Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[BU508A]

 

Looking at all those nasty pictures and, erm, sort of heated "discussions", here is some contrary programme from Qwertee (NAWTS):

[Cubdriver]

Did some more stripping of the nasty paint on the Dynaco bookshelf speakers I mentioned in the 'what did you buy today' thread.  Not sure what possessed someone to paint them that ugly yellow-tan color, but so far the areas I've stripped look decent and re-finishable.







-Pat

[factory]

was hoping to see results from people cutting the tops off of transistor cans and actually using them as phototransistors.

BUT the thread has taken a turn.......to monkeys assholes.

I did play with that today. I got a 1:10 ratio between dark and light  collector-emitter current (similar to hFE then, if that's any relevant ?! ).... I think, because soon it stopped working, don't know what I did. I guess poking the die directly with my SMD sharp probe tip got the best of that transistor eventually ! 

Used to do that with the old OC series transistors. They were basically glass envelopes which were painted black. You could just scratch off the black paint and you had a phototransistor. Also somewhat more resilient to damage than decapping the cans. Not quite as much fun though as staring at the die of something.

Wonder if this was photosensitive after the decap with sidecutters  :



LM723 - burned up bond wire

Don't know about that, but we used to repair several types of air-con controllers at work, we had one that was dead on arrival, which started working when the sticker blocking the EPROM window was removed, closing the controller door and it stopped working again.

David

[Robert763]

was hoping to see results from people cutting the tops off of transistor cans and actually using them as phototransistors.

BUT the thread has taken a turn.......to monkeys assholes.

I did play with that today. I got a 1:10 ratio between dark and light  collector-emitter current (similar to hFE then, if that's any relevant ?! ).... I think, because soon it stopped working, don't know what I did. I guess poking the die directly with my SMD sharp probe tip got the best of that transistor eventually ! 

Used to do that with the old OC series transistors. They were basically glass envelopes which were painted black. You could just scratch off the black paint and you had a phototransistor. Also somewhat more resilient to damage than decapping the cans. Not quite as much fun though as staring at the die of something.

Wonder if this was photosensitive after the decap with sidecutters  :



LM723 - burned up bond wire

Even before I got this far down the thread I'd remembered that there was a thing for a while of taking the caps off ceramic packaged CMOS DRAM and using them as camera sensors. Saw one on a BBC micro once. A web search turned this up
https://hackaday.com/2014/04/05/taking-pictures-with-a-dram-chip/
Mind you back then a 64k DRAM chip wasn't cheap.
https://hackaday.com/2014/04/05/taking-pictures-with-a-dram-chip/

[Cubdriver]

was hoping to see results from people cutting the tops off of transistor cans and actually using them as phototransistors.

BUT the thread has taken a turn.......to monkeys assholes.

I did play with that today. I got a 1:10 ratio between dark and light  collector-emitter current (similar to hFE then, if that's any relevant ?! ).... I think, because soon it stopped working, don't know what I did. I guess poking the die directly with my SMD sharp probe tip got the best of that transistor eventually ! 

Used to do that with the old OC series transistors. They were basically glass envelopes which were painted black. You could just scratch off the black paint and you had a phototransistor. Also somewhat more resilient to damage than decapping the cans. Not quite as much fun though as staring at the die of something.

Wonder if this was photosensitive after the decap with sidecutters  :



LM723 - burned up bond wire

Don't know about that, but we used to repair several types of air-con controllers at work, we had one that was dead on arrival, which started working when the sticker blocking the EPROM window was removed, closing the controller door and it stopped working again.

David

The EPROM was obviously scared of the dark!

-Pat

[tggzzz]

Wow looks beautiful.. must have cost a fortune to assemble/manufacture ! 

BB stuff was never cheap!

More examples https://entertaininghacks.wordpress.com/2015/07/07/images-of-late-70s-burr-brown-thick-film-hybrid-ics/

[tggzzz]

Don't know about that, but we used to repair several types of air-con controllers at work, we had one that was dead on arrival, which started working when the sticker blocking the EPROM window was removed, closing the controller door and it stopped working again.

Disconnected power supply, input protection (photo)diodes providing just enough current for operation?

[BU508A]

Wow looks beautiful.. must have cost a fortune to assemble/manufacture ! 

If you like to watch pictures of semiconductor dies, then you should check out Richis Lab.

Here is an example from a Motorola 2N3055 transistor. What I really like about those pictures about power transistors is that one can see the barrier layer, because Richi is driving them in reverse mode and then the B-E diode becomes a Zener.



B-E diode working as a Zener at 300mA:

[bd139]

Even before I got this far down the thread I'd remembered that there was a thing for a while of taking the caps off ceramic packaged CMOS DRAM and using them as camera sensors. Saw one on a BBC micro once. A web search turned this up
https://hackaday.com/2014/04/05/taking-pictures-with-a-dram-chip/
Mind you back then a 64k DRAM chip wasn't cheap.
https://hackaday.com/2014/04/05/taking-pictures-with-a-dram-chip/

Yes we had one of those at my school which was discarded. Think it was Beebug or WE branded. I wrote a motion detector using pixel averaging for it in BBC BASIC with a little bit of 6502 assembly. It wasn't much use for anything else

Circa 1982-83 shot of bd139 at work on a fresh beeb . My poor father never got near it.



Where did all that hair go...

[BU508A]

Even before I got this far down the thread I'd remembered that there was a thing for a while of taking the caps off ceramic packaged CMOS DRAM and using them as camera sensors. Saw one on a BBC micro once. A web search turned this up
https://hackaday.com/2014/04/05/taking-pictures-with-a-dram-chip/
Mind you back then a 64k DRAM chip wasn't cheap.
https://hackaday.com/2014/04/05/taking-pictures-with-a-dram-chip/

Yes we had one of those at my school which was discarded. Think it was Beebug or WE branded. I wrote a motion detector using pixel averaging for it in BBC BASIC with a little bit of 6502 assembly. It wasn't much use for anything else

Circa 1982-83 shot of bd139 at work on a fresh beeb . My poor father never got near it.



Where did all that hair go...

Wandering off to other parts of the body, I assume ...

 

[xrunner]

I'm thinkin' that's the way you look today reading this thread, but without the hair. 

Circa 1982-83 shot of bd139 at work on a fresh beeb . My poor father never got near it.



Where did all that hair go...

[Vince]

Wow looks beautiful.. must have cost a fortune to assemble/manufacture ! 

BB stuff was never cheap!

More examples https://entertaininghacks.wordpress.com/2015/07/07/images-of-late-70s-burr-brown-thick-film-hybrid-ics/

Hmmm.... you have me intrigued now.... were there only 10 months in a year in BB times ? Did November and December disappear in a black hole or some worm hole or something ?!

[bd139]

I'm thinkin' that's the way you look today reading this thread, but without the hair. 

Wandering off to other parts of the body, I assume ...

Yep 

[Vince]

Even before I got this far down the thread I'd remembered that there was a thing for a while of taking the caps off ceramic packaged CMOS DRAM and using them as camera sensors. Saw one on a BBC micro once. A web search turned this up
https://hackaday.com/2014/04/05/taking-pictures-with-a-dram-chip/
Mind you back then a 64k DRAM chip wasn't cheap.
https://hackaday.com/2014/04/05/taking-pictures-with-a-dram-chip/

Yes we had one of those at my school which was discarded. Think it was Beebug or WE branded. I wrote a motion detector using pixel averaging for it in BBC BASIC with a little bit of 6502 assembly. It wasn't much use for anything else

Circa 1982-83 shot of bd139 at work on a fresh beeb . My poor father never got near it.



Where did all that hair go...

It's right there in front of you BD ! Look between the keys of your K/B.. you have been pulling all those hairs above that K/B while trying to keep the internet together in the recent years ! 
Thanks for your sacrifice, I appreciate very much.

[Vince]

Wow looks beautiful.. must have cost a fortune to assemble/manufacture ! 

If you like to watch pictures of semiconductor dies, then you should check out Richis Lab.

Here is an example from a Motorola 2N3055 transistor. What I really like about those pictures about power transistors is that one can see the barrier layer, because Richi is driving them in reverse mode and then the B-E diode becomes a Zener.



B-E diode working as a Zener at 300mA:

Wow, looks cool ! Like a night shot of car headlight on a road with a long exposure time !

So it can be Zener... I want to try that. I have x6 2N3055 here... if I take apart my Aircraft / Missile Matra 3 phase inverter to pieces that is ! Oh, choices, choices.... 

[tggzzz]

Wow looks beautiful.. must have cost a fortune to assemble/manufacture ! 

BB stuff was never cheap!

More examples https://entertaininghacks.wordpress.com/2015/07/07/images-of-late-70s-burr-brown-thick-film-hybrid-ics/

Hmmm.... you have me intrigued now.... were there only 10 months in a year in BB times ? Did November and December disappear in a black hole or some worm hole or something ?!

Artists' conceptual pictures; worthless

[Neper]

On the annual suspension renovation subject, the car's now been supplied with new front ABS rings, new front right sensor, new front control arms, and been bolted together and test driven. Both ABS and traction control improved back to working, and handling also restored.   

Remaining are rear shocks and springs, oil change and MOT.

Great. Just let me know when you're ready and you can do mine. 

[med6753]

Even before I got this far down the thread I'd remembered that there was a thing for a while of taking the caps off ceramic packaged CMOS DRAM and using them as camera sensors. Saw one on a BBC micro once. A web search turned this up
https://hackaday.com/2014/04/05/taking-pictures-with-a-dram-chip/
Mind you back then a 64k DRAM chip wasn't cheap.
https://hackaday.com/2014/04/05/taking-pictures-with-a-dram-chip/

Yes we had one of those at my school which was discarded. Think it was Beebug or WE branded. I wrote a motion detector using pixel averaging for it in BBC BASIC with a little bit of 6502 assembly. It wasn't much use for anything else

Circa 1982-83 shot of bd139 at work on a fresh beeb . My poor father never got near it.



Where did all that hair go...

It's right there in front of you BD ! Look between the keys of your K/B.. you have been pulling all those hairs above that K/B while trying to keep the internet together in the recent years ! 
Thanks for your sacrifice, I appreciate very much.

Same kid? The glasses...the hair. 

[factory]

Problem is, it does not matter how much I ask... I am not the one developing the S/W so I have to make do with what's out there, like everyone else.
I am happy that you are happy... I am not and wil never be by the way IT is going. t me computers have long stopped being interesting and fun... now they are just a necessary evil to me, that I try to live with, spend as little time as possible messing with as it's not enjoyable, and spend as little money on them as possible. My PC is 15 years old and if I could I would keep it another 15 or 30 years. Sadly it's starting to look less and less feasible due to S/W bloat and this race for silly high picture and movie resolutions / bandwidth.  The race for clock speed stagnated, so now they have invented a new race, for pixels, to keep the industry going 

I think you're the customer flagellating themselves with the doomsaying sign to be fair. A huge amount of progress has been made. It's worth swimming a bit upstream and enjoying it.

As for pixels, I really have to disagree there. The biggest improvements for me recently have been displays. I have invested in the two best computer displays available at the moment. They are, without hyperbole or exaggeration, fairly life changing. Another hobby is photography you see...

The problem I have with the larger screens (TV or computer) is motion sickness, can't play modern games on this 24" monitor for very long at all, same with watching the large TV at my brothers place, the deliberate shaky camera shit in some films & TV programmes doesn't help. 

David

You can't play video games on the cheap office/fleet-duty monitors. If you're lucky they're good for 60hz. Even at that pitiful refresh rate, they tear and blur like crazy. You don't always get a good monitor by throwing money at the problem; but unless you win the closeout lottery, you don't get good without paying a fair bit for it.  Same is true of most TVs... they make horrible monitors in most cases, even for game consoles.

mnem
moo. or don't.

Maybe I worded that badly last night, I haven't played any really modern PC games, the last PC game I tried was a version of Sega rally, this gave the motion sickness problem on the 24" Samsuck LandfillMaster monitor, that came new with a PC I had built about 15 years ago. A free game some years later had the same effect, as did an update to the MMORPG (aka time-sponge) I played on & off for many years (thankfully there was a option to disable the camera shake effect in that). Youtube videos where no gimbal or imagine stabilisation was used, can have the same effect, as I mentioned some TV programmes & films can have this shit forced on you too.   
I can only view or play for a short time (say 10mins) before it becomes a potential vomit problem. 

I never had this problem with the various 14" port-a-bile CRT based TVs and numerous game consoles I have (Dreamcast, Xbox, Gamecube & Wii). The Wii was the second last one I bought, Nintendo turned evil & blocked the Gamecube code disc, bastards, therefore I ended up buying a second hand Gamecube to carry on with the older games, I completely lost interest in consoles soon after that.
No one else in family seems to get motion sickness problem with screens, it's just me.

I've no need or space for anything larger than the 24" monitor, anything in this size or smaller seems to be low quality shite these days, for both TVs & monitors. I'll be using the repaired LandfillMaster till it dies completely, will probably go with dumpster find or cheap used monitors then.
Still haven't replaced the GPU due to overpriced cards, following the chipageddon shortages, the only game I really want to play is Shenmue III, maybe need to bring a CRT monitor back from storage.

David

[factory]

Don't know about that, but we used to repair several types of air-con controllers at work, we had one that was dead on arrival, which started working when the sticker blocking the EPROM window was removed, closing the controller door and it stopped working again.

David

The EPROM was obviously scared of the dark!

-Pat

 

Disconnected power supply, input protection (photo)diodes providing just enough current for operation?

No it was powered from the 110V DC bench supply all the time, a freshly programmed replacement EPROM cured it, with door open & closed. I think we joked about fitting a lamp inside, or something like that.

David

[mnementh]

Looking at all those nasty pictures and, erm, sort of heated "discussions", here is some contrary programme from Qwertee (NAWTS):

Hey, no fair! I've been proselytizing in here since like... 2019 or something!

Fine... I'll raise you:

a    a      a      and a   .

mnem

[tggzzz]

Don't know about that, but we used to repair several types of air-con controllers at work, we had one that was dead on arrival, which started working when the sticker blocking the EPROM window was removed, closing the controller door and it stopped working again.

David

The EPROM was obviously scared of the dark!

-Pat

 

Disconnected power supply, input protection (photo)diodes providing just enough current for operation?

No it was powered from the 110V DC bench supply all the time, a freshly programmed replacement EPROM cured it, with door open & closed. I think we joked about fitting a lamp inside, or something like that.

David

I was thinking more of PSU disconnection near or in the chip.

[tautech]

Sillycon die layouts sporting a tennis racquet in one corner have been laid out by a certain Mike from Florida.
Must see if I can find the pics he sent me.

[factory]

Don't know about that, but we used to repair several types of air-con controllers at work, we had one that was dead on arrival, which started working when the sticker blocking the EPROM window was removed, closing the controller door and it stopped working again.

David

The EPROM was obviously scared of the dark!

-Pat

 

Disconnected power supply, input protection (photo)diodes providing just enough current for operation?

No it was powered from the 110V DC bench supply all the time, a freshly programmed replacement EPROM cured it, with door open & closed. I think we joked about fitting a lamp inside, or something like that.

David

I was thinking more of PSU disconnection near or in the chip.

Who knows it could have been.
There might have been afterwards too, with some over-voltage abuse, or the X-ray deviceᵀᴹ.
Also used to enjoy treating troublesome EPROMs with a Megger, it did wonders for the radio* reception, much to the annoyance of my co-workers.

*before the great radio & music player ban, of a few years ago.

David

[Vince]

Wow looks beautiful.. must have cost a fortune to assemble/manufacture ! 

If you like to watch pictures of semiconductor dies, then you should check out Richis Lab.

Here is an example from a Motorola 2N3055 transistor. What I really like about those pictures about power transistors is that one can see the barrier layer, because Richi is driving them in reverse mode and then the B-E diode becomes a Zener.



B-E diode working as a Zener at 300mA:

OK just sacrificed a 2N3055 and tried the same experiment. Doesn't work, die doesn't light up. VERY disappointed !     

Maybe it can't be seen with the naked eye, or it needs a long exposure time to gather sufficient light, or it requires a special version of the 2N3055, I don't know.
All I can say it that it didn't work on my particular transistor, and I now have one less 2N3055, he died for nothing. I am sad now.