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Night Vision Scope From Scavenged Parts
Caydel writes "Greg Miller appears to have built a Night Vision Scope out of an image intensifier tube, and parts he found mostly in dumpsters. Also on Greg's site: Flyback transformers, coil guns, plasma globes and Tesla coils made from dumpster materials." You get the feeling he's not also writing product safety manuals on the side.
It's angelfire, so bandwidth limit probably won't take long to be reached.../ infrared.html
http://www.angelfire.com.nyud.net:8090/80s/sixmhz
Also, this project was from May '03.
I managed to get most of the pages in before the /.ing
Hack A Day's story referencing Miller's night-vision project can be found here;
http://www.hackaday.com/entry/1234000107028849/
Lots of similar DIY projects, including peltier beverage coolers and linux-powered weather balloons, can be found at;
http://www.hackaday.com/
Gordon McComb's Gadgeteers Goldmine ( http://tinyurl.com/4jw9t ) has some plans for doing this. While some of the projects are pretty flawed (the Tesla coil design is anything but efficient) it's a reasonable read.
No. This is a Gen 0 tube, which means that you need IR illumination to see. All NVG's can see IR illumination. If you walked aroudn with this at night, to other people with NVG's, you'd look like you had a giant flashlight strapped to your head. That does not bode well for your long-term longetivity on a battlefield.
$20 example
Webcam image sensor have been sensitive to infrared for ages.
Finally, some manufacturers have got the sense to leverage that by removing the infrared filter in front in the lens, and adding some infrared LEDs for illumination.
I've got one, and played around with it to get a similar picture as the guy in the article got with his image intensifier tube.
Under the "Discouraging Occurances" section:
8. While standing in the dumpster, feeling some part of your body getting wet by something....
Do not fold, spindle or mutilate.
"... but building a tesla coil ?"
:)
I wholly agree this fellow isn't exactly all there in the understanding or safety departments (Flybacks and IHVT's are different animals, and his rough and ready approach to microwaves would make me pause as well), but building Tesla Coils is a rite of passage for any serious geek. They're no more dangerous to make than any other line powered device. They produce a lot of RF noise from the spark gap in the primary (if so equipped, I've seen some Solid State switching models), and 30KV and up of high frequency electricity from the primary.
This high frequency energy mostly travels along the skin, an is (depending on the model) of a low enough current that the worst I've ever gotten is pinpricks from letting the energy ground itself to me directly (which is why most demonstrations use a metal object or thimbles). Having said that, I'm not willing to catch the output of one of the garage models, throwing around 1MV at the walls.
Heck, standing in water IMPROVES the effect. Of course, directions should be researched before attempting anything like this, but hey, people burn themselves with hot coffee by placing it in laps....
"While he DOES notice that the very strong - electromagnetic field does turn on and off other devices nearby, he still keeps fiddling with it."
Wonder if he's noticed the inductive heating effect on perpendicular bands of metal. Induction furnace in action:)
I've still got mine, and it gets use every Holloween, along with the Lighting Bulb, and the Jacobs Ladder (both of which use low frequency electricity, and so are shielded from inquisitive hands). I work with RF professionally, by the way, partly in result to my playing with Tesla Coils.
"- And, whats more, he also puts it on the net for other whackos to attempt, too. Great."
He's not the first. check out Powerlabs (Rail Guns, Can Crushers, Plasma Experiments). That "whacko" got a advanced education, thanks to his insanity. And I'm green with envy. Also, check almost every year of Popular Electronicsl at least one issue will have a Tesla Coil in it.
"For those people who aint really into tech: a microwave oven heats up water molecules. and a human body consists of mostly water....
go figure."
True enough. The frequency of microwaves used causes a resonance in the carbon-hydrogen bonds, affecting Fats, Sugers and Water (in that order). Having said that, it still follows the same laws as normal electromagnetic radiation, and drops off drastically as distance increases. It's interesting to actually measure the drop offs and emissions from damaged microwaves to see just how little escapes (I used to repair them, at one point).
Anyway, ramble time is over
"cancerial diseases"??? That ain't a word, bro :-P.
You can only get cancer from radiation that can spoink your DNA, meaning frequencies UV and above. Microwaves have frequencies lower than visible light. They'll heat you up. That's it. Now... if being heated up causes cancer, that's news to me.
I doubt he's beaming large quantities of HV electrons at tungsten / moly targets to create x-rays.
My dad (a power engineer) has let me play with homebuilt tesla coils since I was 3 or so... no problems here.... (((twitch)))