Hand machined mechanical pencils
 

Optical

2015

Macro photography stand Simple stand for holding both a camera and ring light. Useful trick for getting black backgrounds in photos.

2014

Hard disk drive mirrors Making mirrors for a CO2 laser cutter from hard drive platters

Air-gap flash Optical trigger sensor used to detect an airgun pellet and fire an air-gap flash

2013

Flicker LED macro photos Looking at a "candle effect" LED

X-ray of my hand Very quick exposure to try an image of my hand

X-ray of IKEA "wood" Taking an X-ray of the top from an Expedit shelving unit, to show the cardboard honeycomb inside

Current and voltage in CO2 laser Some graphs of current, voltage an resistance for the tube in my CO2 laser cutter

Thermal measurement of laser power Measuring the power of the CO2 laser cutter

Plastic optical fiber fittings Various fittings I made for plastic optical fiber

2012

405nm 100mW UV laser diode A laser module using a blu-ray diode

Taking shadow-free photos How to take good product photos without shadows

Infrared projector Projecting an image that only a modified webcam can see

2011

Arc lamp attachment for a TIG welder Attachment for a TIG torch to turn it into an arc lamp

Running a mercury arc lamp from a TIG welder Using the HF start on a TIG welder to trigger an arc lamp and run it

Digital camera spectroscope Attaching a direct-vision handheld spectroscope to a digital SLR camera

2010

RF CO2 laser head Some pictures of the insides of a folded-resonator laser head.

2009

Uranium marbles Some pictures of uranium marbles fluorescing

2004

Sodium street lamp Old sodium street lamp running from an NST

Zeeman effect An old page with photos of the Zeeman effect experiment I did at university

2003

Homebuilt CO2 gas lasers My early (2003-2004) attempts at building several CO2 lasers