Check out these mojo diodes!

[drummer4gc]

Just wanted to share - I've never come across diodes with this much style.



I hear that the looping leads help the electrons align their spin for MOAR TOAN!!

These were found in an old Univox Super Fuzz, which sounds badass btw!

[Mark Hammer]

Stylish!!

[theehman]

you should see these HUGE 1N34 diodes I have at home. 

[LucifersTrip]

here's a few of my really old 1N34A's...maybe the one's theeman is referring to. possibly from the 50's or early 60's...pre-stompbox

[bool]

... nice diodes ... wouldn't look bad in some Tesla-styled-gothicsteampunkian signal destructor

[teemuk]

I hear that the looping leads help the electrons align their spin for MOAR TOAN!!

I've seen this in some military electronics: It makes a "spring" out of the component leads so there's less mechanical stress to solder joints from vibration or thermal expansion.


But it naturally mandates that there could be issues from vibration or thermal stress in the first place and I doubt that extremely lightweight and low current diodes will be pestered by such. So in the picture's case it's probably just a "stylish" addition with no significant effect. Since rest of the circuit is built pretty sloppily and ignoring such issues it even more strongly hints towards such decision.

e.g. You don't mount resistors like that unless you have a plated-through board or unless you deliberately want to increase chances of failure. The component will either vibrate its solder joint to fail, or vibrate so that the lead is actually severed from the component body. I've seen power resistors mounted like that with a sturdy socket for the other (non-bent) lead and they still broke due to vibration. If you want to mount things like that then the component body must be flush with the board for proper mechanical support and the angle of the bent lead must not be "round" but more like a straight angle (you want stiffness, not springyness in this case). In addition, component leads must be bent and soldered to copper trace in the solder side.

But as I said... sloppy.

The leads as springs also make more sense with tag/turrent/terminal/PTP -type constructions where the components more or less "hang" freely without any supposrt. With printed circuit boards there are other options to counteract effects of thermal expansion and vibration.

[italianguy63]

I have some of those glass 1N34A's too.. Super cool.

I came across these awhile back and got a good hanful for myself.  They are the same (germ) but different #.  The auction doesn't say so, but they are used -- solder on the leads... but mine all tested out AOK.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/300325919129?_trksid=p2059210.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT#ht_695wt_867

MC