Bybee Quantum Purifier Measurement and Analysis

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You can't blame the guy for discovering that Neokorken had the toxic effect of altering the appearance of the user to something from Dr Pepper land.

(ever seen the Team-Yeah pic ? )
 

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Hi SY,
The input stage has gone a bit noisy- on the 0.1uV scale and a shorted input, the needle nearly pins. Chances are, it's the tantalum cap, but I also got a new input FET.
I was speaking with someone else with similar problems with their just acquired 3581C. It think it turned out to be the socket for the input FET. The other issues were related to the front panel switches. The cleaning does not involve a spray type delivery. A cotton swab with a mechanically reduced cotton end. Place your fav contact cleaner in the cotton portion and gently rub each contact ring. Rotating the switch makes this go much easier, but take care not to bend the fingers! After some time of careful, light rubbing will change the contact surface from dark brown to a brass colour.

Warnings:
  • The "stick" portion of the cotton swab must be wood or cardboard.
  • Make sure not to drip anything into trimmer capacitors or anything else.
  • Take your time and go slow.
  • Lubricate all bearings and detent balls.
  • Clean up anything that may have dripped. Assume it has.

I'm sorry for going into painful detail here SY. I'm well aware you don't need this information, but others reading this may.

I'm pretty sure your 3581A only needs a bit of elbow grease to come back to reliable life. It might be a good idea to check / replace the power supply capacitors in there.

As a stopgap, I ordered some National LME49990, which should arrive today- configured for 20-26dB of gain, I should be able to get it above the new noise floor of the 3581A or even be able to measure the noise with my digital voltmeter, scope, and soundcard.
Most probably don't need that. Watch out though, HP designs tend to perform extremely well, and something that looks simple may be difficult to surpass without a lot of design effort on your part.

Somewhere around here I started a thread on improving the performance of older test equipment. You may find some hints in there, or possibly pose the question for input. Scott Wurcer may be able to help in that department. I believe that I was talking about my 339A in that thread. Those LME49990 ICs may be just the answer I'm looking for in the oscillator and input amp stages for the 339A. Since the 3581 has a lower bandwidth, the LME49990 may be a good solution there as well. Let me know how everything works out for you please.

-Chris
 
I think we need a proper meaurement instument to capture the purifying effect:
Scanning tunneling microscope - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Another group collection? I can donate 10€ for the purchase of the instrument.

We need to see what is the state of the sound atoms and if their quantum has been purified or not. However if the 0.01 nm resolution is not enough the effect may not show up in a blind A/B test.


- Elias


Interesting stuff this nano technology. My company spends lots with IBM, so were priviledged to get a talk from Dr Don Eigler, I thought he actually invented the scanning tunnel microscope. This stuff is a wee way off but essential if we want to keep Moores Law relevant. How else can we build skynet:D
 
SEM, not STM. :D

Actually, an old friend of mine built one of the first STMs outside of IBM when he was at Columbia. Turns out that (according to him) it was easier and simpler than an SEM. Most of it was constructed with surplus parts, yet it still allowed him to characterize some nanofabrication he was doing on graphite surfaces.

Chris, appreciate the hints. One more warning for the unwary: spray cleaner in the switches can cause the markings to come off the plastic ring that indicates range! I cleaned the switches and reseated the FET, but that made no real difference. The previous owner (John Curl) did a really nice job of maintaining and storing the unit, so everything was very clean inside.

The 49990 has an en of 0.8nV/rt Hz, and that's something the HP guys just didn't have back in the '70s. The main difficulty is that it's SMT-only, so I'll have to try to find an appropriate proto board or adapter at Fry's (our local electronics supermarket) to mount it.
 
Interesting stuff this nano technology. My company spends lots with IBM, so were priviledged to get a talk from Dr Don Eigler, I thought he actually invented the scanning tunnel microscope. This stuff is a wee way off but essential if we want to keep Moores Law relevant. How else can we build skynet:D

Funny you should mention that. Skynet is already in place and operational. :D
 
SEM, not STM. :D
The main difficulty is that it's SMT-only, so I'll have to try to find an appropriate proto board or adapter at Fry's (our local electronics supermarket) to mount it.


SchmartBoard|ez SOIC Prototyping Boards

Typical example of their products. They make a very clever adaptation of a PC card where the solder mask between the copper lands is higher than the copper so the chip falls into place!


A big note of caution, as the lands are recessed you must flux them with a liquid flux before soldering.

Oh yeah I did a review http://www.schmartboard.com/schmartboard_at_040109_01.pdf
 
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