It's All Done With Mirrors

[W9ZSL]

OK. This has to be technical because if you brought up this topic in the QSO section, before long the question would be forgotten.

Cosmetics on a transmitter. I'm wondering who has worked with a concept of turning a transmitter into some-sort-of-light-show/artwork. Example. I'm building around a 4-125A. Got to have a window in the RF deck so we can watch the bugger glow blue. Suppose when I flip a switch on the control panel for the filaments, the backdrop behind the bottle would light green...mirror or diffusion panel. Then when I hit plate, it turns red. No pilot lights, just back-drops on the modules behind glass windows. The bias supply is being built on a chassis made from salvage, but the way it fits together allows for a 1/2" x 2" window above the fuse and in/out block. I'm polishing the inside of the chassis and fitting mirrors and colored gels, in this case green. The fail-safe light will be inside the chassis. Open the back top door and if the entire chassis is glowing green, the bias supply is operational. Pictures of same will be posted shortly. I have a chassis to polish and some devious lighting to work out.

Psychdelic Louden Boomer; LB-1T 350 watts in, 811A modulator mounted in a 5 1/2' Harris/Gates steel rack. Soon to be formerly grey.

  Mad Mixer

[Sam KS2AM]

OK. This has to be technical because if you brought up this topic in the QSO section, before long the question would be forgotten.

Cosmetics on a transmitter. I'm wondering who has worked with a concept of turning a transmitter into some-sort-of-light-show/artwork. Example. I'm building around a 4-125A. Got to have a window in the RF deck so we can watch the bugger glow blue. Suppose when I flip a switch on the control panel for the filaments, the backdrop behind the bottle would light green...mirror or diffusion panel. Then when I hit plate, it turns red. No pilot lights, just back-drops on the modules behind glass windows. The bias supply is being built on a chassis made from salvage, but the way it fits together allows for a 1/2" x 2" window above the fuse and in/out block. I'm polishing the inside of the chassis and fitting mirrors and colored gels, in this case green. The fail-safe light will be inside the chassis. Open the back top door and if the entire chassis is glowing green, the bias supply is operational. Pictures of same will be posted shortly. I have a chassis to polish and some devious lighting to work out.

Psychdelic Louden Boomer; LB-1T 350 watts in, 811A modulator mounted in a 5 1/2' Harris/Gates steel rack. Soon to be formerly grey.

  Mad Mixer

You may find some applicable construction ideas on these pages.


http://www.bozotheclown.net/waves/Prime_No-Excuses-On-Da-Bowl_short2.wav


http://www.angelfire.com/nj/earplugger/

[WA1GFZ]

gee, when I key my rig I just want to have RF coming out of it.

[W1ATR]

gee, when I key my rig I just want to have RF coming out of it.

Shielding? We don't need no stinking shielding!

[W9ZSL]

Riiiiiiight. I've gotten RF out plenty of times. In my Senior year in HS in '64 my electronics class project was to build something so I put together a 35 watt single tube CW XMTR. The keying had a bit of a chirp but I made contacts with it. Black cabinet, grey front and back. Dullsville. I'd like to do a cabinet like Raytheon used in the late 50s...dark brown with sand and toned greys for the front. I may still go with that. When I'm done this will rival the cosmetics of any rig made with the exception that the system of pilot lights will be creative. Sure, you can put out a signal with a big ugly. Been there, done that. But when you're building your last rig, you want it to shine.  Da Mix 

[WBear2GCR]

Gels are short lived, and don't like heat.
I'd use glass, or else a diffuser like thin white polycarbonate with LEDs to put the light behind. Nowadays there are up to 3 watt LEDs that are rather bright, if you want or need to use just one...

For the window, why so small?

You can use a large glass window, just put some (preferably brass, if you can find it) window screen in a sandwich or just behind it, and you have sufficient shielding. Partially silvered glass might possibly offer enough shielding too, not sure about that.

Why not use mirrors too, and a partially silvered front glass, and get that good ol' "infinity box" effect! 

            _-_-bear

[W3RSW]

Hmmm,
If you have an almost perfectly reflecting, first surface mirror in the back and partially silvered mirror in the front for the window, and monochromatic light properly energized...

Why, you have a laser.!   If the pube will laze, that is. 

[W9ZSL]

Ah, W3RSW.
The last time I had a burr up my butt like this was when I had to learn how to use a blow torch. This is for real. No BS.

 A. CO2 lasers are used for cutting steel.
     1. They require enormous cooling systems.
     2. They operate in the infra-red range.
     3. They require internal exitation.

 B. Theory: Build an infra-red reflector telescope in the laser cavity     
                acting as an external exciter rather than internal as in
                the CO2. Point the sucker at the sun, pump in CO2 and Neon
                bleed off the heat. You could feed that into a larger
                resonator and eventually operate a Tessla turbine and
                feed a compressor or somethin'. It could feed on dry
                ice.                 

I built a proto-type. Thus the blow torch. Cavity was made of polished copper
with brass fittings and check valves. Never got to test it. No way to get the gasses.

Talk about getting off the subject. Just show me the Wouf Hong and I'll be on my way. Da Mad Mix
                                                                                                   

[W9ZSL]

  Bear! Amen to that. The prototype of my plumber's friend had a grow bulb pointing into a sealed copper chamber cut to a resonant IR frequency. It acted as a projector and I used red gel in between as a filter. I'm thinking bigger now. The window is a stage. The chassis might be either metallic or candy-apple yellow with red and green bulbs as side lights. I would have a rainbow on those stages.  Mad As A Hatter

[W3RSW]

Hmmm,
Can you still get Wratten filters in gel?  Some of them have wavelength cutoffs sharp enough to get interesting effects, i.e. pass one band of colors but not others that would show the 'wrong' components or bad reflections inside the case, etc.

Wratten filter glass is available in smaller sizes but for stage lighting we used to use Kodak Wratten gels, 6x6 and 8x8 sheets.

Semi serious rig would at least have something rigged up to follow modulation, not just static background lighting. The H_g hollow state rectifiers in older rigs used to do that in violet.

So yes, an rf pickoff modulation of a gaseous discharge tube, say Argon, whatever's available from a Science supply house as spectral sources might be fun.  Edmund used to sell those back before they went mass market psyscho. Maybe they still do.

[W9ZSL]

Rick,
Exactly. Edmond had some good-sized concave infra-red reflectors however the focal length was really short. My idea was to build an infra-red reflector telescope in an air-tight IR resonant copper tube and point it straight at the sun. I know what you're thinking. That's real small. Wrong. The whole world works in octives. The copper/brass cavity is cut exactly like a klystron in reverse and acts as a new type of tube. Take the principal of a basic electronic tube. Reverse it and make it electro-mechanical. It's plumbing is exactly like a refridgerator working in reverse. In fact, a proto-type fridge powered by sound waves actually was built and worked. Throw in resonant frequencies on any mass and anything can happen. Correctamundo!!
 
Output temp would be controlled by the temp and pressure of the incoming CO2 and Neon mix entering around the mirror and focused through several vortexed mini De Lavalle nozzels directed at the focal point of the mirror to concentrate the gases over it. Put your secondary mirror (flat and also IR) at the same point to reflect back into the concave. Chain reaction. Barber shop mirrors but a lot hotter. Theoretically you could modulate it or further excite it with anything from microwave to very high frequency audio. That brings you back to a basic Maser (SP?) daddy of the Lazer. So there.   Music of the Spheres.

Mike

P.S. I picked out a pair of Lava Lamps for my op position. One has green globs and the other red. Will I have a problem if I put one each red and green curly flourescent 13 watt bulb in with my 4-125A or can I pull a Tessla?

P.P.S. In theory this would be an ideal heating system because it has external excitation as long as the sun is hanging around. Then again, you might soup it up to punch through clouds with one of the amplifiers. The output always goes into the next bigger tube. What happens to all the heat collected with earth-based infra-red telescopes? Whoo Hoo! Question of the day.     MMM

[Opcom]

I'm not sure CO2 can be optically pumped with the kind of sunlight available here.

A mixture of DF and CO2 can be pumped by a DF laser (http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=6546840) but that's not realy the same as collecting sunlight. A HBr laser can also pump a CO2 laser.

I have to confess I do not know the amount of light available here at suitable wavelengths or if it would be possible to collect enough of it to be usable considering the full spectrum that would be left over as it were to be disposed of.

A gasdynamic CO2 laser is close, but is pumped by heat and pressure as for example "fuel' is burnt conveniently in a gas turbine or other specialized burner and the exhaust gas is passed through expansion nozzles to freeze the vibrational state long enough to gt it into a cavity and extract the power from the gas. There is a one-page sheet from a great book on them here: http://laserstars.org/biglasers/continuous/gasdynamic.html

There is a nice image of a military experiment here.. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Carbon_Dioxide_Laser_At_The_Laser_Effects_Test_Facility.jpg) where certain special construction techniqies can be seen. Peace through light!

ok well it is a favorite subject anyway. Do you have any pics of what you built? It would be very interesting. You never know if you may invent somethig really cool. Get government fundng! . MASER = Means of Acquiring Support for Expensive Research.