Hackers in Residence - Cosmic Ray Detector

Assembly

Begin by clipping the end connectors off of the 9-volt battery holders. Strip about 5-10 mm of insulation off of the end of each wire.

Twist the red (+) wire of one connector and the black (-) wire of another together. Hold the joint in a pair of tweezers while soldering it together. Repeat until all of the 9-volt connectors have been soldered in this fashion into a line.

Solder the 1 kΩ resistor across the two wires on the female BNC connector. Glue over the 1 kΩ resistor on the bottom of the BNC connector. Connect the ground (outer) wire from the BNC connector to the loose black (-) wire on the 9-volt connectors, and solder it.

Solder the signal (inner) wire from the BNC connector to one of the two leads of the Neon bulb. Repeat for the other lead of the Neon bulb to one of the two outer pins of the 10 kΩ trimpot. Cut the other outer pin of the trimpot.

Attach the middle pin of the trimpot to the loose red (+) wire on the 9-volt connectors. Then solder the black (ground) lead from the battery connectors to the bottom of the black binding post and solder the red (+V) lead from the battery connectors to the red binding post. Put small globs of hot glue on each and every soldered connection. Turn the trimpot all the way in the direction that is towards the remaining outside pin.

Last, connect the batteries to their connectors.