Our guest this week is Ben Krasnow. Ben works at Google[x], Google’s semi-secret technology development facility, where he creates advanced prototypes. Ben previously developed virtual reality hardware at Valve. After work, he spends time on various projects that usually involve circuit design, machining, and chemistry. You can follow Ben’s projects on his youtube channel, Applied Science.

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Show Notes:

Digital Inclinometer $31

“It’s a small box about the size of a pack of gum, maybe, or a little bit bigger. It has a magnetic base on the bottom of it and a digital readout. What you do is you stick it down with the magnets to something, like a table saw, and zero it. Then, you pick it up and stick it onto the side of the saw blade and it will tell you the angle between those two surfaces.”

Fiberglass scratch brush $8

“It’s the size of a large ballpoint pen. Instead of a pen coming out the end, it has about a quarter-inch diameter cluster like bundle of fiberglass fibers. The glass fibers are very abrasive. What you do is you push the brush down onto something that you want to clean and swirl it around. The tips of the glass fibers actually scratch away at the surface of the thing that you want to clean. The glass is really hard, so it will clean metal parts. It will erode away plastic parts if you brush them long enough. Then, as you use it, the glass bristles break off and exposes fresh, sharp fibers.”

Stereo Microscope $140

“This one is used a lot by electronics folks. If you have one sitting on your desk that you use for surface mount electronics part assembly, you will start using it for, basically, everything else. Then you realize that it’s just completely indispensable and you really can’t set up a desk without one.”

Devcon Plastic Welder $20

“There’s other brands that sell Plastic Welder, but it’s actually not the same stuff as Devcon. You’ve got to get the actual Devcon stuff. It’s basically a two-part adhesive. It looks like epoxy. It comes in one of those twin syringe packs, but it’s actually not an epoxy. I believe it’s an acrylic glue. It smells really strong, so you know it’s going to be really good.”

Nitto Tape $27

“It’s a craft paper tape with, I think, an acrylic adhesive on both sides and it’s extremely strong.”

Kapton Tape $13

“It’s not quite as strong as the Permacel we were talking about, but Kapton is a really good electrical insulator. If you want to stick something down to your circuit board, Kapton Tape is really good because it keeps your circuit isolated, and if it’s double stick, then you can put a little bit of Kapton down on the board and then stick something to that and still have pretty good electrical isolation.”

06/29/15