Space Talker

Gordon

Space Talker

The ‘Space Talker’ is a communication device using a 532 nanometer green laser. It is a 4 x 2.5 x 1.75 inch box containing a focusable laser, 18650 3.7-4.2 volt rechargeable Li-ion battery and a circuit board used to modulate the laser output with an oscillator or mp3 player. It can be used as a signaling device, a communication device, astronomy star pointer, kitty cat teaser, Morse code trainer and Space Talker to name only a few applications.

There is a simple modification available that allows the laser to bypass the retriggerable monostable circuit and modulate the laser at much higher frequencies. This would allow for a unique application of the ‘Space Talker’ to be used as a research health device. The laser could be pulsed at specific frequencies and duty cycles for various health modalities. These frequency patterns could be stored as files on a mp3 player and played back as needed.

New Version 2.01 is a MPU (Micro-Processing Unit) version. Message is embedded in the source code and can be easily changed with the Arduino IDE (Integrated Development Enviroment).

The IDE is free to download at www.arduino.cc

Morse code

Typed text to a Morse Code mp3 file was accomplished with a FREE interactive Java script program found at; http://www.morseresource.com/morse/makemorse.php Audacity was used to convert the mp3 file to a clipped Morse Code wave file. It is a good bet that just about any mp3 player could be used with the ‘Space Talker’. Using Audacity to create a 2 volt peak to peak wave output files will compensate for low or weak output from even the cheapest $5 dollar mp3 players. The Alien Invite Morse Video contains the actual and very first 532nm laser ‘Alien Invite’ message from planet earth, sent from somewhere in the mountains of Vermont. The Morse code message was sent at 20 WPM via the Space Talker.

This project takes about 4 hours to build and the total cost of parts was under $20. The laser used was a 5mw and it is believed that an extra $10 would be a worthwhile investment for an upgrade to a 30mw unit.