~j0ule

I did some experiments today with trying to detect propane using a 3.33um filter. This filter is selective for methane, which should be inside "natural gas" in detectable amounts. My first experiment was to see if I could see the gas c

In 1895, a professor by the name of Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen discovered a source of invisible rays which were capable of penetrating materials not normally translucent to ordinary light. Not only this, but these mysterious rays also caused certain chemicals

Invented in 1913 by William D. Coolidge, the Coolidge tube is by far the most popular method used to generate x-rays. Essentially it’s just a thermionic diode, but one optimized for high voltages and high powers. Like a thermionic diode a Coolidge tube

The 2x2A is a vacuum rectifier that, before the advent of the silicon diode, was used to rectify the high voltage needed for fun things such as television tubes. Now the silicon diode replaced the 2×2 nearly 40 years ago at the time of this writing, but

Nonionizing radiation, the stuff of microwave, infrared and visible light doesn’t have the energy needed to break chemical bonds, so we may sit out in the sun and get bombarded with a thousand watts and feel no ill effects. Once we reach ultraviolet tho

A camera that captures video footage of CO2, NOx, SO2 and other gas emissions from from vehicles, power plants, gas flares, would be pretty cool. Let's make one! [img]../storage/fragment_images/63957192955728260_037c0ce694352e685bb52f296e103ded.j

After witnessing the image of a mosquito magnified in a laser beam outside I decided to investigate the phenomenon further. I started by locating scuzzy water. Ponds lacking, I decided to take water out of the bowl of my 6 year old spider plant. I then pr

You don't need lots of money to make high voltage capacitors, in fact some pretty decent ones can be made with some cheap and readily available materials. This is because capacitors are very simple devices consisting only of a dielectric and two plat

So here's the story: I ended up getting 8 fancy high voltage capacitors in a trade with @inducktion, and they ended up sitting on my shelf for about a month. A couple weeks later I came across a reel of 5000 glass 1kV ultrafast diodes on ebay, and af

By far the most common radiation detector, the Geiger-Müller tube itself is nothing more than a highly modified neon lamp. Its method of operation is rather simple. The GM tube is a partially evacuated tube containing low pressure inert gas; typicall

Here is what I can best describe as a cold war era nuclear bomb detector. Whether or not such a device is good for anything is a matter of debate, but nonetheless I have here a few photos. On the outside, it looks like an innocent, albeit slightly hea

Alpha particles are very energetic little buggers. In fact, energies of 20MeV per particle are not uncommon. While this makes them incredibly dangerous if you happen to ingest something that emits them [radon, polonium] it can also make make for some rath

Transformers are not the only way one can boost voltage; another method to the madness is a Cockroft-Walton multiplier, or thes the Villard Cascade depending on your favorite dead scientist. “CWs”, as they are colloquially known, are a charge pump use

After their invention by Benjamin Franklin, Franklin’s bells became a novelty in the late 1700s. One bell would be connected to a stake in the ground while the other would be connected to a lightning rod, and a conductive clapper would be put in between