Article View: sci.electronics
Article #5428RE: Homemade tubes, semiconductors, etc...
From: baker
Date: Thu, 02 Aug 1990 17:34
Date: Thu, 02 Aug 1990 17:34
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[Line eaters ?!? What line ea A LOOOOONNNNNNGGGGGGGGG time ago, there was an article in Popular Electronics on making wet-cell diodes using a vat of sodium borate and water with two electrodes in it, one copper and the other aluminum. The idea was to connect a 6.3 V filament transformer across the electrodes for awhile; the AC would cause a coating (which the article described as a "semiconducter film") to form on the electrodes. After disconnecting the AC source, you could measure a sizeable difference in current flow through the cell, depending on whether the copper or the aluminum electrode was connected to positive. Unfortunately, the forward resistance was real high, so this thing didn't have a lot of pratical value. The article appeared sometime in '64 or '65... Now maybe with three electrodes, and a big enough cell, you could build a power transistor; or maybe an SCR in your bathtub, yeah, yeah, that's it... -Art Baker (All the usual disclaimers...)
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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!attcan!uunet!decwrl!bacchus.pa.dec.com!shlump.nac.dec.com!mountn.dec.com!wbc.dec.com!baker From: baker@wbc.dec.com Newsgroups: sci.electronics Subject: RE: Homemade tubes, semiconductors, etc... Message-ID: <1814@mountn.dec.com> Date: 2 Aug 90 17:34:47 GMT Sender: news@mountn.dec.com Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation Lines: 24