Collaborate Disseminate
What do fitness trackers have to do with bacterial cultures in the lab? Absolutely nothing, unless and until someone turns a fitness band into a general-purpose optical densitometer for the lab.
This is one of those stories that shows that you never know from where inspiration is going to come. …read more
Continue reading Fitness Tracker Hacked Into Optical Density Meter
We will confess that the authors of the Applied Physics Letters article “Experimental Demonstration of Energy Harvesting from the Sky using the Negative Illumination Effect of a Semiconductor Photodiode” never used the acronym DAD or the phrase “dark absorbing diode.” But we thought it was too good to pass up. …read more
When the topic is radiation detection, thoughts turn naturally to the venerable Geiger-Müller tube. It’s been around for ages, Russian surplus tubes are available for next to nothing, and it’s easy to use. But as a vacuum tube it can be somewhat delicate, and the high voltages needed to run …read more
Continue reading Radiation Detector Eschews Tubes, Uses Photodiode
When [millerman4487] bought a TCS230-based color sensor, he was expecting a bit more documentation. Since he didn’t get it, he did a little research and some experimentation and wrote it up to help the rest of us.
The TCS3200 uses an 8×8 array of photodiodes. The 64 diodes come in four groups of 16. One group has a blue filter, one has green and the other has a red filter. The final set of diodes has no filter at all. You can select which group of diodes is active at any given time.
Sixteen photodiodes have blue filters, 16 photodiodes …read more
When we think of physics experiments, we tend to envision cavernous rooms filled with things like optical benches, huge coils in vacuum chambers, and rack after rack of amplifiers and data acquisition hardware. But it doesn’t have to be that way – you can actually perform laser interferometry with a single component and measure sub-micron displacements and more.
The astute viewer of [Ben Krasnow]’s video below will note that in order to use the one component, a laser diode, as an interferometer, he needed a whole bunch of support gear, like power supplies, a signal generator, and a really, really …read more
Continue reading [Ben Krasnow] Builds a One-Component Interferometer
Every scrap of power is precious when it comes to power harvesting, and working with such designs usually means getting cozy with a microcontroller’s low-power tricks and sleep modes. But in the case of the Ultra Low Power Energy Harvester design by [bobricius], the attached microcontroller doesn’t need to worry about managing power at all — as long as it can finish its job fast enough.
The idea is to use solar energy to fill a capacitor, then turn on the microcontroller and let it run normally until the power runs out. As a result, a microcontroller may only have …read more
Continue reading Energy Harvesting Design Doesn’t Need Sleep
Arduino 101 is getting an LED to flash. From there you have a world of options for control, from MOSFETs to relays, solenoids and motors, all kinds of outputs. Here, we’re going to take a quick look at some inputs. While working on a recent project, I realized the variety of options in sensing something as simple as whether a light is on or off. This is a fundamental task for any system that reacts to the world; maybe a sensor that detects when the washer has finished and sends a text message, or an automated chicken coop that opens …read more
Continue reading Is It On Yet? Sensing the World Around Us, Starting with Light
With CNC machines, getting the best results depends on knowing how fast your tool is moving relative to the workpiece. But entry-level CNC routers don’t often include a spindle tachometer, forcing the operator to basically guess at the speed. This DIY optical spindle tach aims to fix that, and has a few nice construction tips to boot.
The CNC router in question is the popular Sienci, and the 3D-printed brackets for the photodiode and LED are somewhat specific for that machine. But [tmbarbour] has included STL files in his exhaustively detailed write-up, so modifying them to fit another machine should …read more
Continue reading Optical Tach Addresses the Need for Spindle Speed Control
In order to help his friend prepare for a talk at DEFCON this weekend, [Craig] built an IR photodiode amplifier circuit. The circuit extended the detection range of the hack from a few inches to a few feet. We’re suckers for some well-designed analog circuitry, and if you are too, be sure to check out the video embedded below.
The talk concerns fingerprinting cellphones by the IR emissions that their proximity sensors emit. These sensors are there to tell the phone whether the phone is being held up to your ear, for instance. Of course, if the IR emitter in …read more
Continue reading Photodiode Amplifier Circuit Spies on Your Phone