Electronics mystery: hidden music in oscilloscope light
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Published 2024-06-24
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
All Comments (7)
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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.
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This was suuuuuper interesting. Is this the official start of your YouTube career?
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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.
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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).
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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.
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I would assume it is through the persistence of the phosphor, fast changes generate a longer „tail of light“ than a sliwli moving dot