matching diodes?

[doug deeper]

anyone have advice on a good method for diode matching?
seems like one of those things i should know right?

[gez]

You could wire up the trannies in a transistor array chip as diodes, which would give you close matches.

You can also get surface mount chips with more than one diode in the package, these would be closly matched too.

[doug deeper]

i should explain my aplication....
i built a prototype unit featuring a diode (germanium)
and i need to match diodes to this guy...
basicly i need to pin down "the mojo"...

[Nasse]

This knowledge is from old Elektor project, might work maybe:

Connect a 1,5 k resistor in series with diode under test, and led parallel with diode, so you notice if diode is not connected or reversed. Measure the voltage over the diode with DMM, and maybe you can find a matching pair

This test setup was suggested for single silicon diode half wave rectifier in a simple compressor circuit

[Nasse]

Double post... and now I read your text you say you need to test germanium diodes... maybe some resistor value tweaking or re-think is needed, and the diodes need to be at absolutely same temperature... how you do this when you test one at time

[Mark Hammer]

Well I suspect it would depend what characteristic it is that is pivotal to the sound.  I mean if the only critical thing is what the diode does to the signal level, then I would think it is simply a matter of selecting them for voltage drop.  And that is something you can do with the average $30 DMM.

[doug deeper]

yeah i just figured out that my dmm does that....
my bad
thanks for the help!