
High-tech automatic infrared heater aimer - WestCoastJustin
http://woodgears.ca/tech/heater_aimer.html
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pmarin
The author is one of my favorite hacker/ingeneer.

Mathias's projects when he was still in high school during the 80's:

Primitive plotter:
[http://www.sentex.net/~mwandel/tech/plotter.html](http://www.sentex.net/~mwandel/tech/plotter.html)

Primitive 1-pin dot matrix printer:
[http://www.sentex.net/~mwandel/tech/printer.html](http://www.sentex.net/~mwandel/tech/printer.html)

Primitive Commodore 64 drum scanner:
[http://www.sentex.net/~mwandel/tech/c64scanner.html](http://www.sentex.net/~mwandel/tech/c64scanner.html)

Home made wooden Joystik:
[http://www.sentex.net/~mwandel/tech/joystik.html](http://www.sentex.net/~mwandel/tech/joystik.html)

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amelius
The author seems to be unaware that there are cheap stepper motor controllers
available that handle all the tricky details of moving an axis to a given
position smoothly. And they are implemented in hardware, so you don't have to
sacrifice any CPU cycles to this task.

~~~
WestCoastJustin
Do you have any links for this stuff or what they are called? I wouldn't mind
checking that out. Thanks.

~~~
Animats
The bottom level tends to be basic Arduino shields that just switch power, but
don't have a current limiting controller. Those need digital signal lines to
tell them when to step. They waste a lot of power and can't be used with
larger motors.

The next step up is a current limiting stepper motor driver.[1] These can
handle more voltage and current, and have the sensing to avoid burning
themselves out. You still have to provide pulses for each step. Go for at
least this level. Stepper motors use considerable power when stopped, and you
need current limiting on all but the tiniest motors. Otherwise you get to
choose between overheating and too weak.

Next are drivers and controllers on the same board. These accept commands over
USB, I2C, or a few other data paths, and take care of operating the motor.[2]
If you're not into really low level programming, this makes life simpler.

[1] [https://www.pololu.com/product/2968](https://www.pololu.com/product/2968)
[2] [https://www.pololu.com/category/212/tic-stepper-motor-
contro...](https://www.pololu.com/category/212/tic-stepper-motor-controllers)

~~~
WestCoastJustin
Awesome, thank you!

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janlaureys
I'm not really a woodworker but I have probably seen every Mathias Wandel
video since his first marble machines. I wonder how much time I have spent
over the last years watching his videos. It's gotten to a point where I know
all technical jargon he uses like dovetail joints, tenon and mortises and
whatnot. My brother is an actual woodworker but I can't talk to him about it,
because I only know the English terminology and he knows the Dutch slang
because our mother language is Dutch...

~~~
dfc
I want to enjoy his videos but something about his presentation style is very
off putting to me. Friends often forward me one of his videos but I have given
up trying.

~~~
camtarn
You may still enjoy his Web page at woodgears.ca - that's mainly how I know
him. Haven't seen more than a couple of videos, but I've extensively perused
the site over the years.

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benj111
I have visions of the author setting up a tracker with a simple ir motion
sensor setup, testing everything works. Putting the heater on top, and then
realising....

I'm kind of surprised these aren't more of a thing, for use in
garages/cellars. Or for use in warehouses and other under heated work spaces.

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kevan
Vaguely related, Mathias was one of Wintergarten's[1] big inspirations

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvUU8joBb1Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvUU8joBb1Q)

~~~
zyberzero
If you like Wintergatans marble machine, checkout Martins second build, the
marble machine X! It is amazing to follow the work.

[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLLYkE3G1HED6rW-
bkliH...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLLYkE3G1HED6rW-
bkliHbMroHYFf4ukv)

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waiseristy
I watched his last video on this IR heater and was wondering whether you could
gimbal it and track movement!

~~~
myself248
I've been talking about this for fans for quite some time. Battery-powered
fans could be smaller, and thus achieve better runtime on the same battery, if
they'd point right at the overheated worker.

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londons_explore
Are there any commercial versions of this?

I can imagine a big market for these devices for installing in warehouses,
churches, walk in fridges/freezers, outdoor venues etc.

The total power use to keep a few people warm with a directed IR heater is
_far_ lower than the energy needed to keep an outdoor space warm!

The IR heaters could be directed to gimbals which can scan between all people
in a scene rapidly (say 10 Hz), so everyone feels warm.

Multiple devices could be installed in the same building so even if you don't
have line of sight of one, you still get heated by the rest.

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m463
I've instrumented my place and used rrdtool to graph temperature in several
places.

I found that the built-in forced-air heat (and a/c) seems to show up like a
sawtooth wave, with an amplitude of about 3-4 degrees.

In the room with my computer desk, I've found that by turning off the forced
air heat and using a vornado heater I end up with a very comfortable space
with absolutely flat temperature graphs.

I use the one with the dial, not the LED controls, and it seems to have very
good air circulation with well-tuned PID temperature controls.

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dekhn
pretty much everything on this site is golden

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jakobov
I miss websites like this. Reminds me of the early w3b

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digitalacetone
I think that it might be interested to use something like that to help aim
solar panels towards the sun?

~~~
gwern
One idea I had a while ago was that you could use these for saving energy by
targeting exposed skin surfaces only. This would be particularly useful for
offices: the office can be set to the lower temperature preferred by men, and
then women can be targeted by the infrared heaters to keep them comfortable as
well, so no one has to be uncomfortable while still saving energy. (It has to
default to colder/male preferences because you save more energy by keeping the
office as a whole at the lower temperature, and anyway, there's no such thing
as an 'anti-heat beam' so you can't cool down a subset.)

~~~
benj111
That's explored here: [https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/03/local-
heating.html](https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/03/local-heating.html)

~~~
gwern
Indeed, women in offices now tend to either suffer or sweater. They are
solutions, but not good ones. Infrared trackers would allow one to have one's
cake of attractive stylish (non-sweater) clothing while not suffering in the
eating. So to speak.

~~~
avisser
If they were pervasive, they could allow institutional users to lower the
temperature in their buildings a few degrees. One degree on the thermostat for
a large building in New England could equate to a lot of savings in fuel.

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ddmma
I guess face recognition positioning would do the job more properly

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pmarin
How? I don’t think he is facing the heater while working.

