iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Breaking Taps @breakingtaps.com · 09/02/2026

Dusting off an old hobby! I forgot how Zen it was to put on headphones and just paint for a few hours. Didn't go exactly to plan, but happy enough with how it turned out 😊

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Breaking Taps @breakingtaps.com · 04/12/2025

I did manage to sneak in two small silicon art logos. Wish I had more time to put more on the chip but oh well!

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Breaking Taps @breakingtaps.com · 04/12/2025

The last month of my life: BreakingTTAPs This is a custom transport-triggered, 32 bit processor that will be fabricated by GlobalFoundries on their 180nm process (via of wafer.space) I'll make a video at some point, but some high level details here:

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Breaking Taps @breakingtaps.com · 19/05/2025

Am I west coasting correctly?

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Breaking Taps @breakingtaps.com · 18/05/2025

This thing is pretty impressive in person 😯

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Breaking Taps @breakingtaps.com · 27/04/2025

Oh hai there, look what I found in the bin of childhood stuff my parents dropped off 👀

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Breaking Taps @breakingtaps.com · 22/04/2025

Probably the two best things I've ever purchased

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Breaking Taps @breakingtaps.com · 14/04/2025

Shoutout to bad decisions that past BreakingTaps let future BreakingTaps sort out 😑

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Breaking Taps @breakingtaps.com · 10/04/2025

brb starting a new channel called Breaking Bones

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Breaking Taps @breakingtaps.com · 07/04/2025

Getting ready for my $5.50/hr reindustrialization sewing job at the textile factory. 👊🇺🇸🔥

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Breaking Taps @breakingtaps.com · 02/04/2025

Lol futures for S&P, NASDAQ, Dow etc are like a vertical cliff. So much winning! jfc

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Breaking Taps @breakingtaps.com · 27/03/2025

Large area deposition ends up being quite easy, but does require a spacer between metal and glass which limits ability to pattern. Ag is great, Cu is tricky (oxidizes easily). Ti, Nb and Invar 36 seem good. Can make TiO2 easily too. Zr seems to oxidize immediately

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Breaking Taps @breakingtaps.com · 26/03/2025

Playing around with a laser thing today and accidentally found a good set of parameters for transferring aluminum onto glass. Neat!

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Breaking Taps @breakingtaps.com · 06/03/2025

Shameless shilling: I'm selling some esoteric equipment! Want a 200 femtosecond IR laser, or a 532nm picosecond laser? How about a linear motor stage with 10nm resolution? Or an XYZ wafer stage with 250nm steps? I gotchu: www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_...

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Breaking Taps @breakingtaps.com · 06/03/2025

I own a lot of tripods apparently 😅

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Breaking Taps @breakingtaps.com · 26/02/2025

Have some external deadlines popping up in my life so need to stop messing around and finish a video or two. First up: space hinges! Yell at me if you see me on social media before a video is posted plz k thx 🙏

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Breaking Taps @breakingtaps.com · 22/02/2025

Saturday optical alignment vibes

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Breaking Taps @breakingtaps.com · 21/02/2025

Scrounged around optical parts box and found this little guy. Not ideal but should work for now 🫤

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Breaking Taps @breakingtaps.com · 20/02/2025

Waiting on a few components, but the rough layout is starting to look like a thing Litho v3 soon, hopefully? 🥺

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Breaking Taps @breakingtaps.com · 18/02/2025

I'll be at OpenSauce again this year! Had an absolute blast last year, and for some reason they decided to let me come back 😊 Looking forward to seeing all the cool exhibits and chatting with attendees!

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Breaking Taps @breakingtaps.com · 14/02/2025

hey mom can we have an optical breadboard? mom: no, we have an optical breadboard at home optical breadboard at home:

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Breaking Taps @breakingtaps.com · 07/02/2025

New day, new hinge! Figured I should make a plain bearing version, since that's likely the right solution (and lots of feedback saying the same). Uses a carbon/PTFE-filled PEEK plain bearing A little concerned about thermal coefficients but that can shake out in testing

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Breaking Taps @breakingtaps.com · 06/02/2025

Hinge is made of three components, plus a shoulder bolt and a regular bolt. Ball bearings ride on the shoulder bolt and inner/outer halves. Bearings are 1/32" (0.79mm). So small! 🥺

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Breaking Taps @breakingtaps.com · 06/02/2025

New hinge iteration! This one is a bit longer but half as tall (which is important to the application). Happier with this design, although it needs some alterations too. Does not include a latch either, but I think a separate latching mechanism is better anyway.

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Breaking Taps @breakingtaps.com · 30/01/2025

Need to tweak a bunch of dimensions, and adjust some geometry, wind my own double torsion spring... but this little guy just might work. Won't know for sure until torture testing later 😈 (it's a wee little self-latching hinge)

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Breaking Taps @breakingtaps.com · 29/01/2025

RIP m2 form tap, I hardly knew ya 😢🪦

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Breaking Taps @breakingtaps.com · 23/01/2025

If you see this post, quote with a bridge from your gallery. 😇

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Breaking Taps @breakingtaps.com · 23/01/2025

Spent the day designing a wee little hinge 🥺

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Breaking Taps @breakingtaps.com · 22/01/2025

Fun setup from earlier this week: 3D printed tray around a glue fixture, clamped in a vise. Trying to contain the fallout from machining silica. Not perfect, but caught most of the fines. Rest will get scrubbed by my coolant filters.

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Breaking Taps @breakingtaps.com · 13/01/2025

I should not be allowed near soldering irons 🫣

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Breaking Taps @breakingtaps.com · 08/01/2025

Hey internet, this is how you make PCBs right?

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Breaking Taps @breakingtaps.com · 08/01/2025

Making a quick'n'dirty phosphor screen. Just a 4% solution of PMMA in anisole, and a bunch of phosphor powder. Probably a better way to do this but oh well 🙃

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Breaking Taps @breakingtaps.com · 06/01/2025

Said nanodiamonds in question

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Breaking Taps @breakingtaps.com · 06/01/2025

Nanodiamonds! 🤩 *Probably. And also nano-graphite. And lots of other carbon junk. But at least some of that film is nanodiamond!

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Breaking Taps @breakingtaps.com · 27/12/2024

Poorly balanced, 3d printed air bearing as a bonus (audio warning, air flow is loud)

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Breaking Taps @breakingtaps.com · 27/12/2024

The big magnetohydrodynamic reaction wheel seems to work well. Think that'll be good enough for a video, was a fun little build! Some _very_ rough calculations from an overhead view works out to 6.2 mNm of torque and 1.2 mNms of angular momentum.

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Breaking Taps @breakingtaps.com · 24/12/2024

The LHCb experiment at CERN's Large Hadron Collider uses HPDs to watch for Cherenkov photons.

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Breaking Taps @breakingtaps.com · 24/12/2024

Hubble had an early version of this called a "Digicon", installed in the Faint Object Spectrograph. It used a linear array of photodiodes and swept the input field across magnetically to generate a 2D spectra image

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Breaking Taps @breakingtaps.com · 24/12/2024

As the energetic electron travels through the Si it generates hole/electron pairs just like a photon, so the device "sees" a photocurrent. It provides moderate amplification because a high velocity electron will usually generate multiple hole/e- pairs

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Breaking Taps @breakingtaps.com · 24/12/2024

Today in neat electro-optical detectors: hybrid photodiodes! Photocathode on one end, photodiode on the other, electrodes in between, pump to high vacuum. Photocathode emits electrons, which are accelerated and slam into the photodiode generating a "photocurrent".

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Breaking Taps @breakingtaps.com · 23/12/2024

Sensitivity mostly. Far-UV-sensitive film wasn't very good, but electron-sensitive film was nearly 100% efficient. So even though the device ended up very complicated and bulky, it was worth it for the efficiency gain.

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Breaking Taps @breakingtaps.com · 23/12/2024

Well this is cool! An "electronographic telescope" on Apollo 16. Schmidt cassegrain telescope, except the secondary is coated in photocathode. UV photons hit secondary, emit electrons and are focused onto a film plane (From DOI:10.1364/AO.12.002501)

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Breaking Taps @breakingtaps.com · 22/12/2024

Gas Electron Multipliers and Micromegas Detectors are pretty cool! High energy particles ionize gas molecules and emit electrons, which are amplified by one or more high voltage grids. Put a photocathode on top so to detect photons, similar to a photomultiplier tube.

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Breaking Taps @breakingtaps.com · 13/12/2024

Not perfect, but should work for quick tests. Can machine up a proper test stand later if needed

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Breaking Taps @breakingtaps.com · 12/12/2024

It's basically two sets of magnets (inner and outer) with electrodes on top and bottom, and liquid metal in the cavity. Apply current, liquid metal starts to circulate, providing torque without moving parts (other than the metal).

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