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.
Friday, January 31, 2025
f/0.38 camera lens made with oil immersion microscope objective
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.
Tuesday, December 31, 2024
Mutarotation: a sugar that spontaneously changes from sweet to bitter
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: https://nopr.niscpr.res.in/bitstream/123456789/17714/1/JSIR%2061%285%29%20361-365.pdf
D-mannose on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Micro-Ingredients-Mannose-Supplement-Soluble/dp/B01L2TFP1Q
My crystals were almost entirely the sweet form, but it is possible that your bag may have the bitter-tasting form to begin with.
D-fructose on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Fructose-Fruit-Sugar-16-ZIN/dp/B07DXVSGJT
D-glucose, also known as dextrose, also known as "corn sugar", can be found on Amazon, or beer homebrewing stores.
Thursday, June 13, 2024
Micronics SLS nylon 3D printer makes electronic circuits
Applied Science video on SLA printed circuits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z228xymQYho
Saturday, August 26, 2023
Photosynthesis photography: Making images with living plant leaves
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
Video describing inkjet printed photomasks: https://youtu.be/bR9EN3kUlfg?si=k9RU6EwM5-pKx2tr&t=643
A different technique to make leaf prints: https://www.alternativephotography.com/chlorophyll-prints/
Video from Alpha Phoenix on making photos with cyanotype: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewQQX3fxQKk&t=85s
Ray optics simulator: https://phydemo.app/ray-optics/
Giant tweezers: https://www.amazon.com/Stainless-Tweezers-Anti-slip-Aquascape-Maintenance/dp/B07LDLWJMM/
Anhydrous ethanol: https://www.extractohol.net/1gal-200-proof-pure-food-grade-ethyl-alcohol
Hanging basket geranium plant: https://www.lowes.com/pd/2-Gallon-Multicolor-Geranium-in-Hanging-Basket-L5450/1000151713
Methanol toxicity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanol_toxicity https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ccc.2012.07.002 Skin absorption in a quantity high enough to be a problem is rare, according to this.
Support Applied Science on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/AppliedScience
Wednesday, July 5, 2023
Measuring the amount of lead (Pb) consumed when drinking from lead crystal glassware. Is it safe?
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
Sunday, May 28, 2023
Multi-layer reactive foil: no fuel, no oxygen, tons of heat
Sunday, April 9, 2023
Temperature-sensing RFID tag in magnetic stir bar
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
https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/texas-instruments/EZ430-TMS37157/2183733
https://github.com/benkrasnow/Temperature_sensing_stirbar
Sunday, January 22, 2023
Identify chemicals with radio frequencies - Nuclear Quadrupole Resonance (MRI without magnets)
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 spectral lines: https://youtu.be/JV4Fk3VNZqs?t=74
Atomic clock calibration using Zeeman effect: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTy1kY_wtsY
W2AEW's RF tutorial on quarter wave transmission lines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1BAq0KxIdc
Water deflected by electric field: https://youtu.be/NjLJ77IuBdM?t=468
Litz wire only helpful between 50KHz and 1.5MHz - https://youtu.be/FUCRB9UdfUg?t=2010
Support Applied Science on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/AppliedScience
Q/A
Why use vacuum variable capacitors? The parallel LC circuit develops well over 1000 volts during transmit, and they are much easier to finely adjust over a large range.
I've spent quite a few hours making this work since late last year. I failed to detect a signal from urea, which burned dozens of hours. Switching to NaNO2 suddenly produced a huge signal.
NQR calculations spreadsheet - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pkWlgvEXlANemZt3DR1J5g59S7hsejbvs995Y4FRsl0/edit?usp=sharing
NQR references (many!) : https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XoNUhFceH38nSjAFZoxglNiZlUzn6QMxa6CYTyAM92c/edit?usp=sharing
Wednesday, November 23, 2022
How to disable auto updates on Windows 10 Home
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 to actually stop the updates. I've found that editing the registry values shown below will definitely stop the updates. As of Nov 2022, this really works. Simply append ".bak" to the listed .dll filenames in the following registry values. You can always change them back. Now reboot or stop the services manually. The scheduler will attempt to start the services as usual, but the system will be unable to find the nonexistent file, and will log error messages that you can see in the System Event Viewer.
If you end up digging into this, there are three things to monitor:
Window Update (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\wuauserv)
Windows Update Medic Service (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\WaaSMedicSvc)
Windows Update Orchestrator (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\UsoSvc)
Yes, I know OS updates are important. Sometimes making sure a PC never reboots is even more important. Use your judgement.
These alterations may lengthen boot time (not sure). I have not noticed any other effects.
Thursday, November 3, 2022
How to make precise sheet metal parts (photochemical machining)
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Sunday, September 11, 2022
High speed X-ray video: jumping beans, wind-up toys and more!
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://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 format converter: https://imagej.nih.gov/ij/ (the NIH's SSL cert expired?)
Flipping through images fast enough as if playing video: https://www.irfanview.com/
Video editing software: https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve/edit
The sequence of tiff files directly from the sensor contain a lot of temporal flicker -- probably because the X-ray tube itself has time-varying output. This isn't so bad at 60Hz, but quite a problem at 300Hz. I used Resolve's "color stabilizer" to maintain constant levels throughout a clip, and was impressed how well this removed the flicker.
Support Applied Science on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/AppliedScience
Tuesday, May 31, 2022
Drawing on a plasma display with a laser pointer
Refs:https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsf.2015.08.001
Saturday, April 9, 2022
Silver nanoprisms grown into structural colors by high power LEDs
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.
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CMDITR video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agD5jfXua-o
Sunday, January 9, 2022
Olestra (zero calorie cooking oil) - chemical synthesis and taste test
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
Biodiesel: https://www.e-education.psu.edu/egee439/node/684
https://extension.okstate.edu/fact-sheets/biodiesel-production-techniques.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3anau83Qxt4
Epogee fat substitute: https://www.epogee.com/the-technology
https://healthsmartfoods.com/products/sweet-nothings-low-fat-chocolate-covered-caramel
Potassium oleate soap synthesis: https://lipidlibrary.aocs.org/documents/LipidsLibrary/Book%20II_ch03.pdf
Studies on gastro distress and calorie compensation: https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1467-789X.2002.00050.x
https://sci-hub.se/10.1006/rtph.1997.1164
https://sci-hub.se/10.1001/jama.279.2.150
Anal leakage MadTV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tx9LSEjgQxY
Support Applied Science on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/AppliedScience
Monday, November 22, 2021
X-ray timelapse of fluid movement in plants, stop-motion animation, sensor teardown/repair
Saturday, September 25, 2021
Underwater laser cutting and silver sintering to make ceramic circuit boards
Saturday, July 31, 2021
Atomic Layer Deposition of copper - If you like sputtering, you'll love this!
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 second purge time between pulses
100mm quartz tube furnace diameter
415*C deposition temperature
350*C CuCl evaporation temperature
Substrates are mostly borosilicate glass cleaned with RCA clean
The "good" samples shown in the video are about 750 cycles (about 9 hours
Main ref:
https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1002/cvde.19970030107
Also helpful:
https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5087759
https://sci-hub.se/10.1149/2.0261501jss
https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-0248(92)90191-K
Alicat flow controller manuals (hard to find via website navigation):
https://documents.alicat.com/manuals/DOC-MANUAL-MC.pdf
https://documents.alicat.com/manuals/old/Gas_Flow_Controller_Manual_rev7.pdf
https://documents.alicat.com/Alicat-Serial-Primer.pdf
RCA clean: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RCA_clean
CuCl synthesis: http://wwwchem.uwimona.edu.jm/lab_manuals/c1901exp35.html
Support Applied Science on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/AppliedScience
Saturday, May 8, 2021
The best projects from 10 years of Applied Science
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 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHECpEhJdB8
Pop Rocks candy - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsSwvmNEr0Q
X-Ray backscatter - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7ldYhzKAp4
X-Ray CT - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF3V-GHiJ78
Cookie Perfection Machine - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YEdHjGMeho
LCD - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zoeeR3geTA and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4QFNWBSZYg
Vinyl LP in electron microscope - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuCdsyCWmt8
Silicon etching rugate optical filters - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwj78pR46zM
Monday, February 22, 2021
Measuring human digestive efficiency vs. a flame
"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.
Sunday, January 17, 2021
Prototyping with Applied Science: Design and build a bite sensor
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 potentiometer: https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/tt-electronics-bi/404R10KL1-0/2408603 Sil-Poxy for bonding silicone rubber to itself and other materials: https://www.smooth-on.com/product-line/sil-poxy/ Sorta Clear 40 - Platinum-cure silicone molding: https://www.smooth-on.com/products/sorta-clear-40/ Light-cure 3311 adhesive: https://www.mcmaster.com/1700A253/ (expensive, but this tube will last a long time) Blue lasers on eBay "5mW" *wink* https://www.ebay.com/itm/3-Packs-900Mile-Strong-Laser-Pointer-Pen-Green-Blue-Red-Light-Visible-Beam-Lazer/174479770737 Braided shield, highly flexible, 4-conductor cable: https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/tensility-international-corp/30-00218/5270175 Fabric reinforced silicone sheet: https://www.mcmaster.com/8612K51/ Mechanical CAD on github: https://github.com/benkrasnow/BiteSensor Support Applied Science on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/AppliedScience

