Add Crystal Detector to Diode section of e-book

Potato Pudding

Joined Jun 11, 2010
688
I somehow always pictured the cats whisker types as being a tentative connection that would open because the whisker had higher resistance from its lower bulk and so it tended to bottleneck charge flowing from the surface, creating a like charges repulsion that opened the circuit by causing the cats whisker to lift off of the surface.
If you had a material that had a natural electret charge it would make the repulsion much more clear

I never thought that was how they worked but I kept a picture of them working that way anyways.

I wonder if they could make a near zero voltage drop diode that did work that way from nanostructures.

I apologize because this is going too far off topic.
 

Wendy

Joined Mar 24, 2008
23,415
I plan on adding links from one article to the other, both ways, and also add an abbreviated history to the cat whisker. I'd always wondered how they used the razor blades, and was under the impression it only worked during a certain era while the blades used the silicon coating.

My brother and I were both tinkerers as kids. He made a functional speaker using a coffee can, nail, and a coil of wire. I'd like to see more on using flame for amplification sometime, that is a fascinating concept.

If we had come across plans using razor blades or foxhole radios I'm pretty sure it would have been built. For that matter if we had the internet back when my Dad retired to the country (he was a city boy) it would have made our life a lot easier.
 
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