This week, I have been mostly working on... » Destroying the world

…building my Destructor(tm) beam

Stephen Hobley — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 13:54:59 +0000

More progress in the laser/CNC saga.

I built a cage from steel and MDO for the laser tube – fits really nicely. Next step is to add the first bounce mirror which will turn the beam straight up – into a PVC tube attached with plumbing flanges (The sales assistant at Menard’s asked me what I wanted it for – I’m pretty sure he wasn’t expecting the answer he got).

www.stephenhobley.com I moved the CO2 laser tube out of its box and into a steel and MDO cage. Now I'm ready to install it in the BlackToe CNC gantry." longdesc="" />

All the parts are in – I was able to repurpose some Laser Harp spares for the mirror mounts, and found a 25mm Silicon/Gold mirror on eBay for under $30 – a bargain.

www.stephenhobley.com Ready to be installed in the BlackToe CNC gantry. (This is the business end)." longdesc="" />

I finished the last of the designs today – now all I need to do is cut it out and assemble it.

Pete came over on Thursday night and we tested the ‘volatility’ of the unfocused beam on a variety of building materials…

“Impressive. Most impressive…”

New update here.Similar Posts:

At the Maker Faire in Detroit

Stephen Hobley — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 11:34:53 +0000

Spending the weekend up at the Maker Faire in Detroit.

Check out the Maker Faire Daily stream for more info.

UPDATE : Just got back from the Faire – always a pleasure to go to these, and nice that they’re more local than San Francisco now…

Wow lot’s of stuff to see and do. The Henry Ford Museum was a great venue. Many ideas for toys and games for Sarah Jane – I also managed to pick up a copy of the “Eccentric Cubicle” – a makers guide to weird and wonderful devices.

Here are some of my pictures from the event:

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First look at the AR Drone SDK for Windows

Stephen Hobley — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 19:45:20 +0000

As some of you know, Thomas Endres, Julien Vinel and myself have been working on a .Net SDK for the Parrot AR Drone quadcopter.

We were planning on doing a release last week, but Parrot asked us to wait until they had revised their license to include the creation of “3rd Party” (that’s us) development tools.

I was hoping to hear something from them last week, but so far nothing has happened. So in the meantime (since I’ve been asked for this a lot) I thought I should show you what we have been working on.

Currently video is supported and save-able, and all DirectX input (Joysticks etc) devices are support (*and* keyboard and Wiimote).

Still waiting to get the “OK” from Parrot before we can release it to the world.

A big thank you goes out to Thomas and Julien – they took my rather flaky first design and transformed it into something very special.

The only thing it doesn’t do is make tea – that’s going to be in SP1

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Upgraded the 12v DC Tesla Coil to 24v

Stephen Hobley — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 06:43:33 +0000

I upgraded the 12v Tesla coil to run at 24v – performance is now dramatically improved. If I get the OK from Skori I can publish the PCB mask and component list – nearly all the parts came from Mouser and Jameco.

Here is Skori’s original Hungarian page translated into English via Google Translate.

The coil can run from 2 12v batteries – but I would be careful to apply some current limiting in this case. A high wattage low value resistor (~5 Ohms 1-2 Watts) would be fine, but probably get hot over time. The switching supply I am using puts out 24v at a maximum of 5A – there is also a 5Amp fast blow fuse inline on the PCB.

Arc length is about 6-7″ with a 2.5″ topload. Coil frequency is 560 Khz.

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Things to do with 12,000 Volts #3 – Strangely lethal plasma ball

Stephen Hobley — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 13:30:11 +0000

Everyone has seen those plasma balls you get from Spencers gifts. They even make versions that plug into USB ports – although they do all look a bit feeble.

You can create a hugely more dramatic effect by hooking up one side of a regular light bulb to 12,000V and a piece of foil to GND. Place the foil on the lightbulb and slowly introduce voltage to the NST.

At about 60% you get the best arcing effect.

Of course I would not recommend you touch this one,
at 30ma it can give you more than just a tickle.

Additionally this video footage was shot using a DSLR (Nikon D3100) and a 200mm AF-S lens. My buddy Chip stopped by and supplied the camera – I think I might get one, the depth of field control is great.

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Man builds 2Mhz Tesla coil on kitchen table, annoys cellphone addicted wife

Stephen Hobley — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 13:20:54 +0000

I was clearing out the basement the other night and I found a box of stuff I’d put aside to build a Teeny Tiny Tesla Coil (TTTC).

Small Tesla coils are tricky, especially using the traditional “Spark Gap” approach as they tend to resonate at really high frequencies and this makes them difficult to tune.

Tuning involves moving a slider along the primary coil (the big one) until the LC primary circuit matches the secondary circuit – when that happens you get resonance and positive feedback and the shiny bedknob on top starts to spark – referred to as “streamer breakout”.

Gotta love old electronics...

Mini Coil Schematic

I calculated that the resonance of this coil (1″ diameter and 6″ high – 30 AWG wire) should be just over 2 Mhz. So after some serious fiddling around I managed to get somewhere close to that with the primary. None of my test equipment operates in the 2 Mhz range, so I had to do most of the adjustment through trial and error. For the technically minded the coil specs are here.

One unique side effect of this kind of coil is that it can make a cellphone drop calls, or at least give the user some nasty static, within a short range – so if building it on the kitchen table wasn’t enough to upset the boss, running it certainly does – especially during one of her lengthy phone chats.

Quick plug – If you are interested in building your own Tesla coil, check out “Teslastuff” on eBay (Alan) – he carries some great vintage looking parts to build traditional spark gap Tesla coils.

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Looking to generate 500,000 Volts? Here’s something that can help…

Stephen Hobley — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 16:30:49 +0000

One of the best ways to generate insanely high voltage electricity is with a Tesla coil, and you can’t have a Tesla coil without a coil. These can be awfully fiddly to make, unless you have the right tools – in this post I’m presenting my coil winding jig. Assembled exclusively from left-over gubbins I had lying around.

This all came about after watching Bre Pettis’ video “Making a Foxhole Radio” and noticed he was having a couple of problems winding the coil he needed. These two videos are about the jig I built to make coil winding a lot easier.

I built mine out of stuff I had left over from other projects, here are some links to the things I used:

Grizzly H2669 Hobby Lathe
K179 Stepper Driver

I looked on Electronic Goldmine for the counters but I think they must have sold out.

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Things to do with 12,000 Volts #2 – CD eraser

Stephen Hobley — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 16:37:33 +0000

Chance of data recovery – minimal.

Believe it or not I was actually trying to do something constructive with all those pesky MSDN subscription CDs I have lying around the place…

Lichtenberg figures are “trapped lightning” fractal patterns created using a very large DC accelerator. I was hoping to produce something similar in the CD – however too much current (30ma) and too much heat soon melted the platter rendering the figures “unviewable”.

I’m going to introduce a ballast in the circuit to limit the current and see how I get on.Similar Posts:

Things to do with 12,000 volts #1 – emulate old horror films

Stephen Hobley — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 20:33:53 +0000

Baron Frankenstein wouldn’t be without one, Steve Martin couldn’t keep a brain alive without one either.

The Jacob’s ladder is *the* 1950′s mad-scientist fashion accessory. Remarkably easy to make if you can find a neon sign transformer, and a thick insulating block… (Rather than give you step by step instructions, I’m going to show you the details in a sequence of photographs – if you know anything about electrical engineering, this should be more than enough to allow you to make one of your own. ‘Nuff said)

And don’t forget – once you’ve built one you can play the Nikola Tesla drinking game – a shot of whisky every time an arc makes it to the top…

NOTE : The Jacob’s Ladder is inherently dangerous, and construction
should not be attempted by anyone that does not know what they are doing.
You have been warned!.

…and no, I’m not going to “lick it”.

Finally, you might also like the Tesla Coil we built last year (around 500,000 volts):

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How to build a Dalek

Stephen Hobley — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 19:14:29 +0000

I just put together a slideshow of images of the Dalek build I completed in 2009.

The music is completely produced from old Dalek parts…
[Are you sure about that one? - Ed]

A big thank you to Dave Duca and all the other builders at www.projectdalek.com…Similar Posts:

…building my Destructor(tm) beam