I Built a Device to See The Sun

A brick of wood and glass can tame the most brilliant thing in the solar system.

— Citations —

Info.

1

"He calls it the Safe Solar Viewer or the SSV. It's a brilliant way to make a cost-effective projection system. On his website, he features a few different variations..."
timecode 1:46

Safe Solar Viewer
2024, T. Richardson

https://richardsont.people.charleston.edu/safe_solar_folder/index.html

Media

m1 - timecode 1:37

photo of Terry Richardson
Maria Mansfield Richardson

https://richardsont.people.charleston.edu/safe_solar_folder/index.html

---

CREDITS

Brandt Hughes
research, hosts, camera operator,
audio engineer, music production, sound design,
editor, colorist, caption writer

Kinnon Martin
build team

Annaliese Martin
build team
twitter.com/amuseliese

Nathan Zimmerman
production assistance

MUSIC

"Foray"
"Material Gain"
"Liminal"
"Machined Perfection"
"Blemish"
"Indecision"
"Warm Grains"

all produced by Brandt Hughes

---

available to download on
patreon bandcamp

Transcript

Hey!

It's good to see again.

Okay, so from what I gather, you want to learn more about this.

Hmm.

It's a projection system where you align two lenses with the Sun to project an image of the Sun that's just big enough and faint enough to be comfortably viewed.

I called it the Sun Spotter because you can use it to spot the Sun, of course, which is slang "to see the Sun" but also the image it produces has just enough fidelity to see sunspots.

It's a little double entendre.

You already know all of that because I showed you how it works last time we spoke.

But what I didn't mention is how it was built. You see, the design didn't come together all at once.

It was a bit messier than that. There were a lot of decisions to make and a lot of problem-solving to fix the consequences of those decisions.

The original plans for this build come from Terry Richardson or TR if you rather. He's faculty emeritus, Department of Physics and Astronomy at the College of Charleston.

He calls it the Safe Solar Viewer or the SSV. It's a brilliant way to make a cost-effective projection system.

On his website, he features a few different variations, including 3D printed solutions, and a very cool polar-axis mount. The plans seem like they're updated regularly, so it's an evolving set of designs.

I went with the basic two-lens build, but I had one problem with it. It wasn't collapsible.

It's a simple fact that this will spend the vast majority of its lifetime in storage, but I didn't want it to be fully-extended at all times by necessity.

So I started to think of some design solutions to remedy this problem.

As we get into this, I think it's important to take just a really brief moment to recognize that this is effectively my first woodworking project.

And so I have a tremendously limited toolset, both mentally and physically, to be able to solve these kinds of problems.

I don't know what techniques are available to me, which makes it difficult to differentiate between what is possible and what is not.

I had to start somewhere, so I blocked out basic shapes in Blender.

The foundation is an extended spine, while three perpendicular blocks hold the lenses in alignment.

The first problem to solve is allowing the Sun Spotter to lay flat so that way you're less likely to break off pieces and so it doesn't stick out while you're storing it.

The straightforward approach seemed to be attaching each vertical panel to a hinge that locks at 90 degrees.

This alone would go a long way to making it more easily stored, but ideally the Spotter would become even more compact.

I iterated on that design with this sort of interlocking puzzle piece system where pins or dowel rods would slot in to prevent each horizontal board from pulling apart.

I had two concerns with this design, though.

How would I cut the board into these shapes? And where would I store the pins?

That design would have collapsed into this... tesseract.

I still love the look of this thing! It feels like a forbidden shape that knows more than I do.

The pins might have stayed in place if they were pressure fit, and a channel could have been created for a band or tether to secure it all in one piece.

And this was at least enough for me to feel comfortable to start ordering materials.

The lenses are from a bundle that Richardson worked out with a glass surplus provider. They aren't the highest quality glass, but they're plenty good enough for this and they cost about $10 combined, which is great.

They weren't labeled, but I think the lenses are effectively 500 millimeter double convex and -20 millimeter double concave.

So the front lens collects light and magnifies it down while the back lens expands that light into a larger image.

With these in hand, I can now measure the focal distance of the front lens. Distance between the two lenses is crucial for this build.

So everything has to be built around that.

I... elegantly attach the front lens to a tripod and measure the distance to the smallest image of the Sun that it could produce.

That's where the focal plane is and that's at about 17.5 inches.

The back panel just needs to be somewhere behind that and specifically where just comes down to preference.

As you place the back panel further and further away, the image of the Sun is going to increase in size, but decrease in brightness.

Now, time to figure out how to attach those lenses.

I've gone back to Blender and modeled some hinges that I found. They're 90 degree self-locking table leg hinges and they should be about the right size.

I'm assuming the upright panels will actually be made from the same lumber as the horizontal boards.

It doesn't have to be, but I don't know that it has a nice consistency to it.

So we'll need to drill holes through the first and second panel to let light reach the lenses.

I'm going to be calling these holes "apertures" to differentiate them from all of the other holes we'll be drilling into this wood and there will be plenty.

My solution for securing the lenses is to use three thumbscrews to lock them into place.

The advantage here is that either lens can easily be replaced by just removing a single screw.

Also, it looks pretty cool, which is obviously important.

I happened to find some really nice knurled screws and I couldn't resist, so I ordered those and the hinges while I ran off to find some lumber.

The board is a one-by-three pine board, six feet in length.

I was promptly reminded of the vanity sizing of lumber.

Remember that lumber is labeled by what's called a nominal size, but is then tossed into a kiln and cut down and sold at its actual size.

One by three is actually a three quarter inch by two and a half inch board.

Every time I remember this labeling convention, I become deeply annoyed.

Thankfully, I designed the Spotter to have some extra room, so everything still fits but just barely.

Now that I have the majority of primary components, I can try to solve the last problem.

Everything should fit together and project the Sun but so far, the only things that collapse are the hinges.

I've gotten rid of the puzzle piece ends and I've cut the board into four sections instead of five.

I thought of two possible solutions.

The first would be placing hinges, alternating top and bottom on each seam so the whole thing would collapse like an accordion but it wouldn't be able to collapse flat and any joints with the hinge on the bottom would need more support to stay outstretched.

My second solution was magnets.

I don't kn--I don't know. I just figured you could put magnets all over the thing. So... I went with magnets.

I thought that with powerful enough magnets two on each seam might be enough to hold the boards together.

On the furthest back board I could set up the magnets in a grid to hold the rest of the boards while collapsed.

This would also require two magnets on the side of the other boards.

Then they would all fit together in a compact brick and look a little bit like that tesseract that I was so drawn to.

There is sort of a monolithic beauty to this arrangement whose existence I find impossible to deny.

This is a classic human tradition, bet everything on immutable, hypnotic beauty and never for a second consider that the reward center of the brain might lead us astray.

But hey, at least we had a plan. And I say "we" because I didn't feel comfortable building this by myself.

So I enlisted these two humans to give me a hand.

Our first task was to cut the lumber into all of the pieces that we'll need.

There are four boards, nine inches in length, and these are the pieces that connect end-to-end to make the spine.

Additionally, there are three panels, six inches in length, and these are the pieces that attach to the hinges and hold the lenses.

There was enough board left over to act as an emergency replacement in case something dire happened.

Our panels are supposed to fit onto our hinges, however, they're a bit too wide to do that right now.

Remember, these hinges are designed for like... table legs. They're really much thinner pieces of wood.

So we're going to cut the panels into, like, this really squished thick T shape by cutting off the bottom corners of it. So that way, it has a really solid and secure attachment to the hinges.

As we clamp down on the panel in the vise, we're using these little pieces of scrap wood to prevent the really hard material of the vise from leaving an imprint on the relatively soft material of the wooden panel.

After filing the panels, there were finally slim enough to properly attach to the hinges, but we handled that step a bit later.

These are the boards for our spine.

They're going to attach end-to-end so we measured and marked where the magnets need to be installed.

The positioning on these have to be really consistent because if they aren't the magnets won't align properly and they won't have as much pulling strength as they could have.

Unfortunately, we weren't able to drill press the magnet holes, which probably would have been ideal.

So we made do with the next best thing pressing a drill.

The wood fought back a bit, but with some moxie we got it done.

Then Kinnon noticed a problem.

>> KINNON: Okay.

I think all of these are the same polarity.

>> NARRATOR: The magnets all had the same polarity, so once installed, they would never be able to attract each other. They could only repel.

This really confused me because I know that I ordered a set of North and South magnets, but I didn't check them very thoroughly when they arrived.

Inexperience struck a deft blow.

I was deeply defeated. I often have to remind myself not to get too concerned with problems that I no longer have the ability to change.

Things that I have no agency over.

There's more woodworking to be done, so we finished drilling the extended-state magnet holes on the boards and the magnets still helped us to check the depth of each hole.

The next task was to carve out the apertures to let the lenses to see both the Sun and each other.

Alignment of the lenses was really important so of course we centered the apertures but then we also kept them at the same height on both panels.

For this we could use the drill press.

And the size of the apertures should probably be just a little smaller than each respective lens.

A bunch of light can reach the lens, but the lens is never actually at risk of just falling through the hole.

Kinnon didn't have the perfect bit size for the front aperture. So he got a little creative with carving out that hole.

He just kind of freestyled it.

I uh... hmm. Um.

And I don't think I've ever seen a power tool gyrate before. But you can't argue with results.

We needed to smooth out the aperture, and this spinning sandpaper tube thing did exactly that.

Kinnon expressed some concern about drilling the holes for the knurled screws that would eventually hold the lenses in place.

>> KINNON: This is where it gets a little bit dicey.

>> HOST: Because it's so close to that hole?

>> KINNON: Yeah.

>> The aperture is so close to the size of the lens that the screws need to be very close to the aperture.

Installing a screw insert creates tension in the wood and it's just so close to an edge that there's a high risk of splitting that wood, which would basically ruin the panel and we would have to start that piece over.

We could forgo a screw insert to save on space, but it wouldn't be nearly as nice to interact with as a finished product.

After a few practice runs, we decided to risk it for the inserts. They're just worth it.

And if it really comes down to it, we still have backup lumber.

>> Set that to there.

>> Mhmm.

>> And we get to see it all come together!

>> That's pretty snug!

>> All right!

>> Look at that beauty. It's nice and snug, very secure.

>> Yeah, that's great.

>> Perfect.

>> So the middle panel has been made and now we need to do some extra work on the first panel.

This is Kinnon's process for figuring out the placement of each of these screw inserts. It's a little fast and loose, but that's just kind of his style.

>> Nice!

>> Now it's time to attach the panels to the hinges. The hinges have three spots for screws.

So we're going to drill three pilot holes into each panel. That way the screws go in nice and easy.

I felt like I had a responsibility to put a warning on the Sun Spotter. And once I learned that we had access to a laser etcher?

Of course, I wanted to use the lasers!

So we used the lasers to burn the warning onto the the rear side of the backmost panel.

This is really the ideal place for the warning because the Sun Spotter is only dangerous when it's fully extended out.

And it's only dangerous when seen from the back side of that panel.

Much like a telescope, if you were to use it to directly observe the Sun, you could give yourself some serious eye damage.

>> All right.

>> To round out the day, we attached all three panels to a temporary spine made out of some scrap wood.

So as you can see now it's really starting to take shape. It has that Sun Spotter silhouette.

And if you really wanted to, you could stop here and you would have a functional Sun Spotter, presuming that the middle panel is the correct distance away from the front panel so that way your image stays in focus.

But at this point, it just wouldn't collapse.

The best part of this whole process was of course, you guessed it, sanding.

Look, sanding is the vibe check. Anybody who doesn't appreciate sanding probably needs to be humbled before I can trust their intentions.

Our lives are short enough that we don't get to experience geological time.

But this gives us a feel for the eroding forces that characterize that scale.

It's also just satisfying to turn sharp edges into soft edges. It doesn't have to be that deep.

Testing the panels on the temporary spine yielded encouraging results.

Sunspots were already visible, although the pattern in the woodgrain was distracting.

So we still needed to address that.

The blue fringe at the edge of the Sun's image was difficult to avoid, but also provided useful feedback for aligning the lenses.

I marked measurements when I found a distance between the lenses that felt right.

At this point, I had reached out to the magnet suppliers who rushed a new set back to me.

This time I checked that they had opposite poles when I got them.

We had already drilled holes for the extended-state magnets, but we still had to take care of the collapsed-state magnets.

It took a bit of drilling and sanding before we could start screwing anything in.

>> Ugh, these screws suck.

>> He's not kidding. Those screws were terrible.

I think I probably stripped every single screw that I tried to screw in and yet I never quite got around to replacing them.

This is the bottom of board four. That's going to be the furthest back board.

The board that has the projection panel on top of it.

But on the bottom I marked out where all of the magnets are going to go for the collapsed-state.

This is the grid of magnets.

I offset the middle row of magnets in case the magnet holes ended up being a little too close together.

I didn't want to run the risk of any sort of splitting or anything, and it ended up actually being kind of nice because it made it easier to visually identify which board was going to go in the middle because the magnets are further apart.

>> Really?

>> If you weren't aware, these kinds of magnets are very fragile. I definitely broke a couple just by testing them out at home.

They will shatter connecting to each other or just about anything else if you're not careful.

So this is why it's so important that we get the correct depth on drilling these magnet holes.

Because what you don't want is two magnets making direct contact with one another when you collapse the Sun Spotter.

You want the magnets to be close enough to flush that they still have a lot of pulling power, but they need to be deep enough in that what's actually making contact is the wood.

Now, this isn't going to be your only option for magnets. You can also get some magnets of the same size that you would glue into the holes instead of screw in.

But when given the option between the two, I just had a gut feeling that the screw-in magnets would be more durable in the long term and not have as big of a risk of wiggling loose over time.

>> All right.

>> I was a bit worried that I had miscalculated the placement of the magnets on board four, the furthest-back board.

I had evenly-spaced the magnets, but I didn't think too hard about the actual depth of the attaching boards, so I wasn't totally confident that they would all line up properly.

Kinnon had this to say about the situation.

>> Here's one of the things that I had to learn in woodworking, right? There's machined perfection.

>> Uh-huh.

>> And then there's handmade product.

This is handmade product. You're not going to get machine perfection.

>> Sure, sure, sure.

>> And even with, like, laser and all this stuff, like, you know, I'll do all of this stuff to machine something to perfection but then I'm going to add my own finishing to it.

And that's part of the style of your own--your woodworking.

You do the hard stuff that is going to take time with the machine, but then get it to fit however you need to get it to fit.

>> Gotcha, okay.

>> So yeah, no. I think it-- It's going to be just fine.

>> I stopped being bothered by problems that didn't exist yet and we proceeded to install the rest of the collapsed-state magnets.

>> Cool. Seems like that works!

So this would probably go first. I've got to be careful not to shatter them.

>> I think they're fine now that they're secured.

>> Okay, cool.

>> We also finished installing the extended-state magnets as well, since that was postponed until the rest of the magnets came in.

>> Everything that's got a hole in it's got a magnet in it.

>> All right. Well I guess it's worth seeing whether they--

There is a whole mess of magnetic fields happening right now. Okay, where is my number?

>> It was important to label each board sequentially because they all have different attachments.

I just gently wrote the number on a corner with a pencil.

>> Three. Yep, other side.

Okay. It's a little wobbly! But it is holding on so far.

>> And there you go. This is the result you may have been anticipating if you know really anything about magnets.

They have great pull laterally. Each of these has 7.3 pound-force of pulling strength, which is really impressive for magnets this small.

But it takes way less shear strength to separate the magnets.

This is usually a great feature of magnets by allowing you to slide them apart.

But in this case I need the magnets to be resilient to the shearing force because this is going to be used in such a way that gravity provides a lot of shearing force.

And I'm not supposed to turn off gravity.

>> Okay, so it really doesn't want to do um--

>> It doesn't want to do four.

>> Yeah, it doesn't want to do, like, a long angle. But like a steep angle, it will do.

>> The problem will only get worse as the boards get heavier with the addition of hinges and panels.

So we had to find another path to provide both a solid spine and the ability to fully collapse.

>> Aah!

It is close, and also there is the problem of um alignment. Because these kind of wiggle and twist a little bit.

>> They can twist and rotate. Yeah.

>> I considered some sort of loop and rod solution, although it betrayed a core design principle for this build, which is that it's not a truly collapsible solution.

Providing that it even works to expand the Sun Spotter, there is no way to collapse the rod and store it with the Sun Spotter unless we also figure out a telescoping rod situation or something like that.

>> It's so close to something.

It's so close to something. I just don't know quite what.

We brainstormed all sorts of solutions that might help with this gravity problem.

Stuff like hinges or dowel inserts or clasps.

>> ANNALIESE: The only thing I can think of is the dowel connectors that like IKEA furniture has.

>> Maybe there's some sort of external form of what you're describing with the dowel rods where it could be, there's some sort of permanently attached on the outside bit here. And then housing here.

The thing I like about some thing that goes into a slot would be that it would all be static and self-contained. Right?

>> This lock-and-key solution would allow magnets to only do the job that they're good at.

They can align the boards and prevent the boards from unintentionally pulling apart.

But they would no longer be responsible for fighting against gravity.

We weren't sure if the solution addressed all of our concerns, so we built a test structure with scrap wood to better understand the nuances of this option.

This rough draft mentality really helped us work out a lot of problems throughout the build.

>> Okay. So magnets are holding this together.

>> Right.

>> We have this in there. We're going to have to do it on both sides.

We could probably do it-- probably do 15 on each side and that would that would lock it in place.

>> After holding the test structure, it felt like the lock-and-key system would work, but it would work best if there was a lock on the top of both boards and the key would go through both.

We decided to reduce the size of the lock-and-key system to give as much room as possible for the hinges.

The parts were laser cut, then super glued together and attached to another mockup.

>> So just that alone is enough to hold it.

>> Nice.

>> And then to pull it apart...

>> It seemed like a viable solution, but there were still problems to solve.

The locks were attached by glue, which wasn't holding as reliably as we'd hoped.

>> Whoops.

>> To keep the lock housings more secure, we decided to use copper nails in addition to the adhesive to keep it all together.

>> And it'll give it a nice little riveted look with copper. I mean.

>> Yeah?

>> That's more than what you're going to weigh with all of that.

>> Yeah, I would reckon so. Oh yeah, for sure.

Oh!

>> That's the sound of me dropping the front lens onto the very hard ground.

>> It went this way.

Well... it is chipped, but still in one piece.

>> Oh no!

>> The drop took a gnarly chip out of it.

Fortunately, the damage was so close to the edge that none of it would actually be seen through the aperture, so I could still use it just fine.

And it's pretty cheap glass to begin with, so it could have been easily replaced if I needed to.

The direct contact between the knurled screws and the lenses really made me a bit uncomfortable.

It didn't feel quite right, especially right after chipping one of them. So to soften that contact Annaliese made o-rings out of leather.

This was a huge quality of life improvement. I really can't overstate that.

They slide right onto the screws and make them feel so much safer to use against glass.

It was difficult to tell the boards apart at this stage.

I knew that it would get a little easier once the panels were attached because each panel looks different.

>> One.

>> But I wanted identification to be as simple as possible. So we laser etched large numbers directly on to each board.

A little bit of soot and sap found its way to the surface, but sanding can clean that right up.

As Kinnon diligently assembled the rest of the locks, I noticed that something was off with our numbers.

>> I just realized... this is upside down.

>> We etched the numbers on the underside of each board except for board four, where it was etched on top.

>> And all the other ones look like they're okay. Yeah, I didn't even-- I didn't even think to double check.

>> To hide our sins, you just put numbers on every-- on both sides.

>> Yeah. Yeah, I was actually just thinking about that as well. I think that's probably the safest bet.

>> Yeah. Fastest fix.

>> And then also it, you know, improves clarity because then you know what board it is no matter which side you're looking at.

>> Yep.

>> So we'll just put more numbers on them.

>> When I tested the Sun Spotter on the temporary spine the woodgrain pattern made it difficult to see details in the image of the Sun.

So to address that, we painted the back panel.

I wasn't sure if we should paint it white or grey so we decided on white because it was a safe option.

Any solid coating would likely improve the viewing experience over a natural wood finish.

Meanwhile, Kinnon proceeded to attach the locks to each of the boards of the spine, first using adhesive and curing it and then going back through each one and hammering in the copper nails.

>> Okay! I mean, especially holding it in the center like it feels a million times more sturdy than it did earlier.

>> Yay!

>> Yeah. Because I can't imagine a situation where I'm intentionally just, like, only holding way back here.

But it is nice that it could support that if it needed to.

>> It still has a pretty big bow in it.

So if you hold it like-- and I'm not sure what that's going to do for alignment.

>> Right.

>> But it's going to be at least sturdier than before.

>> For sure.

>> How does it all fit together now with the--uh, when it collapses? So you should be able to just pull straight out.

>> Right. Straight out. Pull straight out and then it all fits onto four! Two should go in the center.

Whyeh! Three will have something on top that's going to go like this.

And then one will have something on top and it will go like this. Which end?

Something on top here so it'll go like this actually.

Eeh! Oh, hold on.

>> Oh hey!

>> I think I had this upside down. Because the number's on both sides. So, yeah yeah.

>> Do we now need to laser etch a line underneath the number that goes on top?

>> Ah yes, exactly as it was intended. It's--it's half the length!

>> Hey, it's half the length. It's still like it's-- you know, you can still kind of fit that in your back pocket.

>> Yeah. If you're wearing like, some really big jorts or something.

Yeah, I didn't anticipate this with the numbering because I didn't-- because I didn't have numbers on both sides. Right?

It was going to be on the bottom. So like now the number's upside down. But that's like not an issue. That's just a quirk.

>> The magnet grid on board four was originally evenly spaced-

>> It almost works!

>> -so it couldn't have accounted for the new lock-and-key system which added height to the center board and offset the spacing between the boards.

This resulted in two of the boards collapsing securely, but the lock housing would always push a board just far enough that the magnets couldn't lock it in.

It was time to use the emergency backup wood and rebuild board four with the magnet grid that adjusted for this change.

>> When I drew up the 3D model, I saw that there were-- there was enough space across this board that there would be gaps between both of them.

And it's funny that these spacers end up filling up exactly those gaps.

>> Yeah. These should be simple enough to just punch in and that'll hold it there.

It's got enough tension to where that's going to keep those from breaking off.

>> I decided to, yet again, measure the distance between the boards. This is, I think, my third time at this point.

It was really a major source of anxiety for me on on this build, because once you screw in these panels, you're really kind of stuck with the distance that you've got.

And distance is make or break for this whole build.

If it's off by a little bit, you're always going to have a blurry image. And that kind of freaked me out.

So it also felt very prudent to do this again now that all of the panels are attached to hinges and we have the actual boards of the spine all put together.

Now that we have all of the actual final pieces of the build, it seemed reasonable to do a double-triple check on all of these measurements.

It also happened to be the first time that I can really properly clearly see sunspots out of this, which is such a satisfying feeling.

It was a nice day outside so I took the opportunity to mark up all of the measurements for our remake of the final board of the spine.

I didn't bother doing as many measurements as last time.

This time I really just kind of kept it relative to the other boards because that's going to be really important in this particular use case.

I uh-- I got a little bit nervous about my measurements, so on a separate day I measured the distances again.

This time, securing the panels with rubber bands which I don't think was a terribly great idea because I think there was quite a bit of give.

So my measurements didn't match again and that left me even less certain.

First thing we did back in the workshop was to start the process of rebuilding board four.

However, this time we did get to use the drill press for the grid of magnets, the collapsed-state magnets, which I think the results came out quite nice.

Then we went through the process of basically recycling materials from board four.

We unscrewed the magnets and transferred them over to the new board four.

It didn't quite collapse as flush as I had hoped. But, you know, if I've learned anything over the course of this build, is that you can't take for granted the fact that it works and sometimes that's enough.

Now that we had a little bit of experience building these boards, this additional board four came together much more quickly.

We ran through all of the finishing touches: softening up those sharp edges, laser etching the number, removing the sap and soot, gluing together the lock, curing the adhesive and hammering in the copper nails.

>> This flush or the hinge is flush? I want it so the hinge is flush. So that way when it's folded down, it looks flush.

>> Okay.

>> The first panel we attached was the projection surface, because its placement doesn't affect the focus of the rest of the system.

So it's safe to just install it as far back as possible to give us the largest image of the Sun.

And just like that, board four is officially finished.

However, a problem looms on the horizon, and that problem is decision paralysis.

When I first measured the focal plane of the front lens, it landed on roughly 17 and a half inches. But each board of the spine is nine inches long.

So if the front lens is flush with the very front of the Sun Spotter, the second panel lands right on the seam of boards two and three.

And this is further complicated by the new locks, threatening that space even after being sized down.

So of course I go to measure the distance for a fifth time.

This is the point of no return where I have to decide does the second panel go on board two or board three?

>> Maybe uh, take that hinge and flip it backwards and then have it butt up against the--although... yeah, I never mind, because that has it sticking out.

So you could basically have the lens in the same place if the hinge was then-

>> Oh, yeah.

>> -right on the edge basically, where we had it originally. But we--

>> We would have to remeasure where that needs to be. But I mean, it'll--it'll fit roughly there.

Your call. Yeah, I can see the sunspot on that one.

>> That has this on board two.

If we do that, we would need to reorient the magnets on two and either three or one.

And then the alternative is basically h--

>> It was this way up here.

>> Way forward, and then this kind of here-ish, I think?

>> And this when it folds in is going to clip over on--it's going to be going past this. So as it fits together, it's not going to be that nice snug little block.

>> Right.

>> It will look a little bit more jagged, but I don't think it's going to be that big of a deal.

It's just--I would say whichever one you think is going to be best for functionality versus appearance when collapsed.

>>> Right.

>> Here I'm trying to really practice the mentality of utilizing mock ups to get a sense of each possible solution.

It's something that we've used throughout the build and it felt like the perfect time to use it again.

However, there's there's no real advantage to having a smaller and brighter image, and there's no advantage to having a larger and more faint image.

They are just different experiences. So a lot of it really comes down to preference.

>> I do like that.

--the other orientation.

>> Yep.

>> And I'll kind of handheld that as well.

I feel like in the context of looking at an eclipse, this orientation maybe makes more sense because you're looking at just big blocked out features.

Whereas if you're looking for something like sunspots, the other orientation makes more sense because you get more detail in the Sun.

>> Better resolution.

>> Yeah I hate having to make this decision.

>> Well--when you're getting you're getting to the point where like the point of no return, right?

>> Yeah.

>> I think I struggle the most with decision paralysis when I have too many good options to choose from.

It's an objectively ridiculous problem to have.

I obsess over what serves me best in the long run, when ultimately the only bad choice is not making a choice.

>> I think--I think we lock three in place. And then find the right spot for one.

>> As we prepared to finalize the placement of the front lens, I kept thinking about all of these different measurements I was getting for the focal plane distance, and I thought of a possible contributing factor that made me quite uneasy at the thought of a static placement of the lens.

>> Nice!

So the focal plane changes based off of the distance to the object. If you had a really bright lamp, you could use this to magnify it and project it.

But the focal plane is like, right here. Our distance to the Sun changes throughout the day.

We get further from it at morning and sunset. Probably doesn't change the focal plane much, but--but I wonder.

>> Yeah, probably does a little. It probably does enough.

>> Kinnon was quick to propose a potential solution for this problem.

Instead of just screwing in the hinge, we would swap out each screw for a combination of bolts, nuts, and washers, and we would carve tracks for each of them.

This way, the entire hinge could be moved along the board, and I can make minute changes in the distance between the lenses to best suit that time.

Once I get a distance that works well for me and everything seems nicely in focus, I can tighten the nut and everything will stay locked in place.

>> Oh yeah, that's pretty close right there. Yeah. I mean, so far it seems pretty good.

>> So here's what I'm-- here's what I'm thinking for it.

>> Uh-huh.

>> All you need to do is we need to find a shorter screw just about that size, right?

>> Mhmm.

>> For this one right here and all you need is a wingnut.

>> Right.

>> And that way you'll be able to loosen it, move it around, and then retighten it all with one hand without having to go at the back.

We'll put washers on the back side of that.

>> Yeah. I mean, when it's collapsed, like this section will be fine because we've got a little bit of a buffer and--

>> Oh actually, that's right. That's right.

>> And so that's-- that's not as tall as that.

Maybe with washers, it'll get close, but like, I think it'll be fine.

And then this section, I mean, because it's adjustable, I'll be-- I'll probably actually be able to move it up enough that it won't even overlap with this section.

>> Yeah.

>> So that kind of solves that problem, too. Not that it was much of a problem to begin with.

Yeah, I think that that is a good solution for the problem we were having.

>> I mean, it's not the prettiest thing, but--

>> But it'll do the job.

>> It'll do the job.

>> So would we want washers on both the top and the bottom?

>> I honestly don't know.

>> Okay.

>> All right.

>> Yeah?

>> It's good, just a little loose. And you can do this all with one hand-

>> Nice!

>> -or two.

And... there you go.

>> Very cool. There's just a little bit of wiggle as well, so that way, if um--

>> If you need to angle it at all.

>> Yeah, if it's--

>> You need to turn it a little bit. The wood warps.

>> Yeah. Yeah yeah, totally.

>> Now that everything is where it needs to be.

We have to test the fit to make sure that it all collapses properly.

>> It's a little snug. And then this one is collapsed.

>> And it fits with the wingnuts in there? Nice!

>> Very good. I kicked something over to you.

Okay. File. Very useful file holder. Okay, so three is going to be an outside board.

Two is going to be an interior board. I don't remember which direction it goes in. I don't think it really matters.

And then one goes like that. Oooh! So that fills up that space, no problem.

>> Flip two around. Like where the tabs are on-- against the same side as the--

>> Yeah.

>> Okay. Ay!

>> There it goes.

>> It just-- it has a very specific arrangement in which it works, but it does work.

That's great! And it kind of stands on its own and the the hinges, even though they're kind of facing the opposite directions, there's still kind of like-

>> Yeah!

>> -in the same space. So it like visually looks nice.

>> The top of that... piece of equipment behind you is a solid metal surface if you want to--

>> Oh, yeah yeah.

>> It may be a sort of steel.

>> Yeah, there's-- there's a little bit of stick.

>> Nice!

>> And we could also do the opposite orientation should stick as well. The only board that isn't is the top board

>> Yeah.

>> -but it's attached to all the others. Yeah, that's cool!

>> The only step that remains is to treat the wood and to potentially color it if you prefer to do that.

You know, just make the wood look nice. I'm going to level with you here.

I genuinely had no idea what I was doing.

It was a real read the instructions on the can and hope for the best sort of situation.

Humans love to do things with unearned overconfidence.

I'm pretty sure I was supposed to be wearing gloves during this. But at least I was in a well-ventilated area outside.

I started by conditioning the wood.

This is a nice clear coat that you just apply to the wood. Let it sit.

And then you gently wipe up any excess.

The conditioner can have a slight color to it, but it's very subtle.

The real reason to use wood conditioner is to prevent a stain from soaking in unevenly and looking blotchy.

The stain will look much nicer after conditioning. Then I applied a stain. This color is called Golden Pecan.

I didn't want anything too red, I didn't want anything too yellow or too dark. I wanted a rich and warm color to accentuate the natural color of the wood, which already looks really nice.

I detached the panels from the spine so that way I can cover as much surface area as reasonably possible.

I think ideally you would fully disassemble this, but I'm not going to unscrew the magnets and deal with that whole pro-- remember, the screws are terrible.

I really don't want to have to deal with that.

But I did remove the knurled screws and the lenses, you know, the easy stuff.

Just like with the conditioner, you let that sit for a while and soak in, and then you sop up all of the extra liquid.

To finish it off, I gave just a single coat of finishing wax to polish and protect it.

It wasn't enough to make the wood particularly glossy. It just had a little bit of a nice sheen to it.

You know, we're making a thing that--that uh, magnifies the Sun.

I don't want it to be too glossy and then to end up reflecting the sunlight right back into my eyes.

And these were the smallest containers of stain and wax that I could find. But by the end of this I had plenty of both leftover.

So... I guess I'm going to have these for the rest of forever.

This is version one.

Or maybe it's better described as a prototype. And as lovely as it is, there is still room for improvement.

It would be so convenient if this had a threading or a quick-release plate on the bottom so that way you could just stick it on a tripod.

It would be more secure and feel better to use if these screws locked into a spring-loaded mechanism once it's fastened tight enough.

Adjusting the front lens to nail your focus is functional, but it's a tedious process that takes a bit of time.

It's not perfectly flush when collapsed.

It can be pretty easy to lose the keys if you're not careful.

If you're not supporting it properly, the spine can bend enough to knock the lenses out of alignment.

It can take a while to assemble, which is fine if you want a ritual, but it can cause problems if you need it to be operational fast.

Okay--come on. Yep. Get in there! Why is it stuck?

There are so many ways to solve each of these problems.

Some solutions might require you to modify your design and other solutions might require you to redesign from the ground up and build something totally different.

Maybe that's what's so fun about building something like this.

There is no shortage of problems and there's no shortage of solutions.

Meanwhile, the object that you've built is the physical manifestation of your path through both.

And in that light, the Sun Spotter is perfect.

Are you still there? Are you looking for more? Aren't we all?

For a sense of community, check out the Discord server.

For the music used in this prompt, check out Bandcamp.

And for the health of this project, the best way to support the show is through Patreon, where there are regular development updates and behind the scenes footage.

And as always be well and thanks for your time.

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