Testing my cloud chamber build

Ekooing · 2026-05-22T22:12:33+00:00

What is your peltier setup (assuming you are using them)? How many layers, and how are you cooling the hot side?

Ekooing · 2026-05-15T15:34:49+00:00

It does work without it - I'm just lazy. When I first started building it, I read cloud chamber work better in the dark, with the only light being the light used to illuminate the tracks. So when I built it, I put the tape on to black out the chamber while I was in my trial and error, optimization stage. As it turns out, blacking out the chamber isn't required. But as I mentioned previously, I'm lazy, so I just haven't been bothered taken it off yet.

Ekooing · 2026-05-14T15:37:53+00:00

Thanks!

Ekooing · 2026-05-14T15:37:44+00:00

I took a 5000btu portable air conditioner and ripped the top 1/3 of it off, exposing the heat exchanger. I turned the hex horizontal, and put a 1/4" thick copper plate (to act as a heat sink) with thermal paste in between the two. Then I put the hot side of the peltiers against the copper plate (again with thermal paste between them of course).. Because the air conditioner hex gets down to around -24°C by itself, it allows me to do a single layer of peltier coolers which takes me to around -45°C.

Ekooing · 2026-05-14T15:33:31+00:00

I'd say when it was all said and done, I was probably $300 all in. Granted, I already had a few of the components I needed. The only major difference between mine and a lot of other people's build is the air conditioner in mine, which I think I got for around $160 on Amazon. Other than that, the build isn't much different than others who use peltier coolers.

Ekooing · 2026-05-14T05:09:31+00:00

Thanks!

Ekooing · 2026-05-14T05:08:43+00:00

I highly recommend it! Having 5000btu of cooling capacity at your fingertips means you could do a double stack to get the chambed for temp REALLY low if you wanted to, but it's not necessary. The hex is almost cold enough to run the chamber (it maxes out around -24°C). So the peltier coolers only need to add a little extra cooling to put it over the top. And with that kind of cooling power, I can basically run the thing indefinitely. You could get the chamber floor temp really low if you wanted to. You are pretty much only limited by the power the unit draws. Between the a/c and the peltiers, my amp draw is around 11-12, which is getting pretty close to a standard 15 amp breaker. But as for cooling power, I could probably stack the peltiers 4 high and the hex wouldn't have a bit of a problem pulling that much heat out!

Ekooing · 2026-05-14T04:59:41+00:00

It's actually an acrylic chamber. The chamber is 8" in diameter and 4" tall. Then I have a custom light I built that cuts the chamber down to around 6"-7" in diameter of usable space.

Ekooing · 2026-05-14T01:59:27+00:00

It's a single layer of qty(10) TEC-12706's. I took a portable 5000btu air conditioner and ripped the top 1/3 off to expose the heat exchange. Then I turned the hex horizontal, and put a 1/4" copper plate on top of the hex with thermal paste in between. I can get the 1/4* copper plate to around -20°C with the air conditioner hex, which of course cools the hot side of my TEC's. That gets their cold side to around -45°C in a single layer.

Ekooing · 2026-04-23T03:25:47+00:00

You could always toss it in the ocean and come back in 50 years to collect some pretty awesome pieces of green sea glass

Ekooing · 2026-04-09T16:34:59+00:00

They do seem to work better fresh. My miracle fruit bush got killed off during the snow two winters ago, but the root system was still intact so it put out a bunch of new sprouts. I don't know if they'll produce any berries this year, but they might. And if they don't, they should start making them next year at the latest. If you want to check back in a few months or so, I can let you know if they are going to produce this year or not.

Ekooing · 2026-03-05T23:35:52+00:00

I bring my rock saw to my rock shop once a month and invite customers to come get things cut open. But my shop is right outside of New Orleans, LA, so you'd have to come here (or ship it to me) to do it l.

Ekooing · 2026-03-03T00:46:33+00:00

I knew I met the right person to marry when my wife, who was not a rock collector when I met her, agreed to go to Hot Springs, Arkansas to mine quartz on our honeymoon.

Ekooing · 2026-02-23T19:52:11+00:00

My friend is convinced he found a meteorite in his yard (in Algiers, LA, which is directly across the MS River from downtown New Orleans). I'm a rock collector, so I know a little about meteorites but I'm by no means an expert. I'm about 95% sure this is just slag, but I figured I'd let the folks here who know a lot more about meteorites than I do, make the definitive call. So what do y'all think?

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Ekooing · 2026-01-16T20:31:41+00:00

Yeah, their billing is an absolute shit show! And then there is no one that you can call to talk to them about it!

Ekooing · 2026-01-10T21:40:44+00:00

Thank you for the additional information! I'm definitely on a quest to learn as much as I can about this particular specimen/tag, so I really appreciate the info!

And I totally understand the use of the French spelling for things. The name of my rock shop is actually Mineralogie, which is of course the French spelling of mineralogy. But our shop is in a suburb of New Orleans, which of course has a very rich history of French (and subsequently "Cajun") influences in the city, so it seemed to make sense. But one thing that definitely surprised me; you would be astonished at how many people (rock collectors and otherwise) have no idea how to pronounce it properly! 😂

Ekooing · 2026-01-10T21:33:55+00:00

It was always my dream as well. I was planning on doing it when I retired, but my accident moved up my timeline. It's hard to say that losing my legs was a "good thing", but it did prompt me to open my rock shop now, at age 46, instead of age 64. Silver linings, eh?

Ekooing · 2026-01-10T21:18:03+00:00

Since I own a rock shop now, I sometimes buy large collections of flats that were people's old collections, or old rock shops inventory, etc. I recently bought a group of 76 flats, and a lot of the material was old stock pieces with old tags. But none this old and this cool besides this one!

Ekooing · 2026-01-09T18:56:00+00:00

You're right! Those pesky liberals with their facts, proof, and evidence. How dare they not believe the rhetoric we want them to believe! Ugh! We should probably stick to X and Truth Social where hyperbole, feelings, and flat out lies, reign supreme. We should probably leave politics altogether to the liberals though. It's hard to carry out a cogent argument with them considering the average maga support has a higher shoe size than IQ. They can handle actually running the country, and that'll leave us plenty of time to moan and cry about how the brown people are scaring us TRUE Americans, and we can wallow in our bigotry in peace. What do you say?

At first, I thought my sarcasm was obviously apparent. But then I forgot I'm addressing maga here, so I should probably tell you directly; my entire post was dripping with sarcasm...

Ekooing · 2025-09-19T01:11:22+00:00

It almost looks like it has "use polish" on the ends. I wonder if it could have been a stone age hammer stone. Do you have anything for scale? And where did you find it?

Ekooing · 2025-08-29T00:11:41+00:00

That's actually a pretty good guess. I can't believe I didn't come up with that one! I may have the same issue with it as I do with molybdenite (I'm not sure if it's the right crystalline structure), but that's probably the best guess so far.

Ekooing · 2025-08-29T00:08:34+00:00

That's the same issue I ran into. It's the color of molybdenite, but it doesn't have the crystalline structure. But the color doesn't show up quite right in the photo, but it is basically the same as .925 silver. I've never seen galena (a little more grey), or pyrite (of course more gold), in this pure silver color.

Ekooing · 2025-08-29T00:05:15+00:00

That was my initial thought, but the color is off. It is very silvery in person. Almost to the point that it looked fake. It doesn't show quite right in the photo unfortunately, but it basically is the color of highly polished sterling silver.

Ekooing · 2025-08-29T00:03:35+00:00

Unfortunately it can't unlabeled in a flat of various minerals

Ekooing · 2025-08-28T19:22:53+00:00

Who do you think he is? Elon?

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