GraySoul's Skeletal Webpage

Updated (sorta) May 2010.

2010-05-11: Treo Data Reanimation

2009-03-25: 2BP1 CRT

2009-02-20: Oaken LCD

National Electronics Museum
Caution Big Pictures

2009-01-17: Cleaning up HACDC's basement
Caution Big Pictures

Can Crushing

What's coming?

• ADP (Ammonium Dihydrogen Phosphate) Crystal Growing. I got a kit from the Smithsonian and grew some cool crystals. I will be recording how they interact with polarized light in an electric field.
• Nixie Tubes. Got lots of them, need to take pictures and make clocks.
• Galvanometers. Used to deflect light beams. I have many different types to test and I think I have a good idea on how to make some custom ones.
• DVD Player Laser. DVDs use visible red lasers and the laser should be salvageable even after the drive won't read data anymore. I intend to document how different models power their lasers.

  • CyberHome DVR 1600 DVD Recorder

    SHAME on them for not providing any technical information on their web page!

    SHAME on Intersil for declaring the datasheet a controlled document.

• MSP430 microcontroller from Texas Instruments. I want to use these to control the galvanometers for a middle-end laser show. Better than the "laser crab" anyway.
• RGB LEDs. I have a bunch of them and a design for a nice 8*8 programmable icon.
• American 60X Argon Laser. I finally ordered the final pieces to put this beast together. It is very used and I don't expect tremendous power, but it is one of the standards for small laser shows and it would be great to get it working and either do some shows or offer it on eBay. Need to pay some bills (sigh).
• Photography. I have taken several cubic feet of photograhs and need to get them sorted and scanned in. The ones from Sunset Beach Oahu came out particularly well.
  Optio 60 camera pictures More Bono Film-era pictures Sony Alpha a100 camera pictures
• Video. I have some evaluation chips for converting from NTSC to parallel digital video. It would be great to get them hooked up to an IDE interface for direct to hard drive recording.
• Holographic Audio. I've read about systems to capture and play back multichannel sound in such a way that you really can hear the sound coming from a specific empty spot in space. I'd like to try! Dodecaphonic audio.
• Plotter Art. This is some of the lost content. I had perl scripts to generate several spirographs and some string art, with scanned plotter output. I still have the plotter that does two by three foot output and I want to get it set up again.
• Programming!
  • I'm teaching myself C++ and X Window System programming.
  • MPEG Editor. I want to write a video editing application for FreeBSD.
  • Laser Show Editor. There's a guy doing a Linux project called LaserBoy. I'd like to port it to FreeBSD and then incorporate all my old ideas.
  • Lab Logic Generator. A freeBSD program that lets you generate arbitrary logic signals on an output port. Intend to use the IDE interface because it's 16 bit, relatively fast, and easier to design than PCI.
  • Graphics. I'd like to write some abstract pattern generators, kind of like many screen savers and demos I've seen. OpenGL or frame buffer.
  • 3D animation. I have lots of POVRay stuff already finished which I will put up here. I also have a couple projects in mind that I would like to do.
• Printed Circuit Boards. I've made a few attempts at toner transfer and other ways of making my own boards. I need to scan the sucesses and the failures so I can remember what worked best and maybe someone else can avoid my problems.
• Cold Cathode Flourescent Lamps. I have a bunch of different colored ones that I need to make up into light sculptures with proper mounts and power supplies.
• Open Audio Server. Ethernet to high multichannel analog IO with scientific grade specifications.