X-Ray System Technology

Version 1.05 (22-Jan-17)

Copyright © 1994-2022
Samuel M. Goldwasser
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Table of Contents



  • Back to X-Ray FAQ Table of Contents.

    Preface

    Author and Copyright

    Author: Samuel M. Goldwasser

    For contact info, please see the Sci.Electronics.Repair FAQ Email Links Page.

    Copyright © 1994-2022
    All Rights Reserved

    Reproduction of this document in whole or in part is permitted if both of the following conditions are satisfied:

    1.This notice is included in its entirety at the beginning.
    2.There is no charge except to cover the costs of copying.

    DISCLAIMER

    We will not be responsible for damage to equipment, your ego, blown parts, county wide power outages, spontaneously generated mini (or larger) black holes, planetary disruptions, or personal injury (including but not limited to the growth of spare limbs, glow-in-the dark personality, or inability to pass through airport security) that may result from the use of this material.



  • Back to Sam's Gadget FAQ Table of Contents.

    Introduction

    Scope and Purpose of This Document

    This is a random collection tid-bits related to the generation and use of X-Rays. Most of the material here was acquired around 1999, so some may be slightly dated, but I felt that it was about time that that it was at least partially polished and made public. I don't expect this to compete with the multitude of excellent articles on X-Ray technology now found on the Web. But there might be a nugget of information here that is useful. Contributions and corrections are welcome.

    X-Ray System Safety

    There are two primary dangers associated with X-Ray equipment: X-radiation and electrocution.

    X-Rays are what are known as "ionizing radiation" and is acts in a fundamentally more dangerous way than radio waves, light, and microwaves. Its much higher energy photons have the ability to damage biological tissue including cells and the DNA contained therein. This can result in mutations leading to cancer and other things that we won't go into here. ANY unnecessary exposure to X-Rays is to be avoided so should anyone reading acquire or gain access to an operational X-Ray system, measures must be put into place to prevent exposure. Lead shielding would probably be the most desirable approach since common building materials may NOT block X-Rays unless excessively thick. Thus simply being in an inclosed space is no guarantee that someone in the next room won't have some exposure. That's why they put a lead apron on you when having dental X-Ray.

    But there's much more to X-Ray safety than simply using a lead box. So, if you're serious about actually running a scrounged X-Ray machine - or even one that you built using a high voltage rectifier vacuum tube - make sure you understand and follow the much more complete safety guidelines readily found elsewhere.

    If servicing or otherwise dealing with a piece of X-Ray equipment where the electrical connections to the X-Ray tube need to be removed, realize that almost any type of X-Ray equipment is has the potential to be absolutely and totally instantly lethal from electrocution! X-Ray tube power is typically 50 to 150 kV at 10s to 100s of mA. Even a lowly dental intra-oral X-Ray unit uses 70 kV at 10 mA, but significant energy may be available in charged capacitors. An X-Ray machine used in general radiology might use 150 kV at 200 mA! That's 30 kW!

    (From: Terry Greene.)

    If an X-Ray power supply is fired unloaded, output voltage can exceed a quarter of a million volts, and can hold an incredible charge long after the power is disconnected and can easily kill. I've startled people down the hall by shorting the generator secondaries on a disconnected machine that was fired (malfunction) unloaded. An impressive discharge. NEVER work on an x-ray supply without shorting the output first. If it doesn't kill you, you won't forget it... assuming you ever remember it. :-)

    There is no practical problem with x-radiation at the typical voltage used in most gas type lasers. All mammography tubes use special beryllium windows for the radiation output because x-radiation at those low energies (20 to 32 kVp) won't penetrate the glass envelope of a standard tube. I've tried it. A glass envelope (standard) x-ray tube won't produce any exposure at all at 15 kVp according to my test equipment. (Keithly ion chamber) Even with complete evacuation, I seriously doubt you could find measurable x-radiation output from a glass bore laser.

    X-Ray System References and Links

    Some possibly useful links may be found in Sam's Neat, Nifty, and Handy Bookmarks under "X-Ray Systems".

    Medical and Dental X-Ray Equipment

    The following deals with medical and dental X-Ray machines. For CT and industrial X-Ray equipment, well maybe someday. :)

    (From: Terry Greene.)

    Dental X-Ray usually has fixed kVp in the 65 to 90 kVp range. The vast majority of them are set up at 70 kVp, usually at about 10 ma.

    As far as small medical, hmmm... define small. General medical stuff is usually adjustable in the 50 to 125 kVp range for single phase or 50 to 150 kVp for three-phase. These machines usually have adjustable mA from 25 to as much as 1000 mA. Smaller units as found in the offices of general practitioners will typically be adjustable from 50 to 300 ma.

    A few of the many exceptions to the above:

    1. Portables:

      • kV - adjustable 50 to 100 or 125 kV.

      • mA - often set at 100 mA on battery powered units. Some of the older line powered units are adjustable from 25 to 100 or 200 ma.

    2. Mammography:

      • kV - adjustable from as low as 20 to as high as 50 kVp. Typical is from 20 to 32 with most exposures made at 27 kVp.

      • mA - some units are set, some adjustable. Some vary inversely with kV. May be as high as 300 mA. 100 mA is typical.

    3. High frequency:

      Operating at either 20 kHz or 100 kHz, these unit have RMS output that exceeds three phase output by a few percent.

      • kV is adjustable and generally of the 50 to 125 kVp flavor.

      • mA is typically adjustable from 25 to 150, to as high as 25 to 600, but duty cycles are quite low at high power levels to protect the inverter banks from overload. Note that battery powered portables are generally 20 kHz high frequency units set at 100 mA.

    Notes on Dental X-Ray machines

    (From: Stoichita Catalin.)

    1. The X-Ray generators for dentistry (intra-oral pictures, panoramic pictures, and tele-radiography pictures) are only mono focal types.

    2. A typical focal size for 5-10 years old pano's (and attached teleradiology units) my be considered as 1x1mm but the modern types are close to 0.6x0.6mm. For the intra-oral imaging the focal size was from long time ago less than 0.7x0.7mm.

    3. There is no usage of the focused grid in dentistry. They are largely used in other fields of radiology.

    Typical X-Ray Dose

    (From: Jeff.)

    I enjoy reading discussions that add to our knowledge but I immediately became suspicious of the dose values reported by the two previous gentlemen.

    After some quick research to confirm the values I had in mind, here's what I found:

    (From: Gregory W. Froehlich.)

    In 1981, the mean exposure for bite-wing dental films was 334 mR. It's certainly less now, so 70 mR doesn't seem too surprising (in 1980, a chest film was about 30 mR, and a mammogram about 500 mR).

    The stuff I've seen for total average annual radiation is about 300 mR. Background radiation (environment and from people's own bodies) accounts for about 80% of that. Radon, on average, makes up about 55% of the total. Now, if you live in parts of New England (high radon, from the granite I think), the background radiation is 2.5 times as high; if you live in Leadville Colorado (lots of cosmic rays and metal ores), the background level is 3 times as high. Don't know about the exposure per hour of sun exposure; it's probably less than that of sitting inside, since radon levels are higher indoors and the main problem with sun is UV, not ionizing radiation (X or gamma). Anybody know the exposure rate for flying at 33,000'? I'd bet a coast-to-coast trip comes with 100 mR or more, from cosmic rays.

    X-Rays don't spatter, but they do scatter. Some x-rays are partially absorbed by the patient's body and are scattered. This normally would cause image unsharpness, but most modern systems also employ a focused grid under the patient to filter out scattered rays and only allow direct x-rays to pass. Incidentally, these scattered x-rays are what cause the occupational exposures to x-ray personnel, however their intensity is usually less than 1% of the primary beam intensity at 1 meter from the central beam axis.

    One last important factor in x-ray imaging science is the X-Ray tube's focal spot dimensions. A smaller focal spot will give a sharper resultant image. Normal modern x-ray machines usually have two focal spots which range between 0.8mm and 2.0 mm. In mammography, where image sharpness is particularly important, standard focal spot sizes are 0.1 mm and 0.3 mm.

    The next step, which is occurring now, will be the replacement of film entirely with digital imaging receptors. This will further lower patient dose, minimize retakes, and give added imaging quality as the technology advances into the future.

    For more about X-Ray imaging physics, I would recommend "Physics of Radiology" by Anthony B. Wolbarst, 1993, Simon & Schuster.

    X-Ray Film Sensitivity

    (From: Stoichita Catalin.)

    In rare cases film is used isolated (for example in retro-alveolar examination). Generally they are used together with fluorescent screens ("enhancing screens" or "phosphor screen"). The darkness (optical density) of the developed picture, is reflecting the sensitivity of overall system: film+fluorescent screen so, it is useless to speak separately about the "sensitivity of the new films". One of the most known supplier is KODAK. They have a lot of little but very clear manuals about the radiology. Other important suppliers are AGFA, 3M, FUJI, DUPONT, SIEMENS.

    The main parameters of the couple film+enhancing screen are sensitivity and resolution. The couples are specific to type of examinations because in some cases is very important to obtain maximum resolution and in other maximum sensitivity. More sensitive couple means less X-Ray photons sent to the patient but do not forget the X-Rays energy spectrum.

    For essential the X-Rays are giving a little part of the film darkness but the light from the screens is the major film darkness source. This light is proportional to the X-Ray absorption by the screen. The absorption is essentially dependent on the X-Ray energy. If you choose two different couples and you compare their sensitivities in two situation, let's say at 80kV and at 15kV, you may find that each one is more sensitive than the other but at preferred kV.

    Let's remember that the CaWO4 was very long time the main ( see only) phosphor used in radiology. Some products based on it were used as reference. This phosphor is practically obsolete today but unfortunately is still used as reference. Unfortunately there are two implications:

    1. When a dealer of films or screens is speaking about the speediness of his products he is forgetting to explain that obsolete reference or if he is writing, some times he note with very little fonts "100% speediness is the CaWO4 screen " with no other comment.

    2. The legal or recommended X-Rays dosage limits are established long time ago when it was not possible to do better and are left unchanged many times.

    And, about using modern film on old X-Ray machines, basically there is no restriction. However adjacent problems may arrive:

    1. Fitting actual films into a very old film holder model.
    2. Reducing the current below a given value.
    3. Reducing the time exposure on panoramics is not often easy.
    4. Is really interesting to use a VERY OLD X-Rays machine?

    Replacing the films by TV cameras is well known and under continuing progress from long time ago. The technology that is relatively new is CCD based X-Rays sensor. The first step was done by Trophy Radiologie (France) when the RVG (RadioVisio Graphy) was introduced on the market. RVG is a CCD based X-Ray sensor to be placed in the mouth rear the teeth just like the well known intra-oral film. A cable links the sensor through a digital electronics to a display. The system is used like before, with the classical films but instead the chemical processing we have instant images on the display (computer). The first solution proposed for the intra-oral sensor was for short time because 1992, Regam introduced his X-Rays intra-oral imaging system named " Sens-a-Ray ". One year later, Gendex (Italy/USA) introduced the same technology but named " Visual X "One year late Shick (USA) introduced his sensors and then Siemens(Germany),and MedizinReichner (Germany). Soredex (Finland) proposed a solution based on an intermediary support: memory phosphor of Fuji.

    A second application in radiology for the CCDs is for the digital panoramic. In 1995, SIGNET(France) begun the selling of DXIS® . This is a kind of universal kit being able to upgrade any classical panoramic int a digital one. Siemens an Trophy followed with fixed configuration for their last panoramic model. Planmeca(Finland) is also announcing his digital panoramic. Some specifics merit to be underlined:

    1. Trophy solution consists of replacement of the film holder of their (Instrumentarium-Finland made) OP100 panoramic with a " digital cassette " that is a kind of " film holder " which is in the fact an electronic device-the sensor. So, the usage of the film is still possible with this solution.

    2. Planmecca and Siemens propose a pure digital panoramic that is in the place of film subassembly there is a fixed sensor.

    3. The DXIS® technology from SIGNET targets the global park of the existing panoramic machines.

    Let's return an instant to the sensitivity. When the intra oral sensors arrived, the commercials claimed: "The CCD based sensor is 4 times more sensitive than the film!" (But what film?!) When the second arrived, other commercials said: "Our CCD based sensor is 5 times more sensitive than film" and so on... Other formulas which are equivalent as arithmetic but more penetrant were also used "our sensor permits a 75% reduction in radiation!" or "our sensor permits a reduction of 80% in radiation" and so on... The rough commercial competition paused far the evaluation of intra-oral sensors. Each manufacturer discovered by pure hazard articles in the press which praise their product and immediately displayed it. Conclusion: a high amplitude wave was created sustaining the the sys that the new CCD based technology permits to reduce many many times the X-Rays.

    As designer of one of these sensors and of the DXIS® system, I am convinced that the main explanation for the CCD based X-Rays intra-oral sensor is not by the CCD usage but just by the usage of the phosphor screen. The commercials forget to explain that they are comparing the classical very high resolution dental film, which is not coupled with phosphor screens with a system based on CCD which is receiving the light from a phosphor screen. Near the same sensitivity may be obtained with a film coupled to the screens. In the fact they realized an important move on the market: they convinced the dentists that is better to renounce to the resolution which is too high and get benefit from the X-Ray economy.

    The most important advantage that the digital sensors bring is the computer environment.

    The CCD story risks to be repeated in the competition on panoramics.

    (And now, CT scanners for the dental market. --- Sam.)

    Line Frequency and High Frequency X-Ray Generators

    (From: Terry Greene.)

    One difference is in how the HV obtained from line voltage:

    A 3 phase 12 pulse system takes the line voltage, puts it through step up transformer(s), rectifies it, and applies it to the X-Ray tube. Very simple technology that dates to the early days of commercial X-Ray systems.

    A high frequency generator takes the line voltage rectifies and filters to to make DC. The DC is then chopped at a high frequency and a combination of transformers and voltage multipliers then steps it up to the required voltage. Using a high frequency enables many of the components to be much smaller such as any transformers and capacitors.

    High frequency generators are smaller and lighter and lend themselves to digital control.

    High frequency generators are not used exclusively with digital X-Ray system. It is simply an efficient, light weight means of producing the high voltage. For example, modern CT scanners almost always use this technology especially where the HV generator is mounted on the rotating gantry. (Unless you consider CT to be a subset of digital X-Ray which it is). There is no technical reason why a high frequency generator cannot be used with any X-Ray system.

    Most newer battery powered portables are 20 khz high frequency machines. The older ones (G.E. AMX etc..) are generally 500 Hz.

    (From: Chris Smolinski.)

    I've designed a switching power supply which drives a HV multiplier inside of an X-Ray source. The X-Ray source contains a 1:26 step-up transformer and a multiplier to produce up to 80 kV. I need to feed it with a 12 kHz signal, about 300 V p-p. The design of the x-ray source cannot be changed, I'm stuck with it.

    My power supply uses a push-pull amplifier to produce this 12 kHz signal. The center tap of the primary of a transformer is connected to a 96V DC supply, and I PWM the signal to two MOSFETS connected to each side of the primary. Maximum output power is about 500W.

    I've noticed that after a period of operation at higher power levels, the transformer becomes quite warm [hot, I guess it's kinda relative]. I don't have exact temperatures handy. Perhaps I'm being too conservative, but I'd like the transformer to run somewhat cooler. The transformer design was mostly empirically determined, I'm sure it's far from optimum.

    Suggestions on what I can do to improve it? Sources for useful design hints/information? Unfortunately, they don't seem to teach you anything about transformer design in EE courses anymore (at least not at U of Maryland 6 years ago...).

    Typical Failure Modes of X-Ray Tubes

    One common failure mode is a fried anode resulting from putting power into the tube faster than it can dissipate it. The track where the beam hits will stress fracture and crack up. It will look like an alligators back. When the happens, the mR per mAs will drop and the film density will drop proportionally. Detail will also drop some what as the focal spot is now effectively not stationary as the beam walks up and down the irregularities. If the anode is seriously overheated when the anode is cold it can crack wide open from the edge to the shaft. I have seen one that broke clean in two. Next would probably be bad (noisy) bearings. I've seen them run noisy for years so those are perfect for a hobby machine. You hear a lot about "gassed" tubes, but rarely see them. Most tubes that are classified as "gassy" simply need to be reseasoned.

    (From: Someone at a major X-ray tube manufacturer.)

    I have been a X-Ray Field service engineer for about 45 years. In your x- ray tube section it was stated that you rarely see a gassy x-ray tube. Today (2016) in the Medical diagnostic environment, most tube failures *are* due to gas. This is mainly due to use of high kVp techniques. Because of the use of rare earth screens or digital detectors (requiring lower dose), the anode heating is a lot less and we don't see many cracked anodes.

    The gassing occurs because the target is a casted alloy of tungsten and molybdenum. When it is cast, gasses are trapped within the casting. One of the steps in the manufacturing process of the X-ray tube is when the glass envelope is being evacuated, the target is heated to a higher temperature than what it would experience in normal use. This heating process releases much of the gas that was trapped in the anode. However, during normal use the anode goes through many heating cycles. Due to the expansion and contraction, more gas is released. Tube arcing will be first seen of course at the higher kVp's. In the early days radiologists wanted high contrast images. Nowadays they like images with a long latitude, grayer image, particularly on chests because they can see anatomy behind the heart and sternum that otherwise would be blocked in a high contrast technique, low kVp, high mA. So in conclusion the reason we see more tube arcing due to gassing is due to the higher kVp techniques in use today.



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    X-Ray System Hardware

    Anatomy and Dissection of a Rotating Anode X-Ray Tube

    Most higher power X-Ray devices (e.g., general radiology, CT scanners, etc.) use a rotating anode X-Ray tube. (Dental intra-oral units typical have a fixed anode due to their lower power and low duty cycle.) The rotating anode is necessary to spread the extreme heat from the high energy electron beam - which account for 98 to 99 percent of the power dissipation - only around 1 percent ends up as X-Rays. The anodes range from 2 or 3 inches to 7 inches or more in diameter and are made of tungsten, rhodium, and other exotic materials possibly backed by graphite. An induction motor built into the rotor assembly with the stator coil outside the glass envelope spins the anode at 3500 to 10,000 rpm. A tube like this would normally be encased inside an oil-filled housing and driven by 50 to 150 kV at up to several hundred mA. The filaments run on several volts at several amps. The temperature of the filament is what determines the current drawn at any given anode voltage. The split phase induction motor runs on 115 VAC and may require a small motor run capacitor.

    The X-Ray tube (or if this link should die, my copy at: Sam's Copy of The X-Ray Tube) is a nice introduction that makes some of the following seem a bit lame by comparison, but mine are actual X-Ray tube guts. :)

    A typical X-Ray head or housing is shown in Bennett X-Ray Machine Head Assembly. An X-Ray tube and motor stator similar to the one inside this head is shown in GE X-Ray Tube and Motor Assembly and removed in Typical GE X-Ray Tube (Insert) - View 1 and Typical GE X-Ray Tube (Insert) - View 2. (The X-Ray head was made by Eureka.) A part of the anode can be seen through the circular window in the last photo. Although not readily visible, I was told that the rotor controller failed and the fail safe circuit didn't catch it. Multiple spots were melted on the anode resulting in an instant "Gassed" tube which started arcing.

    Here are some photos of a rather large X-Ray tube with a 5 inch diameter anode (close to CT-class) that didn't survive shipping:

    Trophy TRX708 X-Ray Generator

    This is the head from a Kodak 2200 intraoral (dental) X-ray system. See Trophy TRX708 X-Ray Generator Schematic. The head contains the inverter and high voltage multiplier with the wall-mounted controller housing the full-H-bridge high frequency driver, timing, and safety circuits. Information on the overall system may be found at Kodak 2200 Intraoral X-Ray System User's Manual or if this link should decay: Sam's Copy of Kodak 2200 Intraoral X-Ray System User's Manual. A Web search will turn up other copies.

    (Mostly from: James Sweet.)

    Here are some photos of the head components:

    Notes:

    1. The filament voltage can be figured out by watching the tube current. For a fixed kVp, tube current is controlled by the temperature of the filament. It should operate nicely with a filament voltage around 4 V. Don't go much higher than 4.8 V or there is a risk of ending up with a nice paperweight. I think the filament current was a couple of amps at that point. It's pretty easy to remove the aluminum filter and look at the glow from the filament. It should look about the same as an ordinary light bulb, slightly yellowish, if it's pure white that's too hot.

    2. Beam current should max at 4 mA with the relay disengaged, 7 mA with 24 VDC applied to the green wire to engage the relay inside the head.

    3. The original circuit used a resonant converter IC that drives the transformer with a mosfet H-bridge off a 170 VDC bus, it also has an inductor in series with the output to the transformer (value unknown).

    The transformer is definitely custom made for this specific system. The only info I have is what I was able to extrapolate by visual inspection and driving it with a low voltage while measuring the output. I successfully tested the head using a MOSFET half bridge fed by an oscillator that was adjusted to about 80 kHz while watching the current waveform. The input voltage was adjusted with a Variac feeding a voltage doubler to get approximately 290 VDC. Both the frequency and voltage have to be regulated to keep everything happy as the tube current varies depending on heater voltage. Closed-loop feedback is mandatory since there is a lot of sag in the multiplier ladder. I just used a DMM for playing around with it but the original driver board used the feedback directly to control the regulator.

    CAUTION: If powering the head using a home-built driver, note the duty cycle (cooling requirements) in the manual! This head is not designed for continuous operation. Something like 0.1 second on every few seconds max, dependent on tube current.

    Obtaining Used X-Ray Equipment

    (From: Kristian Ukkonen.) You can find them from companies that sell x-ray equipment or overhaul them. They will often get old ones when they sell new ones that replace the old ones in hospitals etc.. Either they storage them as spare-parts, or sell them to junk yards.

    Anyway, call to all hospitals and companies that sell/overhaul x-ray equipment and ask for old ones. If you have a realistic need for one, you might get one. Talk to the engineers etc., not the bureaucrats. Remember to emphasize that you need it as voltage source, NOT for producing x-rays (which requires permits etc.). If that doesn't work, ask what junk yards they sell the old ones to, and contact the junk yards and offer reasonable amount of money for one, so the junkyard will save one for you and call you to pick it up. The value of them for junk yards is the junk value of copper (about 2-4 usd/kg) in coils, the iron and transformer oil is practically worthless to them.

    It is usually a good idea to get to know your local junk yards. After you have been acquiring strange pieces of equipment from them for a while they will call you when interesting things arrive. :)

    I have so far found a mass spectrometer, a spectrophotometer, two SEMs, various high-vacuum pumps, x-ray transformers and tubes, HV-transformers etc., etc., from junk yards. They are a real gold mine for people who know what the junk is. It is absolutely amazing what research institutes, hospitals and universities throw away.

    (From: Sam.)

    Keep in mind that aside from the radiation and electrical DANGERS, most of this equipment is BIG and HEAVY, may require special power, and is likely messy to service. Think carefully before obtaining what may end up being a refrigerator-size boat anchor!

    Shipping X-Ray Tubes (Inserts)

    When the glass tube or insert is properly mounted inside an X-Ray head or housing, it's very well protected from reasonable abuse, even by shipping companies. However, the bare glass X-Ray tube (insert) itself is quite fragile even from normal handling. In fact, it is the only relatively common similar high tech item I know of that is more fragile than a laser tube. In a rotating anode X-Ray tube, the heavy anode/motor assembly - which may weigh several pounds - is attached to the glass envelope only at one end with most of the mass at the unsupported end. So, even though the glass is rather thick and would normally survive some trauma, a relatively modest physical shock, especially from the side, will cause the tube to fracture. Even if the metal near the seal is modestly compliant and allows some flexing, the heavy rotor is likely to smash into the glass due to its inertia if the tube is suddenly moved sideways. Either way, the result is tube bits. :( :) To have any chance of survival during shipping, the anode/motor assembly must either be secured to a rigid structure as it is when mounted in the X-Ray head assembly so that it can't flex with respect to the glass envelope, or the entire glass tube must be packed with something like 12 inches of soft foam rubber all around to minimize the g-forces when the box drops onto the sorting conveyer from 10 feet up. And even this is no guarantee. The best approach may be to build a shipping container that duplicates the mounting arrangement inside an X-Ray head. But doing this without fancy machining capabilities may be harder than it sounds.

    Notes on Typical X-Ray Head Wiring

    This is for a medium power Bennett X-Ray system but others should be similar.

    (From: Terry Greene.)

    There are two filaments, one small focal spot and one large. One connection is the common. The typical voltage varies around 6 volts at 3 to 5 A. At 4 A most tubes will run around 100 mA at 50 kV. All modern tubes have similar ratings. In the display I built, I used a 6.3 VRMS, 6 A transformer as that's what I had laying around. It worked just fine on the large filament but might blow the small one at that voltage though. The filaments are designed to control the current by temperature and generally run at a bright orange in operation. If it starts getting too close to white, it's too hot and you risk smoking it. For a non-X-Ray producing display, the voltage/current won't be critical, but I wouldn't let it go much over 5 amps to keep from toasting the filament. I know the Eureka has a max filament current listed of 5.2 amps. for each of the filaments with normal filament voltage (at max current) listed at 7.8 to 10.6 for the large, and 5.9 to 8.1 for the small. The GE won't be far from that.

    The motor in common 600 mA and lower systems spins at around 3,600 rpm. Many of the high power systems have a high frequency rotor drive circuits that will spin the rotor at 10,800 rpm. G.E. high speed rotor controllers are known as a RARC (Rapid Acceleration Rotor Controller) and SARC (Super Acceleration Rotor Controller). GE just loves acronyms. Any tube rotor will work fine on 60 Hz. High speed 180 Hz. operation just raises the power handling capability a bit.

    There are no standard color codes. A DVM will tell you all you need to know. Two windings. One connection is a common. One connection is a main winding at around 20 ohms. One connection is a phase shift at at around 50 ohms. If you check across the outside leads you will see around 70 ohms. Those are average numbers and the exact numbers may vary significantly from model to model, but the ratio will stay reasonably consistent. Some are as high as 30/90 with 120 total, some as low as 15/35 with 50 total. The common is hooked to line common, the main hooks to hot and the phase shift needs a motor capacitor in the line and hooks to hot as well. Around 30uF works well. The value is not critical. I've seen systems with 15uF. Medical X-Ray systems usually start the rotor by applying 220VAC to spin the rotor up rapidly. After about 1.5 seconds the voltage is reduced to around 50VAC. Some of the inexpensive vet. units simply bring the rotor up on 120VAC and leave it at that. The acceleration is slightly slower, but it's barely noticeable. The vet. units that do so usually have a 2 sec delay before exposure is allowed instead of a 1.5 sec delay. All modern tube rotors will run at 120VAC all day without damage. For my display I simply used 120VAC.

    Disposing of Possibly PCB Contaminate X-Ray Tube Oil

    Your call. I suppose that a law breaking heathen *might* incinerated it by simply pouring it on a good lumber scrap fire although I personally would NEVER do such. :-) I have no doubt that burning will break down PCBs as incineration is how the EPA wants it disposed of, but I don't think I would want to stand around too close and breath the fumes. Getting rid of that stuff to EPA spec. is an absurd pain. There are only a few EPA certified incinerators in the country and it has to be sent to South Carolina from here to be disposed of in an EPA certified manner. Anyway,... tube? What tube? Who?... Don't recall meeting anyone by that name. :)



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    Items of Interest

    X-Ray Discovery Anecdote

    (From: Someone who works at a major X-ray tube manufacturer.)

    Apparently, the first (known) radiograph was taken 6 years before Roentgen discovery. The story goes like this:

    On February 22 1890, Professor Arthur Goodspeed at the University of Pennsylvania was demonstrating the Crookes cathode ray tube to a photographer named William Jennings. Next to the tube Jennings had placed a couple photographic plates upon which he had tossed some trolley tokens. When Jennings later developed the plates they were fogged and two dark round disks appeared on the plate plus some static marks. It wasn't until after Roentgen discovery was published that the two men realized what had occurred.

    (From: Sam.)

    I don't know whether this story is totally accurate. One question I would ask is: "What prompted Professor Goodspeed to develop plates that to the best of his knowledge had not been exposed?". :)

    Concealing Electronics from X-Ray Examination

    The following was posted to a scientific newsgroup:

    My latest dilemma concerns, as the title of this post would suggest, the issue of potting for security and the x-raying of said pot for the purpose of breaching that security. My question may be out of the realm of electronic design, but since there seem to be many *know it alls* (~: that frequent this newsgroup, I thought I'd give it a shot here in SED. Question is,,,,,, Would a copper clad circuit board, un-etched, and coated with solder, be sufficient to block the x-rays from an x-ray machine and foil the intentions of someone trying to hack the circuit by means of x-raying ?

    (From: Bill sloman.)

    It depends on what you are trying to conceal and from whom. X-Ray absorption depends on atomic number. Carbon has an atomic number of 6, silicon 14, copper 29, tin 50, and lead 82, so the lead in the solder will dominate the picture. Wrapping the circuit in lead foil would probably be better, and loading the potting mix with lead shot of a variety of sizes would be even better.

    Any one of these would probably stop someone trying to get a shadow image of the circuit with a simple medical X-Ray machine, and would probably cut down the transmission through the potted sample enough so that a brain scanner wouldn't get very far.

    Somebody with the resources to lash-up a high voltage X-Ray source to a precision stage could probably improvise an effective tomographic set-up, and someone with access to neutron radiography might be able to see through the lead, but it would probably be easier to organize a break-in at your plant to steal your drawings.

    (From: Sam.)

    While potted electronics may appear to be impregnable, the liberal application of heat and pointy tools is often sufficient to pry loose their secrets. I know someone who routinely repairs various types of high voltage modules using only thermal and mechanical means of disassembly, and restores them to full operation and near-new physical appearance. And he has totally reverse engineered some of them in the process. He has also X-rayed many of these using a dental X-ray head with sufficient clarity and resolution to enable someone with a basic knowledge of their circuitry to be able to determine virtually everything but the actual component values and part numbers. ;-) See the various examples in Sam's Laser FAQ chapter: Complete HeNe Laser Power Supply Schematics.] (Just search for "X-ray".) A simple X-ray examination could at least be made more difficult by including an insulated sheet of lead just behind the circuit board. But, the entire idea of concealment from X-Rays may be of only limited value if direct access by destruction of the potting material is possible. :)

    How to Focus X-Rays?

    (From: Tom Loredo.)

    The ability of metals to reflect x-rays decreases greatly with the x-ray energy. I don't know the numbers off the top of my head (I last worked with a grazing incidence x-ray telescope over a decade ago), but no technology I'm aware of focuses gamma rays. Astronomical grazing incidence telescopes don't go much higher than 100 keV, I believe, if they even go that high. Imaging gamma ray telescopes currently simply occult most of the sky, and measure the actual angle of incidence of detected gamma rays via Compton scattering (e.g., the EGRET telescope on the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory).

    The system I worked on had two conic sections (parabola/parabola or parabola/hyperbola, I forget which) that both reflected from the *inside* surface to achieve focus. We nested three of them to build up the effective area. 2-d info about the position of the focused gamma ray in the focal plane was obtained using a micro-channel plate and a 2-d resistor.

    By the way, this is not a do-it-at-home activity. Our telescope, for example, had gold-plated grazing incidence mirrors and the mirrors alone cost something like $40k. And since it's grazing incidence, the effective area is small.

    (From: Douglas Dwyer.)

    I thought I would hear all sorts of comments re this recently published technique. A team of researchers under Anatoly Snigirev at ESRF in fr have made use of the 2.8e-6 difference in refractive index between Al and air (air is higher) by creating a refractive focusing lens from a series of 2D lenses from cylindrical holes in Al. Each lens is in series and reduces the overall focal length. Seems simple how come no one thought of it before? :) What about creating a 3D lens by positioning air/nitrogen bubbles in a tapered array within a volume of Aluminum.



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