Connecting a Ludlum 177 to Radmon with the Data port?

More
1 week 23 hours ago #7513 by Irish
Hello All, I have a Ludlum 177 Benchtop meter than runs pretty much 24/7 and I'd love to contribute but I'm struggling to get the data port to send proper CPM signal out to my desktop. I'm wondering if anyone has had any luck getting the Ludlum data ports to work or if anyone has any tips.

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
6 days 3 hours ago #7514 by Simomax
I have just had a quick look at the manual for your counter ( here ) and it states that on the 9-pin D connector, pin 3 is ground and pin 5 gives a negative pulse output of ~-4V. It is very doable, but will depend on your skillset and how you want to go about it. Despite is being called a data port, it lacks an actual data stream. Besides pin 5 (pulse) the others are all just voltage rails/ancillary stuff, so pin 5 is all we have to work with.

There are a few options available for getting the counts online, three that I can think of right now are:
  1. Use Radlog Pro on a windows PC and use the soundcard to pick up the pulses from your counter.
  2. Connect the pulse output to a ESP32 or ESP8266 (Wemos D1 Mini etc).
  3. Connect the pulse output to a Raspberry Pi.
All three options will require the ~-4V to be lowered to the max input voltage of the device you connect your counter to. For PC soundcard you want a max of +-1V. ESP32 should be 2.5-3.3V, same for the ESP8266, but the Wemos D1 Mini is a little more forgiving and should be fine with the ~-4V directly into it. I can't comment for RPi's as I have never interfaced a RPi with a counter. There is a ton of info out there though, and also on this forum (search: pyradmon). To lower the voltage a voltage divider would be the way to go. Two resistors, as simple as that. 

If going the ESP32/8266 route, I would strongly suggest a Wemos D1 mini and Steadramon's ESPGeiger firmware. I think this would be the easiest and fastest way of getting your counter online and it supports other services too. I reckon you could simply just hook up your pin 5 right to the Wemos, flash it with ESPGeiger, configure and go.

 
The following user(s) said Thank You: Irish

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

Moderators: Gamma-Man
Time to create page: 0.106 seconds
Powered by Kunena Forum
Everything's free. Please support us by considering a donation. Log in first!
Solar powered Raspberry Pi 4 server stats: CPU 49% Memory 15% Swap 0% CPU temp=52.1'C Uptime 14:19, Days