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I, too, have a special place in my heart for diodes. When I was a kid, I had one of those 200-in-1 electronics kits. It had a germanium diode on it. The diode
by fogleman 10y ago
I, too, have a special place in my heart for diodes.
When I was a kid, I had one of those 200-in-1 electronics kits. It had a germanium diode on it. The diode was clear. I connected a 9V battery directly to it, no resistor or anything else. It glowed super bright bluish white for a second or two and then burned out.
Now my EE friends tell me that no one uses germanium diodes anymore, and it makes me sad.
- ryansturmer 10y agoDude's EE friend here. It's true. 10/10 did break heart.
- CamperBob2 10y agoB...b...but SiGe HBTs!
- a_thro_away 10y agohaha. I still keep a vintage pack of 50 around for the rare instance I have to throw down a crystal radio set for the kids...
- AstroJetson 10y agoSave them, real 1n34 diodes are hard to find. Most of the ones from HK or China are fakes and lack the sensitivity for crystal sets.
- squeaky-clean 10y agoGermanium is still coveted for audio usage at least. Not for audiophiles per se, but musicians, especially guitar effects. It definitely sounds a different than silicon, and it's also more "lively" and unpredictable. I have a Fuzz Factory, and that baby can definitely scream and squeal like none of my other effects. But it also sounds different from night to night with the exact same knob settings. All my other effects, I can make a marking for where to line up the knob, and visually spot-check before a gig, but the Fuzz Factory I have to audibly test. Things like room temperature, age of the strings or length of my input cable even seem to make a difference!
- CamperBob2 10y agoWell, the manual said the kit included a light-emitting diode. Problem?
- jeffwass 10y agoHaha, I might have had the same kit as you. Mine from radio shack, and had besides the usual resistors and capacitors and BJT's also a JK flip flop and quad nand gate. I used to like wiring the IC's backwards briefly to make them get really hot. Though one day I left it too long and burnt one of them out. Alas no brilliant blue glow though.
- fogleman 10y agoI found an image of the one I had! https://www.quasarelectronics.co.uk/media/ecom/prodxl/200-in-1-electronic-projects-lab-mx-907.jpg https://www.quasarelectronics.co.uk/media/ecom/prodxl/200-in...
- jeffwass 10y agoThat's a revamped version of what I had (newer case). Mine was an older version with the same parts.