+0MoTheG 840$ per video from patreon, ad revenue from youtube aka google, plus he works at google X as far as i know. and motivation isnt a problem if you are really interested in something...
+Applied Science I totally dug the technical side. please post technical videos in the future. I understand the general science angle but you have a good capacity to belay the info. great work!
Fantastic project as always Ben. Awesome to see the MDO being put to such good use! You know, there is a Search feature as well, that would allow you to search and mark for specific events in the USB data, making it easy to navigate to them. Also, when you scroll in the Event Table, that centers the zoom window in that spot.
+w2aew Thanks! I still haven't forgotten about the ICs that you sent me! They'll make an appearance soon. The search function on the MDO is definitely handy, but in this case, triggering on specific USB data was my goal. I couldn't get the scope to trigger on any sort of USB data packet, even though they were definitely present in the stream. Let me know if you have any tips regarding this, or let me know who to talk to regarding USB triggering.
+Applied Science It should be straightforward to do that. You may have to put triggering into "Normal" instead of "Auto" to prevent a self-trigger, especially if long memory depth is used. I'll have to give this a try myself and let you know...
Followed you pretty much all the way through, having a background in Electronic Engineering (but I'd never dare define myself one). I must congratulate you on the exceptionally clear reasoning and logical steps taken throughout your project. Not only that, but you made me reconsider how something as seemingly daunting in my eyes as an SEM can be confronted so calmly if looked at in a methodical fashion. This has definitely spurred me to try something similar with some vintage analog data acquisition devices of my own [even though with far less sophisticated testing equipment than yours ;) ] As little value as it may have to you, you have all my respect. With your polyedric nature and inquisitive mind, you're a true scientist and a scholar. Stay curious and keep on churning videos (if you wish to, of course). c(_) Cheers
Pretty sure he travels back in time every couple of years when he's improved, just to live in a different country, with a different name to start over.
I'm a software dev and understood about 90% of what you mentioned. In a nutshell, you created a custom analog to digital converter and wrote your own software to pull the digital image data over the USB bus and display it on a modern computer. Just wanted to say you are someone I admire and are probably up there with the best of the best when it comes to engineering. Unfortunately I don't have the opportunity to work with the hardware side of things but it's something that interests me probably more than the software side. Keep up the awesome videos.
I must have watched a few dozen of your videos in the past week, and I can't get enough! You give very detailed and informative explanations, and I'm impressed with how self-sufficient you are to do all the design, hardware, and firmware, and see these projects through. Keep up the great work!
+Clear Instructions You managed to build a SEM with only him giving a good overview on how he converted the analog video signal out of a already functional SEM?.. that's impressive
Amazingly well done. Some of us can imagine such things, but not many can go the extra mile (or two thousand) to figure it out and actually make it happen. I enjoyed your no bs straight forward explanation of your work. Bravo!
Not being an EE, I understood about 5% of what you said. Humbling and very interesting, this is the shortest 17 minute video I've ever watched. Thanks for setting all of this up and making this video.
I know this is an old post but it’s great work! What is more, your “ping pong buffer” is perfectly elegant it’s effectively the ur-example of “page-flipping”. If you are processing in real-time and have no control over the speed or period of acquisition, it’s the best option if you have the resources. If resources are limited you can sometimes implement a page-shifting method using less memory but its algorithmically more complex and can be difficult to implement on some hardware. Synchronous access often ends up even more complex in such scenarios; even if you have the speed, depending on the hardware it might not be reliable.
The Ping-Pong buffer is basically a ring-buffer with two entries. Synchronizing on whole buffers is much more efficient than synchronizing byte-accurate access. Adding a few more buffers to your ring might improve throughput (at the expense of latency) or help mask transmit jitter.
Fantasitc to see it all leading to this. I tried to build one myself with an electron gun from a crt HD TV (there were a few), I feel for your efforts, I had the 2 stage oil and diff stack, still have the edwards pirani glass guages, outgassing and special greases, berilium copper ? photomultiplier. Had to call it a day before I got anything working so Its great to see you go all the way. Just had a demo of a JEOL sem this week, sample in hand to image was ~ 5 mins, no sputtering,no gasses,only a 2 stage pump. wow. Just found your channel. Love it. Ive done DMA on arduino, alternativley the pic32MZ has a fast ADC and runs at 200MHz. Great vid, nice scope.
Very cool and innovative way to capture the analog image data. I truly hope that you are using your obvious gift to teach young people! Thanks for the video!
I only understand small amounts of what goes into these types of videos but it's fascinating none the less! Keep up the great work and please don't ever stop being awesome =)
That's cute putting the duty of the routines on the scope. On the C64, we would change the border color in routines allowing us to see the amount of time spent processing, which we tried to do in the vertical blanking period. The start of the vertical blanking (actually the border) was a NMI we used for our 'trigger'.
You should make a video just about the electron microscope I don't think im alone in thinking that it would be great to see & learn more about it. Also thank you for showing me the coolest thing I have seen all day :)
Wow - a sophisticated retrofit! I do some simple electronic stuff and want a scope, but I can't really justify paying for a good one. You seem to use yours all the time.
I would love to spend a day with you in your workshop. The things you do are so interesting, i came across a video you did a little over a year ago. I think i watched every video until the early hours of the morning.
Once you're controlling X&Y with a micro controller you can digitally limit the range to trade in some real estate for frame rate. If you manage a higher resolution with a slow and accurate digitally controlled scan you can even use it to "zoom in" (slow down the scan rate for higher resolution, limit the spatial range, end up with the same frame rate and pixel-resolution) By the way, would it be possible to use another (electro) magnet as a "magnifying lens" for the electron beam?
Ben: The newer SEM machines that succeeded yours probably improved by means of a signal/data out. So it's quite the accomplishment that you built something that extends that in such a short time. I learned a few things from your video including processing.org and a lot about the tektronix too. Thank you
To make hid work faster on video you can use 4 bit delta compression. All bits set can be an escape code. When the escape code is hit you can use the next 4 bits to cover sync or numbers bigger than 4 bit. This pretty much doubles the bandwidth but still may not be enough for your project.
Very impressive bit of work. I was thinking about how I would have tackled the problem and decided I'd probably have just stuck a digital camera to that camera adaptor box with a really long shutter. The shutter could be controlled by noticing the bright dot move back up to the top left corner. Not as elegant as your solution but perhaps a bit quicker.
+saturdayocean Yes, that was the other solution I'd pondered. I thought it would probably be slightly more work than just controlling the shutter. Either way I think I'd probably have sucked all the raw data into a PC and attacked with it code. As you can probably guess I'm in software development, when the only tool you have is a hammer...
+Wobblycogs Workshop Sure that would work, but it's not really much better than making polaroids and putting them in the scanner afterwards. But it will only work in a perfect world. Taking an image of the screen will never give you as high of a resolution and dynamic range. You don't know if the brightness of the screen is uniform or even linearly related to the signal. The electronics for the screen will introduce some brightness "distortion" and maybe the physical construction of the screen (electron gun or phosphor) means what the signal says and what you see on the screen isn't proportional. The image could even be distorted (pincushion/barrel) and you have distortion due to the screen shape and camera lenses. Then you're taking a picture with a device, that's much better at seeing colors than raw brightness levels (in that case a black&white polaroid may even have more dynamic range than a digital camera). White balance and other mojo the camera is doing will further decrease the dynamic range. After you've figured all that out, you have to do it all again when you change anything on the microscope, starting with just the screen brightness but also other more important stuff like sweep time (I'm pretty sure the 1 image / 11s isn't the only setting).
As usual, great stuff! I'm not sure it matters much here, but using an opamp as a comparator does have its drawbacks. The saturation of the opamp might influence timing, whereas a comparator is built to avoid this.
Amazing work you do! As i was watching the video I was thinking wow that scope is really nice. That Tektronix MDO3104 cost 10K on ebay! No wonder it's so impressive.
Back in the 1990’s I had a serial video image capture device for Macintosh that worked a lot like this. It took so long to scan a single frame of video that I bought a 4-head VCR so I could pause still frames and capture them, otherwise it was useless except for capturing images from a live video camera with a still subject.
+gregory morgan Yes, that's true. The second opamp in the video chain is just a buffer, so its negative feedback path is a direct connection. There is also a resistor between the opamps to set the second stage input impedance.
+Applied Science Looks like I don't even know my own circuit. The second opamp is not a buffer. It's just a standard negative feedback with gain =-1, so equal value input and feedback resistors.
Great video! I would like to actually understand what you talked about when it comes to micro controllers, data aquisition, and all that fun stuff. Most of the experience I have had has been with mechanical data, being that I studied mechanical engineering. What are some good resources I could read to get a good grasp on this subject? I love how u explain technical subjects and I did understand some of the lingo but I am not sure if I was following how you used the filters to drop the signal from +-12 to +-3.3 and why it was necessary to do that? I think is so amazing that you put in all that work for a 3 second anaimation that teaches so much. So much respect for the work you do. Thank you for sharing and staying up on weekends doing this stuff. I saw the time stamp on the occilascope lol.
+luvmyTM1911 Thanks! I really appreciate it. This is a great book on solid-state electronics: www.amazon.com/UNDERSTANDING-SOLID-STATE-ELECTRONICS-N/dp/B000NQ7Z8Q It was necessary to convert the +/-12V signal into 0-3.3V because the microcontroller can only read voltages between 0 and 3.3. -12 to 12 would overwhelm (or destroy) it. If you'd like to get started with embedded and microcontrollers, I'd highly recommend the Arduino, and the kits and resources from Adafruit. Sparkfun is also great. I don't know of any great books off the top of my head. I'd suggest getting a kit, and editing the examples to do new things. www.adafruit.com/category/17 www.sparkfun.com/products/13160 Good luck!
+Applied Science I have never seen much on the way of signal conditioning when Arduinos are involved. I guess it is intentionally left out or possibly glossed over since it goes way beyond the normal users of them. I'm guessing the analog inputs are somewhat forgiving but no doubt have been burned up by many not knowing why. Even the use of relays is considered "signal conditioning". I don't recall seeing that particular book at Radio Shack and wonder if Forrest Mims had a hand in it? His material was always top-notch and really made it easy to understand at an early age. Nice job Ben!
Code's looking good. Double buffering is the right choice here. If you have enough memory for 2 buffers AND your acquisition is by definition "quantized" into lines, then i'd prefer this over a ring buffer. Only thing I'd improve here would be to remove the duplication of code with bufferA and bufferB. Get a read and a write pointer and just alternate them between the buffers. Sure, you get an extra indirection, but code gets shorter and more streamlined. Keep it up man :>
I don't fully get it... If it scans 1 frame per 10 seconds how can you turn the drill bit to carve into lead? Because if you would just drill it like normal it will miss all the frames and output some gibberish. O_o
+RussianCthulhu It's true. The animation was created with the stop-motion technique. I captured a frame with the drill bit stationary, then turned the drill bit a small amount (eg 10 degrees), then captured another frame, etc. The resulting animation is not precisely true-to-life since the motion dynamics are not captured.
+RussianCthulhu That's why he chose lead metal so that he can do it more like stop motion animation. You turn it. Take a picture Turn it a bit more, take a picture etc. To build up a motion picture like in clay-mation. With lead, you can do this by hand since it is soft enough.
+miamimovies Exactly! Just wait until I get the microcontroller sequencing zoom, pan, tilt, frame capture, etc. My goal is to have a completely programmable, automated animation system. It's going to be awesome.
This is awesome. I really admire the stuff you do. I want to start making my own video portfolio like this, but I always feel like I don't have something worth making a video about. Do you have any tips for how to generate project ideas and motivation?
+JoeJoeTater Thank you! I very often feel like I don't have a video-worthy project. Once a problem is solved, it sometimes seems too simple to talk about. The trick is to just start the camera rolling, and talk about your work. You can always edit or re-shoot some bits later to make a better video. You'll find that when you start talking, you have to go through the thought process of your viewers, and this will help bring out the details that make the project interesting in the first place. Sometimes people do not want to post their code for a project because it's too hacky, or unfinished, or they're worried the masses will ridicule them. The overwhelming advice from the community is to just post the code! Don't worry about hacky/unfinished. There is certainly someone who will benefit from partially-working code, and if everyone posted their projects, the total volume of knowledge on the internet will grow and have compounding benefits. Motivation itself is a more tricky subject.
Another great video in a long line of them. Truly inspiring. Another Gaucho here :), UCSB Physics. I was able to pick up a Cambridge SEM for about 3k. Ion pump is bad, but the rest of scope is intact. Also no digital capture, just Polaroid. Composite video out, and also has x-ray detector for spectroscopy :) Want to do something like what you are accomplishing with the micro controller. Hopefully I can tag along...my electronics background isn't nearly as deep as yours. However, the only way to really learn is with a real project. Again, thanks for the inspiration, and the absolutely fantastic instructional videos. I don't have anything near the quality of that Tek Scope however, I assume this will mean the debugging will be much harder. Curious what the min cost would be for a multi-domain scope like this? Maybe software driven would offer lower cost solution?
Very nice project, Ben, thanks for presenting! Which Teensyduino/Arduino versions did you use back in the time to create your environment? Trying to pimp my JSM T-330A with your interface... Chris
holy crow you are a genius! One suggestion, please re-label this video something more consistent with the bulk of the content, such as "homebrew circuit design and application to modernize/hack vintage electron microscope"
I worked for JEOL for about 10 years, I spent a lot of time doing repair work on that exact model. Depending on where you got it from, I may have actually worked on that one..lol. JEOL U.S. products division actually sold a digital conversion/capture box for it, but due to it being discrete components, the lack of processing power, and utilizing available capture cards of the mid 90's, it was a poor solution that was fraught with bugs and failures requiring frequent component level repair. At about the time that the capture was perfected, the factory began shipping more modern units within the target market that were digital by design making the capture boxes obsolete.
Adding a. second acquisition head with the stepper you wanted and a touch screed from a Pi 5 which if you use a large amount of Ram you would have plenty of buffer abs a SATA or USB 3 Solid State drive to capture logs, images, and diagnostics on your entire mashine adding a bunch of I2C sensors.
Ben, a few months back I purchased a teensy. I’m a beginner but have played around with breadboards and standard components. Do you have a recommendation for a practical easy to understand place to learn electronics for beginners? I want to build midi controllers and maybe setup actuators to trigger my domino toppling setups... Thanks!
this man is a genius
+MrPolymath0 I just do not understand where he takes the money and motivation.
+0MoTheG 840$ per video from patreon, ad revenue from youtube aka google, plus he works at google X as far as i know. and motivation isnt a problem if you are really interested in something...
+Felix Dietz He should work for DARPA
h
+John Ecstasy
I have none of those at home. I would like to have 1/5 of one.
If this is the SEM you got from Sweden, I helped the previous owner move it from his apartment. =D
Man I barely understand any of this. I do appreciate these videos though. Everytime I watch one, I at least learn a little more.
+Nugenrules This video was a little more technical than usual. Stay tuned for more general science demos!
+Applied Science I totally dug the technical side. please post technical videos in the future. I understand the general science angle but you have a good capacity to belay the info. great work!
+Nugenrules yep...Ben is a clever dude.... Hey Ben how come you not still in VR?
+Nugenrules im with you hre. no idea what hes talking about but still watch.
+. This . gets it. ^^^^^
Fantastic project as always Ben. Awesome to see the MDO being put to such good use! You know, there is a Search feature as well, that would allow you to search and mark for specific events in the USB data, making it easy to navigate to them. Also, when you scroll in the Event Table, that centers the zoom window in that spot.
+w2aew Thanks! I still haven't forgotten about the ICs that you sent me! They'll make an appearance soon. The search function on the MDO is definitely handy, but in this case, triggering on specific USB data was my goal. I couldn't get the scope to trigger on any sort of USB data packet, even though they were definitely present in the stream. Let me know if you have any tips regarding this, or let me know who to talk to regarding USB triggering.
+Applied Science It should be straightforward to do that. You may have to put triggering into "Normal" instead of "Auto" to prevent a self-trigger, especially if long memory depth is used. I'll have to give this a try myself and let you know...
FYI, I believe the metallization on those chips is gold, so you may not have to sputter them.
Applied Science rtxasz xx
Followed you pretty much all the way through, having a background in Electronic Engineering (but I'd never dare define myself one).
I must congratulate you on the exceptionally clear reasoning and logical steps taken throughout your project. Not only that, but you made me reconsider how something as seemingly daunting in my eyes as an SEM can be confronted so calmly if looked at in a methodical fashion.
This has definitely spurred me to try something similar with some vintage analog data acquisition devices of my own [even though with far less sophisticated testing equipment than yours ;) ]
As little value as it may have to you, you have all my respect. With your polyedric nature and inquisitive mind, you're a true scientist and a scholar.
Stay curious and keep on churning videos (if you wish to, of course).
c(_) Cheers
Pretty sure he travels back in time every couple of years when he's improved, just to live in a different country, with a different name to start over.
@@hardwareful Hmmm, I read a book about people who do that...
I'm a software dev and understood about 90% of what you mentioned. In a nutshell, you created a custom analog to digital converter and wrote your own software to pull the digital image data over the USB bus and display it on a modern computer. Just wanted to say you are someone I admire and are probably up there with the best of the best when it comes to engineering. Unfortunately I don't have the opportunity to work with the hardware side of things but it's something that interests me probably more than the software side. Keep up the awesome videos.
This is so incredibly technical it just blows my mind, you sir are clearly some kind of technomancer.
I gained about 20 IQ points just watching this video. And more importantly it inspires me to get back to messing with my Arduino.
I must have watched a few dozen of your videos in the past week, and I can't get enough! You give very detailed and informative explanations, and I'm impressed with how self-sufficient you are to do all the design, hardware, and firmware, and see these projects through. Keep up the great work!
This video has been really helpful in aiding me to accomplish something similar in the lab I work in. Thanks for sharing!
It doesn't get more interesting than this!
Thank you!
the data transmission part is really helpful thanks for sharing!
Instruction Clear Enough. Successfully build SEM with 0,5 nm resolution. Thank you.
+Clear Instructions You managed to build a SEM with only him giving a good overview on how he converted the analog video signal out of a already functional SEM?.. that's impressive
One of the higher quality UA-cam channels right here.
Amazingly well done. Some of us can imagine such things, but not many can go the extra mile (or two thousand) to figure it out and actually make it happen. I enjoyed your no bs straight forward explanation of your work. Bravo!
Not being an EE, I understood about 5% of what you said. Humbling and very interesting, this is the shortest 17 minute video I've ever watched. Thanks for setting all of this up and making this video.
I know this is an old post but it’s great work! What is more, your “ping pong buffer” is perfectly elegant it’s effectively the ur-example of “page-flipping”. If you are processing in real-time and have no control over the speed or period of acquisition, it’s the best option if you have the resources. If resources are limited you can sometimes implement a page-shifting method using less memory but its algorithmically more complex and can be difficult to implement on some hardware. Synchronous access often ends up even more complex in such scenarios; even if you have the speed, depending on the hardware it might not be reliable.
I love how you put the culmination of all your hard work at the very beginning. It makes for a great video. Thank you.
Holy fuck, I didn’t understand a single thing that this man was saying but it was beautiful to hear his enthusiasm. Guy obviously loves what he does.
Wow, wow, wow! The quality of your content is outstanding! Many thanks for sharing this
This man is dedicated to things many humans don't dedicate themselves to. (Hi Ben)
Really awesome that you have a Vintage SEM. I have always been fascinated in these ever since I was a kid.
The Ping-Pong buffer is basically a ring-buffer with two entries. Synchronizing on whole buffers is much more efficient than synchronizing byte-accurate access. Adding a few more buffers to your ring might improve throughput (at the expense of latency) or help mask transmit jitter.
Very thorough walk-through. Could build one from your explanation if needed.
You're a natural teacher.
Fantasitc to see it all leading to this. I tried to build one myself with an electron gun from a crt HD TV (there were a few), I feel for your efforts, I had the 2 stage oil and diff stack, still have the edwards pirani glass guages, outgassing and special greases, berilium copper ? photomultiplier. Had to call it a day before I got anything working so Its great to see you go all the way. Just had a demo of a JEOL sem this week, sample in hand to image was ~ 5 mins, no sputtering,no gasses,only a 2 stage pump. wow. Just found your channel. Love it. Ive done DMA on arduino, alternativley the pic32MZ has a fast ADC and runs at 200MHz. Great vid, nice scope.
Very cool and innovative way to capture the analog image data.
I truly hope that you are using your obvious gift to teach young people!
Thanks for the video!
You made me realize that I'm not an "electronics enthusiast".. I'm just a consumer that solders some stuff from time to time.
"I realised I could fix it and so then I had to" - This is the mindset of an engineer, and the mindset that consumes about 90% of my time.
Wonderful verbiage....
I only understand small amounts of what goes into these types of videos but it's fascinating none the less! Keep up the great work and please don't ever stop being awesome =)
Awesome job man! I'm drooling over all your awesome gear! Super nice oscilloscope!
Really enjoyed this one Ben. Great solution. Looking forward to the scanning control.
This Ben, It s the most intelligent person I ve ever seen on the screen and in real live. Keep going Ben! There are fans out there!
Wait, I think I remember the initial video you did when you got this beast.
That's cute putting the duty of the routines on the scope. On the C64, we would change the border color in routines allowing us to see the amount of time spent processing, which we tried to do in the vertical blanking period. The start of the vertical blanking (actually the border) was a NMI we used for our 'trigger'.
Ben,
Cool little project. That SEM has got to be a lot of fun to play with.
Craig
That duty cycle trick for measuring time spent in interrupts is really neat, I wish I'd thought of that during a project a few years ago...
What a nice result! I'd be proud to have made this! Spin a small PCB, USB B on the side! The only 1980s SEM with USB out! 👌
you are my favorite type of human! Awesome video.
You should make a video just about the electron microscope I don't think im alone in thinking that it would be great to see & learn more about it. Also thank you for showing me the coolest thing I have seen all day :)
Wow - a sophisticated retrofit!
I do some simple electronic stuff and want a scope, but I can't really justify paying for a good one. You seem to use yours all the time.
I would love to spend a day with you in your workshop. The things you do are so interesting, i came across a video you did a little over a year ago. I think i watched every video until the early hours of the morning.
Man I'd love to be as handy as you are. This is so darn exciting. Great stuff man!
Ben, do you have a gallery of most, if not all of your experimental SEM photos? I'm interested in seeing them.
Thanks for making these videos. I love shit like this and it makes my days better every time I see one.
Splitting sync and info... very clever and efficient solution!
This is the best Science Channel
Once you're controlling X&Y with a micro controller you can digitally limit the range to trade in some real estate for frame rate. If you manage a higher resolution with a slow and accurate digitally controlled scan you can even use it to "zoom in" (slow down the scan rate for higher resolution, limit the spatial range, end up with the same frame rate and pixel-resolution)
By the way, would it be possible to use another (electro) magnet as a "magnifying lens" for the electron beam?
This is how I imagine Rick Sanchez makes stuff.
way cool project! I hope you make another video using the setup, I would love to see that. thanks Ben.
wow, I worked with that SEM model 20 years ago and it was old even then :-)
I have watched these 9 videos several times but I must have missed why there are spark plugs in the vacuum chamber. I love your channel!
Ben, you are stupidly smart. Kudos.
Can't find words to fit my appreciation
Pure brilliance!
Pure engineering. Well done, loved it.
Ben: The newer SEM machines that succeeded yours probably improved by means of a signal/data out. So it's quite the accomplishment that you built something that extends that in such a short time. I learned a few things from your video including processing.org and a lot about the tektronix too. Thank you
To make hid work faster on video you can use 4 bit delta compression. All bits set can be an escape code. When the escape code is hit you can use the next 4 bits to cover sync or numbers bigger than 4 bit. This pretty much doubles the bandwidth but still may not be enough for your project.
Wow! kind of rocket science and you could explain it - that's great!
I thought for sure he is going to use an FPGA for this one but no he is smart enough to make a MCU do the job ..great video thanks
Very impressive bit of work. I was thinking about how I would have tackled the problem and decided I'd probably have just stuck a digital camera to that camera adaptor box with a really long shutter. The shutter could be controlled by noticing the bright dot move back up to the top left corner. Not as elegant as your solution but perhaps a bit quicker.
+saturdayocean Yes, that was the other solution I'd pondered. I thought it would probably be slightly more work than just controlling the shutter. Either way I think I'd probably have sucked all the raw data into a PC and attacked with it code. As you can probably guess I'm in software development, when the only tool you have is a hammer...
+Wobblycogs Workshop ...you become extremely skilled at using that hammer and learn how to be very creative with its application?
+TheCammerhammer ...every problem looks like a nail. I prefer your end to the saying though.
+Wobblycogs Workshop
Sure that would work, but it's not really much better than making polaroids and putting them in the scanner afterwards. But it will only work in a perfect world.
Taking an image of the screen will never give you as high of a resolution and dynamic range. You don't know if the brightness of the screen is uniform or even linearly related to the signal. The electronics for the screen will introduce some brightness "distortion" and maybe the physical construction of the screen (electron gun or phosphor) means what the signal says and what you see on the screen isn't proportional. The image could even be distorted (pincushion/barrel) and you have distortion due to the screen shape and camera lenses. Then you're taking a picture with a device, that's much better at seeing colors than raw brightness levels (in that case a black&white polaroid may even have more dynamic range than a digital camera). White balance and other mojo the camera is doing will further decrease the dynamic range.
After you've figured all that out, you have to do it all again when you change anything on the microscope, starting with just the screen brightness but also other more important stuff like sweep time (I'm pretty sure the 1 image / 11s isn't the only setting).
That was awesome, your videos are the best. Keep up the good work.
As usual, great stuff!
I'm not sure it matters much here, but using an opamp as a comparator does have its drawbacks. The saturation of the opamp might influence timing, whereas a comparator is built to avoid this.
Well...this is very inspiring to me.
I mean.. the processing app is simple but really, really cool indeed!
Thank you!
Amazing work you do! As i was watching the video I was thinking wow that scope is really nice. That Tektronix MDO3104 cost 10K on ebay! No wonder it's so impressive.
Back in the 1990’s I had a serial video image capture device for Macintosh that worked a lot like this. It took so long to scan a single frame of video that I bought a 4-head VCR so I could pause still frames and capture them, otherwise it was useless except for capturing images from a live video camera with a still subject.
Using pins to debug the microcontroller is a pretty friggin genius idea!
That is very impressive. Thanks for sharing it.
4:10 You're missing a few resistors there
+gregory morgan Yes, that's true. The second opamp in the video chain is just a buffer, so its negative feedback path is a direct connection. There is also a resistor between the opamps to set the second stage input impedance.
+Applied Science Looks like I don't even know my own circuit. The second opamp is not a buffer. It's just a standard negative feedback with gain =-1, so equal value input and feedback resistors.
I haven't understood sh*t. But it looks cool.
God level Genius !!
More than information I was motivated and inspired . Thanks a lot.
I came here to look at cool footage of drill bits drilling metal and ended up learning about electronics
You sir are a wizard.
Awesome! Looking forward to scans of all sorts of interesting moving things.
Great video! I would like to actually understand what you talked about when it comes to micro controllers, data aquisition, and all that fun stuff. Most of the experience I have had has been with mechanical data, being that I studied mechanical engineering. What are some good resources I could read to get a good grasp on this subject? I love how u explain technical subjects and I did understand some of the lingo but I am not sure if I was following how you used the filters to drop the signal from +-12 to +-3.3 and why it was necessary to do that? I think is so amazing that you put in all that work for a 3 second anaimation that teaches so much. So much respect for the work you do. Thank you for sharing and staying up on weekends doing this stuff. I saw the time stamp on the occilascope lol.
+luvmyTM1911 Thanks! I really appreciate it. This is a great book on solid-state electronics: www.amazon.com/UNDERSTANDING-SOLID-STATE-ELECTRONICS-N/dp/B000NQ7Z8Q
It was necessary to convert the +/-12V signal into 0-3.3V because the microcontroller can only read voltages between 0 and 3.3. -12 to 12 would overwhelm (or destroy) it.
If you'd like to get started with embedded and microcontrollers, I'd highly recommend the Arduino, and the kits and resources from Adafruit. Sparkfun is also great. I don't know of any great books off the top of my head. I'd suggest getting a kit, and editing the examples to do new things.
www.adafruit.com/category/17
www.sparkfun.com/products/13160
Good luck!
+Applied Science I have never seen much on the way of signal conditioning when Arduinos are involved. I guess it is intentionally left out or possibly glossed over since it goes way beyond the normal users of them. I'm guessing the analog inputs are somewhat forgiving but no doubt have been burned up by many not knowing why. Even the use of relays is considered "signal conditioning".
I don't recall seeing that particular book at Radio Shack and wonder if Forrest Mims had a hand in it? His material was always top-notch and really made it easy to understand at an early age.
Nice job Ben!
+Applied Science Video suggestion: Applied Science's reading list!
You know you're a goddamned genius, right?
Code's looking good. Double buffering is the right choice here.
If you have enough memory for 2 buffers AND your acquisition is by definition "quantized" into lines, then i'd prefer this over a ring buffer.
Only thing I'd improve here would be to remove the duplication of code with bufferA and bufferB.
Get a read and a write pointer and just alternate them between the buffers.
Sure, you get an extra indirection, but code gets shorter and more streamlined.
Keep it up man :>
I don't fully get it... If it scans 1 frame per 10 seconds how can you turn the drill bit to carve into lead? Because if you would just drill it like normal it will miss all the frames and output some gibberish. O_o
+RussianCthulhu It's true. The animation was created with the stop-motion technique. I captured a frame with the drill bit stationary, then turned the drill bit a small amount (eg 10 degrees), then captured another frame, etc. The resulting animation is not precisely true-to-life since the motion dynamics are not captured.
+RussianCthulhu turn it very very slowly :P
+RussianCthulhu That's why he chose lead metal so that he can do it more like stop motion animation. You turn it. Take a picture Turn it a bit more, take a picture etc. To build up a motion picture like in clay-mation. With lead, you can do this by hand since it is soft enough.
+Applied Science Sounds like a job for a stepper motor!
+miamimovies Exactly! Just wait until I get the microcontroller sequencing zoom, pan, tilt, frame capture, etc. My goal is to have a completely programmable, automated animation system. It's going to be awesome.
I really enjoy your videos! You are very motivating - thank you so much!
Ben, you're so awesome, yours is in my top 3 channels, you remind me of Chris Hadfield :)
Great work on this project... this is not something I would have ever tried, just because it seems just so crazy hard! Nice.... :D
This is awesome. I really admire the stuff you do. I want to start making my own video portfolio like this, but I always feel like I don't have something worth making a video about. Do you have any tips for how to generate project ideas and motivation?
+JoeJoeTater Thank you! I very often feel like I don't have a video-worthy project. Once a problem is solved, it sometimes seems too simple to talk about. The trick is to just start the camera rolling, and talk about your work. You can always edit or re-shoot some bits later to make a better video. You'll find that when you start talking, you have to go through the thought process of your viewers, and this will help bring out the details that make the project interesting in the first place. Sometimes people do not want to post their code for a project because it's too hacky, or unfinished, or they're worried the masses will ridicule them. The overwhelming advice from the community is to just post the code! Don't worry about hacky/unfinished. There is certainly someone who will benefit from partially-working code, and if everyone posted their projects, the total volume of knowledge on the internet will grow and have compounding benefits. Motivation itself is a more tricky subject.
Another great video in a long line of them. Truly inspiring. Another Gaucho here :), UCSB Physics.
I was able to pick up a Cambridge SEM for about 3k. Ion pump is bad, but the rest of scope is intact. Also no digital capture, just Polaroid. Composite video out, and also has x-ray detector for spectroscopy :)
Want to do something like what you are accomplishing with the micro controller. Hopefully I can tag along...my electronics background isn't nearly as deep as yours. However, the only way to really learn is with a real project. Again, thanks for the inspiration, and the absolutely fantastic instructional videos. I don't have anything near the quality of that Tek Scope however, I assume this will mean the debugging will be much harder. Curious what the min cost would be for a multi-domain scope like this? Maybe software driven would offer lower cost solution?
Amazing work, as always!
Spin̈al Tap: "Our amps go up to eleven."
Ben Krasnow: 4:49
Very nice project, Ben, thanks for presenting! Which Teensyduino/Arduino versions did you use back in the time to create your environment? Trying to pimp my JSM T-330A with your interface... Chris
holy crow you are a genius!
One suggestion, please re-label this video something more consistent with the bulk of the content, such as "homebrew circuit design and application to modernize/hack vintage electron microscope"
Would love to see a video that is just a compilation of various animations from your microscope!
Awesome job! Everybody need an eletron microscope! Maybe You can come out with one no? :)
And thanks for another super video... Keep up the good work
Seconded.
Lucid and concise - an *excellent* video.
Thanks for the unique video👍📗📚📊
I worked for JEOL for about 10 years, I spent a lot of time doing repair work on that exact model. Depending on where you got it from, I may have actually worked on that one..lol.
JEOL U.S. products division actually sold a digital conversion/capture box for it, but due to it being discrete components, the lack of processing power, and utilizing available capture cards of the mid 90's, it was a poor solution that was fraught with bugs and failures requiring frequent component level repair. At about the time that the capture was perfected, the factory began shipping more modern units within the target market that were digital by design making the capture boxes obsolete.
Love the vids thanks for doing them some of it way over my head but that's the only way to learn from UK
Like WTF? Make me babies pls! This is one of the greatest things I've ever seen in my life. Congrats to that!
I learned a lot from this video! Thanks!
Adding a. second acquisition head with the stepper you wanted and a touch screed from a Pi 5 which if you use a large amount of Ram you would have plenty of buffer abs a SATA or USB 3 Solid State drive to capture logs, images, and diagnostics on your entire mashine adding a bunch of I2C sensors.
Ben, a few months back I purchased a teensy. I’m a beginner but have played around with breadboards and standard components. Do you have a recommendation for a practical easy to understand place to learn electronics for beginners? I want to build midi controllers and maybe setup actuators to trigger my domino toppling setups... Thanks!
This is so cool.
Nice! I am sooo in love with your oscilloscope... *_*
You are a wizard.
now THAT is a fancy oscilloscope...$14K...nice...vid too ;)