🚀 go-pugleaf

whit@milton.u.washington.edu (John Whitmore) writes:

>>I've seen advertised 'flash eprom erasers' which appear to operate by
>>exposing the EPROM to a flash from a strobe tube, rather than the usual

>>Do these erasers use anything special, like a flash tube that has lots
>>of UV content ? Or are all Xenon tubes high in UV output ?

>	I think Xenon flash tubes ARE high in UV (and I once had a
>flash that, when 'popped' into a plaster wall, left a very interesting
>glowing patch on the wall: the plaster had some phosphorescence).
>I also think that most photographic flashes will use UV-absorbing
>glass (and some even use a yellowish filter) to keep the UV from
>getting out.  You may have mixed results erasing an EPROM with
>a photographic strobe.



Another interesting UV "flash tube" is the quartz tube inside a common
mercury vapor lamp.  Simply break the outer bulb, extract the quartz 
tube, connect the electrodes to your photoflash power supply and connect
the trigger to either the ignition electrode (the little one off to the 
side of one of the main electrodes) or to a thin wire coiled around the
outside of the tube.  Experiment with which setup gives the most
reliable trigger.

I have experimented with this setup using a large photoflash powersupply
(2000 uF, 900 volts) and have gotten some very intense pulses of UV light.
I have not tried this unit against an EPROM but now that you mention it... :-)

John


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