Fuzz Face on the fritz

[user 37518]

I also bought a Peak DCA 55 transistor tester which is indespensible for testing random pulls. I think another generation came out recently that has tracing software so you can plug it into your computer.  It takes all the guesswork out of leakage and gain etc. not to mention pinouts and bad transistors.

I have both the DCA 55 and the DCA 75 which includes the PC connection, overall both are the same, the software that comes in with the DCA75 is ok, but it wont display the higher IV curves, probably because it cant source enough current so some curves will be chopped off, for a basic understanding of the transistor under test I would say it is ok, however, I made a much better curve tracer with a PSU and a DMM using a GPIB interface and some code I made in MATLAB, the HP PSUs are relatively cheap on ebay,  Here is a sample of  the curves for an RF HEMT transistor using this method.

 

[CJ]

nice! 

 

[user 37518]

Thanks, if anyone is interested let me know.

 

[Bo Deadly]

More on how Germanium transistors were made:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihkRwArnc1k&t=10m57s

This is personally the most technical detail I've seen or read on the topic.

 

[synthiaks]

Beautiful! I somehow missed that Rick and Morty would be on tomorrow and had been looking forward to watching  Season 4 tonight, now I can watch this as a substitute

 

[Fuzz Face]

More on how Germanium transistors were made:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihkRwArnc1k&t=10m57s

This is personally the most technical detail I've seen or read on the topic.

I really enjoyed this, thanks!

Btw I have a fairly large collection of NOS Ge transistors if anyone here needs parts for fuzz pedals etc

 

[CJ]

iridium.

we must have iridium!