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breakingtaps.com
Material science, microfab, microscopy, machining. Mostly :)
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The annual urge to build a modern letterpress has sidled into my brain yet again. 🙃 Hand-fed platen press, ballscrew/linear rails/servos to actuate press and inking rollers. Resin print the plate. Load cells to automatically tune the printing pressure, etc etc.

submitted 2 hours ago • 0 comments

Large area deposition ends up being quite easy, but does require a spacer between metal and glass which limits ability to pattern. Ag is great, Cu is tricky (oxidizes easily). Ti, Nb and Invar 36 seem good. Can make TiO2 easily too. Zr seems to oxidize immediately

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

Playing around with a laser thing today and accidentally found a good set of parameters for transferring aluminum onto glass. Neat!

submitted 2 days ago • 2 comments

mood

submitted 8 days ago • 3 comments

Shameless shilling: I'm selling some esoteric equipment! Want a 200 femtosecond IR laser, or a 532nm picosecond laser? How about a linear motor stage with 10nm resolution? Or an XYZ wafer stage with 250nm steps? I gotchu: www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_...

submitted 22 days ago • 1 comment

I own a lot of tripods apparently 😅

submitted 22 days ago • 3 comments

🔭 Athena to the Moon Image Credit: Intuitive Machines apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap25022...

submitted 28 days ago • 1 comment

Designing hardware for space is, unsurprisingly, hard! Join me for 35 minutes of discussion about all the considerations that go into designing and manufacturing a tiny little hinge.

submitted 28 days ago • 2 comments

Have some external deadlines popping up in my life so need to stop messing around and finish a video or two. First up: space hinges! Yell at me if you see me on social media before a video is posted plz k thx 🙏

submitted 30 days ago • 0 comments

Academic paper pet peeves: - "Facile" 🤬 - "Wearable" or "Flexible" as justification for importance - "Green process" because it uses a slightly less-bad solvent

submitted 33 days ago • 2 comments

Saturday optical alignment vibes

submitted 34 days ago • 1 comment

SIGH. Aligning optical assembly today and huh weird, red beam isn't passing the UV dichroic beamsplitter. Oh right that's because it's actually a UV bandpass filter 🤦

submitted 35 days ago • 2 comments

Waiting on a few components, but the rough layout is starting to look like a thing Litho v3 soon, hopefully? 🥺

submitted 36 days ago • 2 comments

I'll be at OpenSauce again this year! Had an absolute blast last year, and for some reason they decided to let me come back 😊 Looking forward to seeing all the cool exhibits and chatting with attendees!

submitted 38 days ago • 1 comment

I want to use bsky more! Who should I follow in: - optics - photonics - semiconductors - material science - manufacturing, machining - space, astronomy Or anything similar. Academic labs, startups, hobbyists, whatever!

submitted 41 days ago • 4 comments

hey mom can we have an optical breadboard? mom: no, we have an optical breadboard at home optical breadboard at home:

submitted 42 days ago • 1 comment

Today we triaged and repaired some andor deep cooled cameras. This four-stage tec camera was scrapped but we managed to save three cameras

submitted 47 days ago • 3 comments

New day, new hinge! Figured I should make a plain bearing version, since that's likely the right solution (and lots of feedback saying the same). Uses a carbon/PTFE-filled PEEK plain bearing A little concerned about thermal coefficients but that can shake out in testing

submitted 49 days ago • 2 comments

New hinge iteration! This one is a bit longer but half as tall (which is important to the application). Happier with this design, although it needs some alterations too. Does not include a latch either, but I think a separate latching mechanism is better anyway.

submitted 50 days ago • 2 comments