As some may know, I am fortunate enough to own a high resolution X-Ray machine that I use for reverse engineering and investigative work. After recently using the machine to image an inductive probe for a Toneohm 850A, I realised that such images may be of interest to members of this forum.
I have decided to post interesting X-Ray images in this thread. I already have a few saved and will make a point of saving any future images that may be of general interest.
Not all images will be of the highest quality as I sometimes carry out 'quick and dirty' X-Rays just to identify case fixing positions etc. The MX-20 is capable of very high quality images but it takes time to select the very best exposure and post process the image etc.
I hope this thread will be of interest to the readership
Feel free to comment in this thread, it isn't for pictures only.
Aurora
A standard SD card of 4GB capacity.
Note that only half the card is actually a PCB.
Aurora
Micro SD Card example 1 - 8GB in size
I was amazed at the track patterns found on these cards
Micro SD Card example 2 - 8GB in size
Audio Visual spying device incorporating a camera, microphone, DVR PCB and Lithium battery.
Micro USB Plug - I was checking which pins were connected inside the moulded plug.
Micro USB splitter with OTG capability and integrated USB HUB.
Micro USB female connector. I was checking how it was wired. It is charge only, no data pins connected.
POLAR Toneohm inductive probe investigation.
It has an SMD bobin inductor at the tip.
POLAR Toneohm Kelvin probes
Interesting stuff, thanks.
Concealed case screws in an Audio Visual spying device.
The screws were sub surface and covered with a hard plastic label. A close up X-Ray of one end shows the additional plastic label covering the screw access holes.
The SEEK Thermal Camera Dongle
An Ethernet to RS232 converter (one of my very first images captured with the MX-20)
Test Cables - Checking the size of the copper conductors as a quality check.
Small encapsulated RF antenna (aerial)
Cool pics - do you take requests?
Requests would very much depend upon whether I have the requested object to hand. You can ask though
Aurora
One of the problems I have posting detailed X-Ray images on this forum is the file size restriction. The MX-20 produces 4MP images that can be quite small or large, depending upon the detail that the JPEG compression has to cope with.
An example is attached. It is a close up image of the Audio Visual spying device that was too large for me to Post. In order to maintain the image resolution I have had to seriously crop it down until it fell below 1000kb
Aurora
Nice stuff, Aurora.
I wish I could use of these when it comes to repairs of devices with weird and wonderful ways of case construction.
Totally. Freaking. Awesome.
i wonder how bad the joints are in a cheap china 20c usb cable
Very nice thread.
What kind of X-Ray machine do you have?
Can you post a few pictures of your setup?
Thanks
Picture of my system attached. It is a Faxitron MX-20 digital imaging cabinet type X-Ray.
My discussion on X-Ray machine use in the hobby environment is here:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/x-ray-machines-technology-and-use-in-hobby-electronics/msg560053/#msg560053Mike's teardown of an MX-20 machine is here:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/reviews/faxitron-mx-20-x-ray-system-teardown/msg585230/#msg585230His machine has a different 'camera' (actually these use an array detector but they call it a camera) with a 2"x2" active area. Mine is a 4"x4" active area. Resolution of both is the same....nice and high.
With regard to rseolution. My unit has 2048 pixels x 2048 pixels in the camera and the active surface is 100mm x 100mm. There are ~20 pixels per mm, or to put it another way, each pixel sees 0.05mm
The MX-20 was designed for electronics and biology imaging and is limited to 35KVp. As such it is only just in the hard X-Ray region and so cannot penetrate dense materials or metals. It uses a Microfocus X-Ray tube though and these provide a very small target spot so are perfect for high resolution imaging.
Aurora
GAL20 test to show bond wires
Two shelf positions were tries in the cabinet to see how easily the bond wires could be seen at different physical magnifications. As some may know, the closer you move the DUT towards the X-Ray source, the more magnification you get BUT you also loose definition. Its a bit like shadow puppets
The IC's case is around 12mm x 12mm in size.
Aurora