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by kasbah 1438 days ago
Nice to hear. I'm the creator of Kitspace.org and I've spent a lot of time making the 1-click ordering work. It's an open source platform by the way: https://github.com/kitspace

I'm far from an expert on this subject and am not sure if it fits the definition of "scintillation", but here's another particle detector that uses photodiodes:

- electron-detector: https://kitspace.org/boards/github.com/ozel/diy_particle_det...

- alpha-spectrometer: https://kitspace.org/boards/github.com/ozel/diy_particle_det...
1 comments
sharikous 1438 days ago
Very nice! Sorry for my inexperience but how would you proceed as a beginner to build one of these projects?

I understand you can buy the components from Digikey but you have to print a PCB with those components, right?

So it's the PCB printer that should have access to the components, no?

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kasbah 1438 days ago
PCB manufacturers accept a format called "Gerber" files. They are basically drawings of all the layers of the PCB. You can download the Gerber files from the Kitspace page and send/upload them to a manufacturer of choice or even use one of the links to auto-upload them for you to Aisler, OSHPark, PCBWay or JLCPB.

Since the PCB is the board only, component information is actually not required to manufacture it. If you want a functioning device however you do have to source the components (e.g. from Digikey) and solder them to the PCB. I would recommend starting with an easier circuit (the electron-detector above might be a good candidate!) and ideally find someone to teach and help you (maybe at a local hackerspace? youtube tutorials might get you there if not?)

There's also this popular comic for teaching soldering to beginners that might help: https://mightyohm.com/blog/2011/04/soldering-is-easy-comic-b.... More links like this can be found on our list: https://github.com/kitspace/awesome-electronics/

The other option is to have a manufacturer solder it for you (e.g. Aisler and JLCPCB will do this for you), but if you have no experience building and debugging electronics I wouldn't recommend it (since it can get expensive and you can easily end up with a non-functioning device).

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