[DINO] CELEBRATES THE 131ST anniversary OF THE PHOTOPHONE
[Dino Segovis] wrote in to share yet one more installment of his Hack a Week series, though this is rather timely.
It was 131 years back today that [Alexander Graham Bell] unveiled the Photophone to the world. A precursor to fiber optic technology, [Bell’s] extremely essential creation can be quickly replicated in your garage, as [Dino] shows us.
The original Photophone was built utilizing a megaphone as well as crystalline selenium cells at the focal point of the receiver, nevertheless this version can be made with simple to acquire parts. [Dino] rigged his laptop as much as a speaker on which he mounted a mirror, before setting it out in the sun. The vibrations of the mirror modulate the sunlight, reflecting it onto a solar cell positioned at the end of a long, black PVC tube. The solar cell’s leads are fed into an amplifier complied with by a speaker, which broadcasts the audio.
The presentation goes off without a hitch, as well as while some may be underwhelmed by the technolgy, picture exactly how amazing it would have looked 131 years ago!