[Ben Krasnow] has a knack for showing us what’s inside of things while they’re moving. This week’s used science experiment has him making time-lapse X-ray videos of things. This plant’s vascular system is just one of a few examples, the others being a dial clock as well as the zoom lens on a DSLR.
The technique right here is having an X-ray sensing panel that can be reused. It takes around five seconds of exposure to get each 40×40 cm frame which are then put together back into video.
Now viewing mechanisms relocation is awesome — [Ben’s] video back in 2015 to show what a phonograph needle in the groove of a vinyl record appears like under a scanning electron microscope is still one for the coolest “camera tricks” we’ve ever seen pulled off. however viewing the vascular system of a plant function is the recipe for one of those ah-ha academic moments, so we hope that 7th-grade biology instructors all over will discover their method to this video.
The apparatus is explained in fantastic detail, however routine Hackaday visitors will many likely want to focus in on the teardown of the X-ray panel, which [Ben] explains as a huge digital video camera sensor tuned for getting the X-rays. The source is a 50 kV 1 mA tube that he compares to what is utilized at the dental office. (Obviously this needs forethought to guarantee his automated time-lapse configuration will stop working risk-free with the X-ray tube.) A Cyclone III FPGA drives the panel, interacting with the sensor range through two Ethernet interfaces.
A buddy sent a the damaged panel to [Ben] as well as he was able to quickly repair work a MOSFET that got knocked out of place. [biluni] shows up in the comments of this video, sharing his recollection from working in the market 15 years back that a panel such as this would have expense $150k! however thinking about the outstanding resolution, as well as repeatable use, it sure as heck beats the old film process.