Hello, I didn't come across this that I saw so I will put it out here and see how many jump in. I am new to this and would like to get ideas from others that have done this. I want to mount a unit outside and would like to know how many out here have made there own enclosures for mounting their units outside in the elements. Pictures, the sites showing them, chat here, whatever, just need ideas on how others have done it. One idea I have is to use a 4 inch pvc tube, about 5 inches in length and 2 end caps, drills holes in it, a number of them, for air flow. Question: is there anything to worry about using pcv? another idea is using one of them shields that the temp and humidity sensors are mounted in for our weather stations, like I have, but there is a better, bigger version out there for better air flow. Inside of either listed here, a thin piece of foam to help keep the moisture limited and bugs out. Well, I hope there are some nice, not to large type of ideas out there. I will be mounting my unit up about 20 feet near the top of my tower for good, all direction air movement... thoughts and ideas anyone? would love to see and hear them... thank you in advance... Frank

Here are two outside enclosure and I have another one on the porch.
It is better outside, I hope many more stations will move outside too.

What model geiger do you plan to put outside?

Do you plan to put it on a air purifier?

Below is a picture of my basement unit. I have the geiger counter upside down for two reasons. One is because I wanted the power and audio cord to exit from the side of the purifier as pictured. the second reason is because the GM tube is located at the top of the geiger unit and I wanted it closest to most of the filter. I cut the grill of the purifier to allow the geiger counter to fit right against the filter and when the filter is running, the suction hold it tight but even off it does not fall off.

Ok many might laugh at this crude setup, but it is what I had around the house and what can I say... IT WORKS!

This is an older model of the same brand of air purifier as my basement unit and uses the same size filters. It faces West and is on the North side of my house. This unit never gets hit by direct sunlight and most heavy rain/snow does not hit it due to it's location and the overhang on the house so the filter stays mostly dry. You can see the power cable and audio cable (ran by a Raspberry Pi with NETC software) that comes out of my house which is located right above my basement unit. On the top/back of the purifier you see the thing that people use to redirect their furnace vent air. This helps to keep water from going in the top of the unit were the air blows out. You can see my GMC-200 unit is inside a thin ziplock like sandwich bag with the unit tilted and the cables down to avoid rain going inside. The plugs only goes through the plastic bag, each have a hole of their own and only big enough for the plug that inserts in the unit. I have a plastic bag cut up covering the controls on the top of the air purifier with duct tape holding it down. I am also using duct tape to hold the GMC-200 geiger counter firm against the purifier filter. I have one last piece of duct tape over the top/front edge of the air purifier to divert any rain from falling directly on the filter and geiger counter.

As crude as this setup looks, the results I get from outside monitoring on it works great and this unit has been running since Winter.

How are you extending the USB? I have tried to use a USB extender on another project, but do the all the RF in the area from my Transmitter it did not work out. I have hear that they now have USB/WIFI???
I do like the bird feeder, now what happens with the big pigeons??
Gary

All my units uses wifi adapters on the raspberry Pi. Are you using wapp4netc.exe software?

big pigeons - the siren on the PI at the alert levels seem to chase the pigeons away. Yes the PI has a voice too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4TttXBmN14 my unit outside on the back porch

I am not extending it. The very top of my basement fondation is where I have the Raspberry Pi sitting right next to my floor board joists. I have just enough USB/audio cable and power cable that came with the GMC-200 to go through that PVC pipe out of my house to the air purifier unit.

In the basement I have an ethernet cable connected to the Raspberry Pi because I don't want anymore WiFi electromagnetic radiation in the house than I have to use. Plus, by not having it wireless I can mostly rule out any problem with the internet connection if any trouble shooting is needed.

Since the GMC-200 is such a good price and works so well, I think everyone should consider also having a second GMC-200 sitting around as a backup to use if needed so you can verify any high readings you might get. I am not suggesting the need for a 2nd Raspberry Pi unit (although I have several) but rather just a second GMC-200 geiger counter to replace the original one if it goes bad or just to verify high readings.

Actually, I was thinking that as my unit for outside for the time being, this company has quite a few kit version of different styles and sizes that would make, I think, great winter projects to try. I like the newer models because of there displays, but have seen some comments about the screens going bad, units stopped working, etc. The 200 was cheap enough and seems to be a good start til the newer ones are investigated on why the displays die on them and the other issues. Is it possible that the internal tube can be remote mounted, not far at all, perhaps several inches so that way the electronics are housed in one enclosure and a cylinder type enclosure mounted about it for the tube itself? or is it too sensitive and could effect results? I know you can get the 200 in kit form too and use a tube of your choice within reason. I do like the setup that has the Raspberry Pi with it and seen this nice small monitor that will run on it, thats cool!

Oh, one thing I wish thou was a way to run 2 types of software to monitor the GMC-200. I'm using the wapp4netc now to upload data, but not much of a software to look at and would be cool to run other software in parallel with an actual, nice looking display of readings, unless there is a way. I have GeigerGraph and GQ Geiger counter data logger pro as well.