SBT-10 Geiger Tube avalanche issues

Hi Steve,

I would try using a seperate resistor for each section of the tube. I have mine with a 10Mohm on each section (see pic below) and appears to work OK, though I haven't had it running for long and just some simple tests. When I got mine I scoured the web looking for info but it seems there is very little. One recurring theme was that the voltage and resistor(s) did play a very big part on getting correct counts from the tube.

From this site: https://sites.google.com/site/diygeigercounter/gm-tubes-supported

SBT10-A - alpha tube A good tube for measuring food? This report from Pedro (thanks for keeping us in the loop):
"Finally the replacement for the faulty SBT10-A tube arrived and after connecting it to the arduino the counter shows a 160/190 CPM with all the segments connected to a 10Mohm resistor. The anode voltage seems to be critical for this tube as it creates avalanches if anode voltage is over 370v. Care must be taken in the voltage calibration as most voltmeters will show erroneous reading due to intrinsic impedance, so in my case the adjustment was made to 330v (digital readout) but the real voltage without voltmeter load was 370v. In my case this tube detects 2400 CPM for a lantern mantle at 10cm from the mica window without alpha blocked and 690 CPM with alpha blocked."
[7/22/16] A customer reports that 10MΩ is too low for this tube. He had expected results with as high as 30MΩ. He used that resistance on every anode of the tube. He also said that the sensitivity to the HV setting described above is explained by too low of anode resistance.
For the conversion ratio, I calculated using Method 2 below, and got a ratio of 1641 CPM / uSv. Seems high, but is a sensitive tube.

You could try changing the resistor(s) for a higher value as per the text above. What I have found, accidentally, was that if I connect another 10Mohm resistor in series with the tubes my CPM increases a little for each of my check sources.

Plaese let me know if you have any joy or find any more info as I would be very interested in any more info on this tube.

Simon.

Cool, good stuff. From the little info I have found, others' are suggesting a minimum of 10Mohm resistor(s) upto even 30Mohm.

That's great Electrodemente. It will be interesting to see what you do with it. There are a couple 3D printable housings for the SBT-10 on thingiverse.com if you have a 3D printer: http://www.thingiverse.com/search?q=sbt-10&sa=

I would also be interested in knowing the condition of yours when it arrives. Mainly to compare with the black spots that stdorn01 and I have on our tubes: http://radmon.org/index.php/kunena/radmon-org-news/594-sbt-10-geiger-tube