Electronics mystery: hidden music in oscilloscope light

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This is about a strange crossover I found between two separate workshops I do with art students at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague: oscilloscope music and light modulation.
Turns out that by holding up a solar panel to an oscilloscope that is showing oscilloscope music, you can actually hear the modulated light. Crazy!
Camera: Irja Linnerud

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23 июн 2024

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Комментарии : 12

@andy_warb 10 дней назад

This was suuuuuper interesting. Is this the official start of your RU-vid career?

@CqGD4Yi8fii1CYPa 5 дней назад

Just Test Ideas for Oscilloscope Light to Solar Panel Phenomenon: 1) Without signal to the oscilloscope, set the flat trace to the top of the screen and then slowly adjust the trace down to the bottom of the screen to see if the audio output changes. 2) Create a set of individual signals that generate small oscilloscope images (short pulses of low amplitude) , gradually increasing to large oscilloscope images (increasing number of pulses of increasing amplitude). Each level would be a discrete signal for testing. More onscreen pulses produce more light. Does the audio from each alter with the differences of overall brightness of the screen? 3) Repeat #2, but with more complex signals using a small trigger wave pulse followed by high amplitude wave pulses so as to create a large light source on the left side of the oscilloscope screen that can be moved towards the right side of the screen. In other words, a small pulse to trigger the oscilloscope followed by a short pause and then by the large set of pulses. These two sets would remain within the time limits depicted across the width of the screen, but with a variable pause length. Does the audio alter in any way? Beyond these ideas, all I can guess is an actual "pixel" amplitude change as speculated in the video. And, yes, analog oscilloscopes have no pixels. You get my meaning.

@Davedarko 4 дня назад

I think this will also work with a single axis - which means you effectively have some sort of stereo to mono mixdown by light going on there. I think the afterglow of the oscilloscope helps.

@thomasguilder9288 6 дней назад

I would assume it is through the persistence of the phosphor, fast changes generate a longer „tail of light“ than a sliwli moving dot

@MirlitronOne 9 дней назад

1. Although it's called a "phosphor", it contains no phosphorus; 2. It takes time for the phosphor screen to reach full brightness when the electron beam dwells on one point; 3. There is a difference in response of a solar cell from one isolated spot illuminated brightly compared with a large area illuminated dimly (but with the same total luminosity).

@vicemayorskeletonmeat 9 дней назад

yup, the phospor reaction is the slowest piece of the chain here. along with the scope's sample rate if it's low enough, i bet it functions effectively as an LPF for the audio

@vicemayorskeletonmeat 9 дней назад

but also as mentioned kind of the raster in the center of the scope display is more effectively captured by the panel than the raster at the edges of the scope display, which is how the voltage mod is communicated. you could maybe test this by offsetting the panel from the scope display, and it should have the effect of an amplitude gate

@SeanCMonahan 9 дней назад

That last part is super important. Solar panels are photodiodes in series. If you have one that's four cells, and you cover one cell entirely, it'll produce far less electricity than shining a light that's 25% lower intensity at the whole panel. I'm not 100% sure on the physics behind it, but it has something to do with how diodes do not exhibit a linear correlation between voltage and current.

@SeanCMonahan 9 дней назад

Fun fact: LEDs (light emitting diodes) and solar panels (photodiodes) are fundamentally the same thing. If you apply a voltage to a photodiode, it will (poorly) emit light. Likewise, shining a light on an LED will generate a small voltage! It's similar to how electric motors are also generators, though often not great ones if they're not designed to be used as them.

@vicemayorskeletonmeat 9 дней назад

@@SeanCMonahan coool. which maybe means because of angled occlusion, pulling the panel fw/back even a few mm would have an exponential effect on the amplitude of the v modulation

@SergioSalvi 9 дней назад

Super interesting indeed! Can you get a second oscilloscope to display the signal coming out the solar panel? I'm curious to know what it'll look like, especially if you put both oscilloscopes side by side.

@Jaap7M 9 дней назад

LOL that would be fun. Three would be even better, as the first screen would be blocked by the solar panel. With three oscilloscope you can compare images :-)