Zener Diode ID

Nov 30, 2004 10 Replies

This might be the weirdes questen here.... Well I picked up a miex lot of components and it has about 5-6 Zener Diodes... (thats what i think they are) Well the problem is they are sooo tiny and hence I cant read the values.. is there a way I can find out the values? I mean ID the diode.... Now that I think of it... are they even Zener diodes? I know 1N914 comes in glass case too... Is there a way I can find out what this is and what values it holds....


Are there stripes around the bodies of the devices?

John Fields

"Ronak Shah" wrote

Get a good ~10x magnifying loupe: Things will just get even tinier and harder to read; Eyesight gets worse as one gets older, not better.

Nicholas O. Lindan, Cleveland, Ohio Consulting Engineer: Electronics; Informatics; Photonics. Remove spaces etc. to reply: n o lindan at net com dot com psst.. want to buy an f-stop timer? nolindan.com/da/fstop/

I took some advice and got my self the magnifying glass.... well I can see the following digits.... on the first one

1N8 14B C

on the second one: TFK

1N4 < Not very clear 733 < 7 is clear the rest I guessed from the blur

Now I cant see the numbers clearly.. so I am guessing these numbers... does anyone recognize these????? If you do... are these zeners or regular signal diodes?? If not do these numbers resemble anything you might recognize ?

I am kinda new to this.....please advice

My guess would be:

Glenn

This might be useful:

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This list may give you an equivalent type that you can find on Google.

That said, the second one is a current type and is on this data sheet:

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John Popelish

A method I use is similar to Chris Foley's, only simpler if you have a scope. Just put the unknown device in series with a resistor (100K or so) and connect to the AC output of an appropriate transformer.

Look at the voltage across the diode and see what it does. You can see the Zener voltage as a clipped half-sine in the reverse-bias direction. You can thus read the Zener voltage right off the scope face. This makes it quick to characterize lots of unknown parts, including telling which end is which.

Hope this helps!

Bob Masta dqatechATdaqartaDOTcom D A Q A R T A Data AcQuisition And Real-Time Analysis

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1N8148. Sounds _almost_ like an 1N4148 (Si universal diode); those in my stock are labeled in the same fashion.

Cheers + HTH,

- Joerg

joerg dot hau at swissonline dot ch * Lausanne, Switzerland http://homepage.sunrise.ch/mysunrise/joerg.hau/ "All standard disclaimers apply". remove the obvious from my address to reply

I suspect that is a 1N914B - common small-signal diode.

1N4733 is a 5.1 volt zener, 1 watt
Peter Bennett VE7CEI email: peterbb4 (at) interchange.ubc.ca GPS and NMEA info and programs: http://vancouver-webpages.com/peter/index.html Newsgroup new user info: http://vancouver-webpages.com/nnq

can

numbers...

these

doesn't

The 1N814 is a silicon signal diode, it is _not_ a zener diode. According to my Moto manual, PRV=40V, Vf=1.0 @ 2mA, Ir=0.1uA, Trr=.25uS.

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