I am working on a small electronics project that needs a few 2N388
geranium diodes. The only problem is that they are hard to find and
expensive. I figured I would give another NPN diode a try but I'm not
really sure what to look for. Can I just look for a close match based
on one or two specs? Is this something where any diode will do as long
as it's rated to handled the voltage, current, etc? As you can tell, I
don't know a whole about this (I pretty much just know some basic
electrical stuff and what some electronic components do) but I would
appreciate any help someone could offer.

-Brandon R.

wrote:
I am working on a small electronics project that needs a few 2N388
geranium diodes. The only problem is that they are hard to find and
expensive. I figured I would give another NPN diode a try but I'm not
really sure what to look for. Can I just look for a close match based
on one or two specs? Is this something where any diode will do as long
as it's rated to handled the voltage, current, etc? As you can tell, I
don't know a whole about this (I pretty much just know some basic
electrical stuff and what some electronic components do) but I would
appreciate any help someone could offer.

-Brandon R.

Germanium diodes are usually only used where a small forward drop is
needed at low power. Proabably any germanium diode will work.

If I were doing the design, I would try to find a way to eliminate
germanium diodes.

Dan

My mistake - "GerManium," with an "m." Sorry for the typo. Anyway...

The schematic can be seen at
http://fuzzcentral.tripod.com/bender...rschematic.gif

I have everything I need except for the diodes, which I gave the
specific part number for in my original post. They were originally
manufactured by GE in the 1950's but are hard to come by so I am hoping
to find a close match that I can substitute. Specs can be found at the
two addresses below. The first one, from the military, is pretty
thorough.
http://www.dscc.dla.mil/Downloads/Mi...l19500ss65.pdf
http://www.semiconductorliquidate.co...ch?ss_pn=2N388

wrote:
My mistake - "GerManium," with an "m." Sorry for the typo. Anyway...

The schematic can be seen at
http://fuzzcentral.tripod.com/bender...rschematic.gif

I have everything I need except for the diodes, which I gave the
specific part number for in my original post. They were originally
manufactured by GE in the 1950's but are hard to come by so I am hoping
to find a close match that I can substitute. Specs can be found at the
two addresses below. The first one, from the military, is pretty
thorough.
http://www.dscc.dla.mil/Downloads/Mi...l19500ss65.pdf
http://www.semiconductorliquidate.co...ch?ss_pn=2N388

Those are transistors not diodes - in the 50's germanium was all that
was available.
standard commonly available transistors will probably work in the
circuit.

Dan

Ugh. My mistake again. :-) I've been fooling around with this parts
list too long. Actually, I looked around online a bit and found a few
sites with information on which transistors make good replacements for
this type of project.

The forward drop across a silocon diode is ~.7V and only 0.3V for germanium
so if the diode is acting as a reference or the circuit is depending on a
certain drop you should not substititute a silicon diode, as a rectifier you
can probably sub without problems, half of a transistor can also be used as
a diode so you could sub in a trans...

DR Lee


wrote in message
ups.com...
I am working on a small electronics project that needs a few 2N388
geranium diodes. The only problem is that they are hard to find and
expensive. I figured I would give another NPN diode a try but I'm not
really sure what to look for. Can I just look for a close match based
on one or two specs? Is this something where any diode will do as long
as it's rated to handled the voltage, current, etc? As you can tell, I
don't know a whole about this (I pretty much just know some basic
electrical stuff and what some electronic components do) but I would
appreciate any help someone could offer.

-Brandon R.