[dylan] tipped us to [Nyle Steiner] who’s been making his own cathode ray tubes Not satisified with that, he made an even smaller one[youtube] and he built an oscilloscope[youtube].
Once I noticed that he’s an amateur radio operator, I started digging around his site. His propane lawnmower is a great idea, his diy photocell makes me think of mr. wizard. If you dig tube amps, you’ll definitely be interested in his vaccum tube building experiments.
[Got a cool circuit? Lay it out on a PCB and enter the Design Challenge.]
I loved the videos and description for the cathode ray tubes. Certain objects are so engrained in our daily lives that making them seems outside the realm of possibility for a regular shmuck. Hell, I make my own mustard, and a few people refused to believe even that!
Very cool.
I’ll probably kill myself making it.
Now that can become usefull in making something as a visual effects or even a handheld osilliscope if someone can whip that up.
I would make a cluster of seven of them and have the X and Y axis electromagnets placed where needed to make one killer visual for media players.
I should point out that an MUCH easier (and one that doesn’t require a vacuum pump running to use it) source of small crt’s is old video cameras. You know, like when they had the pop out viewfinder ;)
You can even get color ones ;)
Plus major points for making one on your own tho, man!
I’d rate this a 10 on the hack scale, but the reality is that you can get nos 1″ crt tubes on ebay for just a couple of bucks that will certainly provide a better display. So the real-world value isn’t that great. But, again, the hack is brilliant!