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Plasma globes, as they go, are pretty cool. The HAL 9000 computer from '2001 a Space Odyssey' was pretty cool too, unless you were Dave. For whatever reason, HAL just did't like Dave.
Anyhow, I figured what would be cooler than a plasma globe stuffed inside a HAL 9000 shell to sit on my desk where I can bask in it's plasmary goodness!
Laser cut from 3mm & 5mm acrylic, this stands 250mm high and is 100mm square.
Inside you will find a 3" USB powered plasma globe.
Want to make one? Get the files from Thingiverse!
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Some time ago I was given a vintage Philips QB 3.5/750 Tetrode vacuum tube. It's spent most of that time hiding away in a box. Why? Perhaps I was keeping it for "special" but as time has shown, special never comes and it's time to pull out the things that I have had put away and enjoy them now - no more waiting for "special" to arrive.
The box that the tube was in was somewhat tattered - not great for sitting on the shelf. So I started about designing a display for it. First job was to see if I could find the data sheet - to get the correct pin spacings. Google returned a few results and only after a few minutes looking I had a copy of the data sheet.
Knowing the over-all size, I headed off to Rahul's great online box maker website and generated a box. I then dumped the resulting PDF file into CorelDRAW and the end result is this:
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This Philips QB 3.5/750 Tetrode vacuum tube is designed for use as a High Frequency amplifier and oscillator. It has an output of around 750 watts!
This is a big tube - Really big! The tube is 145mm high x 87mm wide.
Here's a 1000w amp - it has two :)
More photos after the jump...
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After the success of my last laser pointer, I thought I would make another. I ordered a 532nm 75mw green laser diode off ebay. Since this draws more power than the 405nm diode I purchased last time, I decided to run it off 4 AA batteries, wired to produce 3v. Turned from a length of aluminium tube with the heat-sink and base cap made from solid aluminium rod. Everything is held together with some grub screws.
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This took me a couple of evenings work on the lathe. A black momentary button located near the front fires up the laser. And yes, I've been driving my cat insane ;)
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Changes to Australian import laws a couple of years ago means that we can no longer import laser pointers - however this ban does not extend to laser diodes or modules. I purchased a 405nm laser module off ebay recently and decided that I needed a housing for it. 405nm was advertised as Blue/Violet - it's a nice colour, but more towards the UV end of the spectrum.
A visit to Jaycar on the weekend set me up with a AAA battery holder and a push-button and an afternoon on the lathe with some Aluminium turned out this:
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I'm happy with the result and it looks a little like a light-saber!
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It's been a while since I've given my soldering iron a serious workout, but when I saw the Digital Storage Oscilloscope kit online at Seeed Studio the other week I figured I'd blow off the dust and put it to work!
The kit comprises of both front and back panels, PCB (with microprocessor pre-soldered) and a pile of SMT & Through-hole parts.
This is a great kit that you can have up and running in a couple of hours and a very handy piece of test equipment, too.
Features:
- Max sample rate - 2M/s，8 bits
- Sample memory depth - 256 bytes
- Analog bandwidth - 1MHz
- Vertical sensitivity - 100mV/Div - 5V/Div
- Vertical position adjustable with indicator
- Input impedance - 1MΩ
- Max input voltage - 50Vpp
- DC/AC coupling
- Horizontal - 5μs/Div - 10m(minute)/Div
- Auto, normal and single trig modes
- Rising/falling edge trigger
- Trig level adjustable with indicator
- Hold/run feature
- Built-in 500Hz/5Vpp test signal
- Frequency counter feature with independant F and T read-out (only for TTL level)
- 9 - 12V DC or AC power supply
- Dimension: 110mm X 65mm X 25mm (no case)
- Weight: 70 gram