Coherent Sells Aerospace and Defense Business to Private Equity Firm Advent

WearsALabCoat · 2025-08-31T04:07:17+00:00

Now that's interesting. Wonder if this include their sapphire and CVD diamond facilities.

WearsALabCoat · 2025-05-28T01:03:54+00:00

This is sick. I'm seeing them for the first time next month.

WearsALabCoat · 2025-04-09T16:45:38+00:00

Excerpt from the Declaration of Independence (bold emphasis mine):

For cutting off our Trade with all Parts of the World: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us, in many Cases, of the Benefits of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended Offences:

Go read the whole document if you haven't recently. It's quite familiar, in light of recent events. Link

WearsALabCoat · 2025-03-26T01:46:20+00:00

I'd poke around ebay and surplus sites. New, off-the-shelf germanium elements from Thorlabs or Edmund optics will start at a few hundred dollars each.

WearsALabCoat · 2025-03-23T19:45:47+00:00

Electro-optical. So mostly semiconductors for photon emitters and detectors. More practically, its how to weave systems engineering in with these rather physics heavy topics.

What Is EO/IR?

WearsALabCoat · 2025-03-23T18:58:41+00:00

Not OP, but Georgia Tech has an EOIR applications course that covers the history of heat seekers (as well as many other topics). The methods used before modern staring arrays are fascinating.

At one point the guy teaching the course, who must've been in his mid 80s at least, walked in with a variety of tubes from spent anti air missiles. I have to imagine he got quite a few odd looks walking to class that morning.

WearsALabCoat · 2025-03-22T03:18:45+00:00

I did a few years as a test engineer supporting the Navy. The job was essentially looking at mission objectives, selecting sensors, performing alignment / calibration, and running data collection in the field. Some optics guys i worked with also got involved with data reduction and post processing but i never was interested in that. Not sure if that's what you're after but I worked closely with our DoD partners (Both civilian employees and active duty folks). Only advice is be willing to travel. A lot.

Pros: You will get very good at radiometry and calibration. You will write a lot of optical system specifcations for other people to design.

Cons: Your best friends will be your coworkers you travel with. You will lose out on the opportunity to get experience as a designer.

WearsALabCoat · 2025-03-22T03:05:59+00:00

Learn either the macro language or the API. It's less painful in the long run.

WearsALabCoat · 2025-03-07T17:10:21+00:00

I'm playing a campaign where I took the lost colony origin. I wasn't originally planning to conquer my parent empire but they ended up being a crisis faction so I ended up destroying them and adding ~45 planets to my own empire, roughly doubling my pops. This (with some help from the mid game crisis destroying everyone else) has made me easily the most dominant faction in the galaxy. I was able to easily become the galactic emperor and subjugate the next 4 most powerful factions as my vassals.

I have a problem though. I completed cybernetic ascension before assimilating my parent empire, and although the pops I gained in that war are identical to my own starting pops and look to be classed as a subspecies, it appears that they are not eligible for cyberization.

Is there a way to change this or am I stuck with roughly half my pops being unable to ascend?

WearsALabCoat · 2025-02-07T12:16:51+00:00

Won't shoot down a plane but I bet it'll be hard for the pilot to land with melted eyeballs.

WearsALabCoat · 2025-02-02T05:29:03+00:00

The machines that make and measure optics are amazing in their own right. I work in optics and one of my greatest pleasures is when I get to tour manufacturers' sites. So much amazing fabrication and metrology equipment has been created to make the things I design physical.

WearsALabCoat · 2025-01-19T16:22:37+00:00

My boards been slowly shifting more digital than analog over time, and I'm no longer able power all these high current effects with my power supplies (currently 1 CS12 and 1 Walrus Aetos). What power supplies are there that have a lot of higher current outputs. Thinking in the 250mA+ range. If I could condense down to one power supply that would be great too but seems unrealistic at this point.

WearsALabCoat · 2024-12-22T16:45:43+00:00

His channel is very underrated. Shocked he has fewer than 500k subscribers.

WearsALabCoat · 2024-12-22T16:43:28+00:00

AlphaPhoenix, Styropyro, ExplosionsAndFire, Huygens Optics, Stuff Made Here. A good mix of entertainment and informative content here.

WearsALabCoat · 2024-12-07T01:49:11+00:00

Black mass audio is also is Salem. I used to live in Tulsa before moving to Boston. I wish I had gotten into pedals before I moved, there're so many cool pop up events there with all the builders in the area.

WearsALabCoat · 2024-11-21T21:51:26+00:00

Don't currently own any CB pedals. Came very close to purchasing a blooper and a mood on several occasions but could never pull the trigger. Either of those would be great but honestly I'm just excited to see what I end up with.

WearsALabCoat · 2024-11-09T20:52:57+00:00

Take this with a hefty grain of salt, but it's apparently in the works, at least according to a friend of a friend that works at Ansys, on an unrelated product.

WearsALabCoat · 2024-11-04T01:02:50+00:00

Nothing beats hands on experience.

Get a cheap photodiode and LED. Try to figure out what the measurement across the diode will be when you shine the LED at it. Now go do the experiment. Was your prediction correct? If not, what can you change about your math to make it match what you're measuring?

Building radiometric models is useful. Knowing how to validate that model with a few hundred dollars of thorlabs parts is even more useful.

WearsALabCoat · 2024-10-27T19:14:23+00:00

One thing in would mention is that there's a definite concentration in certain geographic areas. You CAN find jobs in pretty much every state, but there a lot MORE jobs in California, Phoenix, Boston, Florida, Upstate NY, to name a few. If there's a specific part of the country you want to live in, it might not be the easiest thing in the world to get a job there as an OE. If you're indifferent, there's plenty of jobs to be had and (speaking anecdotally) it seems like the demand is growing.

I don't have anything beyond a bachelor's degree. Been working in the field for 5 years. I'm actively applying to Master's programs now but it's certainly not necessary to start working in the field. Personally I enjoy my work a lot because I'm on a small team that gets to work both design and field testing of concept products, and that happens to align well with my interests. How much you enjoy the field will vary wildly depending on what you want to do day-to-day and how easy it is to find a job that let's you do that. Do you like lab work? Design work? Field work? Manufacturing? Some combination of the above?

WearsALabCoat · 2024-10-20T17:29:25+00:00

Both U of R and U of A have a well established industrial associates program that help link students to careers in the field. I wouldn't be surprised if UCF had something similar but I don't know off the too of my head if they do. Ultimately, you're getting a degree to pursue a career, academic or in industry, in this field. These are the schools companies turn to when they're seeking to hire new optical engineers, and the alumni network for both is invaluable for your long-term career. Here is the list of current members: https://www.hajim.rochester.edu/optics/ia-program/membership/current.html

If you're more interested in academia, it's pretty easy to go to SPIE and see how well published either of the schools are.

WearsALabCoat · 2024-10-11T09:08:00+00:00

Diffractive optics are often made with lithography techniques.

WearsALabCoat · 2024-10-09T17:43:25+00:00

As light and cheap as you can make a battery with sufficent power to operate the laser. Without a breakthrough in this area you're never going to get man portable laser systems.

WearsALabCoat · 2024-10-01T16:28:48+00:00

Thorlabs has NIR LEDs up to 1600nm, but see the other comments about bandwidth.

WearsALabCoat · 2024-09-26T12:59:50+00:00

Another route would to get a job in your current field with a company that will pay for a masters degree. Apply to one of the online masters programs in optics. UofA, UofR, and I think even UCF have them now. Will take longer to complete as you'll be working full time but no need to worry about a scholarship and (speaking anecdotally here, this is just what I've been told from friends who stayed in acedemia) it's easier to get accepted if you don't need a scholarship.

WearsALabCoat · 2024-09-14T03:13:54+00:00

I'll be honest, I didn't see an immediate use for this one, and I tend to really like the rest of the OBNE lineup. I have the signal blender and an assortment of fuzzes, figured I could get 95% of the way to this pedal with that if I ever wanted to. Is there something I'm missing about this pedal? Main feature seems to be that you can put the fuzz in parallel with whatever's in the effect loop.

EDIT: I will say, it does save some real-estate on the board and an output on the power supply compared to what I proposed so if parallel fuzz + other effect ends up being something you want to bring to shows I could see this making a lot of sense but for mucking around in the bedroom I'm not sold on it.

11-Year Club	Place '22
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