The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning

Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.

The New Hotness

  • Darlington Transistor Sorting

    A discussion of random numbers at Squidwrench brought those gamma ray detectors to the top of the heap, with the observation I probably needed a few more Darlington transistors:

    Darlington transistor - hFE sorting
    Darlington transistor – hFE sorting

    Sorting two lots of 50 transistors by gain kept me out of trouble for a while:

    Darlington transistors - sorted
    Darlington transistors – sorted

    Those are MPSA14 NPN and MPSA64 PNP transistors, with DC gains ranging from around the spec’s minimum 10 k spec all the way up to well over 100 k.