TL;DR

• Back from vacation, project is on
• Working on new circuits/boards
• Anyone have suggestions for storing/generating Hydrogen?
• New resonance measuring board in the works

I took a vacation from the project for about a year, and as part of that I entered the HAD prize with another project (lasercut optics bench) and did a lot of kayaking. The prize project won one of the interim prizes, so that worked out pretty well. The prize money will go towards this project.

Meanwhile I've been doing research and running down some ideas, and I came up with a new and interesting approach. It's a rather obscure, little-known effect that has not been explored in the literature. Those are the best kind!

It may be a way to get around the activation energy requirement at room temperature. If it works out, it would be a legitimate advancement worthy of a paper at least.

I don't want to outline the method quite yet, because it would be easy for some grad student somewhere to "scoop" me on the process: they have access to lots of equipment, while I have to build things up from scratch.

I am working on the project with renewed vigor, but not focusing on ultrasonic cavitation. The new idea uses ultrasonics indirectly, but it'll be awhile before I can piece together the equipment needed. I have to build some specialized electronics first.

I have ordered initial PCBs from China, which have arrived (ye gods, PCB boards are cheap!), populated one board, and am using it as an exploration tool to build up more complicated boards.

(IOW, the board is the raw amplifier, I'll add more electronics, make a new board, and repeat, testing and tuning at each step.)

If all goes as planned, the system might lead to a new tool that hackers can build. More on that later.

Also, I purchased a Nitrogen tank and regulator, so using Nitrogen is now much easier.

I'm still planning on making Hydrogen, which is a pain but Hydrogen can be dangerous and it's easy to make (drop some Aluminum into acid or base). I can reduce the risk by making only as much as needed for testing.

I'm planning to install a much better ventilation system, should be adequate for small gaseous samples.

Anyone have suggestions or better ideas for working with Hydrogen?

I have a new resonance finder circuit that I built into an arduino shield, and I'm casually building up the software for it. It's a semi-portable probe that lets me measure the resonant frequency of transducers and horns. Makes it easy to mill down the horns.

I haven't uploaded specs or images yet, because ultrasonics are 'kinda tangential to the project right now.

Dealing with the touchscreen interface is a pain - the display shares I/O pins with the touchscreen, so the touchscreen default Arduino library doesn't work with the display.

Had to rewrite the 'damn thing from scratch. Still working on that, leisurely.