new short vid
I felt like breaking out my monster vacuum tube tesla coil, so I made a quick short vid about a strange property of it
2024-07-18 00:18:12 +0000 UTC View Post
styropyro posts
upcoming stuff
I decided to start recording a squirrel vid because, well, why not? ophelia is popular on my shorts channel and it's been a couple years since i've posted about her, so I think it's about time for an update. plus, i'm slowly befriending some of the other squirrels here as well.
On another note, I'm going to attempt a p...
health updates
It's been a wild past couple weeks between round two of testing and open sauce. I got the liver biopsy 4 days before flying out. It sucked, and still hurts, but I'm glad it's over with. When I was in recovery, one of the nurses heard me talking and ran in and asked "are you styropyro??" π
I got the results when my s...
sounds and sights on the farm
First off I want to thank everybody for the incredible outpouring of support after my recent vid. It's going to take me a long while to get through all of these messages!
I've mentioned the 17-year cicadas both here and in that vid but I wanted to share what it has sounded like at my place the past few days. It is so u...
channel/health update video
I really hate putting this kind of personal drama on my main channel but I've come to the conclusion that it's better than not posting anything. Most of the stuff in here I've already told you guys via text posts over the past few months, but I also added a bit about some cool nature stuff I've been enjoying.
I will c...
hunting tornadoes in a historic outbreak
Something I've wanted to do for years was to drive out to the plains and experience a big tornado outbreak. I'd always consider it when the forecasts looked promising, but I'd never actually make the commitment and go out. However, my current medical nightmare made me realize I should be prioritizing bucket list stuff. So, I ...
2024-06-03 17:35:11 +0000 UTC View Postupdates and new videos
I finally saw the liver doc and I really like him. He ordered some more tests and imaging. The blood work didn't give any answers so now I get a liver biopsy next week. I get to have a piece of my liver ripped out while I'm awake. yay. Last week I had my "fibroscan" ordered which doesn't tell me why I'm sick but estimates the...
2024-06-03 17:16:43 +0000 UTC View Postaurora
Aurora watching was incredible to say the least. I about had a heart attack when the sun finally dropped far enough below the horizon to reveal that the entire sky was filled with lights. Honestly I botched most of my opportunity to film and photograph it but at least I got this nice time lapse after a round of clouds moved t...
2024-05-14 20:52:57 +0000 UTC View Postupdates
I'm sorry I've been bad about posting recently. I've done quite a bit of traveling (for me anyway) and I also spent a bunch of time planning for a big collab that ended up not happening. Also, the uncertainty of my current health drama has kinda made it hard for me to get in front of a camera and do the normal thing right now...
2024-05-10 20:22:45 +0000 UTC View Post400W handheld laser progress
I decided to use an old radar gun to house this new laser, just like the 100W blue laser I built back in 2020. Going for quadruple the power in the same space brings up some significant challenges however. Nearly every millimeter of space inside the radar gun gets used. Most of my time spent so far is playing tetris with the ...
2024-03-19 00:35:10 +0000 UTC View Postbig laser arrays finally arrived
The arrays for my 400W handheld laser project finally showed up, but the packaging used wasn't exactly adequate. They were tossed in little bags and placed in a tiny box that got crushed on the way over here. The arrays themselves do look to be intact though, other than the tabs being bent a little bit. Now I have nearly ever...
2024-03-11 16:27:09 +0000 UTC View Post"dangerous people" panel at Open Sauce
Last year I did a panel with the Backyard Scientist, Colin Furze, the Hacksmith, and Electroboom at Open Sauce 2023. We talked about our dangerous projects as well as our visits from federal agents. This talk finally got published so here's a link to it! FYI I will be going to Open Sauce this year as well!
2024-02-28 23:01:15 +0000 UTC View Postchange of plans
I started attempting some of the chemical formulary experiments but ran into some failures. I'm sure I'll be able to make some of them succeed by tweaking the recipes, but in the meantime, I got distracted by the newest high power laser diode arrays on the market. My last giant handheld blue laser was 100W, and the new arrays...
2024-02-22 16:23:09 +0000 UTC View Postnew storm chase vid
I recently chased a rare february tornado near my home and made a quick vid about it. The tornado itself wasn't all that impressive, but the storm was quite beautiful and the event was unprecedented for my area given the time of year.
meteorology was my dream career, but the irony is that if i had become a meteorologis...
chemical formulary part 5
I think I'm going to do part 5 of the chemical formulary series for my next video. I've picked a nice set of experiments to try so far, and I've already began ordering a bunch of chemicals. At this point, I've made it through the first 10 volumes, and although I've began reading past that, there's a good chance this will be t...
2024-02-02 19:14:32 +0000 UTC View Postenormous vaccuum tube
I guess it's time I'll admit to this fairly irresponsible impulse purchase of mine a while ago. This is a soviet tetrode rated for 80kW of output power, and if it's like every other soviet tube I've used, it'll be able to do substantially more than that. This beast weighs 33kg / 73lbs. The dream project for this is throwing m...
2024-01-20 18:38:44 +0000 UTC View Postophelia visit
oh also, enjoy this quick clip of ophelia visiting me on a cold day
2024-01-18 19:42:43 +0000 UTC View Postchoosing the next video
I'm not the type of youtuber to have a calendar planned out with the videos I plan to produce. Usually I spend some time after finishing a video just exploring other video topics. The current top contenders for the next video are either a "lightsaber" build based on my bank of car batteries, a huge "demon circuit" with a 100k...
2024-01-18 19:41:08 +0000 UTC View Postnew video! upgrading a laser welder into a directed energy tower
Patreon early viewing of my new video! This video ended up way longer than I was expecting, but that seems to be the trend with my videos recently. I was able to get in quite a few experiments in this one. My only complaint about it is that it's probably the least colorful video I've made. The laser is invisible and the fores...
2024-01-07 00:59:43 +0000 UTC View Postpyro laser target to celebrate the new year
not exactly a difficult target to ignite, but certainly a fun fire filled one :p I wonder what's the chance YT will let me keep this part in the final vid lol
2024-01-02 02:51:51 +0000 UTC View Postshot a hole through firebrick from 70m away
The new optics finally arrived and the upgraded telescope has been built. Once I got it focused, it was clear that the power density was substantially higher than the last scope. At this point, the limiting factor isn't the optics, it's the wobbly tower and mount the laser is sitting in. The laser spot is way smaller than tha...
2023-12-31 01:46:57 +0000 UTC View Postfailure and first shots in the tower
today was super foggy, and i was bummed because i wanted to take distant shots and figured the fog would ruin the beam. i got in the tower anyway, and decided to run my camera in nightshot mode and see what it would look like. sure enough, the beam was quite visible, which was surprising to me considering this wavelength is o...
2023-12-24 01:03:10 +0000 UTC View Posttele cope
I wouldn't have expected to spend two days mounting four lenses but that's the "fun" of DIY optics. see how the telescope is bent in the first pic? that's intentional. thus the name, tele cope.
let me tell you, the inside of that telescope is ugly, even for what I make. I had to shim the optics near the head because th...
video updates
i wanted to share some stills from the first part of my video:
1: cleaning rust (its actual intended application)
2. glass "fulgurite" made by melting sand with the laser, and then illuminated by a cyan laser
3. burning through a chain of mirrors
4. burning tungsten which makes a ton of blue and violet light
5....
fun with directed energy
I apologize for the lack of updates, I've been spending way too much time in the forest recently. I have gotten a good start on the next video though, and today I finally received the lenses I needed to build a telescope for the 2kW fiber laser I've mentioned earlier. The expanding lenses here are rated for a whopping megawat...
2023-12-06 19:10:11 +0000 UTC View Post2kW laser welder
After watching the Backyard Scientist's video on his laser cleaning and welding machine, I decided to take the plunge and order a similar one. The buying process was sketchy to say the least. I had to wire $10k to China and I never received a working tracking number. However, after a few months of waiting, it arrived (mostly)...
2023-11-09 18:23:21 +0000 UTC View Postslow motion
Say I collabed with somebody with a very high speed camera. What experiments would you want to see done?
In other news, I apologize for the lack of posts recently. I needed a break after the car battery vid because that one was a lot of work. In the meantime I've been planning out some projects trying to decide which ...
new chemistry short early viewing
I was in the mood to make a chemistry short so I decided to try a very dangerous penny experiment. Since I've already dissolved a whole penny in acid, as well as the zinc core of a penny, I wanted to complete the trio by try dissolving just the copper plating (without damaging the zinc). This turned out to be quite difficult ...
2023-10-03 21:11:30 +0000 UTC View Postcar battery vid is finally here! enjoy!
Here's the completed car battery video! I hope it was worth the wait!
2023-09-27 19:07:38 +0000 UTC View Postcamera damage
the car battery vid has been finished for a while but i'm currently waiting for sponsor approval to be able to show it to you guys! to be fair, they probably need a full legal team to go through some of the experiments and jokes lol. it is by far the longest video i've made at nearly 40 minutes.
i trashed the outer len...
