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  • Re: How to build an image intensifier?

    From James Zuzelski@21:1/5 to Christopher on Mon Dec 5 20:28:38 2022
    On Friday, June 12, 1998 at 2:00:00 AM UTC-5, Christopher wrote:
    What we discovered is that when you buy a surplus tube, it's usually the power supply that is shot. The tube lights up fine when you put a new power supply. This led to the current problem in the industry: the power supplies die faster than the tubes, leaving an abundance of unpotted tubes. I spoke
    to the original MX9916 power supply manufacturing company some time ago and found that if I purchased 100 power supplies at a time, they would sell them to me for $350. Of course, I can still buy complete surplus tubes for
    about $200. It might make sense at some point, but more tubes are making their way out through the surplus channels, so it might not.
    Chris

    24 years later... shot in the dark here but what suppliers have you gone through to get these? Know of any still around today?

    Thanks,
    James

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  • From Phil Hobbs@21:1/5 to James Zuzelski on Tue Dec 6 14:52:56 2022
    James Zuzelski wrote:
    On Friday, June 12, 1998 at 2:00:00 AM UTC-5, Christopher wrote:
    What we discovered is that when you buy a surplus tube, it's
    usually the power supply that is shot. The tube lights up fine when
    you put a new power supply. This led to the current problem in the
    industry: the power supplies die faster than the tubes, leaving an
    abundance of unpotted tubes. I spoke to the original MX9916 power
    supply manufacturing company some time ago and found that if I
    purchased 100 power supplies at a time, they would sell them to me
    for $350. Of course, I can still buy complete surplus tubes for
    about $200. It might make sense at some point, but more tubes are
    making their way out through the surplus channels, so it might
    not. Chris

    24 years later... shot in the dark here but what suppliers have you
    gone through to get these? Know of any still around today?

    Thanks, James


    There aren't that many surplus image tubes left, it seems. A few years
    ago there were some Russian ones on eBay, but they were complete crap.

    Cheers

    Phil Hobbs

    --
    Dr Philip C D Hobbs
    Principal Consultant
    ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics
    Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics
    Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

    http://electrooptical.net
    http://hobbs-eo.com

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    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Henry Nebrensky@21:1/5 to Phil Hobbs on Sat Dec 17 07:13:24 2022
    On Tuesday, 6 December 2022 at 19:53:02 UTC, Phil Hobbs wrote:
    James Zuzelski wrote:
    ...
    24 years later... shot in the dark here but what suppliers have you
    gone through to get these? Know of any still around today?

    Thanks, James

    There aren't that many surplus image tubes left, it seems. A few years
    ago there were some Russian ones on eBay, but they were complete crap.

    I'm slightly curious about the question... since then we've had other options appear, such as emCCDs (and that was a while back), so: are there really applications where a DIY-restored vintage image intensifier is still the best solution?

    Thanks

    Henry

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  • From Phil Hobbs@21:1/5 to Henry Nebrensky on Sat Dec 17 13:47:05 2022
    Henry Nebrensky wrote:
    On Tuesday, 6 December 2022 at 19:53:02 UTC, Phil Hobbs wrote:
    James Zuzelski wrote:
    ...
    24 years later... shot in the dark here but what suppliers have
    you gone through to get these? Know of any still around today?

    Thanks, James

    There aren't that many surplus image tubes left, it seems. A few
    years ago there were some Russian ones on eBay, but they were
    complete crap.

    I'm slightly curious about the question... since then we've had other
    options appear, such as emCCDs (and that was a while back), so: are
    there really applications where a DIY-restored vintage image
    intensifier is still the best solution?


    Direct viewing, e.g. night vision goggles. Also of course EMCCDs and
    sCMOS cameras do not grow on trees.

    The EMCCD is a really puzzling case. You can go from starlight to
    sunlight with a twist of a knob, with a signal-to-noise penalty of no
    more than 3 dB,(*) and the sensor is built on a fairly bog-standard CCD process--beautiful, right? But they never caught on and the price never
    came down to anything vaguely reasonable.

    I suspect that part of the issue is that any damage due to inelastic
    collisions between hot carriers and Si atoms gets concentrated in the
    very small volume of the last dozen or so multiplication stages. I've
    never seen anything published about that, so it may be a mirage.

    Cheers

    Phil Hobbs

    (*) The math behind that 3 dB number is actually really pretty.
    --
    Dr Philip C D Hobbs
    Principal Consultant
    ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics
    Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics
    Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

    http://electrooptical.net
    http://hobbs-eo.com

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)