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After-hours Fun with Capacitors at Work?
Chiggy_Von_Richtoffe asks "Hey, Folks! I start a new job at a small manufacturing plant (capacitors and small run custom circuit boards) in a few days, which itself is kind of cool. What is even more cool is that their facilities include an electron microscope, programmable high temperature ovens (think kilns), rapid cooling chambers (liquid CO2) to test component robustness, a lapping machine, all the kinds of ceramics i can think off, as well as equipment for die cutting, electroplating, and a few other industry related tasks. This of course fills my mind with wicked designs for homebrew projects, but i am always looking for new ideas to try. Given this kind of workshop what sort of (non-destructive, and fully legal) DIY projects could you come up with?"
Make sure you have permission to do any of this. I know you didn't state that you did NOT have permission, but you also didn't state you DO have permission to use any of these toys "after hours"...
On a related note, in my early years as a sysadmin some people were "let go" from a company I worked for because they were using the company assets to play games on. Now, this was after hours, and nothing was destroyed, but management finding out about what was happening (from network traces) was all it took to say "See ya!"
Of course, I could just be over-reacting, thinking you'd be using the facilities just for fun. You might just be willing to be a customer of the company you work for. I guess you didn't spell that out either....
Just dot your i's and cross your t's.
Karnal
"non-destructive, and fully legal"
Where's the fun in that?
Take a long list of capacitors.
Put them all in parallel.
Charge them up.
Quickly put them all in serial.
The results can be interesting...
Speaking of die cutters... make capacitors of two metal plates with a layer of ceramic in the middle. Before you put the ceramic in there and glue it all up, dunk the ceramic in water. Charging it quickly should be fun.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
Obviously, getting permission is important. But even if you get permission, do you really want to be playing games with work equipment right away? I would strongly recommend waiting until you have become a respected and valued employee before you pull stunts like using work equipment for non-work projects. Hey, I'm a technical manager and I read slashdot damn near every hour -- does your new boss? If s/he sees your post and can easily figure out who you are, what are they going to think about you? You haven't even started work and you're preoccupied with how to play games? That's not the kind of employee I want working for me.
My advise? Concentrate on doing good work and impressing your co-workers and management before you even think about playing around. You can repost your Ask Slashdot question in six-months (and don't include so damn many details about yourself and your job next time).
GMD
watch this
Loads of fun, just be sure you're checked out on it by someone who knows what they are doing. Before you look at anything organic, make sure it's allowed. A running mechanical wristwatch is incredible.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
I've got a couple project ideas for you!
Project 1: Gather up all the cast-off caps, surface mount parts, bits of stripped wire, and dust bunnies on the floor. Place them into a cylindrical faraday cage, lined with an insulative material, and leave the top off the cage so the odd gamma ray strikes them. See if they self-assemble into something interesting
Project 2: Perform high-energy tests of the superstring theory in the ovens. In order to assure that you have the required symmetries, you're going to have to use a bit of that easy-off and clean the gunk off the inside of the ovens first.
Project 3: Test for new low-temperature superconductors. Remember that you're going to have to refill all the empty CO2 canisters first.
Project 4: Perform a detailed analysis of the wave reflection properties of aluminum vs. tin foil. To ensure an accurate reading, recalibrating the electron microscope is going to be necessary. It's a 10-hour job, so make sure you start the minute you get off of work.
I'm sure I can come up with more projects for you. Let me know when you've finished these first.
Karma: SELECT `karma` FROM `users` WHERE `userid`=138474;
Seriously. The equipment you describe, and the chemicals that are in use at places that have that kind of equipment are pretty dangerous if misused.
Follow instructions and don't mess around unless you want to wear an eyepatch (or two) for the rest of your life.
"It is better to ask forgiveness than permission."
Be sure and post links to videos of the resulting explosions.
Are you...Are you some kind of genius?
No, ma'am, I'm just a regular Slashdot reader.
What is even more cool is that their facilities include [...] programmable high temperature ovens (think kilns)
What's a think kiln? Is that where crackpots are hardened?
I own a manufacturing plant and we just hired a guy who was so excited he would have access to our equipment...
Oh man - sounds like fun. Interesting projects are listed below
1) See subject title. Cat + Tesla coil = fun
2)Industrial strength Twinkie testing! - Nickel plated Twinkies anyone?
3) Raw hamburger + huge charged capacitor = "Insta-cooked" hamburger
4) Use electron microscope to take picture of a cell of yours. Use inductrial fabricating machine to create 100,000x actual size copy out of rare ceramic. Proceed to chrome it. Use as object d'art.
5) Does your girlfrind have a second cat? Rapidly freeze in liquid CO2 bath, soak in acetone to remove oily fats, then chrome plate cat.
6)Make ultra hard/dense ceramic Dungeons and Dragons dice - especially the pointy, pyramidal 4sided die. Can be used as emergency caltops to escape from bad guys.
7) Make shatter proof ceramic coffe mug out of $10,000 ceramic. "Accidentally" drop off desk often, and make co-workers envious of your "lucky" cup.
8) Freeze dry rose, and gold plate. This will be useful for making up with girlfriend from steps 1 & 5
9)Make rail gun and fire magnetically plated ceramic sabot at ultra-fast frozen pumpkin. Film at high speed.
10) Use industrial kiln as personal trash incinerator.
..........FULL STOP.
Sounds like fun. (As an aside, I'm shocked by the number of people arguing against having after hours fun with such toys. Is the slashdot readership really so cowardly and unimaginative? Sure, one has to be careful and should avoid pissing off the bosses during the first few weeks at work. And it goes without saying that if the electron microscope happens to break while you're using it for personal projects, bad things are likely to happen to you, unless you have or happen to be a particularly cool boss. But, the risk may well be worth it.)
If you've got access to a scanning electron microscope, any sample should be fun. Around here (a multi-group academic facility) the machine is jealously guarded by a dedicated staff person and we get charged rather a lot of money for each use, so I haven't done any recreational microscopy. But, just looking at the stuff we're supposed to look at is overwhelmingly nifty. (Obviously you should stop and think before putting foreign objects into either the miscroscope itself or a sputtering chamber.)
With die cutting, ceramics, and electroplating, you could certainly make some beautiful cases for homebrew projects. If you go in for a retro look, try to cook up some faux-bakelite. (Or real bakelite, for that matter, if you can get your hands on the stuff.)
Another possibility would be tinkering with electrostatic levitation. Suspended objects are always neat.
You've also got the ingredients for making homebrew optics toys. With lapping and plating gear, you might be able to make your own optical quality mirrors for homebrew telescope parts / lasers / holography setups / etc. Anything else involving precision ground metal parts and custom ceramics is an obvious candidate: home made particle detectors / geiger muller tubes, for example.
And there's always the obvious option of making really big capacitors, charging them to really high voltages, and zapping things. (As described, for example, here http://www.amasci.com/amateur/capexpt.html )
I discharged the cap in a disposable camera once using the nearest handy metal object, which was a swiss army knife blade. The edge needed a good sharpening afterwards, since it took two nicks out of it. If it can vaporize metal, just think what it does to flesh...
First off, the electroplating tank:
These are a blast. Everything looks better if you electroplate it!
Any of the cool looking, under the hood gagetry for your car, found cheaply at Schuks Auto would look better in gold. Any flat sided metal object can be enhanced with whatever artwork you can make a sillouette of on your computer, print in Press-n-Peel masking material
iron on, and plate.
Flatware should never be monochromatic
Your own Electron Microscope? Sweet.
The first thing to do is find the guy that's good at operating this and buy him several good lunches. Getting good images is tricky. That done, there is a world of stuff that looks better super close up, and best yet, the annoyingly black and white nature of this device lends itself to.... Yes! Electroplate sillouttes! Imagine how cool the aluminum case sides of your favorite computer would be if this were etched on the side. Your kids/nephews could have the coolest metal lunchboxes in the school. Like this or this or this or this.
A clear spray-on enamel will keep oxidation from uglying things up if your experiment with some of the more easily tarnished metals like copper and silver....
Sounds like you're in for a good time. Good luck.
I used to play with one. It was fun to put quarters and pennies in it and zoom WAY in on them. The "owners" of it needed me to fix the attached computer and were happy to let me screw around with it if I could keep it running. I do remember that you had to put liquid nitrogen in it every so often. I found out why they let me "play" with it everyday - I was keeping it full for them and when the liquind nitrogen spilled it landed on me and I was the one hoping around going OH F#CK and they were the ones laughing. Speaking of which, if some roaches come out put the nitrogen on them and YOU will laugh and the roaches won't!!!! Mandatory safety warning - If you spill enough nitrogen on the wrong part of you it won't be funny. That sh!t is cold.