Published on
January 30, 2009 in
General.
I have been messing around with my color scheme ever since I started playing with KDE 4 this summer. At first, I used the “standard” dark foreground, light background schemes that I was somewhat familiar with from my desktop computer. However, after about a month and a half, I discovered that light-on-dark schemes have drastically better readability. So, I tried a few of the dark color schemes on KDE-Look.org, but wasn’t really happy with any of them.
So, over the past week or so, I’ve been slowly building Eclipse, a scheme with (hopefully) high readability. Backgrounds are gray (with active content having a slight hint of blue). Selected items, which have a deep blue highlight, stand out strongly and hovered items are even stronger, as they have a light-blue border.
You can get the theme over at KDE-Look.org.
Good news: I finally figured out how to squeeze the driver board and diode all into the heatsink without totally destroying everything like I did last time.
Bad news: I screwed up another diode.
It started with a perfect PHR extraction. For the first time, I actually got the PCB boards off of the diode with ease.
Then, I removed the metal heatsink surrounding the diode in the same way that I have always done: with two pairs of pliers. However, I think one pair slipped because when I turned the diode around, I saw one side of it slightly damaged and noticed the window had shattered. 
I decided to throw it into the module just for kicks. I found a clever way to assemble it (basically, I turned the driver so that the output pins were on the end nearest the battery and fed the wires from the diode under the driver).
To my surprise, the diode still lases, but only very weakly. Take look:
I finally finished the heatsink by using a milling machine to cut out a hole for the driver. I took the heatsink back to my dorm and fiddled with the module and the driver for a while until I managed to squeeze them all in. Then, I screwed the flashlight together, and it worked!… well, for about 30 seconds anyways… Unfortunately, there was a short or something and the diode died. So, I have to use yet another diode.
So, no awesome pics.
In other news, although I had made some progress a few months ago with making a blog theme to match my site, I have decided that I will modify the newest version of K2 instead. Thankfully, K2 is pretty customizable (supports custom themes and custom function overrides), so I have only needed to make small changes to the core theme (such as removing the page links). The current design is a start, but I have more planned.
Unfortunately, my original heatsink plans aren’t going to work out. DrLava claims that the driver is 12mmx12mm, but I discovered that it is really about 12.3mmx13.7mm. This actually makes a huge difference for the heatsink because it no longer will fit flush with the surface as I had originally planned. So, I created an alternate plan, detailed here:
I have also updated the schematic drawing.
The new design basically allows you to “slot-load” the driver. It should fit nicely. However, it will need some kind of spring thing on the end; I haven’t quite found something that will work yet. It would probably be a good idea to insulate the cavity as before.
I improved the heatsink a bit so that the AixiZ module would fit in completely. Then, I smothered the cavity with thermal grease and stuck the diode in. The results were spectacular.
Well, the heatsink is almost finished (I just need to do a little milling work), so here are two pics of the laser in action.
Unfortunately, these pictures are not of the same diode. The first diode installed fine, but its glass window partially shattered and then the whole diode died shortly afterwards. The second diode still seems to be holding up, though. The beam is visible from an almost-parallel angle, too, which is pretty cool.
Just a little more work and this project will be done.
So, I’m building two different types of Blu-Ray lasers. The first one is pretty simple. Here are my plans:
Continue reading ‘BR Laser #1 Plans’
(finally getting back to blogging)
IAP is yet another MIT acronym. It officially stands for Independent Activities Period, but in reality means different things to different people. For some, it really stands for “extra-long vacation” (which I suppose is great if you live far away and would like to spend the cold Cambridge winters elsewhere). Others come back to campus to take classes, work on projects, or participate in insane competitions. At any rate, IAP lasts through the month of January and you are not required to take any “official” academic classes (although you can).
Since winter in Lexington is pretty much the same as winter in Cambridge, I decided that I would head back to campus after two weeks of eating delicious home-cooked food (and yes, that’s pretty much all I did during my vacation). I signed up in a lottery for a class called 6.091 (MIT does everything in numbers, remember?), which is a hands-on introductory course in EE. I was lucky enough to get in, so I’ll be starting that next week.
I have a few more things lined up for IAP, too, including:
- doing some interesting software development work for the Shakespeare Project.
- building three Blu-Ray lasers (two for me and one for Colin… more on these projects, including schematics, soon)
- memorizing pi again. I’m up to 700 digits now.
- getting involved with the up-and-coming Next Make group (more on this much later)
So, yes, even though I don’t have any official classes, I’m staying very busy.
Anyways, I’m drawing up plans for the Blu-Ray lasers. Hopefully I’ll have them completely finished soon.
Last thing: I updated my homepage a bit to reduce some menu clutter. You can get to my software from “Projects”.
