I can translate better than GL. The first value of 0.07 means exactly: " The total maximum deviation from absolute flatness of working surface is not more than 0.07 of micron at any place" Another value of 0.02 means: " The local deviation from flattness of working surface is not more than 0.02 of micron" The soviet industry was making two types of flattness measuring glass plates: PI (shown at your video and PM. The difference is that fist one have one working surface and second one have both sides with very very high grade of parallelism. Fist is designed to observe defraction lines pattern of air gape betveen tested surface and etalone glass surface fitted on it. Second can do the same, but also you can invesigate difference of opical way to front surface in monochrome light to obtaine absolute values of flatness deviation. This really very precise instrument to control flattness with acuracy exceeding most needs of tooling purpose.
I've used Neon indicator bulbs successfully for this application. This is quite a small light source and 3 or more bulbs can be used in parallel with the right resistor in series. I didn't have an optical flat for my work at that time (30 or so years ago) and used a small piece of float glass instead. Worked quire well for my application: checking the flatness of mechanical seal surfaces. This was a custom made seal for a small shaft on a pressurized hot air engine.
Tom, every time I watch one of your videos, it costs me money. I didn't know what an optical flat WAS, never mind that I NEEDED one until I watched your video! Well done OM, thanks for the info.
" you can take the boy out of Russia but you can't take Russia out of the boy". I quickly sketched that symbol on a piece of paper and showed it to a colleague who used to work in Russia, he was on a conference call and couldn't talk, and the message in his eyes was priceless :) Cool measurement system. Thanks.
Thanks a bunch for this video! I just took over our lapping area at work and have really no clue about what is all involved with it, but your video helped explain a lot without over complicating it.
Very interesting and informative. I have always found it very difficult to see interference fringes, but the He light made a huge difference. Your magic trick was mind-blowing. Translation of languages is one of the most difficult of all problems.
Tom, I used clips of your videos to demonstrate the Fringe Patterns while using the optical flats we use here creating learning videos. I cited your channel on all of the captures I used. I captured 2 short captures, and a few still captures to demonstrate to students what they are expecting to see. If you have questions we talk offline. We can even do a zoom chat which a secure platform.
I'll admit that I have not made careful drawings, but I am pretty certain that I know what causes those regular interference patterns. The thickness of the optical flat, measured perpendicularly, is some value T+-70 nanometers anywhere over the flat. The perpendicular thickness varies by about 1/8 wavelength. In other words, this is standard 1/8 wave optics. However, the light you see is a reflection from the shiny reference surface. It goes through the flat (plus any air gap) twice at an angle theta. Theta varies from point to point in your image, just like with any mirror. If G is the air gap, then the effective "thickness" of the plate is (T+G)/cos(theta). It's the cos(theta) term that determines the spacing. Cool stuff! Thanks for showing us all this.
You can also use sodium lamps, they're commonly used to grow 'plants' so should be fairly easy to get hold of, and the wavelength is very close to that of helium. Some LEDs might also give better results than 'daylight' tubes. I'll be getting an optical flat sometime soon so I'll try a few out.
One can use an inexpensive low pressure sodium (LPS) lamp from the local big box store. The wavelength is very nearly 589 nanometers. This will provide far better fringes than daylight fluorescent fixtures and is nearly an order of magnitude less expensive than a new helium light source with power supply. I get better results when I remove the plastic diffusser from the LPS fixture. Your mileage may vary.
Led's are never as precisely monochromatic as gas discharge tubes - they have a variable electron gap, so they can produce a band of wavelengths instead of a single.
Still, they have to be a lot better than 'daylight' florescent bulbs, no? I guess there's not that much price advantage over LPS. I seem to recall that years ago sodium was the lamp of choice for optical flats. When did helium take over?
do we/ can we check this? that would be so much cheaper that and we could put those cheap lights in the lab so flats can just be used without turning on a separate source.
The translator app was made possible by everyone's authentication on captchas. It's a similar tech with ReadIRIS's OCR but in this particular case, the app has a library of words that have been already transplanted from image to actual text. Which from there it's far easier to translate. And, yes, it's much faster than letter to letter translation. The app grabs a word vs letters. For example, if a word has never been put in to text-from-image, like say, some WW2 German word of notable length, the app will have trouble with it (tho, i suspect that it might also have some point to point or at least half word function based on some of the half grabs i've seen).
Neon light will work well. A flouroescent light with a green filter works, as does viewing thru green transparent film..or green glasses. Any curvature of the bands is easier to see with fewer fringes, so adjust the number of fringest 3-4 for the greatest accuracy.
About the Soviet quality mark from Wikipedia: The sign is a pentagonal shield with a rotated letter К (from Russian word качество, kachestvo - quality) stylized as scales below the Cyrillic abbreviation СССР, SSSR (USSR).
Great video Tom, I've only ever used fluorescent lights with mine, and at times they can be hard to read. I've wondered if a diffused laser or even standard LED could be used, but haven't had a chance to try. Other light sources could make a good follow up video suggestion as this has come up before.
Lol. None of this is top-secret. Get a smartphone, browse the internet and just show a general interest in new technology. You'll get there soon enough! ;)
I think you can use a sodium lamp also (as in street lights). They also have a sharp spectral line, which will surely produce better fringing than luminecent lamp.
Yes. It is by far not as clean as He-lamp, but it works in a pinch and is a lot cheaper. Also one could use a laser pointer, as that is also very monochromatic, but lighting a table with laser pointer gets difficult fast :)
Raido Enn Low pressure is the key. I'm not sure if you have ever tried the laser or not. I tested with the He-Ne laser we have, expecting to see some chrisp fringe, but result was quite disappointing. The fringe is quite fuzzy.... even with all the other lights turned off
We have some optical lab work (practical course) in university and use Soviet era mercury lamps for the same reason. You would have to have a very powerful laser and diverge the beam to get some well visible fringing, but a lab He-Ne is usually not intensive enough (although being very monochromatic). So for all practical purposes, some atomic emission lamp is your best bet.
1st: Whole degree of deviation from the working surface flat is: -0.07 micrometers. 2nd: Local degree of deviation from the working surface flat is: 0.02 micrometers. It's a second-class quality of accuracy so it's cheap but extremely useful. And yep! It's USSR made. Not in Russia. May be this stuff is 30 years old.
Great tips Tom - and a timely posting -I just dug out my (ebay) optical flats earlier today to look at deformation under clamping pressure (I'm trying to machine an aluminium heatsink to an acceptable flatness and need to play with clamping pressure) , my flats work kind of ok by eye with fluroescent lighting, but I can't get my camera to see the rainbow fringes, I tried our external low pressure sodium floodlight (a light source suggested by Gottfried Schuss in an earlier comment) once it got dark enough outside , and it looks much more promising :)
Hi Tom, the floodlight I have is LPS I believe (low pressure) aka SOX - these are yellow (two spectral lines around 590nm), the HPS lamps have lines from violet through to red, so may not be so useful - I might be wrong and the one I have may be HPS - I've ordered a SOX bulb and control gear so I can do this indoors - total cost around 50 GBP/70 USD from a lighting store, Cheers, Ray
If you get circles it can be hard to decide wether the part is concave or convex(high or low spot). By pressing with your finger, if the pattern moves towards your finger the part is convex, if it moves away from your finger its concave. Carbon parts can be tricky, they must be polished to a shine to be able to read. Getting both the shine and the correct shape i.e concave/convex (no you don't always want flat parts) is hard
Helium discharge lamps are pretty expensive. Much cheaper to use a laser pointer with a beam spreader or diffuser. A green, blue or purple laser would provide more accurate measurements than the yellow peak of helium emission, by virtue of their shorter wavelengths (typically 532nm, 447nm, and 405nm respectively for green, blue and purple, compared with the 588nm line of helium)
Would LED light source be good for this? Usually the different colors are rated in their nanometer wavelengths. It was interesting that I had a 650nm laser and a 670 nm laser, to they eyes, 650 looked brighter, but to a camera with IR filter removed, the 670 was brighter.
If you like to buy on ebay, just buy a vintage tanning bulb for $25 and aim it a white ceiling. Who needs helium or sodium light ? Also I was waiting to see you put it on something that would show us only 5 fringes.
Hello friend, your video is very interesting. I have a flat Russian optician. I need to get the monochromatic light. Can you tell me where to get it? Thank you very much for your help. Regards, Luis
I just found a optic flat cylindrical test plate made by The VanKeuren Co. Watertown Mass. At a garage sale last weekend and they gave it to me with a few other stuff that didn’t sell at the end . I new it was a testing / calibration tool of sort. Thought it would make a good paper weight or ? As I watched your clip and the pitted flat needs a backup . ? Honestly I just stumbled across your channel and watched a few of the videos and realized that it wood be a shame to let it sit in my shot as a beer coaster ! So up fo grabs just take care of shipping cost , it feels like 10 lbs + and has nice case it stores in . 6” x 1” + /- surfaced both sides. OBTW. I did ask how they got it , they purchased the home a few years back from a elderly man that was a engineer for Hanford DOE site for over 40 years. I can send you pics and let me know if you or someone can use it . Allen S near Hanford Wa USA
Have you tried using a white LED light to see the fringes? They are typically a blue LED with some phosphors to balance out the color to white, but the spectrum typically still has a very strong blue peak compared to the much weaker and broader red peak. I'm curious if you get better results compared to a fluorescent.
So what I'm hearing is that you want to use a single wavelength light source to maximize the interference. I'd try a low pressure sodium vapor lamp (The kind used in cities, and the cheaper the better.) because they're common and have one dominant wavelength.
Some colored LED's are rated in nanometer spectra. Red for example is commonly rated 620 Nm. An array might make a nice monochronomatic light source. There are over 6000 eBay hits for red colored LED flashlights and many are less than $10. The distance represented by fringe deviation will have to be figured in based on the actual color wavelength. Anyway monochromatic light can be affordable
Hi Forrest. Rick also sent along a special LED flashlight for looking at gemstones. Don't know the specifics of it but it was a dud with the optical flat. Good to hear from you. Cheers. Tom
oxtoolco Was that gem light monochromatic? Filtered? Do they make LED's to spectrum now? I've seen strong fringes in LED red on stacked Mylar sheets. Pack your flat and specimen out to the driveway and try it on the LED tail light of your radical ride.
Doesnt the frequency mean how quickly the gap changes over the surface? If the two surfaces were absolutely perfect and exactly parallel the frequency would be 0, ie no bands at all.
Good LED in different colors can do the job because they emit mostly in a single wavelength, a LASER can also do the work very well, I suppose it should be scattered, but what matters here is that it is a monochromatic light. For sure any of these is cheaper than a Helium bulb and much better than fluorescent. And the best thing is to turn off other light sources while testing.
Russia is a country of contrasts. Where the greatest accomplishments drown in the swamp of poverty and madness of leaders. ruclips.net/video/AguQ8NHywDI/видео.html
Bill De La Vega in my laser technician classes we placed a new sheet of lens paper on the lens surface and wet it with acetone just to the point that the entire surface was wetted. Then you slowly pull the paper off in the same plane as the surface. Repeat as necessary.
Years ago we used to clean the flat in a laminar flow clean room with 190% ethanol (we also had great Christmas parties in that division of our company.
Yes when I was a graduate researcher we had optics that were part of a laser diode velocimetry rig and used ethanol (which was not denatured) to clean them. One of my lab mates got a little buzzed by the vapors after she cleaned a bunch of mirrors and lenses.
Hmm I thought that acetone would damage some optics which were coated? But I guess in this case that's not a problem. I'm wondering if hardware store variety is pure enough?
ETOH or Acetone. Would depend on the coatings. The etoh we used was Graves fine distilled. 190-200 proof. A few livers suffered greatly. (Available at select, exclusive "Spirits" vendors.
The smallest strong wavelength wavelength from a Helium atom is at about 447nm. You can buy LEDs with their maxima at this wavelength (royal blue). Just google 447nm LED, cost you a fiver or so for a 2W one. That will be plenty.
Can you use a laser-pointer with a light-diffuser to look at fringes? I am thinking that laser-pointers might be an inexpensive monochromatic light source? Not sure how to make or set-up a light-diffuser to spread out the laser light. But might be worth a try? Maybe this: small lens to spread out the light onto a piece of paper which then diffuses/reflects the light?
With the polished sample under normal florescent light what color of the fringes are actually in contact with it optical flat? The purple, green or yellow?
I find it interesting,you can acquire a precision device from the source stated,which would seem to be necessary for the former residents of the area indicated,to reproduce precision machining for their industries.Makes one consider why it becomes useless to them now? have they no need for such devices? when most government entities would highly covet them!!
Great video as always. Out of curiosity, I looked on eBay, and there's still a bunch of these available. Had a question though: they are labeled as "bottom" and "top". Any idea what that means in practical terms? Does it matter which kind is used for this sort of analysis? In one of the lapping videos, you mentioned concave vs convex flats, wonder if that's what this refers to...
I know you......”kind” of mentioned a way to calculate how far out of flat the plate is, but you didn’t show us how. Is there a formula that you plug in values , that you get from a chart that gives you the values based on the spacing of the lines established by the wave length of the light source. Sorry, it started as a simple question? Fascinating subject, thank you for giving us your time. -P
Check out Edmunds or Van Keuren on how to read optical flat fringes. Some good information. Basically its the amount of the bow that gives you dimensional information on the curvatures. It can get pretty complicated depending on where the flat is touching down and the bands curvatures that show. Plenty for an entire video. Cheers. Tom
Really loving these high accuracy based videos you and @robrens make. Is it actually a measurable means of flatness or just a representation of how flat something is or isnt and where high spots are?
Tom, you kept saying Helium Lights, are you sure ? When I did optics at work we used a SODIUM Lamp, yellow glow as in street lights. This would also show up any stress marks in glass.
Hey Dave. Quite sure. Mine is made by Lapmaster and is a helium gas lamp that is diffused through a screen. Sodium would work as well but I don't know if the bands would be as crisp. Never tried one. Cheers. Tom
ermennda laser with some kind of defocusing lense may be a good substitute for sodium or helium lights. will try it as soon as laser diodes show up in mail from china
Hey Tom, kind of off topic but, you did a video a while back in which you made a template and followed it with an indicator keeping it as close to zero as possible as the lathe fed in. Ive been trying to find it as I have to do something similar for a job at work coming up and want to see how you did the job to refresh my memory. Could you tell me the name of the video if its still up?
Just FYI: On that paper part of that text was written by hand (2nd line). It means "bottom" or "lower", so this flat glass plate is bottom/lower. Lower plates were 60, 80, 100, 120mm , when top one was 60mm only. Plates were produced in two types: lower and upper. The lower (supporting) plates are used to check the lapping and flatness of the measuring surfaces of the end measures of length, calibers, measuring instruments and tools. The upper plates are used to measure the plane-parallel end measures of length by a technical interference method. I've get this text from Internet and translate it for you. I neverI'm not sure how work with these plates. @Tom could you explain more about them? some pics of upper plate: images.ua.prom.st/14435431_w800_h640_dc120709008.jpg images.ua.prom.st/14435433_w800_h640_dc120709010.jpg
I have one of the "top" plates. It has a large, angled surface (1/3 the surface) on the side that has the cross lines scribed on it. What is the use case for this special flat?
Hi there. You need to look on E-bay USA. I tried the Australian and British sites without success. I bought a 100 mm exactly the same according to the photo and it had the same data sheet. $ 85 + $ 20 postage from UKRAINE. He is still listing an 60 mm for $ 55 Here is the link. www.ebay.com/itm/Optical-Flat-Parallel-Top-60mm/222687471409?hash=item33d9352731:g:6coAAOSwu4BV0NTp
I can translate better than GL. The first value of 0.07 means exactly: " The total maximum deviation from absolute flatness of working surface is not more than 0.07 of micron at any place"
Another value of 0.02 means: " The local deviation from flattness of working surface is not more than 0.02 of micron"
The soviet industry was making two types of flattness measuring glass plates: PI (shown at your video and PM. The difference is that fist one have one working surface and second one have both sides with very very high grade of parallelism. Fist is designed to observe defraction lines pattern of air gape betveen tested surface and etalone glass surface fitted on it. Second can do the same, but also you can invesigate difference of opical way to front surface in monochrome light to obtaine absolute values of flatness deviation.
This really very precise instrument to control flattness with acuracy exceeding most needs of tooling purpose.
What source of light would you usually use with it? sodium lamp maybe? They are pretty monochromatic.
Sodium or helium. Any gaseous bulb with a narrow band of spectra. Not sure if led can work but seems possible.
I've used Neon indicator bulbs successfully for this application. This is quite a small light source and 3 or more bulbs can be used in parallel with the right resistor in series.
I didn't have an optical flat for my work at that time (30 or so years ago) and used a small piece of float glass instead. Worked quire well for my application: checking the flatness of mechanical seal surfaces. This was a custom made seal for a small shaft on a pressurized hot air engine.
Tom, every time I watch one of your videos, it costs me money. I didn't know what an optical flat WAS, never mind that I NEEDED one until I watched your video! Well done OM, thanks for the info.
" you can take the boy out of Russia but you can't take Russia out of the boy". I quickly sketched that symbol on a piece of paper and showed it to a colleague who used to work in Russia, he was on a conference call and couldn't talk, and the message in his eyes was priceless :) Cool measurement system. Thanks.
Thanks a bunch for this video! I just took over our lapping area at work and have really no clue about what is all involved with it, but your video helped explain a lot without over complicating it.
Very interesting and informative. I have always found it very difficult to see interference fringes, but the He light made a huge difference. Your magic trick was mind-blowing. Translation of languages is one of the most difficult of all problems.
Erm, I referred to the translation app on the phone.
Tom, I used clips of your videos to demonstrate the Fringe Patterns while using the optical flats we use here creating learning videos. I cited your channel on all of the captures I used. I captured 2 short captures, and a few still captures to demonstrate to students what they are expecting to see. If you have questions we talk offline. We can even do a zoom chat which a secure platform.
Good to see you posting again! You do come up with some really interesting things.
One if the coolest things I've seen recently. Thanks for sharing it
Glad to see you back.. thanks for the video.
Thanks Tom, you never cease to pique my interest.
I'll admit that I have not made careful drawings, but I am pretty certain that I know what causes those regular interference patterns. The thickness of the optical flat, measured perpendicularly, is some value T+-70 nanometers anywhere over the flat. The perpendicular thickness varies by about 1/8 wavelength. In other words, this is standard 1/8 wave optics.
However, the light you see is a reflection from the shiny reference surface. It goes through the flat (plus any air gap) twice at an angle theta. Theta varies from point to point in your image, just like with any mirror. If G is the air gap, then the effective "thickness" of the plate is (T+G)/cos(theta). It's the cos(theta) term that determines the spacing.
Cool stuff! Thanks for showing us all this.
You can also use sodium lamps, they're commonly used to grow 'plants' so should be fairly easy to get hold of, and the wavelength is very close to that of helium. Some LEDs might also give better results than 'daylight' tubes. I'll be getting an optical flat sometime soon so I'll try a few out.
Tom Lipton: Collimating with the Russians to influence the refractions!!
One can use an inexpensive low pressure sodium (LPS) lamp from the local big box store. The wavelength is very nearly 589 nanometers. This will provide far better fringes than daylight fluorescent fixtures and is nearly an order of magnitude less expensive than a new helium light source with power supply. I get better results when I remove the plastic diffusser from the LPS fixture. Your mileage may vary.
A coloured LED lamp should work well too. Red map lights (to prevent ruining your night vision) are pretty easy to find.
Led's are never as precisely monochromatic as gas discharge tubes - they have a variable electron gap, so they can produce a band of wavelengths instead of a single.
Still, they have to be a lot better than 'daylight' florescent bulbs, no? I guess there's not that much price advantage over LPS.
I seem to recall that years ago sodium was the lamp of choice for optical flats. When did helium take over?
Colorblind people might have a problem with non-monochromatic light, too.
do we/ can we check this? that would be so much cheaper that and we could put those cheap lights in the lab so flats can just be used without turning on a separate source.
Super super cool video ! Thankyou for posting !
The translator app was made possible by everyone's authentication on captchas. It's a similar tech with ReadIRIS's OCR but in this particular case, the app has a library of words that have been already transplanted from image to actual text. Which from there it's far easier to translate.
And, yes, it's much faster than letter to letter translation. The app grabs a word vs letters.
For example, if a word has never been put in to text-from-image, like say, some WW2 German word of notable length, the app will have trouble with it (tho, i suspect that it might also have some point to point or at least half word function based on some of the half grabs i've seen).
That toolmakers flat is begging to be lapped! Nice one Tom.
ATB, Robin
Maybe a video for you to do :P You've been gone for too long!
You are right!
"In Soviet Russia, optics flatten you!"
are you my real dad?
Always happy to see the other "mucking about in their shop" youtubers on each others videos.
No, he's your weird uncle.
VEC7ORlt that's Uncle Bumblefuć...
Troll alert.
thanks for another interesting and informative post!
The fact that the optical flat floats on air is awesome.
i believe the ПИ-80 is a bottom optical flat, so the working surface is the top one (marked). the bottom face is not guaranteed to be flat
Neon light will work well. A flouroescent light with a green filter works, as does viewing thru green transparent film..or green glasses. Any curvature of the bands is easier to see with fewer fringes, so adjust the number of fringest 3-4 for the greatest accuracy.
Thanks professor Ox. Learned something today.
Having principles is a good thing
About the Soviet quality mark from Wikipedia: The sign is a pentagonal shield with a rotated letter К (from Russian word качество, kachestvo - quality) stylized as scales below the Cyrillic abbreviation СССР, SSSR (USSR).
Very interesting stuff. I think that LPS lights should also work for that purpose as they put out monochromatic light. They are pretty affordable.
That’s brilliant. The google translate I mean. Also insights into optics. V good!
that was awesome, thank you
Great video Tom, I've only ever used fluorescent lights with mine, and at times they can be hard to read. I've wondered if a diffused laser or even standard LED could be used, but haven't had a chance to try. Other light sources could make a good follow up video suggestion as this has come up before.
In the realm of the minuscule things get very interesting Tom.
Thanks Tom, The translator is amazing. Makes me wonder how much is "out there" that I don't have a clue how to access. Thanks for the share.
Lol. None of this is top-secret. Get a smartphone, browse the internet and just show a general interest in new technology. You'll get there soon enough! ;)
I think you can use a sodium lamp also (as in street lights). They also have a sharp spectral line, which will surely produce better fringing than luminecent lamp.
Raido Enn I researched on that earlier. Seems like low pressure sodium light has a really good chromatic character
Yes. It is by far not as clean as He-lamp, but it works in a pinch and is a lot cheaper. Also one could use a laser pointer, as that is also very monochromatic, but lighting a table with laser pointer gets difficult fast :)
Raido Enn Low pressure is the key. I'm not sure if you have ever tried the laser or not. I tested with the He-Ne laser we have, expecting to see some chrisp fringe, but result was quite disappointing. The fringe is quite fuzzy.... even with all the other lights turned off
We have some optical lab work (practical course) in university and use Soviet era mercury lamps for the same reason. You would have to have a very powerful laser and diverge the beam to get some well visible fringing, but a lab He-Ne is usually not intensive enough (although being very monochromatic). So for all practical purposes, some atomic emission lamp is your best bet.
Simon P it might be speckle due to coherence of hene (and many other) lasers
A darkroom light seems to work pretty well, as well. I picked up and old one for €30 and get some good fringes on gage blocks.
Good idea.
1st: Whole degree of deviation from the working surface flat is: -0.07 micrometers.
2nd: Local degree of deviation from the working surface flat is: 0.02 micrometers.
It's a second-class quality of accuracy so it's cheap but extremely useful.
And yep! It's USSR made. Not in Russia. May be this stuff is 30 years old.
On the back side of certificate it says it's made in 1981
Great tips Tom - and a timely posting -I just dug out my (ebay) optical flats earlier today to look at deformation under clamping pressure (I'm trying to machine an aluminium heatsink to an acceptable flatness and need to play with clamping pressure) , my flats work kind of ok by eye with fluroescent lighting, but I can't get my camera to see the rainbow fringes, I tried our external low pressure sodium floodlight (a light source suggested by Gottfried Schuss in an earlier comment) once it got dark enough outside , and it looks much more promising :)
Good to hear. I should try to find a HPS lamp to test. Cheers. Tom
Hi Tom, the floodlight I have is LPS I believe (low pressure) aka SOX - these are yellow (two spectral lines around 590nm), the HPS lamps have lines from violet through to red, so may not be so useful - I might be wrong and the one I have may be HPS - I've ordered a SOX bulb and control gear so I can do this indoors - total cost around 50 GBP/70 USD from a lighting store, Cheers, Ray
Thanks for the video.
Hi Tom, How much do surface scratches on the glass affect usability? Great video! Thanks for sharing all your tips on metrology (and magic too).
If you get circles it can be hard to decide wether the part is concave or convex(high or low spot). By pressing with your finger, if the pattern moves towards your finger the part is convex, if it moves away from your finger its concave.
Carbon parts can be tricky, they must be polished to a shine to be able to read. Getting both the shine and the correct shape i.e concave/convex (no you don't always want flat parts) is hard
Very Nice Sir, please dwell upon the measurement/distance of optical bands in relation to the (given) lambda of the helium light. Thanks
Helium discharge lamps are pretty expensive. Much cheaper to use a laser pointer with a beam spreader or diffuser. A green, blue or purple laser would provide more accurate measurements than the yellow peak of helium emission, by virtue of their shorter wavelengths (typically 532nm, 447nm, and 405nm respectively for green, blue and purple, compared with the 588nm line of helium)
Cool stuff.
great video. as usual.
Would LED light source be good for this? Usually the different colors are rated in their nanometer wavelengths. It was interesting that I had a 650nm laser and a 670 nm laser, to they eyes, 650 looked brighter, but to a camera with IR filter removed, the 670 was brighter.
If you like to buy on ebay, just buy a vintage tanning bulb for $25 and aim it a white ceiling. Who needs helium or sodium light ? Also I was waiting to see you put it on something that would show us only 5 fringes.
That Translate also blew me away. As a guy about your age who remembers needing quarters for a pay phone....You're right, we're living in the future.
I had no idea Google Lens could do that. Thanks.
Hello friend, your video is very interesting. I have a flat Russian optician. I need to get the monochromatic light. Can you tell me where to get it? Thank you very much for your help. Regards, Luis
I just found a optic flat cylindrical test plate made by The VanKeuren Co. Watertown Mass. At a garage sale last weekend and they gave it to me with a few other stuff that didn’t sell at the end . I new it was a testing / calibration tool of sort. Thought it would make a good paper weight or ? As I watched your clip and the pitted flat needs a backup . ?
Honestly I just stumbled across your channel and watched a few of the videos and realized that it wood be a shame to let it sit in my shot as a beer coaster ! So up fo grabs just take care of shipping cost , it feels like 10 lbs + and has nice case it stores in . 6” x 1” + /- surfaced both sides. OBTW. I did ask how they got it , they purchased the home a few years back from a elderly man that was a engineer for Hanford DOE site for over 40 years. I can send you pics and let me know if you or someone can use it .
Allen S near Hanford Wa USA
I posted a short clip of the plate on my page
so with a lot of time and effort you might get some pretty interesting results on your surface plate I would say ;-)
That's some interesting stuff.
Have you tried using a white LED light to see the fringes? They are typically a blue LED with some phosphors to balance out the color to white, but the spectrum typically still has a very strong blue peak compared to the much weaker and broader red peak. I'm curious if you get better results compared to a fluorescent.
Explanation of what the heck an optical flat is, and what it does, starts at 10:00
How about looking at fringes on one of your collumater mirrors?? That would be cool!
That’s very cool.
So what I'm hearing is that you want to use a single wavelength light source to maximize the interference. I'd try a low pressure sodium vapor lamp (The kind used in cities, and the cheaper the better.) because they're common and have one dominant wavelength.
Some colored LED's are rated in nanometer spectra. Red for example is commonly rated 620 Nm. An array might make a nice monochronomatic light source. There are over 6000 eBay hits for red colored LED flashlights and many are less than $10. The distance represented by fringe deviation will have to be figured in based on the actual color wavelength.
Anyway monochromatic light can be affordable
Hi Forrest. Rick also sent along a special LED flashlight for looking at gemstones. Don't know the specifics of it but it was a dud with the optical flat. Good to hear from you. Cheers. Tom
oxtoolco Was that gem light monochromatic? Filtered? Do they make LED's to spectrum now? I've seen strong fringes in LED red on stacked Mylar sheets. Pack your flat and specimen out to the driveway and try it on the LED tail light of your radical ride.
Doesnt the frequency mean how quickly the gap changes over the surface? If the two surfaces were absolutely perfect and exactly parallel the frequency would be 0, ie no bands at all.
Good LED in different colors can do the job because they emit mostly in a single wavelength, a LASER can also do the work very well, I suppose it should be scattered, but what matters here is that it is a monochromatic light. For sure any of these is cheaper than a Helium bulb and much better than fluorescent. And the best thing is to turn off other light sources while testing.
Cool, thanks!
All best from Ussr
What would happen if you tryed a granite surface plate?
Ah those Russians. This was flat out interesting though.
I felt the content was a little flat.
Russia is a country of contrasts. Where the greatest accomplishments drown in the swamp of poverty and madness of leaders.
ruclips.net/video/AguQ8NHywDI/видео.html
That was interesting!
Cool, as usual
colored LEDs might be a good option for a monochromatic light source.
Good info Tom. The translator app reminds me of the sun glasses in the movie "They Live". Any special tricks on cleaning optical flats?
Bill De La Vega in my laser technician classes we placed a new sheet of lens paper on the lens surface and wet it with acetone just to the point that the entire surface was wetted. Then you slowly pull the paper off in the same plane as the surface. Repeat as necessary.
Years ago we used to clean the flat in a laminar flow clean room with 190% ethanol (we also had great Christmas parties in that division of our company.
Yes when I was a graduate researcher we had optics that were part of a laser diode velocimetry rig and used ethanol (which was not denatured) to clean them. One of my lab mates got a little buzzed by the vapors after she cleaned a bunch of mirrors and lenses.
Hmm I thought that acetone would damage some optics which were coated? But I guess in this case that's not a problem. I'm wondering if hardware store variety is pure enough?
ETOH or Acetone. Would depend on the coatings. The etoh we used was Graves fine distilled. 190-200 proof. A few livers suffered greatly. (Available at select, exclusive "Spirits" vendors.
Hi Tom, do you think I could build a light source using LED's of the correct wavelength?
So how good are your diy flats?
That's funny :-)))
The smallest strong wavelength wavelength from a Helium atom is at about 447nm. You can buy LEDs with their maxima at this wavelength (royal blue). Just google 447nm LED, cost you a fiver or so for a 2W one. That will be plenty.
Can you use a laser-pointer with a light-diffuser to look at fringes? I am thinking that laser-pointers might be an inexpensive monochromatic light source? Not sure how to make or set-up a light-diffuser to spread out the laser light. But might be worth a try?
Maybe this: small lens to spread out the light onto a piece of paper which then diffuses/reflects the light?
I've got a lot of good things from the USSR. Many Camera lenses and scintillation detectors.
and mercury batteries still, great for my old cameras.
With the polished sample under normal florescent light what color of the fringes are actually in contact with it optical flat? The purple, green or yellow?
what is the model of the He lamp? all i have are tube sources for He light and it is very pink compared to your orange
i thought you had another video on optical flats. i cant find it right now.
thankyou. I have a very similar one.
Hi Tom, If I am right it can only be used on a reflective surface.
Correct. The surface you are checking needs to be fairly reflective to show fringes. Cheers. Tom
my eyes my eyes!!! the babel fish is in my eyes!
Magic trick? What more magic do you need than being able to wring two flat things together?
Pretty spectacular with that helium neon source though.
I find it interesting,you can acquire a precision device from the source stated,which would seem to be necessary for the former residents of the area indicated,to reproduce precision machining for their industries.Makes one consider why it becomes useless to them now? have they no need for such devices? when most government entities would highly covet them!!
Great video as always. Out of curiosity, I looked on eBay, and there's still a bunch of these available. Had a question though: they are labeled as "bottom" and "top". Any idea what that means in practical terms? Does it matter which kind is used for this sort of analysis? In one of the lapping videos, you mentioned concave vs convex flats, wonder if that's what this refers to...
I know you......”kind” of mentioned a way to calculate how far out of flat the plate is, but you didn’t show us how. Is there a formula that you plug in values , that you get from a chart that gives you the values based on the spacing of the lines established by the wave length of the light source. Sorry, it started as a simple question? Fascinating subject, thank you for giving us your time. -P
Check out Edmunds or Van Keuren on how to read optical flat fringes. Some good information. Basically its the amount of the bow that gives you dimensional information on the curvatures. It can get pretty complicated depending on where the flat is touching down and the bands curvatures that show. Plenty for an entire video. Cheers. Tom
Я носитель русского языка,ромбик с знаком СССР,это клеймо знак качества,это очень высокое качество ,100% гарантия соответствия.
Wow. I'd like to live in an optical flat.
Really loving these high accuracy based videos you and @robrens make. Is it actually a measurable means of flatness or just a representation of how flat something is or isnt and where high spots are?
Tom, you kept saying Helium Lights, are you sure ? When I did optics at work we used a SODIUM Lamp, yellow glow as in street lights. This would also show up any stress marks in glass.
Hey Dave. Quite sure. Mine is made by Lapmaster and is a helium gas lamp that is diffused through a screen. Sodium would work as well but I don't know if the bands would be as crisp. Never tried one. Cheers. Tom
Sodium is best, monochromatic lamp is ideal
amazing
That Google translator is trippy.
Google is getting a little dangerous
It doesn't work?
Maybe try a can of fix-a-flat.
Interesting...(grasshopper thought) curious what a piece ground from your surface grinder would have shown or would it even work
Is there not a led color that approximates the helium light? It would be cheaper.
ermennda laser with some kind of defocusing lense may be a good substitute for sodium or helium lights. will try it as soon as laser diodes show up in mail from china
Hey Tom, kind of off topic but, you did a video a while back in which you made a template and followed it with an indicator keeping it as close to zero as possible as the lathe fed in. Ive been trying to find it as I have to do something similar for a job at work coming up and want to see how you did the job to refresh my memory. Could you tell me the name of the video if its still up?
Will any wavelength of light work? For example, a sodium "D" lamp produces a single wavelength of light; would that work?
I have used my pocket laser pointer as a light source; try it.
"Theres couple humps I thought you'd get a kick out of." Yup, if we've gotten that far, we probably would. :-D
just wondering how do you know that the high spot is a high spot and not a low spot ?
very1v You press on the optical flat. If the bands widens a lot where you push, you know that's low.
Because the fringes get further apart when the gap between the surface decreases, and the fringes get closer together then the gap increases.
Hey Tom, Did you ever consider making your own optical flat ?
Will this work on a granite plate? Or does it need tone somewhat reflective? Thanks Tom. Really enjoy your videos
Doesn't works. I have one and I tried.
Just FYI:
On that paper part of that text was written by hand (2nd line). It means "bottom" or "lower", so this flat glass plate is bottom/lower.
Lower plates were 60, 80, 100, 120mm , when top one was 60mm only.
Plates were produced in two types: lower and upper. The lower (supporting) plates are used to check the lapping and flatness of the measuring surfaces of the end measures of length, calibers, measuring instruments and tools. The upper plates are used to measure the plane-parallel end measures of length by a technical interference method.
I've get this text from Internet and translate it for you.
I neverI'm not sure how work with these plates. @Tom could you explain more about them?
some pics of upper plate:
images.ua.prom.st/14435431_w800_h640_dc120709008.jpg
images.ua.prom.st/14435433_w800_h640_dc120709010.jpg
I have one of the "top" plates. It has a large, angled surface (1/3 the surface) on the side that has the cross lines scribed on it. What is the use case for this special flat?
Hi Tom, Interesting video. Can you share a link to where you can buy them? I searched at eBay and could not find this same one. Thanks
Hi there. You need to look on E-bay USA. I tried the Australian and British sites without success. I bought a 100 mm exactly the same according to the photo and it had the same data sheet. $ 85 + $ 20 postage from UKRAINE. He is still listing an 60 mm for $ 55 Here is the link. www.ebay.com/itm/Optical-Flat-Parallel-Top-60mm/222687471409?hash=item33d9352731:g:6coAAOSwu4BV0NTp
After your videos, Tom, ebay gets emptier , and it gets harder to find good stuf. остановись товарищ! Привет from russian speaking viewers!