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Tube❄️Time

* yes, many of the drawers (for MOS parts) have ESD protection in the form of an aluminum foil layer. i applied it with glue and this custom 3D-printed jig.

3d-printed "die" that helped me form-fit foil into the bottom of many of the plastic bins.
27 comments
Tube❄️Time replied to Tube❄️Time

HSC originally used black ESD foam which degraded horribly over the years. i hate that stuff. i hate the sour smell it gets when it degrades, and i hated having to pick hundreds of chips out of crumbling, decaying foam.

Tube❄️Time replied to Tube❄️Time

* rarest part i found? probably these 4004 processor chips. but there were other oddities in the collection, shift register memories, drivers, and that sort of thing.

a drawer full of 4004 CPU chips (!)
legnadibrom replied to Tube❄️Time

@tubetime how many parts succumbed to the black foam curse

[DATA EXPUNGED]
Tube❄️Time replied to DELETED

@carpetbomberz yeah they're neat but were state of the art for only a short time so nobody remembers them

Inari :acefox: replied to Tube❄️Time

@tubetime I bet there’s a bunch of nerds losing their shit over this right now.

Miles Goodhew replied to Tube❄️Time

@tubetime Holy heck! I've never seen so many 4004's!

Eric S. Pumpkins replied to Tube❄️Time

@tubetime This is amazing. I had been hoping someone that would take care of them got all the good stuff :)

Dan KB6NU replied to Tube❄️Time

@tubetime Now you can get into the calculator business. :)

Rue Mohr replied to Tube❄️Time

@tubetime Could I apply for some 1 bit SRAM with separate Din and Dout lines?

Tube❄️Time replied to Rue

@RueNahcMohr like a 2102 or something? those are still pretty common iirc

Rue Mohr replied to Tube❄️Time

@tubetime I dont know, I always wanted to make a digital delay out of one, could never find one of the static ram chips with separate IO lines.

Tube❄️Time replied to Rue

@RueNahcMohr a shift register memory would work better for that

Tube❄️Time replied to Tube❄️Time

funny story, i loaned some parts in the 4000 series (support chips) to a friend of mine who ended up building a SUPER COOL PROJECT with them. like -- mind blowingly cool. keep an eye out for 4004-related news.

Obot 50549535 replied to Tube❄️Time

@tubetime
You're giving me flashbacks -- I built a lot of stuff out of 74LS about 40 years ago.

I know you didn't ask, but I am not crazy about aluminum foil for ESD protection. You don't want high conductivity, you want low (but non-zero) conductivity. That's what the black foam was doing, before it died of old age.

Foone🏳️‍⚧️ replied to Tube❄️Time

@tubetime did you find any chips damaged by that foam? I've heard it's slightly acidic so it can damage them over the long term

Tube❄️Time replied to Foone🏳️‍⚧️

@foone oh yeah plenty of chips with their legs rusted off

Hobson Lane replied to Tube❄️Time

@tubetime
Is foil a good idea? I thought ESD pads and plastic had some resistance?

Tube❄️Time replied to Hobson

@hobs it keeps all the pins shorted to each other.

Hobson Lane replied to Tube❄️Time

@tubetime
Intermittently shorting some of the pins as they jostle about. Any cap will discharge through the silicon quickly to another cap on another pin. Seems not ideal.

Hobson Lane replied to Tube❄️Time

@tubetime
I'm just guessing. Same as you. Impossible to know which pins will contact the foil and when. But when they do you're just hooking up a jumper wire. That's why all ESD pads, foams and bags are manufactured to have a moderate, nonzero impedance.

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