[HN Gopher] Using a laser pointer and a matrix LED as a two-dime...
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       Using a laser pointer and a matrix LED as a two-dimensional input
       device (2010)
        
       Author : rsre
       Score  : 76 points
       Date   : 2021-09-10 10:23 UTC (2 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.cs.cmu.edu)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.cs.cmu.edu)
        
       | nayuki wrote:
       | I see they did a trick in the code: Because binary literals were
       | added late in C++14, it seems they used some library which
       | defined 256 constants like B00000000 = 0, B00000001 = 1, ...,
       | B11111111 = 255.
        
         | Moosdijk wrote:
         | Note quite. See [1]
         | 
         | [1] https://www.arduino.cc/en/Reference/PortManipulation
        
           | kaszanka wrote:
           | Yes, Arduino is the library that defines these macros:
           | https://github.com/arduino/ArduinoCore-
           | avr/blob/8f8df161ebf3...
        
       | atoav wrote:
       | Very cool, I was not aware that LEDs could be used like that. I
       | wonder how sensetive this technique can get.
        
         | a9h74j wrote:
         | People have made half-duplex, 2-way single-fiber links this
         | way.
         | 
         | With reverse-biased diodes, you are operating in
         | photoconduction mode. If tightly-coupled to a fiber optic, and
         | with a quantum efficiency of say, 10%, that would mean for
         | every 10 photons which come in, you get 1 electron charge of
         | current flow.
         | 
         | IIRC there are people who paint e.g. 1N4444 diodes with black
         | paint to minimize opto-induced leakage.
        
       | _Microft wrote:
       | You might also want to watch this video that demonstrates a 2D
       | proximity sensor using an LED array. It works without a laser
       | pointer, using the fingertips alone is good enough for it:
       | 
       | https://cs.nyu.edu/~jhan/ledtouch/index.html
       | 
       | A few days ago, a user here also commented on how LEDs work both
       | ways and how he used this effect to automatically adjust the
       | brightness of an LED to ambient light. You can find that comment
       | here:
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28475474
        
         | _spduchamp wrote:
         | I've wondered how hard it would be to hack old LED signs into
         | OSC touch control surfaces.
        
         | shreddit wrote:
         | Very impressive, i love this kind of stuff.
         | 
         | "...and in my next video I'll show you how to bake a pizza in
         | your freezer."
        
           | nayuki wrote:
           | Just swap a couple of pipes to reverse the heat pump. Nothing
           | can possibly go wrong.
        
             | spijdar wrote:
             | ...okay, but could this actually work? I'm assuming because
             | there are no products like this that there's a giant caveat
             | somewhere, but isn't it actually a good idea?
             | 
             | My understanding is heat pumps can move more heat energy
             | in/out of a system than the electrical energy input into
             | them. My peabrain logic thinks, "Wait a moment, doesn't
             | that mean a heatpump oven would be more energy efficient
             | than a conventional electric oven with resistive heating?"
             | 
             | I'm assuming the problem lies somewhere in refrigerants
             | not, uh, behaving well at oven temperatures?
        
               | marcosdumay wrote:
               | You will be able to reach small ~100degC heating before
               | everything starts failing and getting on fire, then you
               | will get much larger temperatures, once. If you have a
               | bad enough circuit breaker, you may even reach
               | metallurgic oven temperatures for a short while!
               | 
               | The refrigerant gas failing isn't actually a problem for
               | high temperatures. They are a problem to getting too
               | cold, but if you get hot enough, anything will work. Even
               | if it burns down inside your pipes, the results will
               | still work (but your pipes won't).
        
               | spijdar wrote:
               | Is the problem "literally using a freezer"? Could you (in
               | principle) build an insulated chamber that could deal
               | with the temperatures?
        
               | marcosdumay wrote:
               | Ok, the question is if you could build an oven heated by
               | a heat pump? Yes, you could.
               | 
               | You can reach home cooking temperatures reasonably
               | easily, and probably even large ones. It's helpful that
               | the compressor only has to deal with gases after they got
               | cooled and heated again on the open air, all the really
               | hot parts are rigid tubing.
               | 
               | There will be problems turning the compressor off,
               | dealing with the heat that propagates back through the
               | pipes. You can solve them with some usual cooling devices
               | (heat disipators, fans, etc).
        
             | marcosdumay wrote:
             | It has a way to push heat into it, some heat insulation, a
             | door, and it's food-ready. The thing is basically an oven
             | already, and 270K and 400K are just some 30% change.
        
       | baking wrote:
       | Made me think of Eli Yablonovitch, "A great solar cell also needs
       | to be a great LED." RIP Alta Devices.
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_K1URyarE0
        
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       (page generated 2021-09-12 23:01 UTC)