4 ms·

I Saved an Electron Microscope from the Trash [video]

79 points by starbugs 2y ago

mmastrac 2y ago
My favourite part of these videos of people rescuing obscure tech is when they talk about the community of other people also rescuing the same obscure tech and team up with them. The internet might be a bit of a cesspool now but these little nuggets that remind me of the early promise of a connected world warm my heart.
- dclowd9901 2y ago
  It's funny too how they exist in the same kinds of spaces they used to. Chat rooms, forums and other areas no one ever talks about anymore with the Twitters, TikToks and so forth dominating most social media attention.
  - ThrowawayTestr 2y ago
    In this case, the author found a discord server where he was lucky to find two other people repairing the same scope.
    - dclowd9901 2y ago
      Yep, I intentionally mentioned chat for this reason, but I find that open live chat channels wherever they exist tend to be awesome founts of social interaction and vibrant, rich interest-cultivating.
roger_ 2y ago
Wonder if there'll be a day when a hobbyist can buy a < $1k SEM? Other equipment like spectrum analyzers, VNAs, scopes, etc. are now way more accessible, but they seem way less complex.
- ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
  But they need to be calibrated, which is a real bitch. I used to work for a defense contractor, with millions of dollars' worth of that kind of gear, and keeping it calibrated was an expensive pain.
  - thrill 2y ago
    Once hacker-level-hobbyists get involved they'll probably figure out how to calibrate it with a Raspberry Pi and a 3D printer.
  - wkat4242 2y ago
    Often that's not necessary for hobby use. The calibration is more about certifying the stuff that you measure with it. For example if the magnification on the scope says 1000x but is actually 1050x, the item you manufacture and measure would have wrong dimensions that might cause issues during its use. This is why you calibrate them, so you know that something that's meant to be 1000 micrometer is actually 1000 (+ or - a certain tolerance that it's certified to). This is also needed for the certification of the products you manufacture. However if you're just a hobbyist and want pretty pictures or you don't care too much about the accuracy, then it's not necessary. I worked in a place with an electronics test lab and even stuff like multimeters would need to be certified yearly. This cost a lot (a significant fraction of the purchase price!) so often it would only need to be done for a few years before the meters would get replaced entirely. They'd be useless for the lab then, however they were still fully functional for home use as my need for accuracy isn't that high. Normally I use cheap chinese meters but having a real quality fluke is a big step up even if it's not calibrated officially. Unfortunately most of the stuff was scooped up by people a bit higher in the food chain than me :)
    - ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
      I suspect some of the newer, "pure digital" stuff barely needs any actual work, and most "calibrations" are really just a verification/expensive sticker. Back then (mid-1980s), even the digital stuff had a lot of analog circuitry, and some of these huge high-bandwidth spectrum analyzers (for example) would have hundreds of micro-pots. Calibrations could take days.
breck 2y ago
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79 points by starbugs 2y ago

My favourite part of these videos of people rescuing obscure tech is when they talk about the community of other people also rescuing the same obscure tech and team up with them. The internet might be a bit of a cesspool now but these little nuggets that remind me of the early promise of a connected world warm my heart.

dclowd9901 2y ago
It's funny too how they exist in the same kinds of spaces they used to. Chat rooms, forums and other areas no one ever talks about anymore with the Twitters, TikToks and so forth dominating most social media attention.
- ThrowawayTestr 2y ago
  In this case, the author found a discord server where he was lucky to find two other people repairing the same scope.
  - dclowd9901 2y ago
    Yep, I intentionally mentioned chat for this reason, but I find that open live chat channels wherever they exist tend to be awesome founts of social interaction and vibrant, rich interest-cultivating.

roger_ 2y ago

Wonder if there'll be a day when a hobbyist can buy a < $1k SEM? Other equipment like spectrum analyzers, VNAs, scopes, etc. are now way more accessible, but they seem way less complex.

ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
But they need to be calibrated, which is a real bitch. I used to work for a defense contractor, with millions of dollars' worth of that kind of gear, and keeping it calibrated was an expensive pain.
- thrill 2y ago
  Once hacker-level-hobbyists get involved they'll probably figure out how to calibrate it with a Raspberry Pi and a 3D printer.
- wkat4242 2y ago
  Often that's not necessary for hobby use. The calibration is more about certifying the stuff that you measure with it. For example if the magnification on the scope says 1000x but is actually 1050x, the item you manufacture and measure would have wrong dimensions that might cause issues during its use. This is why you calibrate them, so you know that something that's meant to be 1000 micrometer is actually 1000 (+ or - a certain tolerance that it's certified to). This is also needed for the certification of the products you manufacture. However if you're just a hobbyist and want pretty pictures or you don't care too much about the accuracy, then it's not necessary. I worked in a place with an electronics test lab and even stuff like multimeters would need to be certified yearly. This cost a lot (a significant fraction of the purchase price!) so often it would only need to be done for a few years before the meters would get replaced entirely. They'd be useless for the lab then, however they were still fully functional for home use as my need for accuracy isn't that high. Normally I use cheap chinese meters but having a real quality fluke is a big step up even if it's not calibrated officially. Unfortunately most of the stuff was scooped up by people a bit higher in the food chain than me :)
  - ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
    I suspect some of the newer, "pure digital" stuff barely needs any actual work, and most "calibrations" are really just a verification/expensive sticker. Back then (mid-1980s), even the digital stuff had a lot of analog circuitry, and some of these huge high-bandwidth spectrum analyzers (for example) would have hundreds of micro-pots. Calibrations could take days.

breck 2y ago

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