X-Ray micro-CT scanner teardown

A look at a micro-CT scanner, used for scanning tooth and bone samples

[@stefantrethan]

When the price is high enough bodge turns into bespoke. (Same principle that turns junk into art.) Great teardown, keep them coming.

[@craignehring]

It is amazing to me that fairly modern equipment hits the scrap bin in such a short time. Where I work, I have seen systems come in for repair only to be scrapped due to repair costs exceeding the perceived value, sometimes these systems were barely three years old. Of course this can be a windfall for salvage or repair prior to hitting the recycle bin. Great detailed video, thanks

[@PlasmaHH]

I think in this case it was a kind of "its 10 years old, we always wanted to have this newer model, repair costs X, lets spend 2*X to get something very much better".

[@JasperJanssen]

Dennis Lubert it's not at all impossible that an equivalent replacement would cost the same as repair, for equipment like this. Keep in mind that back in 1980, CT scanning was still in "we have the theory, sometime soon there may actually be commercially available machines" mode. Very young technology, relatively speaking. Combine that with a machine that is at least 10 years old, and possibly much more (if the 10yo server is a replacement for an older VMS machine, the actual thing is probably 20-25 years old).

[@FennecTECH]

Well its like printers consumables (xray tube) cost more than the machine itself

[@Tadesan]

Craig Nehring I'm a member of a maker space and they are trying to throw out oscilloscopes because they "aren't worth repairing". People these days are getting really timid! That or lazy. I really can't tell.

[@SteinErikDahle]

Thanks for a massively interesting video! It's not often one gets to view these in such extreme detail, so thanks!

[@msys3367]

Thanks for a great teardown, as always. Those Integrity servers tend to be super expensive even second hand.

[@eliotmansfield]

Reverse engineering that metal to work out what it is by it’s weight was pretty impressive

[@magdalenajirova5745]

The other chamber of the X-ray source assembly is an expansomat - a devece that gives the oil some space needed for thermodilatation when the oil expands because of temerature rise. Without it, the oil will crush the tube when warmed.

[@cnvogel]

The crazily heavy dull metal is certainly Tungsten. The devices we produce at my employer also use it as a shield against high-energy ionizing radiation. Tungsten is mainly used because of the toxicity of Lead. It's pretty expensive, though.

[@PolyDuff]

Some nice parts which could be used for a really sturdy 3d-printer

[@MaxKoschuh]

Mike, thank you very much for an awesome teardown!!!!

[@Zadster]

Early viewer dilemma: Wait for 1080 or luxuriate in 46 minutes of excellent yet 360p vid now? Dammit, I can resist anything but temptation.

[@kuro68000]

This think looks like practically pornographicly high end build quality, with 1080p I think.

[@ToniT800]

Lol, I didnt even noticed I am watching this in 360p. I was thinking "What is wrong with his camera today":D Gonna wait 1080, else I cant see much on those sexy PCB's:9

[@DextersTechLab]

i'm drumming my fingers waiting for the HD version!

[@stefantrethan]

Only solution watch it twice.

[@andycristea]

Same here!

[@redtails]

I feel that 20k in repairs is not that much for this machine. There might have been more political reasons why this machine was scrapped after such a short time. These things were built to last.

[@DVSProductions]

24:40 the chip on the bottom left. MOTHER OF BODGES!

[@nRADRUS]

triangle is symbol of illuminates !

[@DVSProductions]

+nRADRUS shieeeet

[@aeonikus1]

Many of these parts can be seen on Ebay with hefty price tag. So you just broke cuple thousands of USD :) But I find your kind of breakdown much more entartaining and educational than droping test of new iphones. Good job with nice explanations. Thanks for that effort! :)

[@TheChroniclesOfAnAverageJoe]

You should send those locks and keys over to Bosnianbill at the lock lab. He does lock picking videos and he loves a challenge. I am sure he would love to attempt a lock pick on something that unusual.

[@movax20h]

These locks look like standard Kaba 20 locks. Not easy to pick, but also not impossible. Many people did pick them with some effort. I don't think Bosnianbill did tho.

[@graywolf2694]

I wish some university would throw something like that out by me, many nice parts.

[@saberpeep]

oh man, that light-guide effect on the paper at 44:30 is really trippy

[@cipndale]

That is called capillary lensing and it serves as a collimator.

[@AureliusR]

BTW, Hotlink is a proprietary Cypress Semiconductor protocol.

[@DoRC]

looks like a good start to a 3d printer

[@Tadesan]

Do R/C! Lol. What technology are you using to make 3d printed garbage? FDM right?

[@DextersTechLab]

Nice teardown Mike, interesting point with the shielding alloy, i found a similar metal in another radiation related item. Very close density to uranium & tungsten though mine is not paramagnetic. It's softer than tungsten and stainless steel. I put it down to depleted uranium.

[@mikeselectricstuff]

The tungsten alloys page I found listed magnetic and nonmagnetic alloys.

[@dimasbka]

Strong enough radiation can cause secondary neutron radiation of aluminum, possibly because of this added layer of bronze. Or may be considered that only aluminum inadequate. X-ray absorption in bronze 30 times greater than that of aluminum of the same thickness, a compromise between weight and protection :)

[@ATOMSHAMRADIO]

Man the machine work is a piece of art wow👍💯

[@aeonikus1]

This Kenex X-ray guns can be seen on ebay listed around 2000$ so....Quite costly teardown :) But very informative, so thank you for that!

[@MrHack4never]

the cabinet looks like it would make a great chamber for a CNC or similar with those high-res steppers

[@90SecondsofAviation]

New video, YAY !

[@philip2.2.12]

The door lock/switch is a pretty basic industry style door-saftey interlock

[@badacktor]

hey mike, those cabinet locks are Kaba 8! any chance you've still got any of them lying around?

[@hellraiser666666]

i love these videos! keep them up! great work, great explanation!

[@ChumpusRex]

Some X-ray tubes use a grid to control tube current, in exactly the same way as a triode valve.

[@Graham_Langley]

If no one's beaten me to it, that California health warning is called a Proposition 65 Warning and in most cases it's on electronic kit simply because of the lead content of solder.

[@noisytim]

That thing must have cost a couple of fortunes...

[@againstalloddstherussiansg3206]

Interesting device. Thanks, Mike!

[@ChristopherMyersisnt87]

Could have even been an Alpha based system that was replaced, instead of a VAX. Neat to see something that ran VMS!

[@TheEPROM9]

I have not had anything good to take apart for far to long.

[@lmaoroflcopter]

Have seen brass edging on knifeedge door seals and brass fingers for EM shielding on server cabinets.

[@blank7921]

Geez you got this for free? So much nice metal and ball screws.

[@hannonm]

Nice 3D printer hardware.

[@HDXFH]

Nice unit good teardown, who knows an XRT may turn up cheap somewhere

[@macro820]

Dave Jones would say they're shielding the lily

[@Alexelectricalengineering]

Interesting teardown, thumbs up :) Alex

[@Petertronic]

Anything interesting on the hard drives?

[@aserta]

Ironic, that the part that's supposed to be the expensive part that killed this unit is a bit of a dog's chow. 20grand with a perforated board inside?? I dunno. Doesn't inspire a lot of confidence in their products if that's the best. I mean come on, i'd understand if they made multiple board edge options to choose variants but that just looks bodged at best.

[@starghost09]

Hey man, I have a robotic entertainment lighting fixture in the states that mostly works but the arc lamp doesn't work properly. I'm sure an engineer like yourself can get it to work though. You can have it if you pay for the shipping.

[@tekvax01]

You always find the coolest stuff!!!!!! Where do you get this stuff!?

[@dtiydr]

Mostly Ebay but this he got from a university.

[@Sigmatechnica]

Always thought the brown glass on the x-ray tubes was caused by the x-rays themselves. I have a tube somewhere that is brown just at the business end.

[@nickmartinblue]

Sounds like you have the perfect kit to do a 3D printer

[@LeighKemp]

As usual a fascinating video Mike.

[@wither8]

Brass, Tungsten, and Ti are the standard ideal targets used (changes depending on the energy put out/focal length/etc (at least on the JEOL uCT SEM's)). bruker-microct.com/company/UM2011/abstract_10.pdf I'm not sure where that assembly @ 20:00 was taken from but if it's from anywhere near the imaging assembly, the metal was probably chosen for it's controlled/predictable backscattering diffraction picked up by the CCD, so you can just use naive 2d Gaussian filters. It looked like a magnesium alloy at first, but no way. Not a materials expert (nor a physicist in optics, nor nothin' fancy like that) but my money's on Ti. Take a heat source to it and see how quickly it propagates - W is nearly an order higher, Ti stays coooold. You could take a file to it also, since Ti's harder than a coffin nail, it'll glide across.

[@wither8]

Oh, well thats what I get for pausing and responding, a W alloy, cool

[@KnaufL]

make an unobtanium cnc machine out of it

[@Coolkeys2009]

Mike couldn't you bodge in some other x'ray tube just for testing? Or trick the current sensing hardware?

[@mikeselectricstuff]

Problem is the software was super painful - enforces a 20 min tube startup time after any error.

[@Coolkeys2009]

mikeselectricstuff I guess if it was an easy fix the University might have already tried it. One thing I would ask is when you power up gear if you could include some of it in the video. Thanks for posting.

[@bvs1q]

nice cnc base!

[@sbreheny]

Can you try x-raying the light guide to see if it has leaded glass?

[@teemoinvietnam1356]

Really nice

[@DAVIDGREGORYKERR]

just an idea would the thing work if you put the other boards back and see what happens

[@DAVIDGREGORYKERR]

would FreeBSD(UNIX) allow you to rebuild the programs needed to get that X-RAY machine to work again.

[@AndyHullMcPenguin]

Have you checked your voltages? The tube may in fact be fine.

[@NickNorton]

Brass blocks x-rays well compared to aluminium. It’s also far more rigid than lead (or aluminium).

[@calebwilbanks2871]

These things were built to last

[@dubstepwoof]

it would make a nice cnc box

[@kevvywevvywoo]

education budgets are weird things and the managers know how to manipulate them. Maybe they needed to blow the equipment budget so they got the same grant the next year. If they save too much money they get it reduced the following year. Happens in health too.

[@captaindoctor1258]

Are you going to use the assembly with the ball screw for something or would you be wining to sell it for cheep?

[@hulladek3]

I dont get it. Why would you want a CT picture of a pulled out tooth? If you want to make one like it you just make a wax imprint. And does it matter if it has cavity if it is already pulled out?

[@MrTechguyy]

It could well be used to take bone samples and and look at the density to look for disease of the bone. It may also be used to look at archeology bone samples.

[@mikeselectricstuff]

It's used for research, not routine diagnosis etc.

[@redtails]

this sort of machine is used to image small rodents used in research. It fits exactly one anaesthetised mouse, or a gerbil, or any rodent up to about 25g. Although for feeling's sake, you might say it's for teeth.

[@cnxunuo]

check MATLAB reverse backprojection kit, very easy to use, success with using dental DR and a second hand kevex modual

[@MayaPosch]

So how much does a new scanner like this cost if a 10k X-ray tube is reason enough to throw this unit out?

[@gglovato]

my thought exactly, that integrity server and external array alone would've cost more than 30K NEW, i highly doubt a new modern CT scanner would cost less than 50K, making them throw this out for 20K kind of wasteful (unless they wanted to upgrade and considered the cost in electricity and size compared to a new one)

[@kuro68000]

The manufacturer probably makes it so that it's not worth doing, e.g. by charging silly money for on-going support.

[@Jerry_from_analytics]

It's probably not only about absolute price but also timing. Maybe they had a new device planned / budgeted for next year? If the current one failed unexpectedly then it's a question of doing that expensive repair VS borrowing money (and paying interest) to get another one early.

[@andrewnambudripad762]

Holy lol. OpenVMS? Can I buy that off you Mike?

[@khaitomretro]

Without the taped-on sheet of aluminium in front of the beryllium window might it not have enough oomph to work again?

[@khaitomretro]

Replacing the AL sheet with foil would probably have given a 10% increase in output while still filtering the low end. (thinking out loud)

[@johndrachenberg2254]

Very interesting. Do you think you could make a profit if you sold the huge chunks of brass and tungsten alloys, and found a buyer for the $54 hotlink chips? Personally, I would love to tear stuff like this down to sell the parts. :P

[@frac]

Is brass particularly temperature stable or something? Might it have something to do with expansion and contraction stability?

[@MaxKoschuh]

They have used (silver plated) brass in early Rohde & Schwarz electronics, as an RF shielding. Not sure why brass was the best solution.

[@stefantrethan]

Easy to machine and electroplate, no corrosion. Brass was used widely before it got too expensive. I have big chunky linear power supplies (Kingshill, made in England) where the chassis is made from brass square stock, because they could. I suspect some reason here, 10 years ago it was already expensive and replaced by steel or aluminum where possible.

[@JustinAlexanderBell]

Leaded brass?

[@againstalloddstherussiansg3206]

IMHO, less corrosion

[@bavarianmonkey8326]

machining and corrosion resistance...

[@Razor2048]

Can't they just sell the x-ray tubes for like $10.

[@RobertSzasz]

high quality miniature x-ray tubes are crazy expensive. would be neat to upgrade the system with a modern sensor and emitter.

[@zedman442]

I'm surprised due to patient confidentiality etc they let you have the hard drives, these should be shredded.

[@mikeselectricstuff]

It was for research use, not patient treatment

[@dorfschmidt4833]

Isn't a new tube cheaper than a whole new apparatus ? (Or nevermind, taxpayers will be charged.)

[@thinkbolt]

wow

[@kevy1yt]

Nice, but can you bounce the camera around just a little more? {:~)

[@FennecTECH]

Those heatsyncs are a bit wonkey i mean for high price like that id at least line them up

[@Thegeek1985]

Make a nice 3d printer maybe ?

[@tfhAlex94]

20k for this mess of bodges? WTF