Airplane Tracking with Scanner and App

 

·         I hit the superfecta of plane watching:

 

First, I saw an airplane on a free phone app (FlightRadar24) that was headed just over my house in Dearborn Heights:

 

 

 

 

Second, I had visual contact with the actual plane (yes, this is a photo I took):

 

 

 

 

 

Third, I heard on my scanner the pilot calling in his arrival to the tower--and fourth, I heard the tower respond with the landing strip he should use (all on 118.4):

 

 Watchmaking: First Screw Made

Taking a 3mm O1 (cool hardening) steel rod and making a very tiny screw from it. Here is what will be the threaded portion still on the lathe next to the screw die plate I threaded it with.

The plate can thread screws  down to 0.7mm up to 2.0mm.

Here is the screw (red arrow) held in a pin vise; the pin vise is in a larger vise.

The thin "string" is actually a jeweler's saw that I used to cut the slot on the screw's head for use with a flat bladed screwdriver.

A container of brass shavings used to even out the heat treatment. I heat blued this screw to give it a dark blue layer that protects and looks nice.

Here is the screw on a tiny USA 10 cent dime coin.

"I'm tiny too!" -Otto the Littlest Opossum.

 

DIY Muon Detector

Muons are fundamental particles created when cosmic rays collide with particles in Earth’s atmosphere. They are way more powerful than x-rays—but can be used in similar ways to CT Scan devices; but with larger/thicker objects. Instead of CT Scanning someone’s body, you can use the stronger muons to image entire Egyptian/Mexican pyramids and find hidden, undiscovered rooms. Likewise, instead of just x-raying a suitcase at an airport—you can scan an entire plane’s cargo hold. Its first real-world use was in 1970 when scanning the Pyramid of Khafre, looking for hidden rooms.

 

So, of course I want to try detecting a muon. Not a whole bunch—just one. Reliably.

 

How do scientists detect muons?  They can follow the tracks in a spark chamber (which I have, but it’s too small). They can use photographic film—I have a darkroom. They can use scintillation crystal sensors—which I have, but I don’t have dozens of them.

 

How will I  detect muons? By using the humble Geiger counter with a Geiger-Muller tube. A Geiger counter is basically a lightbulb with a tiny gap in it filled with gas. When a particle passes through the lightbulb (tube) it completes an electrical circuit and you get a click noise.

 

Basically Geiger-Muller tubes are just like those bug zapper lights people have in their backyards.

I'm using the humble Soviet era, 400 volt SBM-20 tube for this. Two of them.

 

But Geiger counters will click when hit by X-rays, gamma rays, alpha particles, beta particles, etc. Plus all the background radiation makes them click around 20 times a minute in a normal room.

 

So, we cover the Geiger-Muller tube in a lead sheet, which will block most of those particles.

Then we get a second Geiger-Muller tube and cover that with lead.

 

Then, and here is the genius part, we stack the tubes on top of each other so that the only particles/rays that would trigger both tubes would have to be: traveling at 90 degrees to the Earth’s surface; be powerful enough to pass through not one, but two sheets of lead and two tubes; and be moving so fast as to trigger both tubes virtually at the same time via relativistic motion.

 

How do we know if the tubes are triggered at the same time (not just close)? With a humble AND-gate microchip. This microchip has two inputs and one output. Only if it receives two input signals at the same time will it output its own triggered signal (and light an LED or make a click on a speaker or a spike on my oscilloscope).

 

 

If you look at the pinout of the chip (a 74HC08 AND gate  logic chip) you will see that if PIN1 and PIN2 get a signal at the same exact time = it will output a signal to PIN3.

Pin1 and Pin2 also each get a 100k resistor to ground (this lets the chip reset to off).

The yellow wires are input Pins 1 and 2. They have 100k resistors going to negative rail. 

The other end of the yellow wires go to the 3rd pin of the NE555 chips on the geiger boards. One yellow goes to one pin3 of geiger board, the other yellow wire goes to pin3 of the other NE555 chip on the other board. 

Here are the yellow wires going to Pins 1 and 2 on the 74HC08 chip. Notice the 100k resistors going from each one to the (blue) negative rail on the breadboard.

Here is the other end going to Pin3 of the NE555 chip. According to the schematics it should be possible to tie into this via a jumper or LED or speaker connection of the geigers, but that doesn't to work. 

Thus, this is what's known as a coincidence detector.

So, stack two cheap Geiger counters sandwiched in lead plates.

Output from both go to a $2 logic AND-gate chip.

AND-gate chip outputs to: LED or Oscilloscope or Speaker.

Literal back of an envelope layout:

Any output basically must equal a muon. They occur about once per minute on Earth.

To make things easier I connected one geiger board to a 5v USB wall plug that had a higher (2 amp) current rating than usual. Not sure this is necessary.

Then I connected the always on screw tightening power block things together from both units. That poweeed the other board. 

Then I ran a second pair of power wires to the breadboard.

So, USB wall plug to first geiger board. Then red and black wires between the boards:

Then another pair of red and black split off to power the breadboard:

Those go to the red and blue power rails on the breadboard. I also ran a short black wire from the right blue negative to the left vlue negative rail on the breadboard. That way I could easily run 100k resistors from the 74HC08 1 &2 Pins to the negative easily.

I'll probably reroute that more cleanly in the future. It was a quick test. My breadboard LED came on with mo input! That's why the resistors are needed to zero everything out and start with an OFF LED. Weird, but thats how logic chips like the AND gate work. You have to tell them what 0 or off looks like or else they go nuts.

So, it works.

If I test by turning both on I get an occasional light up by the LED on the breadboard. Especially if I put a radioactive substance near them. Even then, it doesn't light up often relative to the individual Geiger counters clicking and blinking. Good!

In the future I might pull each Geihlger board's J1 jumper to disable their speakers--and then put a speaker on thr breadboard.

Watchmaking and Lunation Moon Phase Gears Update

 Watchmaking and Lunation Moon Phase Gears Update

Albrecht 0-3mm drill chuck for using the tiniest of drill bits (1/64 ; 0.33mm ; .4mm ; etc.).

Watch I'm making from scratch. Here is the 58mm main plate with 1 mm lip around it. I cut in a 0.25mm ledge for the dial to sit on.

Here is operation #4 on my  lathe: putting in the 0.25mm lip that is 0.5mmm deep:

Finished main plate:

Main plate and slightly smaller (but thicker) piece that will be the bridge:

Lunar moon phase gear train mock-up model. The red lines are the axles. I can use any size/pitch/module gears as long as each set that touches each other match. 

The 9, 9 and 35 must mesh to each other only.

The 11 and 40 must mesh to each other only.

The 17 and 71 much mesh to each other only.

So, the 11 and 40 could be tiny little gears that cellphones use to vibrate when they ring, while the 17 and 71 could be huge gears out of a car's transmission--or vise-versa. 

The center bore holes of each gear doesn't really matter. With the lathe I can make an axle that is as thin as a toothpick on one end and as thick as a baseball bat on the other.

So, I'll be searching through my random supplies for gears.

Digital caliper battery eliminator taig lathe

So I have digital calipers on my Taig lathe to measure .00015" or .01mm and they take an LR44 1.5v battery.

The battery drains even when off so I found a 1.5vDC wall adapter and wired it up. Weirdly, under this very light current (amp) load it was giving almost 3v.

So I put a resistor on the negative wire. I tried a few and either got: nothing; all the numbers showing 888888; or almost zero but when I hit the "zero" button it would jump to .0005 or 6 or 7. I tried a bunch of resistors until the 51k Ohm resistor let me hit the zero button and the display stayed at .0000"  or 00.00mm. 

Since the 1.5v setting on the wall transformer was putting out 3.3v that means I can replace it with a less odd USB cable (although many are 5v). I'd probably have to change the resistor for a slighly higher value.

I works and no batteries needed.

2.8v or 3.3v we don't care, meows!

Safecracking open a safe with magnet

 Opening a safe with a magnet

You're like Felix the cat with your bag of tricks!

Glyomorph Glyos + xenomorph

 

I kit bashed an Onell Design figure called Pheyden into an alien xenomorph. The Glyomorph! 

It uses the Glyos peg system to have interchangeable hands, feet, limbs, heads, etc. with many designers.

Here is the Pheyden figure:

I put an extra small head on him and him backwards:

Two part Aves epoxy clay parts A and B kneaded together gives about a 4 hour working time before it air dries:

Ended up doing the tail in two parts and gluing together afterwards:

Inspired by: Crafsman Steadycraftin and AC Toy Design and Onell Design.

I also made a Cataloging Librarian action figure and made a silicone mold of it and blasted out resin copies in various colors using Smooth Cast 45d and 65d resin, ignite pigments and a vacuum degassing for the silicone and pressure pot casting for the resin in the mold:

DeVilbis painting pressure pot:

With l that safety stuff removed to allow 60psi to squeeze any bubbles in the resin to microscopic size:

Vacuum chamber I made for a fusor device repurposed for degassing the silicone mold making liquid: