Hackaday improvise nuclear battery powered calculator

[twdeckard]

https://hackaday.io/project/25753-nuclea...calculator


Hackaday nuclear calculator

[Maximilian Hohmann]

Hello!

Looks like a smart idea, but I have my doubts... I have always been fascinated by little things that demonstrate physical principles like laser diodes, neodymium magnets and these GTLS gizmos (gaseous tritium light source). I have a watch and an alarm clock with GTLS (aka "H3", "tritium", "betalight", "trigalight", "isotope") hands, some naked "betalights" in different colours used for nighttime fishing and even the GTLS map reading "torch" in the picture below. (Which in my country can't legally be sold because it contains an activity of more than 1GBq).



One day I will try it out for myself, but these things - even the "torch" - are so dim (that photo must have been taken with several seconds exposure time!) that I can't imagine that those cheap solar cells can produce any current at all. There are however commercially available "nano-tritium atom-batteries" from China at roundabout 2000$ a piece which generate electricity from Tritium beta decay. They use specially designed semiconductors instead of solar cells.

Regards
Max

[twdeckard]

I had the same thought. I assume it’s why he was using it to charge a capacitor and only got a short interval w the calculator. Still surprised a tritium vial would shake loose any current from a solar cell?