Alright, what's this then?

Hi,

Would you ever design such a wiring loom as this?

or

Yeah, fault-finding would be so easy...

Nope.

Grant.

Reply to
Grant
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It's an MFR. They take about 3 weeks to assemble.

Reply to
Ken

From what I think is the same facility;

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Why is the ceiling fully reflective? Save on lighting?

Reply to
Ken

Reflective insulation is effective for heat flow down. Not very good at keeping heat from rising.

Dan

Reply to
dcaster

You've obviously never worked on a large WW panel (e.g., ~3000 devices). And, there, have to also deal with things like cold-flow that aren't "visible errors" (like a wire in the wrong place).

Reply to
Don Y

I now know as much about it as I did after reading the OP. What's an MFR?

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Rick
Reply to
rickman

I don't know either - I got that info by google translating the russian on the webpage.

Magnetic Feckin Ring?

Maybe a whole pile of sensors or detectors arranged around the periphery?

Or are those peripheral devices drivers that drive something in the centre - LEDs to optical fiber?

Reply to
Ken

It must be fault tolerant.

But no, its bonkers. 1970s technology attached to whatever that huge array is.

NT

Reply to
meow2222

You're just reacting to the scale and technology used.

Similar complexity is present in semiconductor large scale integration or optical interfaces. It's there, but you just don't notice it except perhaps as a more frequent junking of some device that used to last for decades.

Some applications simply defy miniaturization. Some will never last long enough to justify the effort. The first attempt is often the end-run, trying to avoid the need for so many individual terminations.

RL

Reply to
legg

(M)ulti (F)unction phased array (R)ADAR, Gospodin Rickman,

Having worked for some time on a Lithuanian project, all I can say is the F ormer All Soviet Standard (GOSPLAN) wiring scheme is first rate. The wire i s good, the standard is good. The civilian RF connectors are fine, very BNC or SMA like.

However, when you use their older Mil-Spec connectors, you question why you bother. Assembling them is an Art Form, compared to the simplicity of Ca nnon/Amphenol Plugs. Not really designed for multiple connect/disconnect cy cles. Designed for absolute minimum cost, and assembly is laborious.

However, as you all have guessed those green "CA" connectors pictured are j ust a little bit better then Jones Plugs. Very fragile to handle, which is why all wiring that uses them is clamped or shock proofed, religiously. Onc e assembled its decent and ensures contact. But the harness will be mounted in such a way to ensure it has very little tension on it. The connector in question is long obsolete.

Steve

Reply to
sroberts6328

Compactrons come to mind. :)

I've got to imagine tubes could be pretty slick these days with MEMS.

If they had MEMS back in the day, they could've done some really neat stuff, integrated TV receiver - demodulator - chroma separator, say.

Of course... "neat stuff" would include transistors, so we'd still be where we are today without the glowbugs. :^)

Tim

--
Seven Transistor Labs 
Electrical Engineering Consultation 
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Reply to
Tim Williams

I seem to recall there was a UK company with a plan to produce a pre-LCD display using very pointy field emitters. I can't recall if they were etched in Si, or what. Is that the sort of thing you are referring to with MEMS tubes?

I believe this company never shipped a commercial product.

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Rick
Reply to
rickman

You're possibly thinking of field emission triodes and arrays. I believe the issue was with erosion of the emitter (even with vapor deposited diamond surfaces). They were etched in Si, GaAs and InP. Not much published after Y2K.

Field emission was also a consideration for Ion Propulsion thrusters.

RL

Reply to
legg

Sounds like modern-day* plasma panels.

*Are they still made? I suppose large LCD panels have pretty much trounced them, but I don't follow that market.

But that's a glow discharge. A VFD is thermionic, but not printed (well, the electrodes might be etched, but there's plenty of stampings involved, too).

There was also a "flat panel CRT", this thing for example:

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I'd never seen one before the video, pretty cool.

Nah, I mean building proper thermionic tubes the way we make ICs (and MEMS) today. For example, maybe you'd have a thin Al2O3 substrate (doesn't need to be single crystal), with a tungsten foil backing that's etched for filaments and connecting tracks, and whatever on the front (nichrome foil?). The front foil is etched to produce a grid (holes, slots, whatever; a remote cutoff characteristic could be made with tapered slots), and the Al2O3 is etched through where electron flow is desired. The hard part is building a second layer on top of this, for plates (or screens for tetrodes+) and other connections. Perhaps a suitable thickness of Al2O3 could be sputtered/evaporated on top and etched back, much as metal layers are implemented in semiconductors today.

Assuming the physics works out, it should at least be scalable -- you can make a triode in a fraction of a grain of sand, or you can array a thousand of them in parallel for heavy lifting.

Basic analysis includes: achieving suitable aspect ratios for grids, electrode spacings for voltage standoff, low enough thermal conductivity to get the cathode working, sufficient stiffness so all the foils don't simply fall apart, and so on.

And you could include, say, planar inductors, to build one hell of a distributed amplifier. (Maybe one of the ceramic layers is ferrite loaded epoxy paste?)

Would it be at all competitive with MOSFETs? Doubtful. Even with the large advantage in electron velocity*, the effective* mobility of any semiconductor is orders of magnitude higher than vacuum, for the simple fact that, rather than being space, it's space loaded with ions, balancing the charge and allowing way higher carrier density. And more current basically means more gain, end of story.

*Equivalent and wave-of-the-hands approximated, since vacuum physics is ballistic physics, not thermalized. Some semiconductors get close (e.g., the underlying 'snappy' phenomenon in GaAs Gunn diodes), and the better structures (2DEG) and materials (GaN?) are probably even better than that.

Tim

--
Seven Transistor Labs 
Electrical Engineering Consultation 
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Reply to
Tim Williams

Wikipedia to the rescue.

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They describe it as being printed but to mention the need for a higher vacuum than is used in a CRT. As to who was doing the development, I may well be confusing Sir Clive Sinclare's flat CRT with this display. The wiki article does not say anyone ever produced a commercial product using this technology.

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Rick
Reply to
rickman

Motorola relesed a 5inch part for an RGB development platform in '98. (Pixtek?) and Futaba released a monochrome version about the same time. 20,000hr life might be OK as an FRU in aircraft, but I don't know.....

RL

Reply to
legg

The Sinclair pocket TV was an ordinary CRT with the phosphor viweed from behind and the gun below.

There was also an LCD model with passive backlighting, not sure whose name was on that one (Casio?).

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umop apisdn
Reply to
Jasen Betts

Heck, that is 8 hours a day for 7 years or almost 10 years if you just count weekdays. Most computer equipment is obsolete before then. This is one of those cases where the only good screen saver is to power it down, lol.

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Rick
Reply to
rickman

You say "ordinary" CRT, but that is what it was all about, a very unique CRT!

I remember seeing one of those. But they were pricey and tiny. Even in my early years I was not a fan of squinting at a tiny screen which is what I literally have to do with my cell phone now.

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Rick
Reply to
rickman

The early (1930's) camera tubes had that kind of layout.

Reply to
upsidedown

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