@@williamgraham8319 Lol, love it. I have seen more cool involved projects completed from him than anyone on the planet. Applied Science builds florescent displays, electron microscopes, etc., we figure out why weed whacker won't start. :)
Every one of your projects these last months have been more ambitious than any one thing I have ever attempted. I don't know how you do it. Completely awesome.
@@Flaakk yeah, Ben's projects are arguably unparalleled in depth and uniqueness anywhere on the internet. Seems like a poor reason to dump on any other creators agreeing with that sentiment. For what its worth, i've gotten a ton of inspiration and ideas from NightHawk's excellent presentations of his projects. Yes, maybe I could have gained an appreciation somewhere else for how a piston valve works; but I learned it from him, to name one example of many.
@@FlaakkIt makes me sad that you believe that about my videos. I've worked hard to be transparent about any ideas that come from outside sources. Whenever I build a project based heavily on any one source I say so, both in the video itself and suggesting people check out the source link in the video description. If no such source exists in one of my videos it is because the idea came into my own head while working on some unrelated thing. Similarities in that case to any existing projects are coincidence.
@@esdblog6100 Engineers are for the most part, taken for granted by our society. You will see TV shows about doctors, lawyers, police, etc., but one about engineers and what they do is doubtful. The details are just not fodder for the "emotional" rush required by mainstream entertainment. However, one movie called "Quest for Fire" about pre-historic man, made a large point of show casing a tribe that had made huge engineering leaps over another tribe. The "engineering" tribe had developed ways to make fire by artificial means, pottery for food storage, advanced weapons (atlatl), and constructed shelters. Yes, the first leaps were made by people who took raw materials, and re-purposed them to solve a particular problem. i.e. Engineers.
Please do!! I don't think Ben went to the Smithsonian to get original measurements and I imagine you had different ideas for driving it. I love both of your projects!
I think you should keep working on yours. If memory serves you were working on an authentic driver using micro relays this board uses modern IC driver, but maybe it makes sense to focus on recreating the driver and combine it with this EL display board.
@@nrdesign1991 yea Dave please build us an green-blue EL Digital multimeter with an uA range measurement function, and then call it the 'Apollo precision DMM' :D
In the 90's my mom bought these hallway nightlights that were flat electroluminescent. I thought they were amazing, and the color reminded me of the light in an old stereo with analog dials. Decades later I saw youtube videos of bioluminescence in the ocean and immediately remembered those flat panel plug in lights. I never knew what it was called but now I do! There's something about that light that draws me in.
In 1972 I developed a large format 5 x 7 dot matrix EL display digits. About 4 x 6 inches in size. Each half inch square dot had storage and was driven by sort of an R-S flip flop made from cad sulfide photo cells. I had cell arrays made on anodized aluminum foil. Illumination from the back of the EL pixel turned on a cad cell which drove that cell forming a latched driver. We powered down the whole digit to clear it. We couldn't justify 35 drivers or 35 wires for every digit. Multiplexing resulted in too small a duty cycle for any reasonable brightness. A second photo cell on the back of the foil in parallel with the front one was used to trigger the latch. That was driven by a multiplexed EL array which didn't have to be fast or bright. A single scan from this array wrote data to the display which was latched. We struggled to drive these high voltage AC displays in the 70's but the photo cells did it. I used an Intel 8008 processor to drive the system. It was a lot harder in those days.
I'll bet it really WAS harder in those days! I remember a grad student (in the department I was working in those days) fussing with both an 8008 and a 8080A trying to accomplish some strict timing issues on a totally different project, he was really having a hard time getting things to work the way he needed them to. It wasn't his programming skills, it was limitations of the tech at the time, sort of like the "protection diodes" built into Ben's driver chip--that are really just "artifacts of the manufacturing process" that are claimed (by the manufacturer) to be "protection diodes!"
Some more EL folklore. In the 70's one of the ways we luminescent material was to add the zinc sulfide based powder to polyethylene and extrude it like a plastic bag. It was 4 ft wide and 3000 ft long. We could make a few colors like green or blue. We sought out the blue because it would excite a secondary emitter screened on the front of the panel. The secondary emitter was basically day-glow paint that would absorb the blue and re-emit another color. We could silk screen multi-color images on the blue panel and get a wide range of colors you could never get by EL chemistry. We even used color separation and the dot method used to print color pictures in news papers. You could have a full color photographic images. The silk screen process lacked the precision for consistent results but we did on a few occasions get great results. One application for large panels was to put billboard advertising on transport trucks. We did tile an entire dance floor with flashing 2 ft square tiles. The panels regardless of the size were all capacitive and thus hard to drive. We drove them in the low Khz range in resonance with an inductor. Decades before power mosfets we used bipolar transistors or SCRs in the inverters which ran directly from rectified line voltage. I haven't thought much about this for decades. It was my high school job.
@@SuperAWaC I don't recall a lot from 5 decades ago. There were no patents. The process was done in secret by a company that made plastic sheet. It didn't take too long to get a successful result. We made many panels from a 3000ft long roll. I think it was just ordinary poly plastic bag material.
if only this kind of media had been available on cable networks when i was a kid... the absolute peak of edutainment was modern marvels. this guy is something else, a pillar of modern society.
37 people so far that hate bioluminescence?! I never understand people’s displeasure with someone that works so hard and produces such interesting videos!
I go here to see unimaginable things done in a garage. I feel like I should be prepared for this after that electron scanning microscope build but I still get surprised every time. Great job and thanks for sharing!
Guys like you will be needed in the future for repairing the stuff of today. Imagine someone who wants to drive his Tesla in 20 years as an Oldtimer! You're a genius.
By chance, are you involved with CuriousMarc's project to restore an Apollo Guidance Computer, including the DSKY? If not, I have a feeling he and the team he's working with might be interested in your notes.
Ahem. My only contribution to the project was pestering Ben if he could do it, just the display maybe, without the driver. And forwarding the original NASA DSKY files we (we as in Mike) had unearthed at NARA. Then like the rest of you I got the occasional updates, but knowing what he was trying to eventually do... I did not expect this to get engineered all the way to this level! Just, wow!
You have done the electric community a public service. One of Many! Thank You And a very cool project. Building a DSKY display is on my bucket list, you might have saved your fellow nerd a few hundred dollars before figuring out this crazy solution or just plain giving up. Thanks Again; A very cool design
wow, just wow. WOW. I ... *hats off to you* Just take a step back for a minute - you did *YOURSELF* what NASA did with an entire team - from a pane of glass to a final and troubleshot workable product The amount of steps and time taken to do what you have accomplished is astounding Thanks for spreading your knowledge, very much appreciated!!
I understand maybe 25% of each video (being generous I think). But damn it's all so fascinating. That there are people out there that create and invent and I'm in constant awe.
This is such a neat project. Great job working through all the technical problems to arrive at a gorgeous working display! I could imagine a neat clock being built with one of these displays.
Into the video 2.5 minutes and was laughing at the "spending 20 hours squashing bugs is enjoyable, in theory" . I think all true programmers, engineers and hackers feel this way, I have given up so many times working on a program only to walk away get half way across the room and go "what if we did this?" I would point out that anyone capable of doing this project would enjoy the "bug squashing" part much more than a puzzle labeled part 1, part 2, part 3.... just my humble opinion.
I love debugging but this drive to do it definitely depends on the tools available. A couple of months ago I was debugging some code for an old chip that I didn't have any manual for and no tools for. The feedback I got was "working", "half-working" and "not working". It's sometimes easier to start again rather than chase bugs :(
Finding a bug is certainly an exhilarating moment, but more in the way finally letting your dick out of the vice would be, to use an AvE reference. I do debugging when needed but definitely wouldn't do it "for pleasure"...
I'd have to agree with these replies. I enjoy fixing problems in things I've designed & built, but only AFTER I fixed them. I'd MUCH rather have things work right the very first time I powered them up! (Yeah, "it feels so good when I stop!" Ha!)
In My MANY years watching Science and Engineering material on RUclips, this was by far the most impressive combination of ideas and innovations by way of defeat and victory yet; I am in awe !!! Thank You Professor Ben !!! Also thanks to CuriousMarc and his restoration of the Apollo Guidance system !!
I was amazed just at the sheer enginerding needed for the glass panel and then the electronics issue. Having chased my tail for 2 months with the wire EDM controller board and various noise issues has taught me a few things and the puzzle of 'why did it work before but not now' is tickling all the right places for me to continue :)
Wow! This project is so cool on many levels, from the Apollo aspect to elaborate electroluminescent control. Thank you for sharing this with us and thinking we could do something at this level!
Power electronics is quite painful. A couple of comments: - The drivers protection diodes are most probably there (they are an inevitable byproduct of the transistor construction), though they probably die after you yank them to -40V. The problem is that they can only conduct so much current (it should be specified in the datasheet). The current is given by Ic = C * dv/dt (capacitor current). If all the other drivers try to force a large dv/dt the current will be just to large for a single driver to handle even if the output transistor is still ON and the protection diode is there in parallel to give a hand. - If all segments are lighted up except one, you might still have problems on just that one driver, no? If I were you I would put limiting current resistors in all drivers outputs (yep, it's a pain in the ass). With that done you might not even need anymore to shift the control signal with respect to the common signal.
justpaulo- ohmygosh you're so smart, you know so much (repeating things others have posted), BUT do you know the difference between "to," "too," and "two?"????!
These specifics are above my level of experience and prior understanding, though I studied & worked for years in the electronics industry. But it is explained so clearly here - design, connection methods, plus failures and all - that I really feel educated upward a level -Thanks! And the electroluminescent glass display is a super-cool look!
Thank you for doing these experiments so that I can learn without the time and resources and errr... skills that you have access to. From chemistry to electronics, you tinker like I do, but bring it to a new level. Your videos save me a lifetime of work. Cheers!
I really appreciated the idea to give your display to Curiousmark restoration project... It has been *AWESOME* from you, since you applied *REAL SCIENCE* to make it! congratulations!!! Hope they can include your diplay in the final project phase|! Thanks alot for your *REAL HI TECH* projects!!!
26:11 I was thinking at this exact moment "what if you didn't shoot for the full 300V, and ran it at a lower voltage, if the chances of a random failure could be minimized." Great video, very well formatted, you cover all the details I could ask for.
Your channel is easily among the best on YT. I fully agree with the fact that if one always take the easiest shortcut one will newer realy learn the root of the contruction and You will newer bee that guy who know how to build a radio from a brooken pencil and a mashed sodacan instead of panic if something goes wrong for example. The actual function is sometime irelevant, it's the learning and understanding wich is the important part. The same reason why i dismantled things when i was a little kid and also trid to put it all back then, or construct something new from scrapped parts instead of just walkig ount and buyng that bloody cellhpone to fake the result, that would indeed work perfect for a movie prop, but people who do so are missing the entire point as You mentoned here.
RUclipsr curiousmarc has an ongoing series resurrecting the Apollo guidance computer but it's pretty popular so I'm sure you already know about it. I don't know if he has or had access to the display module, though, don't see it in the relevant videos. Love the work!
For electrical contact from PCB to conductive ink, you can consider spring loaded EMC contacts. They are typically used for shorting PCB ground to metal chassis. They can accommodate irregular contact surfaces, being spring loaded. Great video!
Wow just wow, the work and research that you have done for this project is amazing. I would have thrown the whole thing into the trash after a couple of hours kudos 👏
Absolutely fascinating video. I saw your other video from last year just a few days ago, and was already very interested. This is amazing, i can't believe you did this all on your own without a giant manufacturing plant. I always have to stop the videos when you get to the coding parts, b/c that's literally a different language to me and i don't understand it at all. But the chemistry, physics, and electrical engineering aspects are so amazing. I love this channel
Amazing work! And still days away from the Apollo 10 launch! Those silver dots on the display got me wondering. I was guessing that the actual DSKY had independent common electrodes for each display register; hence the many visible electrodes. Thankfully, some of the original schematics are now publicly archived. Have you seen these? This is full of great info on the AGC in the LM Module. archive.org/details/acelectroniclmma00acel_0 Looking briefly at the original AGC display schematics (Figure 4-229) from the LM, they seem to have completely isolated the signal circuits by using a matrix of specialized miniature relays! This is cleverly done by the using double coiled relays and a few diodes to creating a basic AND gate to drive each segment. I'm sure there's a lot more goodness here that I miss too.
The EL display looks kind of cute and old-fashioned. I do certain electronic projects purely for the fun and challenge part. But if I had encountered the kind of challenges you faced during the design as well as the trouble-shooting phase, not to speak of the cost, I would have easily abandoned the project assuming I started it. I really admire your perseverance and the determination to succeed which you finally did.
"Squishing a bug that's consumed 20 hours of your life is pretty enjoyable, in theory", while in practice you create an even worse one fixing the old one and then that takes a week to resolve and after getting it done the customer would like the feature removed. Thank you for open sourcing it, people like you help us move forward so much. See 3d printers. From 200.000 dollars to 2.000 in some ten years.
How about applying the z-tape to the circuit board, instead of the glass? Then when you pulled off the tape, you'd be pulling on a robust copper-clad board, instead of a coated piece of glass.
Very impressive... I'm not going to pretend I understood everything but it's obvious I need to educate myself on my electronics before beginning my physics degree. Gret video!
Yeaah, what a great victory feeling when you go through all these issues and looking at those panels is just not seeing them! Congraats and Many Thanks for sharing all this!!
Fran, Dave, and CuriousMarc all chimed in... all you need now is This Old Tony, Joe Pieczynski, and Mike Patey (hint, 2 machinists and a guy that makes big things fly really fast, check out Draco) and you could build the Apollo capsule that the display would fit in :). Amazing work but your tenacity is even more amazing. Way to push thru to the end!
Great work! I have not done hardware in a few years, but this reminded me of how much fun (and frustration) was to chase hardware gremlins in a "new" design. I think making lego blocks is a different level of satisfaction compared to just connecting them together.
A good way to apply phosphor over a large surface and keep the thickness very consistent is to put the plate at the bottom of a tray and to mix water and phosphor and fill the tray. The phosphor will settle out of the water and coat the piece. Carefully decant the water and bake the part to dry. You could also sputter on a dielectric and the electrodes.
Outstanding. I'm amazed you worked out what it was that was going wrong, with so little to go on. Just enough life in the chips to get an occasional scope trace I guess - save it immediately, don't lose it! I see the stupid diode thing was the gnarliest problem, but I'm still blown away that you can create the glass stack with relatively common materials, essentially in your kitchen. For me the glass stack would come under the heading 'magic material unfathomably made somewhere else by pixies with special powers'.
Damn. This is impressive. Makes me want to build own segment display for my own project. Maybe decades from now, I will have enough dedication to do it actually :D The colour and feel is amazing too. Thank you for sharing all the cad, pcb, schematic and code (code is probably the simplest part modulo the segment phase shift when flipping polarity, which is also simple once you know it), and talking about all the failed attempts.
Was wondering a couple of days ago where you was. Good to see you back! As always very good videos full of interesting stuff presented in a very clear and calm way. You are doing really breakthrough stuff in your lab :)
I gave you a sub, despite the fact I'll never create anything you do for my lack of intellect, but instead with the hopes it'll boost your influence in the future. I'm sure you're going to revolutionize some industry one day.
TheNajSD I don’t believe in lack of intellect. It may take a lot of work, and need good teachers, but you can definitely get to understand everything in this video and apply it in practice. Having a mentor, and ideally a live-in mentor - may be a necessity though. Kudos to parents who help their kids out that way, and kudos to partners who believe in their other “halves”. My late wife was a ballet dancer with an associate’s degree in economics, who ended up doing lots of my prototype electronics assembly, and she had me beat in calculus hands down. Watching her do integrals was almost R-rated - her and mathematics had a thing going on for sure. It all got going in part because I explained Norton Commander in a hallway to her once (that dates us, lol) That’s how it all started on the tech side. She got a twinkle in her eye and caught “the bug”. She’d help me with my math homework in return.
Great effort and a great result :o) We used a lot of ITO glass (and plastic !) in LC display research at HP Labs, and the cleaning regime we used was fairly epic - detergent + ultrasonic tank, DI water rinse and spin dry, then shoved into an oven and stored like that until just before we used it, then often a solvent drag clean by hand too - so I'm not surprised at all you had so much contamination trouble with glass straight from the factory - you got around it in the end though - and you aren't doing it in a 'clean room' I assume - so even more credit sir !
Just revisited this EL DSKY display vid. Still impressed second time around. (btw: I worked in HP Labs on new LC mechanisms for displays, and cleaning ITO glass consumed measurable time per week - we got through a lot - and it always needed the full cleaning works to avoid 'bullseye defects' in the assembled test display cells :o) )
Fantastic and inspirational, thanks for sharing. Your videos have me and a friend exploring the idea of applying PWM based controllers (as you outlined in previous video) towards EL painted car details. Have a great day.
There is a group of 95 people who their mission in life is just to thumbs down videos.. Great videos, al of them. You are a real life superhero with real super powers..
wow, what a fantastic run through, far beyond my EE ability to design, but maybe not beyond enough I couldn't recreate with your fantastic work! would love to integrate this into a future project, Subbed!
Great video! I appreciate the work you went through while debugging the high-voltage issue and your explanation of the problem w/your solution...I learned something! Kudos!!
Applied Science chooses to build an electroluminescent display and build the other things, not because it is easy, but because it is hard!
I understood that reference
Very clever comment and project
@@williamgraham8319 Lol, love it. I have seen more cool involved projects completed from him than anyone on the planet. Applied Science builds florescent displays, electron microscopes, etc., we figure out why weed whacker won't start. :)
goat comment, wd.
People like him are the real heroes of the world.
Every one of your projects these last months have been more ambitious than any one thing I have ever attempted. I don't know how you do it. Completely awesome.
You're no slouch either!
@@Flaakk Oh yeah, and what sort of projects are you doing? Oh, you haven't done any? piss off
Ryan complimenting NightHawk complimenting Ben....
I feel like Wayne and Garth bowing before Alice "we're not worthy, we're not worthy" ;)
@@Flaakk yeah, Ben's projects are arguably unparalleled in depth and uniqueness anywhere on the internet. Seems like a poor reason to dump on any other creators agreeing with that sentiment. For what its worth, i've gotten a ton of inspiration and ideas from NightHawk's excellent presentations of his projects. Yes, maybe I could have gained an appreciation somewhere else for how a piston valve works; but I learned it from him, to name one example of many.
@@FlaakkIt makes me sad that you believe that about my videos. I've worked hard to be transparent about any ideas that come from outside sources. Whenever I build a project based heavily on any one source I say so, both in the video itself and suggesting people check out the source link in the video description. If no such source exists in one of my videos it is because the idea came into my own head while working on some unrelated thing. Similarities in that case to any existing projects are coincidence.
You are on a whole other level. Insanely impressive!
+
This is the guy that CT'd a frozen chicken in his garage using old parts from eBay. On a whole other level is putting it lightly.
Well he is just an engineer. We do things like this everyday, but nobody cares. That is funniest part of profession.
@@esdblog6100 Engineers are for the most part, taken for granted by our society. You will see TV shows about doctors, lawyers, police, etc., but one about engineers and what they do is doubtful. The details are just not fodder for the "emotional" rush required by mainstream entertainment. However, one movie called "Quest for Fire" about pre-historic man, made a large point of show casing a tribe that had made huge engineering leaps over another tribe. The "engineering" tribe had developed ways to make fire by artificial means, pottery for food storage, advanced weapons (atlatl), and constructed shelters. Yes, the first leaps were made by people who took raw materials, and re-purposed them to solve a particular problem. i.e. Engineers.
Well Ben - you beat me to the goal for an EL DSKY display. Hats off to you. Should I even continue with mine I wonder....
Please do!! I don't think Ben went to the Smithsonian to get original measurements and I imagine you had different ideas for driving it. I love both of your projects!
I think you should keep working on yours. If memory serves you were working on an authentic driver using micro relays this board uses modern IC driver, but maybe it makes sense to focus on recreating the driver and combine it with this EL display board.
More the better, I think lots of us watch both of you and would love to see your take!
I think you should still do it. As far as I understand your goal is to be as close to the original as possible. I think it is worth pursuing. :)
I think he should give you a screen. I was wondering how long it would take you to find this.
Epic!
Wow! Definitely high praise. Guess I'm gonna definitely watch! (Woulda anyway).
As I was watching this, I was thinking "Damn, I wish I could see Dave's reaction video to this."
Exactly what i was going to say Dave. Epic, epic indeed!
Makes me wonder if you'd have your next Multimeter have an EL display, just because you could.
@@nrdesign1991 yea Dave please build us an green-blue EL Digital multimeter with an uA range measurement function,
and then call it the 'Apollo precision DMM' :D
In the 90's my mom bought these hallway nightlights that were flat electroluminescent. I thought they were amazing, and the color reminded me of the light in an old stereo with analog dials. Decades later I saw youtube videos of bioluminescence in the ocean and immediately remembered those flat panel plug in lights. I never knew what it was called but now I do!
There's something about that light that draws me in.
Indiglo watch faces were that same color. It’s was a wonderful blue.
In 1972 I developed a large format 5 x 7 dot matrix EL display digits. About 4 x 6 inches in size. Each half inch square dot had storage and was driven by sort of an R-S flip flop made from cad sulfide photo cells. I had cell arrays made on anodized aluminum foil. Illumination from the back of the EL pixel turned on a cad cell which drove that cell forming a latched driver. We powered down the whole digit to clear it. We couldn't justify 35 drivers or 35 wires for every digit. Multiplexing resulted in too small a duty cycle for any reasonable brightness. A second photo cell on the back of the foil in parallel with the front one was used to trigger the latch. That was driven by a multiplexed EL array which didn't have to be fast or bright. A single scan from this array wrote data to the display which was latched. We struggled to drive these high voltage AC displays in the 70's but the photo cells did it. I used an Intel 8008 processor to drive the system. It was a lot harder in those days.
That's pretty epic!!
I'll bet it really WAS harder in those days! I remember a grad student (in the department I was working in those days) fussing with both an 8008 and a 8080A trying to accomplish some strict timing issues on a totally different project, he was really having a hard time getting things to work the way he needed them to. It wasn't his programming skills, it was limitations of the tech at the time, sort of like the "protection diodes" built into Ben's driver chip--that are really just "artifacts of the manufacturing process" that are claimed (by the manufacturer) to be "protection diodes!"
Some more EL folklore. In the 70's one of the ways we luminescent material was to add the zinc sulfide based powder to polyethylene and extrude it like a plastic bag. It was 4 ft wide and 3000 ft long. We could make a few colors like green or blue. We sought out the blue because it would excite a secondary emitter screened on the front of the panel. The secondary emitter was basically day-glow paint that would absorb the blue and re-emit another color. We could silk screen multi-color images on the blue panel and get a wide range of colors you could never get by EL chemistry. We even used color separation and the dot method used to print color pictures in news papers. You could have a full color photographic images. The silk screen process lacked the precision for consistent results but we did on a few occasions get great results. One application for large panels was to put billboard advertising on transport trucks. We did tile an entire dance floor with flashing 2 ft square tiles. The panels regardless of the size were all capacitive and thus hard to drive. We drove them in the low Khz range in resonance with an inductor. Decades before power mosfets we used bipolar transistors or SCRs in the inverters which ran directly from rectified line voltage. I haven't thought much about this for decades. It was my high school job.
you wouldn't happen to have any patents for those specific extruders, would you?
@@SuperAWaC I don't recall a lot from 5 decades ago. There were no patents. The process was done in secret by a company that made plastic sheet. It didn't take too long to get a successful result. We made many panels from a 3000ft long roll. I think it was just ordinary poly plastic bag material.
Cool! Please do a video detailing the process!!
if only this kind of media had been available on cable networks when i was a kid... the absolute peak of edutainment was modern marvels. this guy is something else, a pillar of modern society.
Did Fran put you up to this?
ruclips.net/channel/UCfIJOyTKtSbfdXu9762CdIg watch this first, you may want change your comment
@@DH-vh8el it's a joke
He is stealing her project. What a shame. And he does it with modern components too.
37 people so far that hate bioluminescence?! I never understand people’s displeasure with someone that works so hard and produces such interesting videos!
I go here to see unimaginable things done in a garage. I feel like I should be prepared for this after that electron scanning microscope build but I still get surprised every time. Great job and thanks for sharing!
Guys like you will be needed in the future for repairing the stuff of today. Imagine someone who wants to drive his Tesla in 20 years as an Oldtimer!
You're a genius.
By chance, are you involved with CuriousMarc's project to restore an Apollo Guidance Computer, including the DSKY? If not, I have a feeling he and the team he's working with might be interested in your notes.
Interesting
FranLab was working on the same thing a while back and had completed silk screen work as I recall.
This is the same thought that came to my mind when I watched this video. Both channels are pretty interesting.
Ahem. My only contribution to the project was pestering Ben if he could do it, just the display maybe, without the driver. And forwarding the original NASA DSKY files we (we as in Mike) had unearthed at NARA. Then like the rest of you I got the occasional updates, but knowing what he was trying to eventually do... I did not expect this to get engineered all the way to this level! Just, wow!
@@CuriousMarc yeah this is next level impressive...
As EEvblog said: EPIC! This video should have a million views ! Thank you from Oslo, Norway!
It's a pity that there is no Nobel Prize category for applied science....
You have done the electric community a public service. One of Many! Thank You And a very cool project. Building a DSKY display is on my bucket list, you might have saved your fellow nerd a few hundred dollars before figuring out this crazy solution or just plain giving up. Thanks Again; A very cool design
This is some beautiful work you've done: I've seen one of the originals in person and was always fascinated by them. Glad I'm not the only one!
wow, just wow. WOW.
I ... *hats off to you*
Just take a step back for a minute - you did *YOURSELF* what NASA did with an entire team - from a pane of glass to a final and troubleshot workable product
The amount of steps and time taken to do what you have accomplished is astounding
Thanks for spreading your knowledge, very much appreciated!!
"...so we're actually with in specs, which is nice." Nuff said
5:03 I just happened to be at this point when I saw your comment ;-)
And it still blows up!
I understand maybe 25% of each video (being generous I think). But damn it's all so fascinating. That there are people out there that create and invent and I'm in constant awe.
This is such a neat project. Great job working through all the technical problems to arrive at a gorgeous working display! I could imagine a neat clock being built with one of these displays.
Into the video 2.5 minutes and was laughing at the "spending 20 hours squashing bugs is enjoyable, in theory" . I think all true programmers, engineers and hackers feel this way, I have given up so many times working on a program only to walk away get half way across the room and go "what if we did this?" I would point out that anyone capable of doing this project would enjoy the "bug squashing" part much more than a puzzle labeled part 1, part 2, part 3.... just my humble opinion.
I love debugging but this drive to do it definitely depends on the tools available. A couple of months ago I was debugging some code for an old chip that I didn't have any manual for and no tools for. The feedback I got was "working", "half-working" and "not working". It's sometimes easier to start again rather than chase bugs :(
Finding a bug is certainly an exhilarating moment, but more in the way finally letting your dick out of the vice would be, to use an AvE reference. I do debugging when needed but definitely wouldn't do it "for pleasure"...
@@AttilaAsztalos ...as in, "it feels so good when I stop."
I hate it when I wake up at night and have an idea how to solve difficult problem. Good luck getting sleep before trying it out 4 am.
I'd have to agree with these replies. I enjoy fixing problems in things I've designed & built, but only AFTER I fixed them. I'd MUCH rather have things work right the very first time I powered them up! (Yeah, "it feels so good when I stop!" Ha!)
I really love how you show us your mistakes so that we can learn too, instead of just the final product.
That was some hardcore fault finding, I imagine you were rather pleased with yourself at cracking that one 😎
In My MANY years watching Science and Engineering material on RUclips, this was by far the most impressive combination of ideas and innovations by way of defeat and victory yet; I am in awe !!!
Thank You Professor Ben !!!
Also thanks to CuriousMarc and his restoration of the Apollo Guidance system !!
I was amazed just at the sheer enginerding needed for the glass panel and then the electronics issue. Having chased my tail for 2 months with the wire EDM controller board and various noise issues has taught me a few things and the puzzle of 'why did it work before but not now' is tickling all the right places for me to continue :)
Wow! This project is so cool on many levels, from the Apollo aspect to elaborate electroluminescent control. Thank you for sharing this with us and thinking we could do something at this level!
Fantastic project. Your engineering of this is first class. Wish these were commercially available. Superb!
Power electronics is quite painful. A couple of comments:
- The drivers protection diodes are most probably there (they are an inevitable byproduct of the transistor construction), though they probably die after you yank them to -40V. The problem is that they can only conduct so much current (it should be specified in the datasheet). The current is given by Ic = C * dv/dt (capacitor current). If all the other drivers try to force a large dv/dt the current will be just to large for a single driver to handle even if the output transistor is still ON and the protection diode is there in parallel to give a hand.
- If all segments are lighted up except one, you might still have problems on just that one driver, no? If I were you I would put limiting current resistors in all drivers outputs (yep, it's a pain in the ass).
With that done you might not even need anymore to shift the control signal with respect to the common signal.
justpaulo- ohmygosh you're so smart, you know so much (repeating things others have posted), BUT do you know the difference between "to," "too," and "two?"????!
These specifics are above my level of experience and prior understanding, though I studied & worked for years in the electronics industry. But it is explained so clearly here - design, connection methods, plus failures and all - that I really feel educated upward a level -Thanks!
And the electroluminescent glass display is a super-cool look!
"you learn something and feel good about it". SCIENCE ❗️
I like this video a lot. You have a nice, soothing voice that's easy to follow. I'm glad this was in my recommended videos.
Thank you for doing these experiments so that I can learn without the time and resources and errr... skills that you have access to. From chemistry to electronics, you tinker like I do, but bring it to a new level. Your videos save me a lifetime of work. Cheers!
I really appreciated the idea to give your display to Curiousmark restoration project... It has been *AWESOME* from you, since you applied *REAL SCIENCE* to make it! congratulations!!! Hope they can include your diplay in the final project phase|! Thanks alot for your *REAL HI TECH* projects!!!
26:11 I was thinking at this exact moment "what if you didn't shoot for the full 300V, and ran it at a lower voltage, if the chances of a random failure could be minimized."
Great video, very well formatted, you cover all the details I could ask for.
Its 3:30 in Kiev, but it doesnt matter, THE GREAT ONE HAS RETURNED
Your channel is easily among the best on YT.
I fully agree with the fact that if one always take the easiest shortcut one will newer realy learn the root of the contruction and You will newer bee that guy who know how to build a radio from a brooken pencil and a mashed sodacan instead of panic if something goes wrong for example. The actual function is sometime irelevant, it's the learning and understanding wich is the important part. The same reason why i dismantled things when i was a little kid and also trid to put it all back then, or construct something new from scrapped parts instead of just walkig ount and buyng that bloody cellhpone to fake the result, that would indeed work perfect for a movie prop, but people who do so are missing the entire point as You mentoned here.
Always blown away by the detailed engineering that goes into your videos.
RUclipsr curiousmarc has an ongoing series resurrecting the Apollo guidance computer but it's pretty popular so I'm sure you already know about it. I don't know if he has or had access to the display module, though, don't see it in the relevant videos.
Love the work!
I was a bit worried you were done with RUclips and then you came back with this monster of a great video!! Thank you sir!
For electrical contact from PCB to conductive ink, you can consider spring loaded EMC contacts. They are typically used for shorting PCB ground to metal chassis. They can accommodate irregular contact surfaces, being spring loaded. Great video!
Every step of this project seems like it was an emotional rollercoaster. Great show as always, I'm sorry it fought you the entire journey!
Great project! You are a very interesting person - I wish you are my neighbor! Thanks for sharing your projects!
Wow just wow, the work and research that you have done for this project is amazing. I would have thrown the whole thing into the trash after a couple of hours kudos 👏
Your channel is a real treasure on RUclips, please keep the work , wish you good luck , your video is very informative to me.
Absolutely fascinating video. I saw your other video from last year just a few days ago, and was already very interested. This is amazing, i can't believe you did this all on your own without a giant manufacturing plant.
I always have to stop the videos when you get to the coding parts, b/c that's literally a different language to me and i don't understand it at all. But the chemistry, physics, and electrical engineering aspects are so amazing. I love this channel
Amazing work! And still days away from the Apollo 10 launch!
Those silver dots on the display got me wondering. I was guessing that the actual DSKY had independent common electrodes for each display register; hence the many visible electrodes. Thankfully, some of the original schematics are now publicly archived. Have you seen these? This is full of great info on the AGC in the LM Module. archive.org/details/acelectroniclmma00acel_0
Looking briefly at the original AGC display schematics (Figure 4-229) from the LM, they seem to have completely isolated the signal circuits by using a matrix of specialized miniature relays! This is cleverly done by the using double coiled relays and a few diodes to creating a basic AND gate to drive each segment.
I'm sure there's a lot more goodness here that I miss too.
The EL display looks kind of cute and old-fashioned.
I do certain electronic projects purely for the fun and challenge part. But if I had encountered the kind of challenges you faced during the design as well as the trouble-shooting phase, not to speak of the cost, I would have easily abandoned the project assuming I started it.
I really admire your perseverance and the determination to succeed which you finally did.
Well, it IS 60 year old technology.
"Squishing a bug that's consumed 20 hours of your life is pretty enjoyable, in theory", while in practice you create an even worse one fixing the old one and then that takes a week to resolve and after getting it done the customer would like the feature removed.
Thank you for open sourcing it, people like you help us move forward so much. See 3d printers. From 200.000 dollars to 2.000 in some ten years.
How about applying the z-tape to the circuit board, instead of the glass? Then when you pulled off the tape, you'd be pulling on a robust copper-clad board, instead of a coated piece of glass.
I assume it's equally sticky on both sides of the tape?
It's double sided, but you could use one that's only one sided and just holds firm against the glass.
Extremely impressive work. PLEASE don't stop!
Thank you so much for the work you do. I don't quite understand all of it. But your thoroughness is much appreciated.
Very impressive... I'm not going to pretend I understood everything but it's obvious I need to educate myself on my electronics before beginning my physics degree. Gret video!
Something about the retro tech aesthetic is just so.... cool
Your videos are amazing. Well done sir (an engineer here able to appreciate the difficulty of what you do)
It's so awesome to see such an intelligent person sharing their thought processes!!
Yeaah, what a great victory feeling when you go through all these issues and looking at those panels is just not seeing them! Congraats and Many Thanks for sharing all this!!
Fran, Dave, and CuriousMarc all chimed in... all you need now is This Old Tony, Joe Pieczynski, and Mike Patey (hint, 2 machinists and a guy that makes big things fly really fast, check out Draco) and you could build the Apollo capsule that the display would fit in :). Amazing work but your tenacity is even more amazing. Way to push thru to the end!
it is very cool of you to make this project open source. good on you.
I watch this video once a year, what a great video and project 🎉
*talking about bugs*
".. pretty enjoyable.. in theory"
You are a hero to Knowledge , I'm glad there are people like you evolving humanity
Great work! I have not done hardware in a few years, but this reminded me of how much fun (and frustration) was to chase hardware gremlins in a "new" design. I think making lego blocks is a different level of satisfaction compared to just connecting them together.
A good way to apply phosphor over a large surface and keep the thickness very consistent is to put the plate at the bottom of a tray and to mix water and phosphor and fill the tray. The phosphor will settle out of the water and coat the piece. Carefully decant the water and bake the part to dry.
You could also sputter on a dielectric and the electrodes.
Would love to see a car centre console display done like this!! Great Work!!
this video's title has a typo; change "a" to "an".
Outstanding. I'm amazed you worked out what it was that was going wrong, with so little to go on. Just enough life in the chips to get an occasional scope trace I guess - save it immediately, don't lose it! I see the stupid diode thing was the gnarliest problem, but I'm still blown away that you can create the glass stack with relatively common materials, essentially in your kitchen. For me the glass stack would come under the heading 'magic material unfathomably made somewhere else by pixies with special powers'.
You don't give up easily. OUTSTANDING
That's crazy! I imagine how much "why this thing doesn't work?" and "dang it!" you've passed.
Damn. This is impressive. Makes me want to build own segment display for my own project. Maybe decades from now, I will have enough dedication to do it actually :D The colour and feel is amazing too. Thank you for sharing all the cad, pcb, schematic and code (code is probably the simplest part modulo the segment phase shift when flipping polarity, which is also simple once you know it), and talking about all the failed attempts.
Was wondering a couple of days ago where you was. Good to see you back! As always very good videos full of interesting stuff presented in a very clear and calm way. You are doing really breakthrough stuff in your lab :)
I gave you a sub, despite the fact I'll never create anything you do for my lack of intellect, but instead with the hopes it'll boost your influence in the future. I'm sure you're going to revolutionize some industry one day.
TheNajSD I don’t believe in lack of intellect. It may take a lot of work, and need good teachers, but you can definitely get to understand everything in this video and apply it in practice. Having a mentor, and ideally a live-in mentor - may be a necessity though. Kudos to parents who help their kids out that way, and kudos to partners who believe in their other “halves”. My late wife was a ballet dancer with an associate’s degree in economics, who ended up doing lots of my prototype electronics assembly, and she had me beat in calculus hands down. Watching her do integrals was almost R-rated - her and mathematics had a thing going on for sure. It all got going in part because I explained Norton Commander in a hallway to her once (that dates us, lol) That’s how it all started on the tech side. She got a twinkle in her eye and caught “the bug”. She’d help me with my math homework in return.
Your work is, as always, absolutely amazing! So much effort and detail, just wow.
The Z tape is actually little metal rods/wires oriented vertically, very handy stuff and tested it many times. You can see the rods under microscope.
An alarm clock out of a Apollo spacecraft display would be super cool
This is why I want a toolkit like he has
Jesus, If I ever get stuck, I know who I'd ring: Just epic and amazing, that was really hard fault finding.
Great effort and a great result :o) We used a lot of ITO glass (and plastic !) in LC display research at HP Labs, and the cleaning regime we used was fairly epic - detergent + ultrasonic tank, DI water rinse and spin dry, then shoved into an oven and stored like that until just before we used it, then often a solvent drag clean by hand too - so I'm not surprised at all you had so much contamination trouble with glass straight from the factory - you got around it in the end though - and you aren't doing it in a 'clean room' I assume - so even more credit sir !
Just revisited this EL DSKY display vid. Still impressed second time around.
(btw: I worked in HP Labs on new LC mechanisms for displays, and cleaning ITO glass consumed measurable time per week - we got through a lot - and it always needed the full cleaning works to avoid 'bullseye defects' in the assembled test display cells :o) )
Fantastic and inspirational, thanks for sharing. Your videos have me and a friend exploring the idea of applying PWM based controllers (as you outlined in previous video) towards EL painted car details. Have a great day.
Absolutely outstanding work Ben, very interesting to see the whole process; not just of design and construction but the debugging too. :)
You made a DSKY before Fran, how dare you! That was her project. Kidding, I imagine Fran is as happy about this as I am, if not more so.
Fran was going for original age appropriate internals I believe so not quite the same I guess
wow you truely had me entertained the entire 27mins, fantastic job, great you got it nailed, best of luck with your projects, OZ2CPU Denmark :-)
"Squashing a bug that has taken up 10-20 hours of your life is satisfying... in theory"
As a programmer I felt that in my soul.
Absolutely brilliant as always! ITU glass seems crazy expensive!
Someday, I want to put one of these displays in my old Dodge! The dashboard already looks like a science experiment, so it'll fit right in. :3
Scientific Stig, You're an inspiration. Seriously.
There is a group of 95 people who their mission in life is just to thumbs down videos..
Great videos, al of them. You are a real life superhero with real super powers..
ITO is truly a miracle compound.
so many of your previous videos come together!
I didn't and never will understand this sort of thing but find it fascinating. 😁
I commend you on your perseverance.
Thanks for the video. 👍
wow, what a fantastic run through, far beyond my EE ability to design, but maybe not beyond enough I couldn't recreate with your fantastic work! would love to integrate this into a future project, Subbed!
Congratulations on this great successful project.
Меня всегда поражали люди всё это понимающие!!! Спасибо! Моё почтение!
This goes wayyy over my head, but I can tell it's good work so kudos for that
This is absolutely AMAZING!!
Keep doing what you do,
people like you keep the world goin' round..!
Great video! I appreciate the work you went through while debugging the high-voltage issue and your explanation of the problem w/your solution...I learned something! Kudos!!
Definitely worth the wait. Thanks for putting in the hard work for this great project. :)
Amazing project. I really appreciate seeing all the gory details. tl;dr: Dirty glass and high-voltage drivers can very, umm, entertaining.