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.




f/0.7 Zeiss lens described in amazing detail: http://www.marcocavina.com/omaggio_a_kubrick.htm 





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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.


https://www.patreon.com/c/AppliedScience

Thursday, June 13, 2024

Micronics SLS nylon 3D printer makes electronic circuits

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 deionized water to 60*C in a 300ml beaker, stirring at 350 RPM 
Add 2.5g CuSO4*5H2O, wait until dissolved Add 4.6g EDTA disodium dihydrate, wait until dissolved
 Add 0.84ml of 1% Triton-X 100 solution in water Dissolve 5.8g NaOH in 30ml DI water, stir until clear, then add to bath Add 4ml Formaldehyde (37% HCHO) 
Lower stirring to 100 RPM and begin filtration with 0.5 micron syringe filter and peristaltic pump. 
No intentional oxygenation or bubbling. 
Filter return is below surface for minimal splashing.

I experimented a little with PEG and 2 2' Bipyridine, but didn't find them impactful enough to discuss in this video.
  LED rectenna designs: https://josepheoff.github.io/posts/1-hatband https://www.nrl.navy.mil/STEM/LEctenna-Challenge/ Electroless copper references: https://www.nmfrc.org/pdf/p0295g.pdf Copper chromite catalyst: https://www.sigmaaldrich.com/US/en/product/aldrich/209317 Possibly available here: https://www.kremer-pigmente.com/en/shop/pigments/pigments-of-modern-age/spinel-similar-pigments/47420-spinel-black-no-42.html It's been backordered for a month, so I wasn't able to test it. Open Sauce 2024: https://opensauce.com/Support Applied Science on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/AppliedScience

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

https://www.ars.usda.gov/ARSUserFiles/50820500/GPRG/2022PulicationsandSummaries/2022_Photosynthetic%20responses%20of%20greenhouse%20ornamentals%20to%20interaction%20of%20irradiance%20CO2%20and%20temperature.pdf


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.


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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 

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 from food and water https://openlibrary.org/works/OL18340799W/Food_contamination_from_environmental_sources?edition=unset0000unse_z0t6 

The FDA established a maximum daily intake for Pb called the Interim Reference Level (IRL). The IRL for children and adults is 3 μg/day and 12.5 μg/day, respectively. In 2022, FDA tightened its Interim Reference Levels (IRLs) for lead to 2.2 µg/day for children and 8.8 µg/day for females of childbearing age—a drop of 27% from the original IRLs it established in 2018. 

(2011) The estimated average daily dietary exposure of the French population to lead was 18 μg for adults aged 15 years or more https://apps.who.int/food-additives-contaminants-jecfa-database/Home/Chemical/3511 


Support the production of future videos on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/AppliedScience

Sunday, May 28, 2023

Multi-layer reactive foil: no fuel, no oxygen, tons of heat



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 flux would cause rapid gas expansion that would blow the solder joint apart. I'm not sure how the solder wets the surface without flux. 

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


https://www.patreon.com/AppliedScience

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)

 

\
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 factor" http://www.chemcut.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Chemcut_Thoughts_on_Undercut.pdf



-Special ink and transparencies (films) for photomasks: https://filmdirectonline.com/




-Strange Parts did a great video on metal business cards: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83GDV0xsTTs

-https://mymetalbusinesscard.com/product/stainless-steel-business-cards/ 100 cards for $250 could be the cheapest way to get custom mechanical parts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkZkaT_P0Ck

Support Applied Science on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/AppliedScience

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://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 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

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 throughout row scanning. They are separate problems that are both addressed by designing the panel to work on AC. Each pixel can maintain its state (on or off) by being supplied constantly with a lower "sustaining" voltage, and can be set or cleared by giving it a momentary higher or lower amplitude. The sustaining voltage allows the pixel to be emitting light or not, and its state remains because of its own impedance until updated on the next scan. In color plasma displays, separate electrodes are used for sustaining and addressing pixels, and the discharge may be sustained between coplanar electrodes instead of plane-to-plane, as in this display.

It's also a possibility that the dielectric and MgO layer only exists on one electrode (the metal), and the ITO is bare. I don't know. On this display, if all rows are electrically connected together, and all columns are connected together, and AC is applied to rows and columns, this effect does not work -- no light is emitted at all! At least some of the electrodes (ie every other column) must be left floating to emit any light, and to show this memory effect. So, driving AC plasma panels requires more waveform tricks that I do not fully understand.

Prior art patents: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7283301B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US20060132716A1/en


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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 
Multispectral LED driver on Github: https://github.com/benkrasnow/MultiSpectLED 
Chemicals sourced from Amazon/eBay 
20ml glass vials with PTFE lined cap (do not use metal-lined): Environmental Express APC1675P Already gone from Amazon 
pH pen (this cost more than I remember, but it works really well, and has lasted many years. Cheaper pH pens are often pretty bad) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01ESYG6B0/ 
Comparison of CD, DVD, Blu-ray discs with electron microscope: https://twitter.com/BenKrasnow/status/615327472909840385 
Great way to find related papers: https://www.connectedpapers.com/ 

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

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 
Octave (open source MATLAB alternative): https://www.gnu.org/software/octave/index 
Mouse movement recorder software: https://sourceforge.net/projects/mousecontroller/ 
Thank you for your support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/AppliedScience 
Thank you, Amir, for the X-ray sensor and software!

Saturday, September 25, 2021

Underwater laser cutting and silver sintering to make ceramic circuit boards

 

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 alumina.  

Silver paste: 97% silver powder, 3% glass powder by mass.  Particle size 1 micron or less. Add poly vinyl alcohol mold release until desired consistency reached.

Paste applied with 4 mil thick vinyl stencil.  Dried in air 10 minutes, then rapidly brought up to 900*C, held for 10 minutes, then rapidly brought back down to room temperature.  Total cycle about 45 minutes.

I measured electrical conductivity of the finished traces from my process with vinyl stencils: 4 milliohms per square at 10 micron final thickness.  This is pretty close to the Dupont published spec ( less than 2 milliohm/sq at 16 micron thick)

Underwater CO2 laser cutting reference: https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/J.JEURCERAMSOC.2011.06.015
Raspberry Pi picoReflow oven controller: https://apollo.open-resource.org/mission:resources:picoreflow

Applied Science on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/AppliedScience

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

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.






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/ 32 ga nichrome wire: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DL4DSWD/ Power supply (used for ignition wire): https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07SS77N7K/ Keithley 6.5 digit multimeter: https://www.tek.com/tektronix-and-keithley-digital-multimeter/dmm6500 Tek MSO 4 series oscilloscope: https://www.tek.com/oscilloscope/4-series-mso-mixed-signal-oscilloscope Soylent: https://soylent.com/ Support Applied Science on Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/AppliedScience

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