How NOT to build a Cloud Chamber! (Particle/Radiation Detector)

[@RickBrennan]

been trying to help some scouts accomplish this for a couple of weeks now, on attempt#4, wish I had watched this first! Not doing all the fun electrical work just doing the dry ice method but still a lot of good learnings here, especially the details about how to trap the supercritical vapor, avoiding stray airflow and I had no idea bout the lighting but it's good to know we need focused beams to see it best!

[@noimnotarobotcanubeleiveit7024]

pull a vacuum in the bell jar and you can use water at room temperature instead of mucking around with all that gear

[@borayurt66]

Dry ice IS available outside US. I live in a "3rd world" country and it is actually cheaper to buy dry ice than to buy peltiers, heat sinks and the power supply to run them.

[@jasonpatterson8091]

Appreciate the list of missteps. Too often you just get a "do this and it works" set of instructions and if something goes wrong or you want to do something different, you've got no idea what's going to come of it. Seeing what didn't work for you is a big help.

[@derofromdown-under2832]

As usual, an excellent presentation and a beautiful cloud chamber design, regardless that it didn't perform 100%... 10/10

[@BeardedSkunk]

For a failed attempt you sure have gotten some nice footage, good job!

[@Schematix]

Thanks! Hopefully the next version will produce even better footage!

[@NoahSpurrier]

This is good information. This might be the best video on the subject because I’m never going to build a cloud chamber exactly like someone else. General guidelines are more useful so I can adapt to my needs. I’ve built several cloud chambers with some working perfectly the first time with no effort and others failing. The didn’t realize dry ice was difficult to find in other areas. There’s lots of fishing on the pacific coast of the US and dry ice is not hard to find.

[@an_what]

Well you was not handling that radioactive isotope from the smoke detector properly he was holding it with your bare hands

[@an_what]

And next time homie spread out that thermal paste evenly across the entire surface of the TEC don't be shoddy with it and just barely put it up on there to spread around put that s*** on there man

[@peteb2]

Extremely interesting project, thanks for such a detailed presentation... & the odd error, all part of the refinement process.

[@mi16chap]

Nice footage, hope V2 gets you the result you wanted

[@jameshicks7125]

Thanks for this video! I have really enjoyed it, and I think despite the problems this is an elegant build. Very inspiring. In the last week I saw "Teslista555" 's video of his cloud chamber. He incorporated many of your improvements. Somehow this kind of project escaped me. I think I assumed it was some kind of high level research equipment in a physics lab as a component to a particle accelerator or something -not something I could build. I had no idea how wonderful this was until a week ago. Definitely a project to be tackled after my many others!

[@SovetskiDuck]

I'm gonna use 2x 60w @5v peltier and 1x 100w @ 12v hopefully I still get good coverage on a 60mm copper cutout

[@ascaniosobrero]

Actually, even the video which inspired your first build had no explanation for the use of a high volt age generator. And it is really not necessary for the cloud chamber to work properly. All it does is to clean a bit the inside by electrostatically charging dust and residual droplets, which might be nice but not really needed. And I would go for pure ethanol (98%) rather than isopropanol, as ethanol boiling temperature is a bit lower. This is probably not making a big difference, but everything helps. Pure methanol even better (b.p. around 65 C), but clearly more toxic.

[@Travoid]

I've been having a go at a cloud chamber and have started to run into the pitfalls you've discussed here. Namely, what types and orientations of peltier coolers work out best. Would have taken me forever to stumble upon "(2x TEC 12710 in series atop 1 in parallel) x 2", so many thanks for that!

[@fizzyplazmuh9024]

I know it's not self contained or continuous but I just feed my liquid chiller block from a bucket full of ice. I had no choice since there was only one Peltier laying around and I am technically here on vacation so I don't have all my equipment anyway. I am also using the Peltier cold face directly with engine black on it. Yeah, it doesn't give much viewing area but I normally use scintillation detectors anyway and this was just for fun. Good job on sealing up the sides of those Peltiers. Condensation inside corrodes them very rapidly. I only use epoxy or Lexcell now since water migrates steadily through silicone.

[@slawrie]

This is a great video! But what is the high voltage for? I've looked at quite a few cloud chamber tutorials and I'm in the process of building my own, but none of them use high voltage.

[@lorenzosquillantini7494]

High voltage "cleans" the chamber from dust (that could constitute a nucleation point) and from already ionized molecules.

[@cameraforchristmas]

Most designs forego any HV. I recall some plans called for it and I think that scares people off needlessly. I didn’t use it and my design worked.

[@willerwin3201]

My personal motto for project management is “Fail early, fail often!” I salute your failure video, and I hope to see more lessons learned!

[@elementchaos4492]

Hey how much would do this cost?

[@an_what]

You could have saved yourself a lot of time with making that enclosure instead of having four individual sides you could have made long piece divided it by 4 scored the three joints inside and folded it making only one seem to weld for future reference

[@Thanos-ic8ki]

in my books this was a complete diy video where the product worked 100% you my good sir keep the videos coming

[@matgggg55]

God I wish I had this video before I built mine. I love your channel and will be binge watching this winter brake

[@aaronsharman8031]

Because of this video, my cloud chamber is finished and working well! cheers!

[@wahwahwah8528]

May I know what paint has been used on the cold plate? It seems it can withstand the alcohol.

[@newage3]

Cracking build, a few questions - 1- why the HV DC power supply top and bottom, 2- what voltages are you running the coolers at (I`v seen a stack of 2 with the top one running at 5V and the second cooler running at 12V) that`s the way I`m going to wire my cooler (This time). I`v rebuilt my cloud chamber so many times and still no luck......

[@Schematix]

Thanks, glad you enjoyed it. 1: there is only a single HV DC boost converter (around 5kvdc output) and a small 12vdc PSU powering the boost converter. 2: the bottom teg (touching the AIO water block is run at 12vdc. The top 2 tegs are wired in series and run from the same 12vdc PSU (effectively running them at 6v each)

[@bmwsyc]

Why would you use copper for the plate instead of something like aluminum?

[@owlredshift]

Best thermal transfer

[@owlredshift]

Unless you have a silver plate

[@markmd9]

I knew it is not as simple as it might seem

[@MadScientist267]

One of the bigger gotchas with peltier is that they make a lot more heat than they move, and this has to be taken into account. Simple stacking "works" but isn't even close to ideal. This becomes even more apparent when running them at or near full power; the layers "below" (facing away from the cold plate) generate more heat than the next stage can remove. At best this results in cheesy performance, go silly with it, let the magic smoke out.

[@nejcgorenc2489]

Nice. How did you wire the 4-pin PWM connector without PWM controller? Is there a way only to connect to DC power supply?

[@MadScientist267]

Red-n-black just like always

[@tehdusto]

9:54 I've applied thermal paste to my CPU before and this is definitely not the way I'm told to apply it... but is it different for TECs? I'm going to be trying to build one of these so any optimizations I can make would be great

[@Schematix]

Definitely not how I'd recommend applying thermal paste on CPU's. The ceramic surface of the TEGS is very rough and uneven compared to a CPU heat spreader.

[@tehdusto]

@@Schematix Thank you!

[@JanBroekhuisen]

Very impressive! What’s the purpose of the high voltage?

[@MadScientist267]

Increases sensitivity (and encourages the vapor to flow toward the cold plate, "cleaning" the chamber of prior trails)

[@NoahSpurrier]

So, I’ve always stacked the peltiers in a pyramid pattern. One on top of two (with a heat spreader plate between them).

[@marklimbrick]

Yes Noah! It's in the Peltier datasheets on how to use them! The lighting and the Peltier not being researched beforehand is a shame. He's sorted the Peltier still not being stacked in such a way that the smallest top plate gets down to temperature, but the LED's could have been sorted with just a glance at the old black and white research images. It's 'raking' light obviously, and using an acetylene torch with a lens most likely. The actual photo would maybe use a magnesium flash. With a Robin Reliant (old 3 wheeler car in UK) heater matrix or similar, a pump and water this should be a straightforward project. It would be nice to view from the top, the glass bell jar prevents that.

[@MadScientist267]

"1 on 4" is about ideal, depending on how hard you're having to drive them. Many don't realize the rating on a peltier module is the maximum and that they run much more efficiently below that, but there's a sweet spot. Too high, they produce excessive heat on the hot side and there is a direct relationship between hot side temp and minimum cold side temp. Too low and they can't move the load. That relationship is between capacity to move heat and power input. So, most efficient operation is very large dissipation for the hot side, small as practical cold plate, and running with the minimum power input necessary to reach the temperatures required. This also requires experimentation for the power levels for each layer in the stack.