[Sem] SEM updates

[Chris Murphy]

I wouldn't exactly call it a toy. It is a prototype. I don't think anyone has ever looked at a sputter coated specimen with it during its time at Noisebridge. 

The tough part about digitizing the signal is that it's not NTSC, PAL, etc. It's just an analog raster. If I recall, there are industrial LCDs that cost about $900 that can do this job. They are designed to replace CRTs in this kind of equipment. Otherwise one could digitize the signal by replacing the PMT with an avalanche photo diode at some cost to image quality. There are other approaches that preserve the PMT but would require some good video card and PMT hacking skills. 

The key issue is that before all this work takes place, a lab for specimen preparation and proper storage of the SEM needed to be built out. 

We tried but the endeavor was not easy in the face of noisebridge's open access policy (which I support, even at the cost of science). 

The challenge made me really contemplate what the ultimate hacker space arrangement would be. Both in physical layout and access policy. 

See paragraph #2 of my post here:
https://lists.sudoroom.org/pipermail/sudo-discuss/2013-September/003681.html

Chris

Sent from my iPhone

> On Mar 12, 2014, at 18:53, Alan <alan at halo.nu> wrote:
> 
> It is at Milo's house in Oakland.  
> 
> 
> If you want to use it you could probably ask him for it and he might give it to you, if you have a good place to put it.
> 
> I have used it a few times and in my opinion it is just a toy, I haven't been able to get any good images out of it.   
> But if you want to work on it and make it better it might be able to give you really good images.   Needs better image processing, the tv is not sufficient really.
> 
> 
> 
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