I removed the protective glass from a CMOS image sensor, and used optical immersion oil to couple the bare image sensor to a 40X NA=1.3 microscope objective. f/0.7 Zeiss lens described in amazing detail: http://www.marcocavina.com/omaggio_a_kubrick.htm Fake f/0.33 Zeiss lens: https://petapixel.com/2013/08/06/carl-zeiss-super-q-gigantar-40mm-f0-33-the-fastest-lens-ever-made/ Camera and sensor that…
Simple sugars can exist in multiple molecular conformations, some of which have different tastes and optical properties. Steve Mould's video on optical rotation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=975r9a7FMqc Reaction's video on Mexican Coke: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NY66qpMFOYo Research paper describing enzymatic synthesis of L-glucose:…
A new desktop SLS nylon 3D printer can make printed electronic circuits with the addition of a powdered catalyst and electroless copper plating bath. The printer is available here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/micronics3d/micron-a-desktop-sls-3d-printer Applied Science video on SLA printed circuits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z228xymQYho Favorite copper plating bath recipe: Heat 250ml…
How to make photographs using plant leaves: the technique, examples, f/0.5 camera lens construction, and tips & tricks that I learned along the way. Inspiration for this project came from a 1970's video made by The Royal Institution: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2JTiAASdyw Starch formation refs: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/329993…
I show a "DIY" chemical color-based method to determine the amount of lead in water, and then use the method to measure the amount of lead extracted from various types of lead crystal glassware. Skip to 27:05 to see the detailed results Code, analysis, raw data, more references: https://github.com/benkrasnow/LeadCrystal Average daily lead consumption: 50ug in early 1980s, about 2/3 of this came…
This unusual sheet metal is made of hundreds of nano scale layers of aluminum and nickel. A spark initiates a self-propagating reaction that creates NiAl compound, and lots of heat! This material is used to solder items so fast that the base material doesn't have time to draw heat away from the joint. The technical data sheet indicates that this process is fluxless, and I suspect trying to include…
I describe an old project in which a few friends and I designed an RFID tag that fits into a magnetic stir bar and measures temperature wirelessly. We decided to open-source the project, and you can see the PCB design and tag firmware at the github repo below. I don't think I have the firmware for the base station, unfortunately. https://www.ti.com/product/TMS37157…
How to build and test an NQR spectrometer, which is similar to MRI, but uses no magnets. NQR frequencies are unique among all tested compounds, so detecting a resonance indicates a near certainty that a specific chemical is present. Tektronix 2-series oscilloscope: https://www.tek.com/en/products/oscilloscopes/2-series-mso Video capture was done via VNC client Zeeman effect shifting optical…
I've tried all kinds of things to stop auto updates on Windows 10 Home: Use psexec and disable the items in Task Scheduler, disable the services, run the service as a non-privileged user, edit various registry settings that are intended to influence auto update, try to be creative with "active hours" and play with the clock settings. Nothing that I found on the internet as of Nov 2022 has worked…
\ How to make etched metal parts. -All of the highest quality parts that I made went to the customer, but edge quality and photoresist adhesion is still a problem. -The photomask dark areas can be expanded, and then the part etched for a longer amount of time to make the edges more perpendicular to the surface. I forgot to mention this clever way to improve the etch aspect ratio called "etch…
High-speed X-ray video captured with a Dectris photon-counting detector. I show how the process works and how this detector is different than normal camera detectors. https://www.dectris.com/ https://media.dectris.com/Technical_Specification_PILATUS_100K-S_V1_8.pdf Mexican jumping beans: https://www.amazingbeans.com/ X-ray timelapse video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-FHbHoiwNk ImageJ image…
An orange plasma display will retain an image caused by incident near-UV light. This is an interesting visual combination of photoelectric, hot carrier injection, plasma, and charge trapping effects. Correction: The orange display is running at 700Hz, 130V in the video. I realize that I may have conflated the issues of one-resistor-per-pixel and the display's ability to maintain an image…
How to chemically synthesize silver nanoparticles, then grow them into triangular nanoprisms with light from a variety of LEDs. Each color LED creates a different size nanoprism, which has its own characteristic color. -- -- CMDITR video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agD5jfXua-o Multispectral LED driver on Github: https://github.com/benkrasnow/MultiSpectLED Chemicals sourced from Amazon/eBay…
I synthesized olestra from biodiesel, sugar, and soap with a sodium metal catalyst. I also describe some of the history of olestra's development. Procedure that I used (Example 1) https://patents.google.com/patent/US3963699A/en Other resources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20060047109A1/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US4611055A/en https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1021/ed068p476…
I repaired a large digital x-ray detector and used it to record timelapse and stop-motion animations of plants, a clock, and a camera lens. Applied Science X-ray backscatter imaging system: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7ldYhzKAp4 Applied Science CT scanner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF3V-GHiJ78 Geiger counter: https://mightyohm.com/blog/products/geiger-counter/ Linistepper motor driver:…
Thermal stress cracking can be completely avoided by CO2 laser cutting thin alumina sheets underwater. I also show how to formulate and apply silver paste, then sinter in a kiln to produce double-sided ceramic printed circuit boards with conductive vias. 60W CW CO2 laser at 80% power. 10mm/sec. Standard lens focal length (50mm). 2mm water above ceramic. 180 passes to cut through 0.75mm thick…
An explanation and demo of atomic layer deposition (ALD) of copper metal on glass. Precursors are copper(I) chloride and hydrogen, processed in a hot-wall tube quartz tube furnace. 10 torr operating pressure 500 sccm argon sweep/purge gas constantly flowing 75 sccm CuCl argon pulse gas (17 seconds including flow controller lag) 100 sccm H pulse gas (14 seconds including flow controller lag) 7…
Liquid oxygen BBQ - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bjvj5FjUPE Fondant cake making - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IhibizyrtU Scanning Electron Microscope - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdjYVF4a6iU Transcranial magnetic Stimulation - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_olmdAQx5s Supercritical CO2 chamber - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gCTKteN5Y4 LED in a contact lens -…
"200 Calories" on a nutrition label doesn't describe the total flammable caloric content. I explore the differences between digestible and flammable calories using a homemade calorimeter with glass windows. Pressure sensor: https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/te-connectivity-measurement-specialties/M5842-000005-10KPG/7592854 Schedule 160 pipe on McMaster: https://www.mcmaster.com/7733K259/…
Join me in brainstorming and building a bite force sensor that allows paraplegic musicians to smoothly control an expression pedal. This video will include construction tips and tricks, methods, material selection, and a little design philosophy. Tiny linear potentiometer used in final design: https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/bourns-inc/3046L-1-103/3781580 Spring-loaded linear…
Passing an electrical current through a silicon wafer in a special acid etchant will create a porous layer with a variable index of refraction. I describe how this process works, and how the Fourier transform relates filter design to electrical etch waveform and resulting spectral response. Notes: 1. The Rugate filters look especially good in polarized light because the reflection from the silicon…
A special 100nm thick window allows 25 KeV electrons to pass from a vacuum tube to the atmosphere where they hit a fluorescent screen -- a CRT in air! Shielded GoPro goes through a powerful electron beam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPMpAR9w-L0 More powerful amateur electron beam in air: https://fusor.net/board/viewtopic.php?t=7828 Deep technical resource on dielectric charging via electron…
Technical details and how to build an ultrasonic soldering iron. This technique can bond difficult-to-solder metals such as titanium as well as glass and ceramics. Cerasolzer technical info: http://cerasolzer.com/cerasolzer/basic_info_gb.html S-bond technical info: https://www.s-bond.com/solutions-and-service/ultrasonic-soldering/ultrasonic-solder-materials/ Overview of active soldering process:…
I show how an X-ray fluorescence gun works, do a teardown and failure analysis, and discuss a new kind of XRF tech now "available" on eBay. The XRF data can be transferred from the gun to a PC, and analyzed with http://pymca.sourceforge.net/ I did this for several materials, but ran out of time in this video to show the software usage, which is quite involved. Good overall description of XRF:…
DIY process to copy commercial holograms onto chocolate! Completely edible -- no dyes or inks used. Tech Ingredients' video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoTi0tM4yQ8 Samy Kamkar's diffractive chocolate: https://twitter.com/samykamkar/status/1259173832620830722 Hologram stickers: https://www.ebay.com/itm/100-Huge-1-9-16-Round-Adhesive-Hologram-Sticker-Labels/331178956157 Silver mirror process:…