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FrozenGate by Avery

DIY Xray photos! :)

jeffreythe00

jeffreythe00

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Hey folks!

Recently I've purchased a set of surplus xrays heads. One of which I've sold to mariomaster. He came to visit this weekend so we had a bit of fun!

I'd really rather not share too much information about the subject so here's the photos!

Photos were taken with a 20 second exposure!

Random circuit board. Couldn't get the camera to focus well on the photo. This was the first test we did.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1181169/P1000582.jpg

Now I know people were going to ask... Yes... we xrayed my hand. Please don't ask me to do it again. This is the first and LAST time a human body part will be xrayed in my house.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1181169/P1000583.jpg

Anyway I just wanted to share! :)
 





Interesting... I guess not all of those do. I never tried this since I don't have X-rays , but you can use GITD paint on paper and a lens for make the shadows of a object from blu-ray stay on the paper. You get some pretty cool effects.
 
^not anymore dangerous than going to the doctor and getting xrays. Its just a hand. There's no vital organs in your hand. I could MAYBE get skin cancer or something... nothing life threatening. We also had full control over the laserhead. We only ran the head at 75% power which is JUST enough to show up on camera.
 
Nice pictures. +1

jeffreythe00 said:
we xrayed my hand. Please don't ask me to do it again. This is the first and LAST time a human body part will be xrayed in my house.
Click to expand...

I know a lot of people that wouldn't recognise the dangers of this and would probably x-ray their heads >_<

Lase
 
Ah - I misread. I thought you had an xray TUBE, not an xray head. An xray tube is a lot less controlled than a head =p
 
Lase said:
Nice pictures. +1



I know a lot of people that wouldn't recognise the dangers of this and would probably x-ray their heads >_<

Lase
Click to expand...

Okay, correction then.

Xrays ARE "very" dangerous to vital organs. You want to protect them which is why the doctor gives you a lead vest/apron. However my hand is not a vital organ. So even though it was only my hand... there is still a risk... however its a low risk. I wouldn't recommend anyone else trying this.

Wolfman29 said:
Ah - I misread. I thought you had an xray TUBE, not an xray head. An xray tube is a lot less controlled than a head =p
Click to expand...

You did :). I pulled the head apart and I control the whole unit with a variac. Basically the same concept.
 
Gah you're making me jealous. I'm in the process of making a DIY Xray generator from vacuum rectifier tubes. Yes I am trained in radiological hazards and have appropriate thickness lead shielding. I'm just needing the HVDC supply, and that's just begun to get started on now. I'm not going to be using mine for radiography, though that would be fun. Where the heck did you find an image intensifier screen!?

How many KeV is your head set to, pulsed or continuous?

He's right, a single hand exposure is no problem, you can take several Gray to a hand without significantly increasing cancer rates or worrying about radiation sickness. You do have to worry about burns though.
 
Gah you're making me jealous. I'm in the process of making a DIY Xray generator from vacuum rectifier tubes. Yes I am trained in radiological hazards and have appropriate thickness lead shielding. I'm just needing the HVDC supply, and that's just begun to get started on now. I'm not going to be using mine for radiography, though that would be fun. Where the heck did you find an image intensifier screen!?

That's pretty awesome! How much have you spent so far DIY'ing your setup? Being trained for radiology sounds like a pretty fun job! You get to see some really nasty gore :o

All of my equipment was purchased on eBay. You can find image intensifying screens in xrays cassets. There is two of them inside. They even come in a variety of sizes and colors.

How many KeV is your head set to, pulsed or continuous?

65 KeV but its old. So it may be less.

I don't have the equipment ATM for pulsed. The setup is continuous.

He's right, a single hand exposure is no problem, you can take several Gray to a hand without significantly increasing cancer rates or worrying about radiation sickness. You do have to worry about burns though.

Remember though, exposure is cumulative. So a few images is fine... but multiple images can become a problem.
 
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jeffreythe00 said:
Xrays ARE "very" dangerous to vital organs. You want to protect them which is why the doctor gives you a lead vest/apron. However my hand is not a vital organ..
Click to expand...

I know they're supposed to but when I was in a car accident they x-rayed my chest and head with no lead vest. Made a pretty interesting x-ray though with all my piercings :p Should have asked for a copy.

Lase
 
I said radiological hazards, not radiology, haha. I wish I was trained as a radiologist I'd be making decent money! No, I'm trained in radiological hazard responce (spills, surveying, accidents, day after survival, etc).

~60KeV is pretty decent! Easy enough to shield and penetrating enough for fun radiographs. Continuous is safer because it is VERY hard to measure dose rates for pulsed radiation without sophisticated equipment like fast response ion chambers.

I'll be going for ~30KeV, a lot safer/easier to shield against. As I said my aim wasn't radiography though. Right now I have a collection of many common A/B/Y Isotopes totalling a couple dozen uCi at least. Shielding is problematic to say the least. An "on demand" gamma source like a DIY xray unit is a heck of a lot safer and will allow me to sell off my gamma sources. Right now most of the gamma is ~760KeV and 1300KeV... goes through 1/2" of lead like it isn't there.

The head isn't actually the most sensitive to radiation. Your intestines and bone marrow are the most sensitive to radiation iirc. Damage to the intestinal lining causes bacterial leakage (sepsis) and dehydration, bone marrow damage causes loss of white blood cells and immune system destruction. The loss of immune system coupled with the sepsis is the main cause of death from radiation poisoning.
 
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My mistake. I thought you ment radiology. :p. Its late here. My brain is fried lol.

Right now at this moment I don't have any metering equipment. So really I shouldn't be messing with this machine. However I feel my shielding is good enough to keep me safe and I am at a safe enough distance to not be harmed. Though I'm not going to mess with it any more until I can get all of my xrays contained or be sure they are at the very least. Working on getting a Geiger counter. Not easy when your going cheap :p.

I'd be interested at the very least to see your project come together and I'm also interested in seeing some of your specimens as well if you don't mind sharing :). I hope your homemade psu comes together nicely!
 
Yup, isn't that called the "walking ghost" phase of radiation poisoning? When someone has gotten a lethal dose; the initial burn/vomiting/fever etc effects have worn off and the victim feels fine for a while (even like they have completely recovered) -- but their intestinal lining and blood cells are already too damanged to recover?

Interesting but also nasty stuff... Cool to see the images but I'll stick with visible light :)
 
Thanks! Aye, i'll post any real updates. I'm having Le Quack design the psu, I don't have the experience with flybacks and doing it the linear CWmult way I know how would be very expensive and very inefficient.

I can get some specimen photos up, sure, but they just look like rocks, tubes, and disks... haha even though they're fairly hot. All in one spot it's probably about 20mR/hr beta/gamma and 10mR/hr gamma only. After shielding the background rate in my house is only increased by 2CPM which is about 0.2uR/hr. I suppose I can set it up next to one of my geigers to show it off though.

update:

Aryntha said:
Yup, isn't that called the "walking ghost" phase of radiation poisoning? When someone has gotten a lethal dose; the initial burn/vomiting/fever etc effects have worn off and the victim feels fine for a while (even like they have completely recovered) -- but their intestinal lining and blood cells are already too damanged to recover?

Interesting but also nasty stuff... Cool to see the images but I'll stick with visible light
Click to expand...

Yup, exactly. Scary shit. I'm very grateful for the experience and training I have and the only reason I keep radiological samples around is to maintain my detection and measurement equipment. Shielding alpha and beta emitters is cakewalk (provided you take Bremsstrahlung into account), I can't wait to get rid of the gamma emitters.

ALARA is the way to go.. As Low As Readily Achievable
 
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