Flutterby™! : Spectral Generators 2004-09-20 18:52:38.99237+00

Spectral Generators

2004-09-20 18:52:38.99237+00 by Dan Lyke 5 comments

Jim Standard just walked into San Anselmo Coffee Roasters with one of his "Spectral Generators", a bunch of prisms mounted on a board with room for a candle. Very cool. There's a North Bay Bohemian article from a year ago with a better picture than I could give you from here and a bit of background. I think it'd be even cooler if the prisms were more spectrally active rather than being salvaged from periscopes, but it's also hard to get the full effect here in the brightness.

Need any small front surface mirrors? I've got a BUNCH of them from some video camera's we pulled from Olan Mill's dual digital/mirror cameras. I wish I had grabbed some of the splitters as well..

My dad was looking for a small front-surface mirror for some slide digitization stuff he wanted to play with. So if "small" is "as large as 24x36mm", then: definitely!

In the "yet another freakin' project I'll never get around to" category, I've often thought that given how cheap laser pointers are nowadays using a couple of small coils (maybe from a surplus hard drive) to deflect a small (as in an mm or three on a side) mirror could give you one hell of an accompaniment to a little Pink Floyd

played too loud, if you know what I mean. Come to think of it, for something amusing for parties you probably don't even need any active electronics, just a spring with some differences between two the two axiis should give you some interesting background imagery.

And if you drive 'em in a raster pattern with a small enough beam, you've got the beginnings of a film or photographic paper printer.

dan: that's actually an old science fair trick, only people usually use a coil out of a speaker. Actually, they usually use the whole speaker, and just glue the mirrors directly to the paper cone - though one variation I've seen stretches a rubber sheet over the face of the speaker and mounts the mirrors there. attenuates the high frequencies somewhat, and lets the mirrors counter- oscillate.

And.. you can buy the laser show displays at Spencers in the mall for less than $100.. but check out: http://www.laservibe.com for a nicely packaged system and.. http://wickedlasers.com for a reasonably priced 40-50mW laser.. or go pro with something like: http://www.internatlaser.com for pro high power lasers.. But the random-ish effects of gluing a couple of these to speaker cones could be cheap fun.. or with a couple of signal generators, doing lissage patterns..

The question is.. if I shine a modulated/animated 5 watt laser over downtown Chattanooga from my deck, how long until the black helicopters come to take me away?