Handcrafted Scope Clocks with circle graphics
Here we see the original Oscilloclock Prototype leaping for joy with the glorious Leap Second! The Hourly XY Bump screen-saver even bumps the screen twice, just for added effect.
Note: Flicker is due to camera effects and is not visible to the human eye.
It’s singular.
It’s exciting.
And it’s coming very soon.
On 30 June 2015, for exactly one second, time will stop!
Really?
(more…)Only just after I’d written last month’s post about an X-Y-Z display for an HUD, the customer asked for a spot of extra help with his new playtoy.
The Oscilloclock Deflection Board currently assumes X and Y input ranges of 0-5V, centred on 2.5V. However, the customer was programming an Arduino-based controller board with analogue output from 0-3.3V. Applying this directly of course didn’t break anything, but sure did make it hard to centre on screen! Would there be a quick way to adjust voltage levels?
Another issue was that the gain in the current-revision Deflection Board is hard-wired, and the image was not the right scale to just fit the screen. The gain could be changed via a single resistor per channel, but would there be an easier, more flexible way?
YES on both accounts!
(more…)
Recently I received a most intriguing request: I was asked to build a self-contained, super-bright X-Y display unit with 3-inch CRT, for use in an “HUD“. Hmm…
Holographic Utterance Device?
Horizontally Unstable Doohickie?
…
Fortunately, I didn’t need to guess any further. As I was once an avid flight simulator enthusiast, I quickly hit upon the correct meaning: Head-Up Display. This is a mechanism that overlays instrumentation or map data onto the view looking forward from the cockpit, so that the pilot doesn’t have to look down to see this information.
Wikipedia has a great introduction to HUDs and their history, but Mike’s Flight Deck has the definitive tome for flight simulator enthusiasts who want to actually build an HUD. According to Mike, the system employs various optical paraphernalia, but at the heart of the mechanism is what lies closest to my own heart – a CRT Display!
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall…
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall…
…and so the great nursery rhyme goes! But here at Oscilloclock labs, we’re not talking about an egg (which, one theory goes, represented the defeated King Richard III). We’re talking about a beautiful old CRT, savagely shaken and shattered during international shipping. What a waste. But oh, what a great chance to see the insides close-up!
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