Medusas other hobbies

[medusa]

This goes to cteno4 since he encoraged me to post here about my other madnesses... if it goes too far offtopic, blame him. ;)

 

(1) My longest continous madness is about lasers, the photo shows one of the oldest I own (among others, see avatar photo), a Spectra Physics 168 running the green laser line. These old beasts are water-cooled and ramp AMPS down the tube bore. To keep the hot plasma away from the tube walls, the fat black cylinder produces a magnetic field of the strength of a today's supermagnet. An outdated technology like steam locos but from an engineerig point of view the same way absolute amazing. Sort of game since it's not a model.

 

(3) Second would be model trains so let's go to number three, NERF blasters. I wanted to have a 1:1 model of Suou's PTRD-41 from the Anime "Darker than Black: Gemini of the Meteor" but not a cosplay dummy. So I started to build one based on NERF darts. I could use nearly nothing from existing NERF blasters so I build everything from PVC and aluminum. The blaster typical spring/plunger system is inside the breech.

Even the shells are handmade, the foam dart bullets are NERF Mega size. It can perform the whole load cycle and shoots the foam dart about 10m far. As you can see, the blaster still is a work-in-progress since I made only barrel and breech up to now.

 

(4) Sports of a special kind: the photo is from the New Years Competition 2014 in our Kyudo club. (Since we own no Dojo, we do our training in a regular school sports location.) Does it count as "Game"?

 

(5) The last one really is on topic, it's a simulation... a screenshot from Kerbal Space Program. My first sucessful attempt to reach an orbit around Kerbin's second moon Minmus.

 

Mad enough to stay here? :confused5:

 

~Diane.

Edited December 9, 2016 by medusa

[warnerj01]

I love the laser. Other than Fun, do you use it for any specific projects?

[medusa]

Rarely I do kind of spectroscopy with them. Check under which setting which spectral line will start to lase.

But most of the time it's a job of maintenance and preservation. Ion lasers need to run to keep their gas fill healthy. And the ones I have are old so they require care.

 

Doing real service like laser shows with them is like doing commuter service with a steam loco... noone would do that today since it's not economic any longer.

Edited December 10, 2016 by medusa

[cteno4]

Diane,

 

Very cool! Love lasers and played with them a lot back in school with a very lenient physics teacher that would let a few of us run amok in the physics back room!

 

My mom actually bought spectra physics stock very early on a very long time back, like 50 years! It did well for her, I'll have to see if any is left in her portfolio. Scientist friends at the time basically were saying lasers were the future! She was very good at finding the odd visionary stocks, but blew it at getting in on the ground floor of karaoke machines going international! She just thought who would do that and admits though she blew that one big time!

 

Great of you to preserve these pieces of history!

 

Nice you have multiple hobbies, hobbies are getting rarer these days with folks sadly.

 

Thanks for sharing!

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

[medusa]

Yes, many hobbies certainly keep you busy. Once a colleague of me said that because of his hobbies he normally would not have time to go to work. He added doing so the problem  only would be about life being so expensive. ;)

Don't know if hobbies really get rarer for younger people... maybe old people just don't grab what they do in their spare time.

[TheNicofabi]

Being one of the youngest here in the Forum (21) i'd say yes... yeah Hobbies do get rare, especialy the ones requiring handywork... Not that i am any better but its litteraly mostly sitting in front of a screen... I am pretty happy being back into modeling after getting into japanese railway.

[HantuBlauLOL]

i thought i'm going to see "turning guys into stone" lol  :laughing3:

 

 

 

(1) My longest continous madness is about lasers, the photo shows one of the oldest I own (among others, see avatar photo), a Spectra Physics 168 running the green laser line. These old beasts are water-cooled and ramp AMPS down the tube bore. To keep the hot plasma away from the tube walls, the fat black cylinder produces a magnetic field of the strength of a today's supermagnet. An outdated technology like steam locos but from an engineerig point of view the same way absolute amazing. Sort of game since it's not a model.

SP168_514nm.png

 

 

~Diane.

 

what are you using the laser for? i was interested in them until i see the price tag of >1W lasers..

[medusa]

I gave hints on it in post #3 above.... mainly I preserve them as pieces of interesting technology.

If you're interested in more modern lasers, these are based on diodes. A 1W diode is not that expensive. Supposed you can do on your own: (1) a proper stable current regulator of sufficient power, and (2) a collimation optic. Both are not as simple as it sounds but can be done by amateurs.

 

Ion lasers like mine are not much in use today, only in science. They never were cheap. Amateurs mostly got them 2nd hand when they were decommissioned, or when new spare laser heads were sold for scrap since they changed their systems to diodes.

Edited December 11, 2016 by medusa

[kvp]

I read up about the spectra 168 and it's like running a plasma rocket motor (a vasimr to be precise) for the light it produces. The peak output is around 5 watts, which would be barely enough for laser cutting thin materials, so laser spectroscopy is what this rather stable laser was best for. Right now, keeping it running is like having a stationary steam engine behind the house that is not used anymore but should be run from time to time so it won't rust.

 

ps: Having a hobby is still a thing for most younger people, just most of the new ones are done online and not irl as most human interactions are moving here, into the virtual space.

[medusa]

My '168 does not 5W, that's more an upper limit what to expect under worst conditions close to a meltdown. When new in the 70ies it had about 1W on each of the prominent lines at 514 and 488nm. These days it is a little bit low in pressure due to serious abuse and repair attempts in the wrong place by former users.

I got one time about 1W total out of it but usually I don't run it that high (even electrical power and tap water can become expensive for such beasts!).

[Martijn Meerts]

I used to practice kyudo as well back when I still lived in Norway. There was a club there which was somewhat on the way from the office back home. No dojo there either, so we also practiced in a regular sports hall. We did eventually add some decoration to make it at least look a little bit like a dojo :)

 

Unfortunately, after moving back to the Netherlands, there was no dojo anywhere nearby, so no more shooting for me for now. Been thinking of getting a makiwara so I can at least practice technique in the back yard, just never got around to it. And well, practicing with others is a lot more fun of course.

[medusa]

Martijn,

 

where do you live in Netherlands? Maybe you could ask at the Aachen dojo if it's possible to practice with them. (They have a nice little real Dojo, I was there a few times.)

Just to mention, like the majority in Germany they pratice Heki style, not Shomen which is much more prominent in the rest of the world (also in Japan itself).

 

~D.

[Martijn Meerts]

I live in Venlo, so not that far away from Aachen actually. Bit too far to go there regularly for practice tough, especially since I don't have a car.

 

I actually practiced Heki as well in Norway, my teacher there was German, so maybe that's why :D

[medusa]

Today I asked my teachers about some German Kyudoka in Norway, they knew Johannes. ;)

[Martijn Meerts]

That's him ;)

 

Not surprised they knew him really, he seems to be rather well regarded.