Geiger counter with HA integration?

Hardware
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I’ve seen some DIY arduino kits but I’m really curious if you could build or purchase a home geiger counter that integrates with HA. Anyone have any experience with this?

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Did you manage to make it work?I made a blog on this.
https://www.connectix.nl/connecting-a-geiger-counter-to-home-assistant/

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Are we all waiting for WWIII or something?

Thinking about it, after watching “Chernobyl” recently I can see why this would be useful in Europe. I am lucky tp be at the bottom of the Pacific :slight_smile:

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Actually planning on playing around with this on the weekend using this kit:

Will connect to an Arduino w/W5500 Ethernet and publish via MQTT.

Nice to have a background radiation count to add to environmental data. Plus, you know, an automation that will hopefully never be triggered tied to a trend sensor that notifies on a sudden increase. Well, it will be triggered once or twice for testing when I shove a chip of Cs137 near the tube…

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coincidentally, I think it was after reading about the tv series coming out that I had the idea. This is one of those things I’ve always been curious about and it seems like a good idea to have running and hope you never need it. :slight_smile:

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Thanks for the write up, this is cool. And the price is really good for an already built kit.

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Good success this weekend with my RH Electronics Geiger counter. The board is very simple, just producing a pulse with every count. So very easy to connect up to an Arduino, ESP8266, etc. and then just count the pulses and publish via MQTT. I happened to use an STM32 since I already had one sitting on a breadboard with a W5500 Ethernet module already wired up. Connected the Geiger counter impulse line to pin A0, attached an interrupt, and just counted every time there was a pulse. Every 15 seconds multiplied by 4 to get a CPM (based on the example Arduino code on RH Electronics site), did the conversion to uSv (example code) then published via MQTT.

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Nice. Sounds like an ideal task for esphome.

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Yes, looks like both esphome and TASMOTA support pulse counters. TASMOTA has a few more configuration options for pulse counters which may make it a little better for this.

I’m going to eventually roll this into an environmental sensor. Right now have a ESP8266 and BMP280 running TASMOTA for outdoor climate. Going to move the BMP280 to this sensor, might as well leave the STM32, and power it via POE. I like everything that doesn’t move around to be wired.

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I am very interested if there is a direct ESPhome integration. I guess it’s a simple pulse compter ?

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I’ve never used ESPHome as I prefer stuff to be wired via Ethernet (because of reliability, longevity, and have to power it with a wire anyway) but here is my best guess at an ESPHome config for CPM:

sensor:
  - platform: pulse_counter
    pin: (whatever)
    name: "Radiation CPM"
    count_mode: rising_edge
    update_interval: 60
    unit_of_measurement: CPM

And with a CPM measurement you can calculate dose rates in your automation.

Or change the update_interval to a lower value and multiply in the automation to get the measurement more often.

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I just set it up with ESPHome and it was very easy!

Very basic code and wiring.

This is the relevant code part of the ESPHome device, an ESP8266:

sensor:
  - platform: pulse_counter
    pin: GPIO4
    name: "Geiger Counter"
    update_interval: 15s

EDIT: I fixed the code. I realized that ESPhome calculates correctly the pulse/minute when changing the update_interval from default value.

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Thanks a lot :)… It will helps me

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Hi.

I can’t get this to work on my ESP32, as the counter does not increase with the impulses from the sensor.

Did you set any count_mode parameter latter on?

Thanks.

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The solution for ESP8266 (GPIO14) and ESP32 (GPIO36): Pulse_counter pin goes high

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16

How you convert CPM to uSv ?

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You can find an example on the website at https://rhelectronics.net/store/radiation-detector-geiger-counter-diy-kit-second-edition.html

The Arduino Code by Brian Gauger" link has the simplest method of just multiplying it by a “magic number” conversion factor:

https://ln.sync.com/dl/e5ef275c0/jrxzkzjn-gpgn4svx-s8z9873v-np2ieuw7

For the SBM-20 used in the RH Electronics kit, multiply the CPM by 0.0057.

For different tubes, usually a Google will turn up the magic number. Or you have to go hunting for the tube datasheet.

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Anyone has this working with Wemos D1 Mini? I’m still trying to figure out if I have faulty kit or doing something completely wrong :slight_smile:

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What is the problem you are having?

Keep in mind that most of the Geiger kits output a 5V pulse.

ESP8266 isn’t 5V tolerant on most I/O pins.

What pin are you using?

What firmware?

Have you verified the Geiger counter works by itself with a speaker or scope on the output?

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Thanks for followup @AaronCake.
I tried to get it working with Wemos D1 mini - it is producing ticking sound and LED is blinking too.
No matter what pin I’m using (tried D4 and D5 ) I get strange results. Even with some blinking, it’s giving very low rates - mostly 0, and maximum is 0,00x.
I did use J305 multipliers 0.00812037037037 (tried even 123.147092360319)

The problem is that even when it registers something (led + sound) I get 0 - that can be dozen of ticks a minute and still 0.

Also, I’m using 4 decimal spaces - still getting 0.

EDIT: Forgot to say - I’m using ESPHome for testing. Also counter receives power from ESP board, not independently.

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