Slashdot Mirror
Build Your Own X-Ray Machine
Mr. Roboto writes "This web site has information on how to build your own X-ray machine from common household parts, inculding a vacuum tube, a few thousand feet of copper and a few other parts. There are also X-rays made of wood, fish and steel. I need to dig out my stash of vacuum tubes now." Unfortunately, I don't count "vacuum tubes" among common household parts, but this would be a great science fair project.
Reading that made me wonder... where can one buy some film badges (the sort that radiology techs wear to alert them of excessive exposure) ? Anyone happen to know?
X-Rays have been proven to cause cancer even when used by professional physicians. Putting them in the hands of every-day individuals is highly irresponsible.
Our urban environments are already wrought with dangers in the form of guns and drugs. Do we really need gangs roving the streets with high-powered x-ray devices? I think the answer is obviously no, we do not.
The privacy implications are also troubling. Now, with complete lack of regard to my safety or rights, people can install x-ray machines anywhere - in parks, streets, or their homes.
I hope the government moves quickly and bans these devices, before their proliferation leads to certain harm.
- qpt
--
Domine Deus, creator coeli et terrae respice humilitatem nostram.
if i can make it small enough, i can stick it in my eye and look through guys' pants!
Unless you took your Linux IPO millions and bought a LCD monitor, or live your life out of a lap top, most of the rest of us mortals sit in front of a vaccum tube based CRT and bathe in (reduced) radiation all day long.
Monitors have lead in them for a reason. And its the same reason if you plan on building an x-ray machine, you had better be damn careful...radiation is harmful. Hopefully the fact you can't just D/L this and run it will keep it out of the hands of irresponsible boobs we'll call xray kiddies.
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
For those of you who are going to try this, here are the symptoms of high frequency radiation exposure:
Headache
Stomach ache
Nausea
Unconsiousness
Death
Somewhere between Stomach ache and death comes sterility. Don't ask me why but I have a friend with silicone testicles and testosterone shots for life courtesy of radiation exposure and the US government.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
Is this another example of it doesn't matter (or even exist) unless it's on the web? Note at the bottom of the page where this was take from:
The preceding was taken in full from
Section IX. Optics, Heat, and Electronics;
Chapter 3. An Inexpensive X-ray Machine
The Scientific American Book of Projects for The Amateur Scientist
Library of Congress Card Catalog Number: 60-14286
© Copyright 1960 by C. L. Strong
My father got me this book in middle school (for me, the mid-60's), and I used a number of the projects as starting points for my own hardware hacks. The most notable was the simple wind tunnel that used burning cones of incense to create streamers of smoke in the tunnel chamber. It was powered by a vacuum cleaner. I spent a fair amount of time making sure that air entering the chamber was even across the plenum. Another Scientific American experiment I started with was the construction of an electrostatic motor. I built a large one from plexiglass (12 inch diameter rotor, 18 inches long). I was into electrical and electronic hobbies, and this book was great just to read what others had done. My father never let me build the X-ray machine because he was afraid I'd irradiate myself and get cancer.
I'm happy somebody found it on the Web. But the book is far better.
I was hoping against hope that the article would be about something cool like integrating an X-Ray exposure over time from plain old sunlight, perhaps with a cooled ccd and nifty software. (That's what I've been thinking about doing with starlight for a year anyway..)
Listen folks, you don't want to screw around with X-Rays unless you are heavily trained, okay? The lightest thing I can say is the article is irresponsible in light of modern technology and culture.
My grandfather (God rest his soul) always wore bandaids around his fingers. They were always coming off or getting soggy and wearing out, his fingernails were a mess (I think he missed them on one or two fingers completely), and it looked pretty painful. You see he was a dentist, I guess around when the article was written. Unfortunately they didn't know that your body is a pretty good integrator of radiation too.. so it was standard operating procedure to hold the film in a patient's mouth while beaming the X-rays into it and spraying it around his own fingers at the same time. They didn't think, 'lead aprons are for wooses', they just didn't know. Seems dumb and tragic now.
If you want to do something much more interesting than the proposed project, and maybe make a ton of money at the same time, why not work on integrating ambient radiation, whether sonic, electromagnetic, or nuclear. There was a good novel called Hollywood Dreamtime which talked about it a lot. The last thing we all need is for a young smart person excited by open source, hacking, and network effects, to start screwing around with unshielded spark coils. Odds are someone is going to get electrocuted or permanently damaged (maybe with malevolent intent).
On a lighter note, you could also learn to build a fucking powerful microwave oven with an oil drum and similar parts. That's what the Om cultists did in Japan a couple years ago, to turn their victims into ash. I'd say that's safer than building X-Ray generators and maybe leaving them plugged in over night by mistake.. X-Rays are great and 100% natural but they are too energetic to fuck around with for a household hobby.
I do have a 01A and briefly considered building the X-ray machine, but fortunately came to my senses before trying it. The trend in professional X-ray machines has been toward lower and lower emission with more sensitive film and detectors. Long-term exposure to X-rays is quite dangerous even at low levels.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
And that's not even to get into transmitting tubes...
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
I see a Darwin Award coming out of this.
Lots of other readers have commented on the effects of x-rays, so I'll spare everyone the regurgitated diatribe. Just please be more conscientious in regards to the cutesy comments editors add when they post these stories.
A better (if not safer) science project might be "The Darwinian Effect of Do-It-Yourself X-ray Kits on Budding Geniuses Who Spend too Much Time on Slashdot".
Get off my virtual lawn, you damned virtual kids!
Insofar as "old" tech books go - but I can go one better:
There is a book, quite difficult to find now (in any condition - it is quite out-of-print), called "The Boy Electrician" by Alfred P. Morgan. This book was first published in 1913 (by Lothrop, Lee and Shepard Co.), and later again 1929, 1940, and 1948 (by the same publishers). A second printing was done in 1948, and third and forth in 1951, and 1952, respectively (my copy is the 1952 edition).
A wonderful book, filled with all sorts of how-to and gadgets for the beginning 1900's geek. Delightfully illustrated by the author (from what I understand, the picture of the boys in the book were based off of the author's sons), most all of the projects were aimed at boys around the ages of 8-13, as far as I can assertain (although I may be completely wrong here - today I fear kids would be dumbstruck by the sheer amount of patience and volume of reading this book requires to build devices - I sometimes wonder if kids in those days were smarter). These projects ranged from magnets and static electricity, building batteries (using real lead and sulpheric acid!), building motors and generators, alarms, radios, telephones - and yes, an X-Ray machine.
It seems that back in the day, one could easily purchase an X-Ray "tube" - a vaccumn tube designed to emit X-Rays - fairly cheaply (Morgan quotes 4 and a half dollars - which would equate to a bit of money today, but still fairly inexpensive). He then shows how to hook it up to a high voltage supply (which is built in earlier chapters using an ignition coil from a Model-T), then use a special "flourosope" to allow you to view the bones in you hand when you switch it on! It is funny in the naivete of the device, and how much damage could be done - but at the same time, such simplicity and curiosity is gone from our world, simply because of fear of danger.
Alfred P. Morgan also wrote other books aimed at young experimenters - I know one was a more advanced book on radio and TV, and another may have been on chemistry (I have the titles of the books put away somewhere) - all of the books are difficult to find, sadly.
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
To those really interested in generating x-rays, you can find x-ray tubes and rectifiers on a regular basis on eBay. For the power supply, you can use one of those handheld electrocution devices, which nowadays can generate 100kV-400kV.
Go to it. Before long, we'll have afforable Open Source Beowulf-powered CAT scan machines all over the place.
RMS has been butting heads with Linux people for a long time. RMS is a FREE SOFTWARE enthusiast, and not a Linux enthusiast. RMS is actually pissed off that people call the whole system Linux, when its actually the kernel that's linux, and most of the other parts that make the system work (low level stuff like compilers and basic UNIX tools) are GNU utilities, which have been around a lot longer than Linus' kernel
Already been done and reported on /.
The X-Ray project is very cool. But as others have pointed out, not something you want to build without proper training.
The early twentieth century geek bit the head off chickens in a circus for a living. Later geeks displayed testicular irregularities and became eunichs. How these people became computer programers and engineers, I'll never know.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.