Blu-rays by no means fairly managed to usurp DVDs solely. Latest estimates, based mostly on knowledge gathered by Nielsen VideoScan and MediaPlayNews, counsel that as of Q2 2022, DVDs nonetheless managed 51.4 % of market share in comparison with 48.6 % for Blu-rays. And regardless of which format has the most important slice, the bodily media pie is shrinking. So, in case your Blu-ray participant has gone from your property theater centerpiece to a dust-gathering decoration, one intelligent hacker is aware of simply what to do with it.
As noticed by Hackster.io this week, a YouTuber named Physician Volt just lately detailed their two-part journey of turning a Samsung BD-J5900 Blu-ray participant right into a laser-scanning microscope.
One of many laser-scanning microscope’s major benefits over optical ones is that the latter maxes out at 1,500 occasions magnification, as famous by Gizmodo. Physician Volt says they are not certain of the magnification of their DY microscope however instructed a commenter that “it might resolve constructions of roundabout 5 micrometers.”
Physician Volt’s hack was doable as a result of Blu-ray gamers and laser-scanning microscopes work in comparable fashions. As a fast simplification, Blu-ray gamers beam lasers onto Blu-ray discs, and relying on how strongly the sunshine is mirrored again onto the participant’s optical pickup unit, its sensors can learn both a 1 or 0.
However as a result of the sensors within the optical pickup unit are literally not binary and may measure different quantities of mirrored mild, Blu-ray gamers are inauspicious candidates for makeshift laser-scanning microscopes.
As defined by Hackster.io, “By working that very same course of and recording every depth measurement, one can create a picture of the floor of regardless of the laser scans. The decision is a perform of the bodily motion of the laser because it scans.”
Physician Volt used numerous components from the Samsung Blu-ray participant, together with a laser diode, stepper motor to maneuver the laser, its optical pickup unit, and focus coil, for his or her challenge. In addition they needed to create further plastic components for a scanning mattress.
In keeping with Physician Volt, the microscope creates pictures utilizing 16,129 measurements, making a 127×127-pixel picture, which the hacker scaled to 512×512 within the picture beneath.
In fact, Physician Volt’s microscope is not almost as highly effective as business choices in a lab. However contemplating these can value tens of hundreds of {dollars}, whereas Physician Volt’s required an growing old gadget you will have in your house or can discover used for reasonable, we might say Physician Volt did alright.
The YouTuber is not the primary to repurpose a Blu-ray participant to get a magnified view. In April, professors from the College of Connecticut printed the paper “Blood-Coated Sensor for Excessive-Throughput Ptychographic Cytometry on a Blu-ray Disc” in ACS Publications. They used a modified Blu-ray participant and a blood-coated picture sensor to acquire “high-quality pictures of organic samples,” as UConn’s announcement put it. UConn Expertise Commercialization Providers filed a provisional patent across the findings.
Physician Volt shared instructions for turning your Blu-ray participant right into a laser-scanning microscope on Hackster.io.
And you’ll watch the DIYers’ full video, which incorporates extra on the constructing course of and extra pictures taken by the microscope beneath.
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DIY Blu-ray laser-scanning microscope: capturing pictures.
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