I cannot even imagine one person can actually build a precision machine like this. You are a GENIUS and incredibly awesome. RESPECT.

I mean seriously... this fucking guy... the things he does as a hobby.

I have a degree in materials science and I have seen SEM a lot many times I used to get really excited but this , i mean THIS SETUP , man I have lived my life I guess

I couldn't control my excitement when somewhere in the video I understood how a scanning electron microscope works and it is much simpler than I thought or maybe you explained it so beautifully that it seems simple. I can understand how excited you are in the video. Great work.

Wow Ben, I can't believe you've been at it on this channel for over 10 years! All I can say is thank you so much. You've helped make learning interesting again after I dropped out of college for engineering. You've helped me more than I could ever describe here. Please keep making amazing videos. You're a rock star dude!

I love the spark-plugs, what a great use of such a simple object and it suits the purpose perfectly. wonderful engineering overall!

This is so amazing! I wish for a SEM, but pre-built would cost me grands and I'm just a curious little college kid on financial aid. Luckily, I have a friend who's a soon to be engineer whom may be able to help me. I've been looking for patents with as clear as possible instructions. You're amazing!

0:23 "I've had some of these parts in my garage..." 9:07 yeah, everyone has this stuff laying about, brilliant :)

The discipline, energy and time needed in order to attempt a project of this magnitude is exceptional. I have certainly enjoyed your video and look forward to more posts in the future.

Never thought of a DIY electron scanning microscope... Awesome

One of the coolest things I've seen in a long time.

You are totally inspiring. We're about to buy our first decent microscope for the kids home schooling and my son and I were talking about how cool it would be to have our own electron microscope as a joke until we saw you vid. He's about to turn 10 and this stuff has facinated him since b4 he could talk. Well done. I can't wait to see more.

I've probably said this before, but you explain things so well into the detail but not too much, not repeating, and I don't have to skip back a second to really understand what's going on, it's all clear from the first play. That is really amazing. This is the first time I see this project and the video is 5 years old, but my first ideas for improving the image quality is to use shielded wires, so they deliver only the voltage that comes from the generators, no crosstalk. And of course, as CRTs are affected by the magnetic fields, so must this be. More shielding if there are changing magnetic fields. But this must have been already done. Great work!

Nicely done! Probably one of the best DIY projects I've ever seen.

You are a genius, sir. No doubts or discussion needed on that. Congratulations on building such an amazing machine!

I love the spark plug feed thru's

BRAVO!!! This is the most impressive DIY I have ever seen!! LOVE IT!!!

Made a scanning electron microscope at home? That is Bad To The Bone!

You have to admire this level of work, just brilliant.

This is totally awesome. I'm very impressed with the elegant design and clear presentation. And that you actually got an image is just amazing. Keep up the good work!

What an inspiration. The sticking with it is awe inspiring. Thank you for making videos for us.

Can't even Imagine the amount of knowledge that would have gone into this project. Respect !!!

Absolutely fantastic! Thanks for taking the time to explain in a pedagogical way. Very impressive!

Thanks for the fast reply. I'm a noob to youtube :^) but slowly getting the hang of things. I did check out your other videos, and must say.... Very impressive! You, and a few others have inspired me to try some videos of my own. From "pop rocks" to "electron microscopes"...... Now that's diversified! Great stuff. Take care.

Outstanding achievement! Incredibly well done, and beautifully explained. Thanks for sharing!

This is absolutely amazing. I, for one, would love to see more videos explaining some of the challenges you faced, as well as some more info about the individual components and how they function. My hat is off to you, sir.

Awesome video. I love the story your laugh tells near the end sharing the rough timeline of the project!

great job,sir...this is really inspiring.I cant believe you did all those things yourself.

This project is absolutely incredible! Please keep vids coming!!

Fantastic work! This has to be the ultimate achievement in DIY projects.

You sir, are a credit to the species! Amazing work you've done! You must make your parents very very proud!

DUDE... this.. we are mere mortals in your presence. Also, I'm amazed at how precisely and coherently you can speak about this, you're a very intelligent speaker.

Amazing DIY! Perfect intro, kept me interested and wanting more. Nice voicework as well made it easy to listen to. You are the modern renaissance man.

WOW! amazing video! You're a genius! plain an simple! never had such a detailed yet clear explanation of how they work!

Very nice work! I'll be following this as you continue to report on your progress!

You really deserve to be admired, good sir! I take off my geek and science hats for you. You are absolutely amazing.

This is insane bro, you take the diy to the next level

Your channel is wonderful. Your videos are very interesting and well done. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge. People like you make this world a better place to live.

I am an undergraduate physics student but so much in love with computers and physics and science !! I think I am going to try to do this project at the very least I would get way more knowledge then what I will ever expect!! It is coool really so expect me to ask you some questions, your channel is woooow you won't believe how much did you contribute to people but really keep it up

One hell of a DIY project Ben.. Love all your vids.. Ivan

One of the best videos on youtube. Excellent work.

A lot of lot of work! Now I understand basic principles of SEM. Thank you so much!

Just wow, that is absolutely fantastic. Quite an accomplishment you have there, I look forward to your future videos!

You are a geeenius.. Genius is not enough to define you. You are inspiration for every science geek. I would love to know how you get inspired and how you get ideas and materials and tools.

Its even more amazing that u did this in a few months on a weekend basis. Very nice. I'm looking forward to the following videos. As much detail as you can would be great.

Once when I was 21 I did build an oscilloscope using an old crt (22 inches B/W tv) and its EAT trasformer at 25KV..I also built the amplifyers with a couple of opamp and 4 transistors, it took me 1 month to figure it out (I didn't see an oscilloscope before beside the one at school and some description of their functions) so after the 2 years electronics course I did built one and it worked! I think you put the same entusiasm building this microscope!

Holy crap dude, I had no idea an SEM was anywhere in the possible range of a DIY effort. Very impressive work. Subbed.

Really interesting, this is something that gave me some inspiration to start building a mass spectrometer. Thanks for posting and showing that high vacuum can be done at home.

Nice and simple explanation of how EMs work, a very complex topic boiled down so someone like me who has very little knowledge of E scopes; a good place to dip in the toe. I would be interested seeing your prints and schematics. Thanks for sharing your scope.

Wow; an inspiration for those of us who thought that stuff was in the realms of professional labs and workshops only. Please keep making more videos!

My dream project! Amazing, keep up the good work.

Super. Many viewers (as myself) fall asleep building these sort of things in head but lack the time / money to follow through. Can't do everything. Appreciate your work and videoing, answering questions we ask ourselves.

when i started this video i thought, awesome! a high tech DIY project and now that i've watched it i can only sit and marvel at the level of DIY some people are capable of. amazing. keep at it

Wow! You accomplished such herculean task. Much respect Sir. 🙇

Excellent job getting that to work. Good description too.

That is amazing, please keep up the videos and info! I doubt I'll EVER attempt such a build, but it sure is cool to see one working!

Good question. The phosphor/PMT allows the use of 10KV to accelerate secondary electrons, while not requiring the PMT anode to be 10KV above ground. This provides a DC signal path from secondaries to final output without voltage shifting or isolated supplies. Modern machines still use this method to measure secondary emission. Backscattered electrons are collected directly, since their energies are much higher. I have some electron multipliers that I would like to test with an isolated amp.

What an amazing project! Ten thumbs up! I love your stuff!

You rock!

easily the coolest vid on youtube, i need more. love the spark plugs.

WOW Ben, absolutely inspiring along with all of your videos. They are so condensed and procedural which makes everything so easy to grasp. I am going to attempt to craft a microscope myself and I would grateful for some guidance. My knowledge is mostly non applicable but I am reasonably adept in physics and quantum physics literature. My motive for building an SEM is purely for knowledge, I am headed into the engineering field and I just can't wait for people to tell me what to learn. I know that a project like this will expose me to more than I expect and that I will gain invaluable knowledge. You've already given me a lot Ben. -Calvin Skinner.

Awesome work, worthy of a standing ovation

This was incredible. Thank-you for sharing your work.

holy crap - this is absolutely amazing! major kudos to you dude!

Great walkthrough of your awesome work.

Where did you start? With gaining all this knowledge I mean.. I'm incredibly impressed, and curious as to how one could become this capable

I was literally thinking this about 2 days ago, that a technician working on carbon allotropes could likely build their own electron microscope to verify resultant carbon formations. And just now this very video pops up on my YT feed. Fantastic!! :D

cool project, glad to see there are still real people doing, real science at home. To simple say, I wonder if I can do that, and then set out to do it.Congrats.

That’s the coolest thing ever! I love your KZfaq channel

Man that is so cool that you have just about all of this at home great work

Man u motivate me to never give up on my projects.

This project is amazing. Really inspiring

You are a inspiration for me, sir! Keep on this awesome content!

All your videos are interesting and I'm always interested in follow ups. Great work

Next build is a particle accelerator right?😁

Awesome project! You are a great engineer!

Here' why your work is really inspiring to me: For some time, I've thought that envelope-pushing research had moved from the realm of the private hobbyists of an earlier time (Franklin, Faraday, et. al.) to the realm of large, well funded universities and corporations, since the cost of research components was too prohibitive. You have proven me wrong, and so have greatly inspired me.

A superb piece of science/engineering. I was surprised that the detector did not simply pick up secondary electrons and amplify them with an electron multiplier. This was used with the Farnsworth tube. I suppose the optical detector is more sensitive due to the high accelerating voltage.

Thanks for sharing your Project. Has been very interesting your description about each piece of the project, and the probe that if you have motivation, you can do anything you want. Juan.

Ben, This is soo COOOLL!!!!

I can't understand how there are any dislikes on this video. It's such a cool project!

I don't even know what I would use it for, but I do know that I've always wanted one. Lo and behlod, here is one you built in your garage!!! I'm speachless...

This is badass. Awesome stuff man.

Hey man. Iv'e been working @ a professional Transmission Electron Microscope service, restoration and sales company. I don't know much about them but am slowly learning. Fascinating stuff! Thank you for this great video!

Great video - everything explained clearly. hope to see more refinements and some cool images from the sem!

first of all let me congratulate you for your big knowledg the proyect you selected is realy interesting and challenging. Thank you so much I enjoy it greatly.

Give your self a big pat on the back . I built an oscilloscope from junk years ago, but "That piece of equipment " is some achievement .Well Done. I have subscribed to see where you go with this project.

this is so cool and seems pretty easy and cheap to make, I really wanna make one

Thankyou, now I know its possible its on my "no choice but to build" list, thank you again for proving the impossible can be achieved

If anything, I have a much better understanding of how electron microscopes work, which in itself is priceless information. Awesome and inspiring! Keep up the good work!

OMG this is one of the coolest things I have ever seen! Good for you great job! Thanks for sharing this with us! I remember when I first heard of an Electron microscope and heard that they cost serval million dollars (probably in the late 70's or early 80's). If someone told me that a scant 30 years later someone could make there own SEM and operate it safely at home I would not have believed it. Really this is very very cool and I am green with envy.

This is amazing. Nice Work!

I understand the principle of the scanning electron microscope but it goes beyond my knowledge to ask detailed questions about it like you say in the end. Well done man and I admire your technical skills and understanding how to built it.

Got here from the Amp Hour, how did I not know about your videos before? Top stuff all together! Loving this series, great explanation :)

You, sir, are a badass. What an incredible project. Please post more videos.

Cool to know I am not the only one thinking of a DIY electron microscope. 30 years have gone by, and I haven't got to it yet. But then again, I have wanted to build a motorized go kart since I was 8 years old...haven't got to that either.....I was 8 in 1970

You explain complicated subjects very eloquently.

This is one of the best things I've seen on youtube.

Absolutely mind boggling! You should be working at MIT fixing their high tech gear! If you were my science teacher, we'd be racking up nobel prizes together! You are an inspiration!

God dam that's cool! I've learnt more in one video about how an electron microscope works than a whole semester of study at uni. Great work!