An irrational fear of Soviet components?

[brad]

I was standing by my workbench with a friend the other day, and he happened to spot my box of old Soviet transistors.  I grabbed it and began showing the cool cyrillic writing on the box and the weird UFO shape of the transistors ...and then he said; "how do you know they're not from Chernobyl or something?" 

Now, I don't like being irradiated anymore than the next guy, but, wouldn't the transistors not work if they'd ever been exposed to radiation?  I guess Soviet electronics just has that "soaking you with unseen gamma rays" vibe

[GREEN FUZ]

Yeah, watch out or you`ll end up like that Alexander Litvinenko guy. Those trannies are bound to be drenched in polonium 210.

[darron]

add it to the mojo thread

[R.G.]

I don't usually admit this in mixed company, but I do have a working radiation detector sitting on my workbench.

It's not for Soviet stuff so much. There was an incident about a decade ago where a recycling company in Mexico recycled some Cobalt-60 from a medical gamma-ray setup into scrap steel. It was shipped to the USA as patio furniture, and some people got radiation poisoning from it. The story in Mexico was worse. Several of the workers at the recycler got very sick and a few died. One of them noticed that the powder inside the machine glowed faintly in the dark, so he took some home. His daughter had a good time rubbing the powder on her skin so she glowed at night.

She died.

One really good thing coming out of Russia is that they produce inexpensive and useful personal radiation detectors that can be had on ebay for under $25.

Yeah, I have a fire extinguisher. And a backup generator. And a backup water supply; comes with the rainwater collection for free. Buying insurance is a complete waste of money... until you need insurance.

[brad]

So do you think this would be a legitimate concern about components R.G.?  Would an unused component be a radiation risk if it was exposed to, or had been stored near a radioactive source?  I was under the impression that semiconductors would fail to work if exposed to those conditions.

[petemoore]

  Germanium (IPA: /dʒə(r)ˈmeɪniəm/) is a chemical element in the periodic table that has the symbol Ge and atomic number 32.
 

[R.G.]

Legitimate? I'd say more like not irrational, as opposed to legitmate.  About one or two degrees less likely.

Here's the scoop.
Alpha radiation is a helium nucleus, two protons, two neutrons. It's emitted by certain radioactive decays. Alpha radiation is almost trivially radiation, as it's stopped by a few inches of air, sheets of paper, etc., and is only dangerous if an alpha emitter  - like polonium 210 - is inside your body. If that happens, immediate high amputation of the body part it's inside is the only effective treatment. Otherwise, like Litin>>> , you're dead.
Beta is an electron moving fast. It's more penetrating than alpha.
Gamma is a a photon. It's like normal light on steroids. It is in fact, very, very energetic X-rays. It penetrates everything. to some extent. Effective shielding is perhaps three feet of dirt, six inches of lead, etc. Gamma is the big deal in fallout.
Neutrons are different. They come out of radioactive decay, but they do not themselves kill you. They hit other atoms, and sometimes get absorbed. This converts the atom to a radioactive version of its non-radioactive self, and that atom now emits alpha, beta, or gamma or all of the above as it decays.

What's useful to know about the above is that only neutrons can make something else radioactive. Neutron radiation is like nuclear viruses. You can irradiate things with alpha, beta, and gamma forever, and the irradiate thing will never become radioactive itself. That's why you can irradiate milk for instance, and completely wipe out all living cells in it, including microorganisms, and it will not spoil.

Neutrons are the gift that keeps on giving.

We're almost there, folks.

It would be very unusual indeed for unused components to have been stored near a neutron source and have themselves become radioactive. Gamma rays do damage semis, somewhat. But it just makes them work more poorly, dependent on dosage. They do not become radioactive themselves.

I keep the radiation sensor in case of another Mexican steel equivalent fiasco, not radioactive transistors. But I do not consider this to be an irrational concern.

[markm]

I can't imagine any of the Soviet stuff around is "dangerous" however, ya never know.
Who knows where any of the NOS stuff we buy comes from or where it's been, right?

[vanessa]

Brad, if you don't have a Geiger counter...   

I have some transistors I purchased from a dealer overseas [U.K.]. Others on the forum also purchased these from the same source so I had a way to measure my results. I had a problem with the hfe values going all over the place about a year after I purchased them. Others said they did not have this problem in anyway.

I have a good friend who holds a PhD in physics who I asked about the issue. He told me that this issue of this rapid degrade of these germanium transistors could have easily been caused by exposure to even a small amount of radiation such that is found in airport security x-ray machines.

If your Russian transistors are all over the place hfe wise it could be possible that they might have been exposed. I have some [Russian] that have really tight hfe's and have not varied from the date of purchase a couple of years ago. The U.K. transistors are know almost useless now (OC140's everyone bought a few years ago).

-Van

[bioroids]

Well, I remember I did feel some kind of "skin reaction" when I was handling and measuring Hfe of a hundred russian transistors, mostly in the hands.  That was a batch I buyed on Ebay from a guy in Lithuania. That was weird... but I don't think it was related to radiation. It felt like the transistors had a very tiny amount of resin or something like that.

Miguel

[StephenGiles]

And every time you eat a curry??

[shooter_mi]

The Soviet Union covered 8.6 million square miles, with thousands of facilities at which all those transistors we're buying off ebay could have been manufactured. Barring that, we can assume they were made in Lithuania, since that's where the seller is, and that country isnm't even adjacent to Ukraine, where Chernobyl is. I'm more concerned about the fact that every one of those Soviet Ge transistors I bought sounds different when I pop it into a circuit (that's actually the fun of it, I think).

Anecdote: I used to live in the Russian Far East, near Vladivostok by the Sea of Japan. I spent a lot of time with some people that worked in the House of Culture in the village I lived in. The storage rooms in that building were filled with boxes of Ge transistors, tubes, and transformers, relics of a time when production was more important than consumption. I told my friends that American guitarists would kill to have access to that stuff and they asked, "Why, can you not buy digital Chinese equipment in America?"

[Cardboard Tube Samurai]

You Americans still can't let go of the whole 'cold-war' paranoia can you!?

Slightly more on topic though, I am proud to say that I just purchased 50 of the aforementioned soviet Ge transistors off German eBay for $31AU, which is approximately 10 metric shitloads cheaper than I have seen them anywhere else!

[brad]

Anecdote: I used to live in the Russian Far East, near Vladivostok by the Sea of Japan. I spent a lot of time with some people that worked in the House of Culture in the village I lived in. The storage rooms in that building were filled with boxes of Ge transistors, tubes, and transformers, relics of a time when production was more important than consumption. I told my friends that American guitarists would kill to have access to that stuff and they asked, "Why, can you not buy digital Chinese equipment in America?"

Russia sounds like a goldmine for electronic hobbyists!

[soulsonic]

Russian stuff is great. I've made some real nice Rangemaster clones with GT313s - they bias differently because they have shunt resistors in them (who else knew that?), but they can get a nice tone.

You're probably in more danger of radiation exposure if you live near the desert in Nevada.... or within 50 miles of Amarillo, Texas.

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

Ever wonder where radioactive steel scrap in the USA goes?

Well, there are standards for maximum radioactivity in structural steel - and the trick is to add just enough radioactive scrap to bring it up to the maximum allowable level.
Now I don't conside that to be playing fair - but it IS playing 'legal'.

It's kind of like all those carcinogens that have to be below so many parts per million in food - but there is no limit to how many DIFFERENT carcinogens can be present in a sample, so it is theoretically possible to have food passed that contains a very high % of TOTAL carcinogens.

I doubt the general public have any idea that there is a continual battle between the well-funded industries that really could not give a **** what happens to you - and the few(unfunded) 'nutters' who do.

Cigarette, anyone?

[joelap]

^ One of the best posts I've read on these forums yet!

[Paul Marossy]

I work at a consulting engineering firm that does design work in the construction industry. A vendor came to my office to do a lunch and learn a while back on cast iron pipe and the foundry and all that stuff. He mentioned that their product is guaranteed to be free of radio-active materials and gave comparisons of the pipe coming from China and elsewhere. I had never even heard of radio active scrap steel/iron ending up in stuff you can buy "off the shelf" before that day.  Kind of an eye opener!

[mac]

Physics exam question:

If you are playing russian roulet, but instead of a revolver you are aimed with a thermal neutron gun. You are given the chance to cover yourself behind same size blocks/boxes full of:
1. lead
2. sex wax (paraffin wax for surf boards)
3. concrete
4. water
5. polyethylene bags
6. poly caps

which one you'd use as a shield?

google.

***
One why to "see" why neutrons are so bad is because they do not have a charge, like electrons or alpha particles. The do not interact electrically with the material they are hiting, so they break the atom core generating more nasties as RG said above.

***
Miguel, thanks for the russians transistors you gave me. Now I know why my room glows green when i turn the light off.

***
BTW, there is more risk in the things we eat, smoke and the people we take to our beds than with radiation. But many components in electronics are toxic. Hell, our beloved Ge can be toxic in some forms, like dioxide Ge, which may damage the kidney, muscle and nervous system.

***

I work at a consulting engineering firm that does design work in the construction industry. A vendor came to my office to do a lunch and learn a while back on cast iron pipe and the foundry and all that stuff. He mentioned that their product is guaranteed to be free of radio-active materials and gave comparisons of the pipe coming from China and elsewhere. I had never even heard of radio active scrap steel/iron ending up in stuff you can buy "off the shelf" before that day.  Kind of an eye opener!

Metal in house pipes?? I use thermo-fusion plastic pipes made in my country or Brazil. BTW, I never buy China stuff, I don't want the houses I build to fall down and kill my clients.

mac

[RaceDriver205]

I used to live in the Russian Far East, near Vladivostok by the Sea of Japan.

Is it really cold there?