Yes. The UKRAA PicoMuon detector is designed to work as a completely standalone instrument and does not require a computer to detect or log events. The detector has its own OLED display, onboard real-time clock, controls, and microSD card logging capability.
To use it standalone:
- Connect a 5 V USB power source to the micro-USB socket on the rear panel.
- A USB wall adapter
- A USB power bank
- Any suitable 5 V USB supply capable of more than about 1 W The manual specifically mentions wall adapters and power banks as suitable power sources.
- Insert a microSD card into the front-panel microSD slot if you want to record data. The detector will automatically create CSV files and save event data to the card.
- Power up the detector. After the startup screens, it will begin counting events automatically. The OLED display shows:
- Top detector counts
- Bottom detector counts
- Coincidence (muon) counts
- Count rates
- Temperature
- Pressure
- Date and time
- Current data file name (if an SD card is present)
- Leave it running. Event data will be written directly to the microSD card without any computer attached.
- Before removing the SD card, use the “Unmount SD card” option from the menu to avoid corrupting the file.
A useful setup for field work is:
- PicoMuon
- USB power bank
- microSD card
This lets you run the detector anywhere without a laptop. When finished, simply remove the SD card and copy the CSV files onto your computer for analysis. IT IS IMPORTANT TO UNMOUNT THE SD CARD BEFORE SWITCHING OFF THE PICOMUON, ELSE THERE WILL BE DATA LOSS. DO THIS FROM THE SCREEN MENU ON THE PICOMUON.
The PicoMuon saves CSV files to the SD card – these contains entries where every line is a new detection. In addition, text files with some degree of processing (e.g. number of detections per minute) are saved onto the PicoMuon’s Raspberry PI, but not onto the SD card, making this processed data difficult to access in stand-alone mode.