation field. It accumulates (m)Roentgens. If you time the exposure you can calculate (m)R/hr. This instruments measures Roentgens in terms of the fundamental units which are charge deposited in a volume of air. It is a transfer standard and is my lab's standard that I calibrate other instruments against. I'm not aware of anything which has replaced it even though Victoreen has been out of business for a couple of decades. As for the other toy-grade instruments on the market, I just don't know. Any GM instrument that purports to measure dose in REM or Sieverts is blowing smoke. That simply can't be done with a GM tube. Price doesn't matter. There's a guy on here who has a channel called Radioactive Drew. He paid around $2,000 for a Thermo-Electron RadEye and it makes the same mistakes the cheaper instruments do. It uses a pancake GM tube which is excellent for frisking. But the response is slow. And the claims that with the equilibrium cap placed over the pancake probe, it can measure dose in Sieverts. It can do that but only at the gamma ray energy of the calibration source. Because of its relatively long half-life, the most common isotope found in nuclear facilities is Cs-137 with its 661 kEV emission line. The firmware can include a conversion factor to make so many CPM equal to so many mR/hr. But this is a correlation and not a causal relationship. GM tubes fairly grossly over-respond to lower energy gamma rays such as those from Ba-133 and I-131. The instrument will grossly over-estimate the dose from these isotopes.
Hi Hugo, You might want to take a look at the review of the GC-01 I just released on my channel. Sadly the product has just switched to a far inferior GM tube and this even includes the white-label versions of this device. I contacted the company here in China (where I am based) and they confirmed the change. Such a shame, its was pretty OK for a low cost counter...
Hi, sorry the late reply, trying to keep up with the comments, not easy. This is sad to know, I know they are releasing the GC-02 model any of these days, I hope that they keep the good stuff in it. Thanks for your comment, really appreciate it. Thanks for watching.
Yes, old watches with fluorescent displays would have a small amount of radium present in the paint. Also, smoke detectors have a sensor with americium in it which is also radioactive.
you cant use this geiger counter to asses the radiation level in at the dentist etc...as its not accurate enough and not a professionnal instrument. This kind of geiger counter only asses roughly the ambiance and can tell you wether or not an object is radioactive but no more than that.
Hey Chris, thanks for the info, sorry for the wrong information, I went for the specs of the product, but this is nice to know... as mentioned before, radiation is not my knowledge area, so your input was very useful! Thanks for watching!
mine just arrived :) this sort of product really is (in a life or death situation) only useful in the event of a nuclear war where this would be needed to tell me what shelter/food/water is safe to use/consume (which i hope never happens), but i really like having something that can tell me an extra bit of detail about the environment.
Heads up I bought one of these recently. The seller canceled my order and refunded my money and sent me this message "We found the stock items have a little quality problem when we do the normal examination before the shipment. And we may need to send back the whole items to the supplier to do exchange."
Hi, sorry to hear that and thanks for sharing. Even so please be careful with the comments of chinese sellers, I've heard of everything. Mine seems to be working ok. Thanks for watching!
I ordered this detector from Aliexpress I will receive it on 11/26, I already have Arduino Geiger detectors that I built with J305, SBM20, SBM19 and SBT11A tubes, and two bought expensive RHelectronics in Israel.
@@Mimichris100 I have to upgrade my firmware, there's a lot of requests for that feature, maybe they added to the new firmware. You can download it from FNIRSI website and install it.
@@TechCornerTV I downloaded it but it seems that there is an error and the GC-01 does not work anymore, I will not dare to update it if ever it does not work anymore, we update it with Win10 and connecting the GC -01 to the PC and loading the file into the GC-01.
I guess for someone to start this device could be fine. Very sad tho that there is no option for the classic Geiger click sound. Seems like its able to react/measure faster as a BR6B for example always seems really slow to me.
Hi, I agree with you, as mentioned, radiation is not my knowledge zone, so really humble in this opinion, but for someone that wants to start to understand how radiation works and is detected, seems to be a very nice device. I think the geiger counter click sound feature is something they can add with a firmware upgrade. Thanks for watching!
Lovely review thankyou. I'm sure that is by the Geiger Muller tube is a diode ladder to raise the voltage high enough for the tube to operate. I've just ordered one and will test it with nuclear source's
I hear in other reviews, that newer versions of this rad detector use an inferior geiger muller tube. Is it easy to procure a replacement, or upgrade to a better one if necessary? How sturdy is it? I recently got one of these and hear something rattling in the case. (trying hard, NOT to shake it!) Without opening it up, I speculate it's the internal componenets of the tube, or maybe they didn't tape down the battery in my unit.
Hi, I heard that too and more people in the comments said that, that really pity. I already commented that with my contacts in FNIRSI, but I'm not confident that will change in the future. Thanks for watching.
Hi Mark, nice to know, but that one is on another league, not comparable to this 50 GBP one. Even so, I got curious, I'm gonna take a look to see what you're talking about. Thanks for sharing & watching!
Nice voice, great potential. I have seen people drilling a series of tiny holes in the back cover at the position of the tube. The more the better. Put some audio box fabric on the inside to protect against dust and you have a great improved sensitivity.
Hey Andy, I'm glad you liked. As I told before, this is not my "beach", the watch tip was awesome, otherwise I didn't know how to show this working, didn't also that I should take it out, even so, as you can see it triggered the alarm. Thanks for the support and for watching! 😁👍
Hi, the marble I have here doesn't give any special readings, but, thank you for sharing. I also share your opinion, considering everything else on the market on the same price range, it is a nice buy! Thanks for watching!
Regarding the closing comments: a Geiger counter is NOT suitable to measure X-ray imaging doses. This is because a Geiger counter only measures one ionization at a time, and then has a short dead period where it won't be able to count another ionization. In radiology X-ray imaging, the dose rate is extremely high (many ionizations per second), for an extremely short time. A geiger counter will only catch a few ionizations in this situation.
Hi, thanks for your input, as I said, this is not really an area that I know anything, but I'm always learning. Thanks for clarifying and for watching.
Hi, I don't think so. At least, I wasn't able to. I could give a second look in the device to see if we can somehow, dump the records to the flash drive. Thanks for watching!
Hi, I wish I know how to respond to that, in terms of radiation I am a zero, sorry! But the question is here and I saw that some people that left comments in here, really know their stuff. Hope that someone can answer you. Thanks for watching!
In the event of fallout, the radiation level will be too high to be measured with a Geiger counter. You need an ion chamber radiation detector in that case.
Hi, probably, because you have the data logger function that can run for a lot of time, so when he detects is connected to the power, by default it starts the system. This is me just brainstorming here. Thanks for watching!
Olá Carlos, só tenho a dizer "Yaks" 😬 isso já tem que estar mais vem armazenado... ainda bem que te dá jeito, obrigado por partilhares e por assistires!
@@TechCornerTV The operating time is short. What size, larger capacity LIPO accumulator do you think could be replaced into the GC-01? I can buy a 70 x 40 x 8 mm 2500 mAh battery. Does it fit? Would it be worth replacing the CR120 battery as well, to see if the date and time are not deleted when you turn it off?
You maybe very busy... :) So I solved myself. I opened it, mine has only 4 corner screws, under the back label there is nothing. Inside I saw at once the CR1220 battery is absolutely missig. I put a new one into battery holder. And when I opened it anyway, I replaced a 2500 mAh battery, works well. This doubled the operating time. kephost.net/p/OTAzMTM5.jpg
Hello, I leave you here the page of the device on AliExpress ( geni.us/fnirsi-gc-01 ), you can see almost in the end the range of the measurements. Thanks for watching!
Hi, not that I'm aware, please notice that even in a "normal" enviroments is always detecting radiation, but in low dosages. That will be probably really annoying. Thanks for watching!
@@TechCornerTV No... all geiger counters should have a click per count mode which is sometimes called "source finder mode". This is a very important feature. If you don't see a setting for it in options, it's a shame. It may be possible to do a hardware mod.
@@nefariumxxx hi I kind of was disappointed as well. The LED is indicating activity only. You can of course check the diagram mode to see if you glanced over some active source. The device seems not to connect to USB; probably charging only. It seems it can not be used as a cumulative counter (dosimeter) , as it does not appear to run in background but shuts down after some time .... It is the least expensive that seems to give some reading but i am not convinced very much yet ...
@@CM-mo7mv It does seems cool for the price but really needs a click per count source finding mode. Feedback has been sent to the devs so maybe we will see a revision 2 in the future.
Hi, as I told in the video, I'm no expert, but for what I understood when you have a radioactive source, it releases particles (let's call it like that, but in reallity is ionizing radiation) that are captured by the geiger counter, then that piece of equipment is able to detect and measure the quantity of particles. There is a measure that after a certain amount it will not be safe for humans, so it's useful in certains situations the amount of radiation generated. You have more cientific and correct explanation here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geiger_counter , thake care and thanks for watching.
This thing is nice! Came pretty quick and worked right out of the box. It shows results similar to the GMC 320S, but I've not had a chance to really evaluate the performance, it appears good. Again thank you for the nice video and a good recommendation on the meter
Hi, it has battery so is portable, if it can be implanted in mobile, mobile phone? If that's the question, no it can't connect to mobile phones, at least that I'm aware. Thanks for watching!
Yes ionizing radiation can be/is bad for your health, you don't have to ingest gamma (and sometimes beta, but like alpha beta is more harmful if swallowed, but unlike beta alpha can't penetrate the skin) and x-ray for it to destroy your life if you receive too much from an external source. Alpha isn't too friendly either if it gets into your body (say from contaminated food or other source that you intake into your body), it's going to wreak havoc on the soft tissue in your body and be confused as calcium and absorbed into your bones, and being that it gets put into your bones, you bones will be killing you. I say being able to detect alpha is just as important as detecting the other radiation types.
Hi, thanks for sharing. I read before in the comments that this is a tricky business and this device probably need more improvements, but anyway, is a nice to have. Thanks for watching!
i have found with these the preinstalled firmware is pretty garbage, and many aspects of this device can be imroved just by flashing radpro onto it! for example, radpro allows you to set up an actual click sound, do data logging, generate true random numbers, and even play chess :)
Hi Hugo, thank you for the excellent review as always. All of your videos are always so detailed and well done. Although I wouldn't have any use of this gadget I still think its a nice little unit that they have made.
Hi Khuong, to be honest, on my daily life I don't have much use for it either, nevertheless is a good gadget to have around, is one of those things that if really need it, you can't get it fast enough, Thanks for watching!
Ciao Antonio, ho questo stesso canale in portoghese e non pubblico più video lì perché non ho tempo per farli in inglese e portoghese (la mia lingua madre). Come puoi immaginare, l’italiano è ancora più difficile. Ora ti scrivo in italiano grazie a Google Translator! Grazie per aver guardato il video. Va bene
The GC-01 is now an Dont-Buy! After Fnirsi has changed to a totally crappy tube inside, its not worth buing as it gives incorrect readings and are much less sensible. It appears that its a third, even shittier tube, HH614 in the one I bougt.
Hi Viktor, you're not the one to warn me about, what a shame, I know it was not a professional equipment but seem to enough for non professional usage, sad to ear that. Thank you for sharing and watching.
Hi, the all line is with this colors now.. maybe is "inspired" in it! At least looks cool to have a common image around all devices, seems more professional. Thanks for watching!
IMHO a bad choice of power source. Especially for a device which will mostly sit on a shelf in the event should something (bad) happen. Those lithiums are probably mediocre quality at best and will swell at some point in time. A much better choice would be AA and if standby can be managed to practically zero (yes it can if they choose to) then fill it with 1,5v lithium and it can sit 20 years standby and it'll work when you require it to.
Hello! Sorry for late reply, house move and vacations. You brought a fair point. It has credit, but again you can charge a USB powered device with a solar panel with USB output, there's a lot out there that you can use anywhere in time and is not granted that you can have bateries around in a emergency. I think all solutions have strong points and weak points. What you pointed out, makes a lot of sense, but there is also credit in the lithium baterry. Thanks for watching and sharing your opinion, really appreciated!
@@TechCornerTV Yeah they're fine for devices you use a lot. But lifetime of that geiger will most likely not be more than a few years. It's not hard to replace battery if you're savvy but otherwise it'll most likely be thrown out. Still there's the risk it damages something when it swells. Those mediocre quality cells in cheap chinese stuff as said has the bad habbit of swelling at some point in time. At which it can be fatal powering it using USB if you don't remove the battery.
Hi there! I understand what you're saying... but most of you buy today in Amazon or ebay comes from the same place, sometimes is just a rebrand. The point here is to really know what you need to buy in this case, in my case, I said it clearly, I don't! So and for the comments I already read here, if it is really needed, probably something more professional will be wise. Thanks for watching!
@@TechCornerTV yup, that part people just don't understand, it's just usually you pay more for the item if you buy on Amazon or sometime ebay. And even brand names are often just rebadged products from AliExpress or other outlets like them.
![FNIRSI GC-01 [IMPORTANT PRODUCT UPDATE] ☢️](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/E9lz3cr2KQs/mqdefault.jpg)
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Hello Hugo. Someone asked me to look at this review and advise. I'm a retired nuclear engineer, electrical design engineer, former Certified Professional Health-Physicist and company owner. I want to give you and your viewers a short course in radiation measurements and comment about that instrument.
Executive summary: That instrument is junk for anything other than counts per minute or second indication. I will explain.
Nobody who deals with serious amounts of radioactive materials or radiation uses the SI units. They are junk and only cause confusion, something that can't be tolerated where there is enough material or radiation to cause harm. We use the traditional Curies, Roentgens, RADs and REMs. That's what I will discuss here.
Exposure to ionizing radiation is measured in Roentgens. The definition of the Roentgen or R is 1R = 2.58E-4 Columbs of charge/kg of air at STP. There is no equivalent SI unit.
Absorbed dose is measured in RADs or Radiation Absorbed Dose. A RAD is 100 ergs/gram of the absorber. One Roentgen = 1 RAD for gamma rays of typical energies. The SI unit for absorbed dose is the Gray which is 1 Joule/Kg. 1 Gray = 100 RAD. See where the confusion starts to creep in? Which way do I move the decimal point?
The amount of energy deposited in the absorber is dependent on the energy of the photon. Here is where the first defect in that instrument rears its ugly head. A Geiger tube returns a constant pulse height irrespective of the photon energy. So a Geiger tube cannot measure RADs or Roentgens or Grays or Sieverts. Only counts per minute or second.
The measure of the effect on living tissue is the REM or Radiation Equivalent Man which is Roentgens * Quality Factor. Some Quality Factors:
Gamma rays 1
Beta (electrons) 1
Neutrons < 10 keV 5
Neutrons 10 keV-100keV 10
Neutrons 100keV-2MeV 20
Neutrons 2MeV-20Mev 10
Neutrons >20meV 5
Protons >5MeV 5
Heavy particles 20
alpha, fission fragment, heavy nuclei
The SI unit is Sieverts and 1Sv = 100 REM
More opportunities for confusion.
As a practical matter, amateurs will be measuring gamma and beta. Professional thin window Geiger tubes can measure Alphas. Amateurs probably won't ever run into neutrons. Professionally, the neutron survey meter is called the Bonner Ball. It consists of a large sphere of polyethylene about the size of a basketball with a boron-10 trifluoride detector in the center. The polyethylene thermalizes the neutrons ( about 0.002 ev) and the BF3 detector detects thermal neutrons. The only amateurs which might have use of a Bonner Ball are those building large Farnsworth Fusors.
Back to the instrument. The instrument uses a glass Geiger tube. A sub-optimal construction. The tube might be sensitive to beta radiation, depending on the energy. High enough energy betas can penetrate the glass wall and register an ionizing event inside the Geiger tube.
Gamma photons must interact with mater to register ionizations. The glass wall is primarily silicon and oxygen. Both are low Z materials and thus don't absorb gamma photons well. Normally a gamma-sensitive Geiger tube has a steel or tungsten shell to better absorb gamma photons which generate secondary electrons which actually trigger the tube.
The insensitivity of this tube is indicated by the spec of 80 counts per minute/microSievert using Co-60 which emits 2 gamma rays around 1 MeV energy. This is a strange spec since the most common isotope found around nuclear facilities is Cs-137 with a single photo emission at 662 keV.
High energy gamma photons pass right through the glass tube with little interaction. As the gamma energy drops, the tube becomes more sensitive since the gammas are more likely to interact with the glass walls. Thus at lower energies, this instrument will grossly over-respond if set to display Sieverts or Grays. The display of Sieverts or Grays is thus fiction and is the first lie told by the chicoms. These two settings should never be used. The ONLY things this instrument can correctly measure is counts per minute or counts per second.
When an ionization occurs inside the Geiger tube, either directly from a beta particle or from a gamma photon-induced secondary electrons in the glass wall, the high voltage is high enough that the tube avalanches. That is, it goes conductive until all the energy stored in the capacitance associated with the tube and the associated electronics is dissipated. The tube contains a halogen, normally chlorine, which quenches this avalanche once the voltage on the tube drops below a certain value.
From the instant the tube starts to avalanche to the post-quench build-up of high voltage through the high value multi-megohm quench resistor, the tube is totally insensitive to other incoming events. This is called the dead time. The result is a non-linear event rate vs count rate indication. Professional instruments have dead time correction circuitry built-in but from looking at several disassembly videos, I've seen no such circuitry.
The next problem is tube saturation or "jamming" in a high radiation field. At some point the fluence of gamma photons will become faster than the tube can recover from dead time. At that point the tube quits generating pulses and goes into continuous conduction mode. The result in amateur counters is that the indication will suddenly drop to zero even though the radiation level can be quite high, a very hazardous condition. Professional instruments have a circuit that detects this continuous current flow and drives the meter full scale. Again, I have seen no indication of an anti-jam circuit in this instrument. Given the price, I have ordered one to reverse engineer.
About sensitivity. The chicom data sheet claims that this instrument measures beta and gamma. They lie. A beta particle will travel 4-6 inches in air, depending on the energy and is stopped by a sheet of paper. The tube itself may have a thin enough glass wall to be beta-sensitive but beta will NOT penetrate the plastic case. Therefore this instrument is gamma-only. Another chicom lie.
The datasheet claims this instrument uses an energy-compensated Geiger tube. It does not. Yet another lie.
Energy compensation means that the Geiger tube is wrapped with a combination of materials, usually polyphenol-impregnated cardboard and aluminum, which is designed to absorb part of the lower energy gamma photons to somewhat linearize the tube's response to photons of various energies.
The low level radiation found in a nuclear plant or after a fictitious nuclear attack and resulting fallout, after the radiation has been scattered and partially absorbed, is a continuum centered around 300 keV. This instrument, with its uncompensated ion chamber, will grossly over-respond to this "degraded radiation". This would cause people with no training, especially if the instrument is set to Sieverts or Grays, to over-react and maybe panic.
The ONLY things this instrument may be capable of measuring is contamination (counts per minute) or relative radiation levels (changes in counts per minute). I also question its ability to handle high count-rates. The processor it uses should be fast enough but it's critically dependent on both the analog pulse conditioning circuitry and the counting software. When I get my instrument, I will connect a calibrated pulse generator to it and see how it does.
I can tell from the slow screen update that the firmware is crude, written by someone who doesn't understand radiation detection. Professional instruments use a rolling average of short sample intervals and some other techniques to cause the display to update rapidly, especially when a significant change in activity is detected. "Frisking" with this instrument to find radioactive contamination hot spots would be difficult with the slow display update.
About the highest level of radioactivity a civilian can get is uranium or thorium ore, preferably Pitchblende. I have a collection of every uranium ore and the Pitchblende is by far the hottest sample.
I hope this article helps clarify a few things.
Hello John, I don't know how to start to thank you for the time you spent in this reply. I really appreciate it and it was enlightening. I will not become an expert on the subject now 😁 but it will really help to understand better how everything works/happens. Thanks so much for this text!
I caught a mistake. I said "This instrument, with its uncompensated ion chamber," I should have said "This instrument, with its uncompensated Geiger tube". Sorry.
Saved me a few bucks, what geiger counter would you recommend then?
So in short: is this useless in the event of nuclear war for example? Or would there be some use of having one?
@@itssomebuddy9160 If you're doing something that has you encountering actual radioactive material, as does my volunteer job as the Emergency Management Agency's RADEF chief for E. TN then only professional, industry-proven instruments will do. Only 2 companies survived the nuclear shake-out. Eberline and Ludlum. Victoreen is also a top brand but they got bought out or went out of business or something and no longer make radiation instruments. A used Victoreen is just fine.
Eberline and Ludlum are both great companies but I'm partial to Eberline, mostly because of my decades of experience with them.
You'll need two instruments. A survey/frisker Geiger counter with a pancake probe and an Ion-chamber-based instrument for measuring dose/exposure. The frisker is to find contamination. Radiation that pegs a frisker presents no dose hazard. If you're just playing around with radioactive stuff, prospecting for radioactive items in antique stores, yard sales and the like then that's all you need.
If you think you'll encounter stuff that is actually hot dose-wise then you'll also need the ion chamber calibrated in mR/hr. Stay away from SI units. They serve only to confuse. The power industry has stuck with traditional units so as not to sow confusion and so that the millions of documents and books prepared pre-SI make sense.
One of my favorites is the Eberline RO-2 ion chamber instrument. I've had mine about 30 years and send it out every 5 years for calibration. Over that time, no adjustment has ever been made. It is that stable. The only maintenance item is a desiccant pack that keeps the ion chamber dry. When it starts to turn pink from moisture it's time to bake it in an oven back to blue. About an annual task. It uses 2 D alkaline cells which last forever.
If you can find a Victoreen R meter with all the chambers, that is an excellent standard to have on hand. It consists of a charger/quartz fiber electrometer readout unit and a series of very high quality ion chambers. The ion chamber of choice is put in the charger and charged to zero indication. The chamber is then put in the radiation field. It accumulates (m)Roentgens. If you time the exposure you can calculate (m)R/hr.
This instruments measures Roentgens in terms of the fundamental units which are charge deposited in a volume of air. It is a transfer standard and is my lab's standard that I calibrate other instruments against. I'm not aware of anything which has replaced it even though Victoreen has been out of business for a couple of decades.
As for the other toy-grade instruments on the market, I just don't know. Any GM instrument that purports to measure dose in REM or Sieverts is blowing smoke. That simply can't be done with a GM tube. Price doesn't matter. There's a guy on here who has a channel called Radioactive Drew. He paid around $2,000 for a Thermo-Electron RadEye and it makes the same mistakes the cheaper instruments do. It uses a pancake GM tube which is excellent for frisking. But the response is slow. And the claims that with the equilibrium cap placed over the pancake probe, it can measure dose in Sieverts.
It can do that but only at the gamma ray energy of the calibration source. Because of its relatively long half-life, the most common isotope found in nuclear facilities is Cs-137 with its 661 kEV emission line. The firmware can include a conversion factor to make so many CPM equal to so many mR/hr. But this is a correlation and not a causal relationship. GM tubes fairly grossly over-respond to lower energy gamma rays such as those from Ba-133 and I-131. The instrument will grossly over-estimate the dose from these isotopes.
Hi Hugo, You might want to take a look at the review of the GC-01 I just released on my channel. Sadly the product has just switched to a far inferior GM tube and this even includes the white-label versions of this device. I contacted the company here in China (where I am based) and they confirmed the change. Such a shame, its was pretty OK for a low cost counter...
Hi, sorry the late reply, trying to keep up with the comments, not easy. This is sad to know, I know they are releasing the GC-02 model any of these days, I hope that they keep the good stuff in it. Thanks for your comment, really appreciate it. Thanks for watching.
Yes, old watches with fluorescent displays would have a small amount of radium present in the paint.
Also, smoke detectors have a sensor with americium in it which is also radioactive.
Hi, thank you so much for sharing! Radiation is really not my confort zone 😁 thanks for watching!
@@TechCornerTV nuclear radiation is really in nobody's comfort zone.
you cant use this geiger counter to asses the radiation level in at the dentist etc...as its not accurate enough and not a professionnal instrument. This kind of geiger counter only asses roughly the ambiance and can tell you wether or not an object is radioactive but no more than that.
Hey Chris, thanks for the info, sorry for the wrong information, I went for the specs of the product, but this is nice to know... as mentioned before, radiation is not my knowledge area, so your input was very useful! Thanks for watching!
mine just arrived :) this sort of product really is (in a life or death situation) only useful in the event of a nuclear war where this would be needed to tell me what shelter/food/water is safe to use/consume (which i hope never happens), but i really like having something that can tell me an extra bit of detail about the environment.
Hi, agree with you. Thanks for watching.
Heads up I bought one of these recently. The seller canceled my order and refunded my money and sent me this message "We found the stock items have a little quality problem when we do the normal examination before the shipment.
And we may need to send back the whole items to the supplier to do exchange."
Hi, sorry to hear that and thanks for sharing. Even so please be careful with the comments of chinese sellers, I've heard of everything. Mine seems to be working ok. Thanks for watching!
That's good to know, thanks bud for the heads up.
I ordered this detector from Aliexpress I will receive it on 11/26, I already have Arduino Geiger detectors that I built with J305, SBM20, SBM19 and SBT11A tubes, and two bought expensive RHelectronics in Israel.
Hi Maxime, thanks for sharing and watching! 😁
@@TechCornerTV Is there a possibility of mounting a buzzer in parallel on the led on GC-01? Thanks
@@Mimichris100 I have to upgrade my firmware, there's a lot of requests for that feature, maybe they added to the new firmware. You can download it from FNIRSI website and install it.
@@TechCornerTV I downloaded it but it seems that there is an error and the GC-01 does not work anymore, I will not dare to update it if ever it does not work anymore, we update it with Win10 and connecting the GC -01 to the PC and loading the file into the GC-01.
@@TechCornerTV are u saying there is firmware to allow it to click/beep? from official site? to flash it?
Thanks, you helped me decide to purchase this unit.
Hi Barry, great to hear! Thanks for watching!
I guess for someone to start this device could be fine. Very sad tho that there is no option for the classic Geiger click sound. Seems like its able to react/measure faster as a BR6B for example always seems really slow to me.
Hi, I agree with you, as mentioned, radiation is not my knowledge zone, so really humble in this opinion, but for someone that wants to start to understand how radiation works and is detected, seems to be a very nice device. I think the geiger counter click sound feature is something they can add with a firmware upgrade. Thanks for watching!
Lovely review thankyou. I'm sure that is by the Geiger Muller tube is a diode ladder to raise the voltage high enough for the tube to operate. I've just ordered one and will test it with nuclear source's
Hi Andy, glad that you liked it. Thanks for watching and you nice comment.
I hear in other reviews, that newer versions of this rad detector use an inferior geiger muller tube. Is it easy to procure a replacement, or upgrade to a better one if necessary? How sturdy is it? I recently got one of these and hear something rattling in the case. (trying hard, NOT to shake it!) Without opening it up, I speculate it's the internal componenets of the tube, or maybe they didn't tape down the battery in my unit.
Hi, I heard that too and more people in the comments said that, that really pity. I already commented that with my contacts in FNIRSI, but I'm not confident that will change in the future. Thanks for watching.
The best detector is the Tracerco Ped +
Cost around 1500 GBP
Worth it . Proffesional tools
Hi Mark, nice to know, but that one is on another league, not comparable to this 50 GBP one. Even so, I got curious, I'm gonna take a look to see what you're talking about. Thanks for sharing & watching!
Nice voice, great potential. I have seen people drilling a series of tiny holes in the back cover at the position of the tube. The more the better. Put some audio box fabric on the inside to protect against dust and you have a great improved sensitivity.
Hi, nice tip, thanks so much for your comment and for watching!
Would it be good in nuclear war
hi Hugo thanks for the education , love the intro . i just wanted you to know the dials should have been taken out from the watch during texting.
Hey Andy, I'm glad you liked. As I told before, this is not my "beach", the watch tip was awesome, otherwise I didn't know how to show this working, didn't also that I should take it out, even so, as you can see it triggered the alarm. Thanks for the support and for watching! 😁👍
Actually this is a very good product for the money, tested it on marble and it's accurate.
Hi, the marble I have here doesn't give any special readings, but, thank you for sharing. I also share your opinion, considering everything else on the market on the same price range, it is a nice buy! Thanks for watching!
Great video, many thanks for this review! Stay healthy
Hi, thank you so much for watching, all the best!
Regarding the closing comments: a Geiger counter is NOT suitable to measure X-ray imaging doses. This is because a Geiger counter only measures one ionization at a time, and then has a short dead period where it won't be able to count another ionization. In radiology X-ray imaging, the dose rate is extremely high (many ionizations per second), for an extremely short time. A geiger counter will only catch a few ionizations in this situation.
Hi, thanks for your input, as I said, this is not really an area that I know anything, but I'm always learning. Thanks for clarifying and for watching.
Held it next to me while getting an xray and it was around 1 microsievert so it trigered alarm setting...
The most important question after accuracy is, can data be transferred to PC?
Hi, I don't think so. At least, I wasn't able to. I could give a second look in the device to see if we can somehow, dump the records to the flash drive. Thanks for watching!
Thank you Great review. How do we measure nuclear fallout ? Is there an average measured we should look at? What do you recommend to set this?
Hi, I wish I know how to respond to that, in terms of radiation I am a zero, sorry! But the question is here and I saw that some people that left comments in here, really know their stuff. Hope that someone can answer you. Thanks for watching!
Well it does show accumulated amount, and you have current dose rates, those two are the ones you want to look at.
In the event of fallout, the radiation level will be too high to be measured with a Geiger counter. You need an ion chamber radiation detector in that case.
They seem to change the geiger müller tube - to a cheap and not well working one.
Hi, you're not the first to report that, it's a pity. It just burns them as brand for a few cents more. Thanks for sharing and watching.
hi i wonder if the tube is made of glass or plastic?
Hello, when I grab it, it seemed glass. But I will now swear that, but it seemed to be glass. Thanks for watching!
It's glass. The tube contains a partial vacuum. Any plastic I know of would outgas and spoil the vacuum.
Hi, I have a question, when I put it on charge, the detector turns on, if I turn it off, it turns on again in a few seconds, is this normal?
Hi, probably, because you have the data logger function that can run for a lot of time, so when he detects is connected to the power, by default it starts the system. This is me just brainstorming here. Thanks for watching!
Good video! Have you tried the FNIRSI 1013D tablet oscilloscope?
Hi! Not yet, but I think might reformulate that device in a near feature, so I'll wait. Thanks for watching!
Hello
Does the device need calibration? If necessary, do you know how to do it?
Hi, I didn't find any calibration function, might exist one, but I'm not aware of it. Thanks for watching.
I just recieved one like that. Thank you for review
Hi Denis, glad I could help and thanks for watching!
Comprei para testar lentes vintage radioactivas. Tenho uma tukomar que atinge 7 usv/h
Olá Carlos, só tenho a dizer "Yaks" 😬 isso já tem que estar mais vem armazenado... ainda bem que te dá jeito, obrigado por partilhares e por assistires!
I bought one, looks good. There is one problem: after every switching off I have to set the date and time...
Hello, hmmmm I have to see if mine does the same... that's a bummer for sure. Thanks for watching!
@@TechCornerTV The operating time is short. What size, larger capacity LIPO accumulator do you think could be replaced into the GC-01? I can buy a 70 x 40 x 8 mm 2500 mAh battery. Does it fit? Would it be worth replacing the CR120 battery as well, to see if the date and time are not deleted when you turn it off?
You maybe very busy... :) So I solved myself. I opened it, mine has only 4 corner screws, under the back label there is nothing. Inside I saw at once the CR1220 battery is absolutely missig. I put a new one into battery holder. And when I opened it anyway, I replaced a 2500 mAh battery, works well. This doubled the operating time.
kephost.net/p/OTAzMTM5.jpg
Replace the coin cell battery
How micro level we can make this
Hello, I leave you here the page of the device on AliExpress ( geni.us/fnirsi-gc-01 ), you can see almost in the end the range of the measurements. Thanks for watching!
Nice review Hugo! Thanks
Hi, glad you liked it! Thanks for watching and wish you a Happy New Year!
Is there a way to turn on an acoustic signal for the counting?
So it beeps while measuring?
Hi, not that I'm aware, please notice that even in a "normal" enviroments is always detecting radiation, but in low dosages. That will be probably really annoying. Thanks for watching!
@@TechCornerTV No... all geiger counters should have a click per count mode which is sometimes called "source finder mode". This is a very important feature. If you don't see a setting for it in options, it's a shame. It may be possible to do a hardware mod.
@@nefariumxxx hi I kind of was disappointed as well. The LED is indicating activity only. You can of course check the diagram mode to see if you glanced over some active source.
The device seems not to connect to USB; probably charging only.
It seems it can not be used as a cumulative counter (dosimeter) , as it does not appear to run in background but shuts down after some time ....
It is the least expensive that seems to give some reading but i am not convinced very much yet ...
@@CM-mo7mv It does seems cool for the price but really needs a click per count source finding mode. Feedback has been sent to the devs so maybe we will see a revision 2 in the future.
There are three mode, indicator (led), vibration and sound. So the radiations are sound according to the notice.
What is a Giser counter ?
Hi, as I told in the video, I'm no expert, but for what I understood when you have a radioactive source, it releases particles (let's call it like that, but in reallity is ionizing radiation) that are captured by the geiger counter, then that piece of equipment is able to detect and measure the quantity of particles. There is a measure that after a certain amount it will not be safe for humans, so it's useful in certains situations the amount of radiation generated. You have more cientific and correct explanation here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geiger_counter , thake care and thanks for watching.
Is there a firmware update?
Hi, not that I'm aware of. Thanks for watching!
PS - Sorry the late reply, kind of short in time,
Thanks for the vid, I used your link. Look forward to trying this thing out
Hi, thank you for your support! Awesome! Hope you enjoy your new radiation detector 😁 again thanks for watching and the support, really appreciated.
This thing is nice! Came pretty quick and worked right out of the box. It shows results similar to the GMC 320S, but I've not had a chance to really evaluate the performance, it appears good. Again thank you for the nice video and a good recommendation on the meter
Can be implant in mobile
Hi, it has battery so is portable, if it can be implanted in mobile, mobile phone? If that's the question, no it can't connect to mobile phones, at least that I'm aware. Thanks for watching!
How do you reset this unit ?
Hi Jim, you can do a factory reset to put the device on a clean state or just go to the settings and do a clear cumulative value. Thanks for watching!
Yes ionizing radiation can be/is bad for your health, you don't have to ingest gamma (and sometimes beta, but like alpha beta is more harmful if swallowed, but unlike beta alpha can't penetrate the skin) and x-ray for it to destroy your life if you receive too much from an external source.
Alpha isn't too friendly either if it gets into your body (say from contaminated food or other source that you intake into your body), it's going to wreak havoc on the soft tissue in your body and be confused as calcium and absorbed into your bones, and being that it gets put into your bones, you bones will be killing you.
I say being able to detect alpha is just as important as detecting the other radiation types.
Hi, thanks for sharing. I read before in the comments that this is a tricky business and this device probably need more improvements, but anyway, is a nice to have. Thanks for watching!
i have found with these the preinstalled firmware is pretty garbage, and many aspects of this device can be imroved just by flashing radpro onto it! for example, radpro allows you to set up an actual click sound, do data logging, generate true random numbers, and even play chess :)
Hi, thanks for sharing and watching!
Hi Hugo, thank you for the excellent review as always. All of your videos are always so detailed and well done. Although I wouldn't have any use of this gadget I still think its a nice little unit that they have made.
Hi Khuong, to be honest, on my daily life I don't have much use for it either, nevertheless is a good gadget to have around, is one of those things that if really need it, you can't get it fast enough, Thanks for watching!
I received mine and it's on Chinese.
Si potrebbe avere la spiegazione in italiano
Ciao Antonio, ho questo stesso canale in portoghese e non pubblico più video lì perché non ho tempo per farli in inglese e portoghese (la mia lingua madre). Come puoi immaginare, l’italiano è ancora più difficile. Ora ti scrivo in italiano grazie a Google Translator! Grazie per aver guardato il video. Va bene
Nice.
Hi, thanks for watching! Cheers!
After watching this video AND reading neon I johns comments I realize that I don't need a Geiger Counter.
Hi Joel, that's the idea of the videos, is to give you the information so you can decide 😁 thanks for watching!
The GC-01 is now an Dont-Buy! After Fnirsi has changed to a totally crappy tube inside, its not worth buing as it gives incorrect readings and are much less sensible. It appears that its a third, even shittier tube, HH614 in the one I bougt.
Hi Viktor, you're not the one to warn me about, what a shame, I know it was not a professional equipment but seem to enough for non professional usage, sad to ear that. Thank you for sharing and watching.
Bastante esclarecido ❤
Olá, fico contente por ter podido ajudar. Obrigado pelo teu simpáticom comentário e por assistires!
The logo and coloring scheme is very “fl_uke’esq” isn’t it
Hi, the all line is with this colors now.. maybe is "inspired" in it! At least looks cool to have a common image around all devices, seems more professional. Thanks for watching!
IMHO a bad choice of power source. Especially for a device which will mostly sit on a shelf in the event should something (bad) happen. Those lithiums are probably mediocre quality at best and will swell at some point in time. A much better choice would be AA and if standby can be managed to practically zero (yes it can if they choose to) then fill it with 1,5v lithium and it can sit 20 years standby and it'll work when you require it to.
Hello! Sorry for late reply, house move and vacations. You brought a fair point. It has credit, but again you can charge a USB powered device with a solar panel with USB output, there's a lot out there that you can use anywhere in time and is not granted that you can have bateries around in a emergency. I think all solutions have strong points and weak points. What you pointed out, makes a lot of sense, but there is also credit in the lithium baterry. Thanks for watching and sharing your opinion, really appreciated!
@@TechCornerTV Yeah they're fine for devices you use a lot. But lifetime of that geiger will most likely not be more than a few years. It's not hard to replace battery if you're savvy but otherwise it'll most likely be thrown out. Still there's the risk it damages something when it swells. Those mediocre quality cells in cheap chinese stuff as said has the bad habbit of swelling at some point in time. At which it can be fatal powering it using USB if you don't remove the battery.
excelente video irmão portugues.
Olá Julio, tudo de bom e obrigado por assistires! 👍
It's disappointing that logs can't be downloaded to a computer.
HI, you're totally right... thanks for watching!
nice video
Hi Wilson, thanks for watching and your kind comment!
I will NEVER buy anything that my life could depend on from ALI EXPRESS!!
Hi there! I understand what you're saying... but most of you buy today in Amazon or ebay comes from the same place, sometimes is just a rebrand. The point here is to really know what you need to buy in this case, in my case, I said it clearly, I don't! So and for the comments I already read here, if it is really needed, probably something more professional will be wise. Thanks for watching!
@@TechCornerTV yup, that part people just don't understand, it's just usually you pay more for the item if you buy on Amazon or sometime ebay.
And even brand names are often just rebadged products from AliExpress or other outlets like them.