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

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

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

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