Unidentified Flying Diode.

[Heath]

HI, folks,

I was wondering if anyone could help me identify some diodes I have.

I got them from Bulgaria in with an order of 1D507A germanium diodes.  My camera phone camera doesn't have a "macro" mode, so I apologize for the crappy picture.  It's clear glass with one grey band.



Thanks!!

[IvIark]

D9V?

[Heath]

D9V seems to have a red band at the opposite end.., they might be D9D if that grey band is supposed to be white.

I've noticed that some of these have green bands which look quite grey to me.. for instance, D9J's look like this:


but the reference chart posted in this link shows:


I sent a message to the seller, but with the time zone difference and not knowing how responsive to email questions the seller is, no idea when I'll get a reply.  

On one hand it's easy enough to plug them into a circuit and see how they sound.  On the other hand, though, I have no idea what to refer to them as if I want to review/recommend/warn-about them.

[Heath]

I had a chance to take a better picture:

[dbat69]

They are SFD106

They are supposed to be a equivalent to an AA138 I think.  Made in Romania

[rocket88]

Definitely agree with dbat. Not sure if they're sfd-106, but definitely an sfd something.

[Heath]

You guys are awesome.  Thanks!!!

[Heath]

You guys nailed it.

Anyone had any experience with these as clipping diodes?  I'll be adding it to my testing list.

I've been meaning to get around to setting up sound test using a simple Electra distortion circuit (as several people have mentioned (I'm looking at you, rocketZach), it's a great test bed for this sort of thing.  I want to make sound sample with single coil pickups, P-90s, and humbuckers with the distortion set on clean, middle, all the way for each Ge diode type I have.  I have 2 things keeping me from getting it done.. 1) Making sure I get it recorded as cleanly as possible by either micing my amp (which involves rearranging my recording space and i am lazy at the moment) or recording directly into an interface that hasn't exactly worked right for me yet :/ AND my all consuming addiction to Star Wars: The Old Republic *sigh*

Hopefully, though, it'll overcome the limitation of descriptors like *creamy* and *soft-clipping* and *snarly* which often seem to mean different things to different people.

[dbat69]

Guys, for information, I translated this from some Romanian information I came across during one of my searches:

Marker of germanium diodes is:
SFD 104 orange
SFD 106 grey
SFD 107 yellow
SFD 108 yellow-orange
SFD 110 blue-yellow
SFD 111 red-white
SFD 112 orange-green
SFD 115 red-grey

[rocket88]

I have a Scarlett 2i2 that I can either plug in directly or plug in a mic cable and mic my cabinate. I haven't hand any time to mess with it in awhile, but it might be a solution. Glad to hear the reason for your disappearance is an addiction the The Old Republic, I was going to send you an email to say hi and check in. Thought you might have disappeared. Lol.

Hey, I do like the snowjob for testing diodes, simply because I can go from clean boost to diode clipping with a flip of a switch. I get nice comparisons since you hear them back to back. Btw, I've tried sfd110, sfd111, and sfd112 and they are all fantastic, so I would hope and suspect these are as well.

[Heath]

Thanks for the concern, dude. :)

I'm doin okay.  Numb fingers and wonky vision led to a bad run of fail boards that I can't seem to get working.  Very very frustrating.  I got fed up with it all and took a little break, ended up in the middle of Star Wars: The Old Republic during a boosted XP run up to a new expansion...  Work, Star Wars, eat, Star Wars, sleep, Star Wars, work, Star Wars :D  Makes or a nice diversion.  Can't see it keeping that kind of interest from me for too long, though.  I've got sad guitars that long to be played.

I've got so many pedal goodies lined up, I'm feeling the need to solder something. :p  I've got an amazing Small Clone chorus on PCB built, stereo add on and everything, just waiting to be boxed.., I can feel it tugging at my attention.  Sounds righteous as hell.  

Got a Small Stone on PCB and a Twin Peaks Tremolo PCB by David Rolo on the MadBean forums... still haven't finished debugging my shit-sucking Mutron Phasor II, but I have a speck of hope left.

I'm also planning on combining a DimensionP Chrous (from Freppo's layout) with a more traditional MN3007 chorus and see how I can get them to cascade since they have significantly different chorus sounds.  I want to try to do something other than one circuit into the other... problem is, I barely understand the science behind it, so I'm sort of like an ape trying to assemble a swingset. :D

Oddly enough my vision issues seemed to resolve quite a bit when I simply quit wearing my glasses.  Hows that for weird... my vision got better.  I guess I was cruising along with dangerously high blood sugar for years without realizing it.  Since I quit the carbohydrates and started taking some meds, I can't see a damn thing with my glasses on but without them I can read signs way the hell off and read things right up close with no problem.  

My numb fingers are better as well after some ridiculously expensive physical therapy.

[dbat69]

Good to see you're still with us and splashing the solder even if the dark side is influencing you
May the force capacitor be with you

[rocket88]

Definitely glad to hear things are getting better. Pretty amazing that your vision is getting better, rather then worse after what happened.

Btw, I took a look at the diodes again and realized that these are not the diodes you're looking for.......

[dbat69]

The diodes are definitely SFD106 - I have some too

I did a lot of searching as I got some from "electron-bg" which he was selling as SFD111 and they were actually SFD106.  I'm still looking to get some SFD111s but they seem to have vanished for now

[rocket88]

Great , now I have to make sure the ones I have that were sfd-111 are not sfd-106's. If they are no biggie, they actually sounds nice. Not as good as the sfd-112, but pretty close.