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.

Comments

This is very dangerous

[qpt]

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

Classic Slashdot

[shambler snack]

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.

This is fscking dangerous. Don't mess with X-Rays!

[mattr]

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.

SCIENCE FAIR PROJECT???!!!

[JoeGee]

"Johnny is sterile, but he got an A. We're proud of him, but of course we're sad about the grandkids."

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".