Beauty of old electrical and measuring things, etc.
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ernic
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Nice work
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To get the current to heat the Tungsten evaporation element, like this circuit in the old Variac's manual,dlgoff said:
I picked up this (after two days of cleaning) beauty, "supplementary transformer" (actually 0 to 5 vac power supply).
Check out the Simpson current transformer and ac amp meter.
Here's a couple of pics of what I have so far for the deposition system that I just pumped down and tested at ~100 amp.
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I believe so. I have to clean all the metal components in the bell jar after every run. I don't think that the film would be very strongly attached as it would be from sputtering.jim hardy said:
BTW yes. that's the copper on glass slide reflecting the PF home page.
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Got it! Hoping you don't go Andrew Breitbart on me.DrClaude said:Beautiful! But be careful not to go Anthony Weiner on us
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I thought I'd share a couple pics of the vacuum deposition (now sputter) system I've put together with mostly old "Beauty" components. I am just about ready to give it a try to see if it'll sputter copper onto glass. I've added a little heat exchanger to bring the temperature down on the electrode cooling air and made a HV tube power supply for the sputter potential (adjustable up to ~2kV). Also have Argon that I'll introduce after a good pump-down to help get a copper plasma.dlgoff said:
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I have had this little detector for quite a few years now. I don't recall what I paid for it but a HAM that I used to work with sold it to me for what I recall being quite reasonable. He is deceased now so it means a bit more to me. Thought I would make it my avatar but it also fits in this thread just fine.
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Thanks for sharing this beauty. Can you explain a little how it works?Averagesupernova said:
I understand how it can give meaning to you. My HAM mentor (W0AFQ) would be in his 90s now and I'd love to let him know that his mentoring made a huge impact in my life.
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The above is taken from a wiki article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat's-whisker_detector
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Early semiconductors were not taken at all seriously since there was an association with the instability of the cat's whisker detector. I have never tried using one but as a kid I had a lot of fun tinkering with 'crystal' radio using a germanium diode. After a while I learned to plug the output of my crystal set into the mic input on a tape recorder and listen through the external speaker jack. My first experience with understanding amplification.
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With cat's whisker detectors as I understand you would poke around with the thing until you got acceptable reception. Of course I can imagine trying a new stab at it because it was a shot in the dark and I would get greedy thinking there was a better spot on the crystal. I would assume moving the detector would also detune what it was hooked to. So if the detector gets bumped it probably also means a retune. Todays cell phone equipped kids have no idea what it took to get here. And for that matter I probably underestimate it plenty too.
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Averagesupernova said:
Wow, I can relate to that. I had a very similar experience in my youth that greatly influenced my career. But my experience was playing with a TR-10 analog computer. It gave me an intuitive feel for transient dynamics, and the relationship to DIFF-EQ, and an appreciation for energy (the charge on those capacitors in the TR-10, no capacitors no dynamics). That started me down an analytical path much different than the hands-on path of you, @berkeman, @jim hardy and others here on PF. But in terms of a early life experience that influenced a young mind, it was very much the same.
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anorlunda said:
Wow i remember a lab course we took called "analog computing" . I don't remember whether it was a "Pace" we had in the lab or something similar... but i knew i should be able to relate to the hardware. As with most things academic i struggled with the equations, was in danger of failing.
One Friday evening something clicked - it dawned on me all you had to do was arrange the differential terms in order and wire up the integrators same way, set the gain & time constant resistors and run it. So i did all our semester's labs over that weekend, wrote them up with great enthusiasm and got "A" . Still one of my favorite memories.
That 'feel' you mention was for me integral-differential relations. I could relate them to capacitance.
Some years later i encountered and understood Ray Nath's analog computer that solves the six group delayed neutron equation for startup testing of reactors. EAI built it, too.
I guess that's why i am drawn to analog electronics, it's a familiar language.
Life's little coincidences , eh ? They shape us.
Buy your grandkids some small hand tools and a junk VCR to take apart. Have them put the little screws in a bottle for fixing things later.
Kids love it, it teaches them finger dexterity and curiosity that pay off in later life. My daughter fixes everything from icemakers to car windows and is teaching her kids to do the same. .
old jim
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Brings back memories. I did the exact same thing.Averagesupernova said:
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One of the first companies I worked for used a lot of these 30 amp variacs. Except I think ours where manufactured by Superior Electric. When the company shut down I was able to get a few of them along with some power analyzers.dlgoff said:
I love your sputter machine. Very nice job with all of these restorations.
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I've made lots of tests leading to modifications on the thing. Not all that easy to get good results... Well not yet, but I just received some new caps in the mail for the HV supply from old jim. Thanks a bunch @jim hardyTurtleMeister said:
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I have heard of that but never been in a position to try it.dlgoff said:Reminds me when my old Ham mentor showed me how to modify a crystal's frequency with a lead pencil.
Thanks for sharing and explaining.
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I have done it and it works well with the old WW2 crystal holders where the crystals were clamped between metal plates. These days the hermetically sealed crystals makes it difficult. http://www.af4k.com/crystal_holders.htm
If the crystal frequency was too low you polished the plate to reduce the mass and so raise the frequency. If you went too far, you use the pencil on the entire surface, that increased the mass of the crystal and so took the frequency back to where you should have stopped polishing earlier.
It was common to find an initial letter or a digit written on the crystal in pencil, left half a century ago by the previous crystal polisher. I always wonder who that was and what became of them. On average, I think it was a young woman, who later married a returned soldier to generate the baby boomers.
If the crystal frequency was too low you polished the plate to reduce the mass and so raise the frequency. If you went too far, you use the pencil on the entire surface, that increased the mass of the crystal and so took the frequency back to where you should have stopped polishing earlier.
It was common to find an initial letter or a digit written on the crystal in pencil, left half a century ago by the previous crystal polisher. I always wonder who that was and what became of them. On average, I think it was a young woman, who later married a returned soldier to generate the baby boomers.