Great Jumpin Germaniums! (Ge Diode and Transistor Reviews & Discussion)

[Beaker]

Russian is quite odd - as some "letters" are just that - letters, some represent sounds, and some are pronunciation guides.

Here is a really useful tool to decode Cyryllic into English - note that's ENGLISH Zach, not American.

Just click on the characters that are printed on a component, and it will give you the English equivalent underneath.

One to watch out for though is the letter 3 (just like the number). It's nearest equivalent is the letter Z. Letter 3 and number 3 can easily be confused.

http://stevemorse.org/russian/rus2eng.html

[rocket88]

Fixed it. That's what I meant. I can't believe I broke the rules . I wasn't thinking when I responded. I was I the middle or redoing an etched enclosure that I spend 2 days working on. All I had to do was drill holes for the jacks and dc, and either there was a weakness in the wall or something cause next thing I know the wall blows out. I spent 5 hours  last night, up till 4am starting over from scratch.

Also, beaker I don't see the link.

[Beaker]

Doh! link added. What a wazock!

[rocket88]

seems to be one of those days for us all. i mean come on i said "in american" in stead of "in english."  shit, that's like when there was the stupid idea to change "french fries" to "freedom fries" in the us because france wouldn't help out when we invade iraq.

[Beaker]

Britain and America - two nations divided by a common language!

BTW I was only kidding Zach, Us Brits Really are more upset by all that tea you guys wasted, rather than for kicking our butts!

[rocket88]

truth be told i do prefer relaxing with a nice cup of tea, then a cup of coffee. and as a rather young american it annoys me to no end the number of people that dont vote and complain. meanwhile the whole reason the US exists is the breaking point over a tax over tea, and the idea that how can you tax me if i am not represented in the government. the founding fathers are rolling over in their graves over the way this country has gone.

[Travis]

I think a lot of it comes down to the fact that most Americans are totally apathetic when it comes to politics. Not even mentioning the fact that most of them don't understand how the political system even works.

In the end it feels like the only people that get heard are extremists.. Turn on any political tv show and it's kindof a storm of bullshit to validate that they feel whatever it is that their party is "supposed" to feel. People too stupid to form their own opinions blindly follow.

It's really all pretty scary.. Especially when you factor in all of the deception from our gov.. Really feels like we're fucked

[dbat69]

Its the same in the UK - politicians are just out for what they can get and put their snouts in the trough.
With the election coming up here soon, its just a case of "look at me kiddies, I'm the best and he's not" and a total load of bullshyte being thrown out by PR gurus to make 'their' man/woman look good.
Stuff that crap - no wonder there is so much apathy - they're all so blummin annoying, condescending and smarmy and out of touch with the 'ordinary' person.

[Beaker]

Got my GT308B in the post today from Bulgaria. I ordered two lots, along with 100 feet of his teflon coated silver wire, which is absolutely superb, and I highly reccomend it to everyone.

I also got a mass of  other transistors,diodes, electro caps and other goodies thrown in too - I'm still trying to sort through it all to find out what some of these components are.

He has sent me two bags full of SMD chips too, including TL074s. They are odd little things - too narrow spacing for use on vero, but good for PCBs I guess. If anyone can make use of them, please tell me, and I will post them on to you.

Just trying to spread the love.

[PEPPER!]

Hi, been lurking here for a while. I've done several rounds of buying batches of Soviet-era transistors on eBay with varying degrees of success, so I thought it might be helpful to others if I report on the batch that showed up yesterday.  I bought a bunch of P416Bs and MP35s along with a few terminal strips and switches from eBay user alexer1.  I wrote to him shortly after ordering about shipping costs and he combined them so that it came to less than half of the combined per-item cost - roughly $20 USD to get a 1/2 kilo package shipped from Ukraine to Chicago in under two weeks.  Fine by me.  I already went through a bunch of P416Bs from another source and really liked them.  The old batch I bought ranged a lot in gain and leakage (40-110 hFE and 60-300 uA).  The ones that showed up yesterday were very uniform - leakage was right around 200 uA and gain was between 60 and 80 for all 30; most were in the low 70s.  The MP35s (an NPN transistor) were also very uniform - leakage averaged 150 uA and all but one out of 40 fell between 42 and 58 hFE.  Initially this wasn't a very encouraging result, but I quickly threw together an NPN Buzzaround on a breadboard and dropped a bunch of these in.  They sounded fantastic - at least in any combination where Q3 was over 55 - plenty heavy at full voltage and the noise floor was acceptable.

Anyway, hope this is helpful in some way.  Thanks to our host and to everybody who participates in this forum!  

[Ed Nice]

Man, I have 6,000,000 questions about Germanium stuff, but for now, just one :)

I have the Fender Blender: http://tagboardeffects.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/fender-blender.html on my build list and it requires a few 1N276 Ge diodes. These seem to be quite expensive and pretty uncommon so how would I [hypothetically] go about deciding on what a reasonable substitute might be?

As I read it, a switching diode is a switching diode but I'm a bit freaked out by this whole Germanium Mojo malarkey to the point where I'm not sure if an alternative with the same or similar values might not have the right sprinkle of pixie dust?

I have no real idea how changing this component may affect the circuit or even what I ought to be looking for in another diode. I see people mentioning different transistors with some abandon, seemingly as long as it's an NPN/PNP, just chuck it in and see, but I may well be oversimplifying this somewhat, I don't know?

Just when you get to the end of the level, you open the door and it's not another level, but a corridor with 10 more doors in it. And no spoon. I am surprisingly addicted to this stuff now and rather than getting a bit bored with it, I'm getting even more engrossed. I'm even, dare I mention it, getting a bit Ge-curious, you know, nudge-nudge, wink wink... say no more...

Thanks again guys. :)

[Travis]

There are a couple approaches you could take. One would be to buy several different types and socket them on your build to find the diodes that you prefer. Another would be to find the average forward voltage of the 1N276 and approximate that with other diodes.


I'd start with the usual suspects.. 1n270, 1n34a, Russian stuff

[bogey]

HaHa very funny Ed. I recently got some Ge diodes and trannies as I too was curious. I'm only a hobbyist so I have more than I need really. So if you're in the UK shoot me an email with an address and I'd be more than happy to stick a couple of each of the ones I have in the post for you. Be warned though......you're on a slippery slope

[Ed Nice]

Thanks guys. I always socket trannies and IC's, so it's almost like I've been in training already... :p I've kinda braced myself for a bit of an ebay endurance test and I'll read up on stuff so I'm a bit more clued up about what all the spec means before I buy something pointless!

Bogey, thanks for the offer. I am in the UK so... :)

As always, a brilliant and overwhelming response  

[Travis]

Alright!! I just tore shit up on eBay. A couple hundred bucks later, I've got some really cool stuff coming. 4x tested mullard OC81, 1x tested mullard white jacket OC81D (should be a perfect Q3 for a MKII), 10x tested mullard black glass germs that should make 10 perfect Rangemasters, about 30 random cool mullard and Philips germs, and a nice little pile of really sweet vintage caps. Hard to see in the picture but I see a bunch of good mullard mustard caps and other very mojo caps

Don't forget the 100x Amperex OC71N that are incoming as well! Damn, I should make some good money off this stuff!

[rocket88]

haha, welcome to the Ge side. it's strange place to be, but you're going to get hooked.

in addition to what was said about finding something with a similar forward voltage, Vf, i would contract our friend in bulgaria and have him put together a nice assortment of Ge diodes for you, and try some different ones and get something you like.

travis, is any of that showing up by the time i get out there? should i bring some transistors to swap?

[Travis]

I don't think so because I ordered them from the UK. We'll see though!

If you wanna do a little swapping I'm down. I don't think I have anything that you don't have already though!

[kirshman]

Hey guys, got some of these from our Bulgarian friend, and was wondering if someone could help me with what they are.  Also do you guys use those electrolytic caps he sends as filler?

[kirshman]

Wow that turned out grainy.  It looks like rt4046, but I'm sure that's not it.

[dbat69]

It is a Russian NPN Ge transistor - the translation of the transistor number is GT404B
hfe should be in the range of 60 to 150
They are likely to be a bit leaky (these ones always are)

Our friend in Bulgaria is really good to us - he looks after us all well and keeps getting some nice items and sending some interesting and useful gifts too

I've got some of those little caps too and will probably use them in something - I haven't used them yet though