The "How To Guide" Leading To DIY Enthusiasm's

[V]

Im interested in whether this thread is on the way to helping people???
So far we have not had any questions directly which is why im asking.

Yes its a place to source some needed information in order to dabble in the DIY arts & namely created so you dont have to resort to searching the web by yourself, however id still prefer to get my hands dirty if you know what i mean. Lets get some real world stuff happening, that way we can grab information & play with it so it makes perfect sence. And Pictures, i know how we all love pictures..lol

Meo should be receiving her LED tester pack soon, so hopefully after the holidays she will be the one to kick it off with the learning roller coaster.
Ohms Law besides being the foundation, is also prob the hardest stumbling block to understand, the good thing however, is its usually all down hill after that.

[V]

Ok, so i thought id share alittle of my own research journey. As you guys know, ive still got plenty of unfinished projects on the go. The more i swing towards the newer designs, the more interest is spawned on lighting concepts & its technologies driving it.

Dont get me wrong, the LED fad is far from old, however ive now turned my attention towards Fiber Optic and the TIR or Total Internal Reflection principles.

As most would be aware, most seen fiber optics came in the form of cheesy christmas trees that glowed different colours, or the other cheap & nasty crap you'd find in the $2 shops. So reminiscent of the 80's it almost made me shudder. That was until i decided to drop these weird stigmas like a wet blanket & open up to what could be achieved with such a light source.

But first, lets delve into it abit more & take a refresher course on what it actually is......


How Does Optical Fiber Work?: Energy & Electricity in Science | eHow.com





As you can see from the vid & the pictures, any beam of light plays bumper bowling alone the medium, hence TIR.



However useful this can be, for my own purposes its was not ideal. I needed something that was based on the same light transmitting technology, yet able to spread the light in a uniform fashion along the umbilical.

Ive found a company in Australia that seems to manufacture exactly what i envisaged. They call it Poly Bright -Super Side Light Cable. It transmits 90% light emission from the sides & im assuming the other 10% is at the end.

The link is below for those whom are interested.

Poly Optics Australia

Id also suggest checking out the Led & Optic Strip lighting and the Edge Lit Acrylic subject information.

[V]

wow, we have robots on the surface of mars , yet im still having difficulties in getting stable internet feeds..lol such is life..........

so anyways, as i say saying, lets forget about fiber optics exclusivity for a minute, & look at Total Internal reflection for abit.

The below 2 examples will show each end of the spectrum. Quite a contrast actually.

Example 1 - low tech

Total Internal Reflection within a stream of water exiting a soda bottle.




pretty nifty, im sure you guys are aware of your own Las Vegas water stream light shows....same principle.


example #2 - high tech


Mediatree Multitouch Software



Now just so you know, for the sake of this example .... its just that, an example showing the similar condition sets, lets not kid ourselves though, there is a ton of science behind it that cant be explained in a brief passing. It would need a thread all on its own.

However as you can see the main concepts are exactly the same. Although in the realm of touch screen technologies its actually FTIR = Frustrated Total Internal Reflection.

Having a quick stab at it in the most simplistic fashion, you basically have banks of infrared LED's that are inset into the panel picking up multiple independent markers (your fingers) and the software & optical control devices that do the projecting do the rest.

30 sec breakdown as follows...

[V]

continued....




until you get this interactivity...



so you see, not Nealy as boring and sad as $2 optic christmas lights..lol

[THEJRC]

he he V remind me sometime to braindump all the fun stuff they're doing at FLIR's advanced imaging systems division (formerly Salvador Imaging). I've got some interesting customers for sure....

as far as your question about questions, I might have a question!! questionable though......

With all this DIY utilizing microcontrollers (arduino, pic, etc.) Has anyone figured out how to query and find out the I2c address of multiple thermal probes or is it the same hit and miss that I've been delving into. What I'm trying to do is run multiple thermal probes on a single i2c bus using the DS18B20

http://datasheets.maxim-ic.com/en/ds/DS18B20.pdf

I'm running in parasite mode, problem is I dont know the serial numbers of each unit so pulling I2c address is a pain... any gurus out there with an idea?

[V]

wow, your such a nerd

Just so others are aware, & dont worry, im sure as sh^t not real worldly in this regard ether....... I2C is an interconnect bridge or basically a communication bridge between integrated circuits - The 2 actually represents [squared] , aka Two-Wire Interface. The simplest explanation is connecting master circuits with slave units. Correct me on anything im wrong JRC.


short answer is i dont know, assuming its always the 7th bit thats writable, however thats where id usually pay someone hot off the boat to program it for me.

Others with experience might chime in on that one, however have a look at building a bus pirate & determine if its something that could help you long term.

The Bus Pirate Hack

[THEJRC]

hah yep i2c is a two wire bus, it's an oldie but goodie... but you never know some super guru electrical engineer could be lurking!

[V]

yup, no doubt.

and yeah, any time with that brain dump. although id prob need a few scotches neat just to keep the head nodding in agreement as a disguise for not knowing what the #^% your talking about..lol

[THEJRC]

you kidding it takes me a few scotches neat to know what the **** I'm talking about....

but the TIR principle holds true through a lot, right now the goal is to take a CCD (camera in essence) and divide the pixels up into sections, each section routed through a glass fibre with the processing and image manipulation done within the camera. In this way a single CCD can yield a 360* view. even more fun is the corrective versions where either a single or multiple CCD's are piped this way with overlap and the frame rate is increased. Filters are applied to certain frames and then overlayed upon existing frames. The CCD might be snappin shots at near 4000 frames per second but the feed is only presented with 30, as the rest are overlay and correction frames.

crazy stuff man

[V]

thats a sweet concept. when will we see it main stream

[THEJRC]

mainstreams a whole nother story, if your in manufacturing and looking for a solution then the answer is right now. as far as the consumer goes... eh, everyone is into megapixel not much general education in photonics beyond that

[V]

im bord with business & the endless pursuit to own the world, i'll lead the charge into the new frontier for ya

actually, speaking of such (go figure) i just finished watching James Cameron's Avatar. How often do you leave the cinema's after midnight i ask you...lol , although Man, fantasy to the max, but that was a sweetly intense flick. I'll definitely copy.ahem........buy that when it hits disk.

[V]

Meowwwww, where you at my girl?? Time to get to soldering.


oh, & im also glad to see your wearing that shirt i sent you.

[rayme07]

oh, & im also glad to see your wearing that shirt i sent you.

V, it is so great to finally see a picture of your girl friend.

[V]

yea thats Bob..er.....Candy bud
Going on 10 years now...... when the beards meet its like texture heaven..

[rayme07]

yea thats Bob..er.....Candy bud
Going on 10 years now...... when the beards meet its like texture heaven..

LOL I so did not want to picture that.

[Mits]

So has anyone ever gone into their freshman year of college, looking for your 101 class, you don't know where you're going, and you walk into one of the postgrad lectures by mistake? Yeah, feels like that right now.

[V]

what basing it on thread content or based on thread topic

[Mits]

Content. I love DIY stuff, I actually built my stand and canopy in my current tank and my rock in my old one. Heck, my entire collecting of and learning about tools is from a desire to work with acrylic and build my own tank. Here I am 2 years later with a garage full of tools, some wooden stuff I've built, and some basic ideas about DIY, but I've never worked with any acrylic! I even have a multimeter and work with a tiny bit of electrical stuff for home theater wiring, but reading some of this post made my eyes cross. I want to soak up DIY knowledge like a sponge, but need a slightly lower level starting point. Here's a suggestion: I want to build a custom stand for my next tank in a couple years, I need to know different ways beside plywood and paint/stain to create it. Finishing techniques, other materials, how to use them, how to get them without breaking the bank. I want to be able to craft something near professional looking without going to school part time to do it.

[lReef lKeeper]

ill get my reflector build up on the next set that i do, i wish i could post the layout templet for them, but the manufacturer already had a thread removed from RC with that info in it. i guess its a good thing i got the right measurements before that thread disappeared !!

here they are BTW ...



all wired up ...

[V]

Well it mainly falls under two different headings, wood, or metal. then under traditional styles, or modern concepts.

How you want to build something is generally a personal thing. Designs, suggestions on how to build it,variety of tools that can be deployed, how to apply textures or finnishes ect ect yeah, no worries, we can all pitch in with ideas or suggestions.

Yep, i'll grant you that, its a start, but you kinda have to narrow down your own choices if you know what i mean.

[V]

what makes up the reflectiveness bud?

[lReef lKeeper]

they are made from 4 of the 95% reflective aluminum spider reflectors, that run about $20 each. OR you can just buy 2 from the manufacturer for $115 EACH ...

[V]

I want to soak up DIY knowledge like a sponge, but need a slightly lower level starting point.

Actually, your the second person that's asked to tone it down alittle so its more understandable. Not always as easy as it sounds, but we'll give it a decent crack.

OK, so i think we should attack it in structured sections as a group, that way everyone can ask questions as we go & users can offer DIY input based on their own pictures & knowedge. Essentially Having a roaming thread, from topic to topic.

Is that what everyone would prefer?

[V]

they are made from 4 of the 95% reflective aluminum spider reflectors, that run about $20 each. OR you can just buy 2 from the manufacturer for $115 EACH ...

sweet unit bobby, you did really well putting them together. Realisticly, hows the running temps, extraction needed for higher wattage bud?