A gate driver circuit

I don't think drug dealers give free samples*, but they often front their product to you.

• unless you are a doctor.

You make transistor AM radios or something? ;)

The most expensive thing I ever destroyed was an adjustable optical fibre coupler, circa 1984 when I was a grad student. It used two SM fibres embedded in blocks of epoxy, gently curved to expose the fibres at the surface in the middle, and carefully lapped so that the cores were nearly but not quite at the surface.

You put a drop of index oil between them, and adjusted them laterally with differential micrometers to get the coupling you wanted. It took several days for a skilled technician to make one.

The one I had was borrowed, and because I was so nervous I wound up ripping out three of the fibre ends in an afternoon. :(

One of those character-shaping episodes.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

For expensive parts, I always request "one to use and two to blow up". Customers invariably chuckle and sign off. I usually wind up with two spares.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Mostly audio-related stuff and one-offs for pro musos, and contract work for artists/art installations and theater is what it's been for some time. Very little in that realm requires much in the way of boutique parts.

I'm branching out though, going faster. There's lots of ways to burn things out pushing watts at even single-digit MHz I'm learning new ways every day

Solid gate-driver circuits seem particularly tricky make one oops-connection and something's smoking out.