At 08:24 PM 9/8/2009, Mike Carrell wrote:
Several investigators have tried IR cameras, including the SPARWARS
group. The video is posted on several siites, but I don't have the
URLs at hand. The video is of codeposition on a nickel screen and is
fascinating to watch, but I'm not sure what it tells one. The
ordinary CMOS and CCD sensors are IR sensitive, but to get high
resolution images you need IR optics and it begins to get pricey.
The cell has to be built so the cathode is close to a window, for
water is IR absording. As Jed points out, such notions become
projects in themselves.
Yeah, but designing a cell so that the cathode can be close to a
window isn't terribly huge. You are right to question what it shows,
but if what it shows can be correlated with something else, it gets
interesting.
I was aware that IR cameras had been tried, or I wouldn't have even
suggested the idea.
One idea rattling around my head is that CR-39 could make a good
window. So a cell with a piece of CR-39 glued over an opening could
have nothing but the CR-39 and a thin layer of electrolyte and the
air between the cathode and a camera.
I'm also a bit puzzled. What about visible light? If it can melt
palladium, there should be visible light, not just IR. Perhaps it's
so small that it isn't seen? What is seen is secondary IR from the
local heating? I will ask a million stupid questions until some
cogent answers appear, and, by the way, thanks to all of you who
point out how stupid my questions are, sometimes. That's precisely
how I learn, and others learn, too.
Many years ago I tried to think of desktop CF toys that would not be
spectacular but very persistant, without success. Sitrling engine
toys that will run off the heat of your hand are in the right direction.
Mike Carrell
That's a possibility. I'd be surprised if nobody ever thought of
"toys" before, but I'm not aware of any "project," i.e., an attempt
to involve multiple people in creating such. And I think there is a
market. Not a huge market, but enough to cover it. There are lots of
small businesses now, serving truly small markets, that can be
successful because the market is now the world and advertising to it
has become cheap.
