Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Radiation detector

Had a bunch of empty coffie cans that i wanted to use for something. I found this article about using coffiee cans for ion chamber radiation detectors.
I did not have the parts they suggested so i used whateve i had:

The detector turned out to be extremely sensitive and should be able to pick up small changes in the background radiation. I plan to make a solar powered version that will sit in the window and keep a watch on things.

Monday, April 9, 2012

Say hello to my little (old) friend..



A couple of years ago I built this prototype power supply for a large CO2 laser. The interesting thing about it is that it completely microcontroller driven and uses a rare series resonant topology. It deliveres up to 30KV and an adjustable constant current of up to 25mA.
After considering it lost I was pleased to find it again.
I was able to get it running and decided to show some fruits who is the boss...
. 

As the picture from inside the power supply shows it is really simple consisting of only a few parts:

The power supply was originally inspired by this article