> temp > à-trier > cern-fermilab-particle-accelerator-boards-eevblog

EEVblog #994 - CERN/Fermilab Particle Accelerator Boards!

EEVblog - 2017-05-16

Amazing mailbag dumpster find!
Boards for particle accelerator testing at CERN and Fermilab found in a dumpster at the The Svedberg Laboratory in Sweden:
http://www.tsl.uu.se/
Designed by Lecroy!

Also a look at FASTBUS, VME, CAMAC modular crate electronics.

Forum: http://www.eevblog.com/forum/blog/eevblog-994-cernfermilab-particle-accelerator-boards/

LINKS: 
http://teledynelecroy.com/lrs/dsheets/1881m.htm
http://cdn.teledynelecroy.com/files/manuals/1872aman.pdf
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/673198/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_Super_Collider
https://inis.iaea.org/search/search.aspx?orig_q=RN:23031694
https://books.google.com.au/books?id=wDnUBwAAQBAJ&lpg=PA927&dq=lecroy%20mtd132&pg=PA927#v=onepage&q=lecroy%20mtd132&f=false

Thanks to Uwe Zimmermann: 
http://katalog.uu.se/profile/?id=N3-1095

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Uwe Zimmermann - 2017-05-16

apology accepted!

dtiydr - 2017-08-29

People have no idea how incredible much Sweden share and do for USA in the science part since USA cant or not knowing how so Sweden have a lot of the stuff needed made over there.

dtiydr - 2017-08-29

According to what I have heard from some friends in Sweden so no, not these days but only a few years back it was.

Norma Butts - 2017-09-10

LeCroy is a US company, all the ICs in those parts are US manufactured. No swedish engineering required.

Yasir Noori - 2017-09-26

Thanks for that Zimmermann for the equipment. I like your name, by the way, I make particle detectors and my supervisor is called Muenstermann, also German.

Jeffrey [Equine Sanctuary] - 2018-04-02

interesting name, how everything is fine there in sweden!

Oliver Johansson - 2017-05-16

so when will you start construction of your particle accelerator

Alex S - 2017-05-21

OffGrid Aussie Prepper™ lol. went right over your head

OffGrid Aussie Prepper™ - 2017-05-22

yep alex went over my head for about 5 seconds and then I realized u said that to my previous comment about doomsday devices... lol jokes on me huh

Milan Gnjatovic - 2017-06-13

my name is barry allen and i am the fastest man alive

fire surfer - 2020-03-20

@OffGrid Aussie Prepper™ LOL

OffGrid Aussie Prepper™ - 2020-03-20

COMMENT Correction... Nth Korea maybe controlled by china and they want to invade OZ for its mineral, farmland and water wealth....

Herbert Susmann - 2017-05-17

I used to work for LeCroy a few years before these were designed. LeCroy got started originally making high energy particle physics instrumentation. They only moved to scopes etc... much later when some of the US Govt. funding for particle research began to taper off. I worked mostly on CAMAC although the FASTBUS group was just about 50 feet from my desk and I knew some of the engineers over there. A pretty small design group (maybe 15 people??) but they cranked out the most amazing designs. Lots of those guys were actually PhD Physics types, not EE types.

EEVblog - 2017-05-17

Thanks for that. Someone in my audience always knows!

Raymund Hofmann - 2017-05-17

I think these "PhD Physics types" gave the LeCroy scopes an edge over Tek for me back then.

Ing. Max Koschuh - 2017-05-17

Hi Herbert. Interesting story. Brings even more life into the boards.

Herbert Susmann - 2017-05-18

Yes, LeCroy does have an edge in this respect and has always been very good at leading edge state of the art designs. There were and probably still are many very top notch designers working there.

Mark R. - 2017-05-16

I wish i got boxes of gold like this ( -__-) sitting on it for a year!!!
I would send the physics boards to a computer museum, they're extremely rare and as time passes they become more and more museum worthy.

skilz8098 - 2020-03-18

Desolder all of the chips, test them for functionality and resell the chips, donate the boards to museums!

alggu1 - 2017-05-18

"Once it hits the dumpster it's fair game" -EEVBlog Dave 2017

Ris Berg - 2017-05-17

Wow! I actually had Uwe in one of my classes at Uppsala University! He is truly one of the best lecturers I've ever had.

sparkplug1018 - 2017-05-17

Id build a frame for a table put these beauties in there and put a big sheet of glass over it. These are just to pretty to strip for parts.

Jack Allen Walters, Jr. - 2017-05-16

A year, that's not too bad, I was thinking like 8 years.

douro20 - 2017-05-16

HEEP=High Energy Electron-Positron Pairs, a subject of ongoing international research spearheaded by CERN.

James Wade - 2017-05-17

Thanks. :)

DFPercush - 2017-05-17

Thank you, this was nowhere on google.

cryora - 2017-05-28

Oh that's like probing the Schwinger Limit. If you blast a high enough intensity laser source and concentrate it in a small region in space, it will generate electrons/positrons right out if the vacuum of space. A theory that explains it is the Dirac Sea.

Rob M - 2019-04-21

The HEEP at Fermilab was High Energy Equipment Pool, if I remember correctly. Detector electronics purchased with FNAL dollars got a HEEP sticker. Ones purchased with university dollars got the sticker from that university.

teslacoil4148 - 2020-03-18

@Rob M Work at a different national lab - that is correct. Equipment isn't really tracked anymore though.

sprybug - 2017-05-17

I wish I could find something like that in my dumpster!

BobC - 2017-05-16

I used NIM quite a bit in our lab during the '80's and early '90's. But we didn't call them "crates", they were "NIM bins". About the only thing standard was the card size (well, the front panel) and the first (power) connector. Everything else was "whatever's needed", meaning a total bodge when it wasn't a kluge.

In general, there are only a handful of things you want to know about the pulses from radiation detectors: Their height, width, rise-time, energy (area), and pulse timing (rate/period, separation/overlap). But it is very difficult to measure all these quantities at once, especially at high speed, so trade-offs are required. For example, pulses are often "shaped" to emphasize one measurement domain over another.

And some wide-range (~13 decade) detectors, such as the fission chambers used to detect neutrons, have multiple modes, from low-rate discrete pulses, to a middle ripply rate (called "Campbelling"), to a high-rate current (not voltage). I once had to build a femtoammeter just to characterize one of these beasts. Also had to build a giant Faraday cage around my workbench in order to use the femtoammeter.

And all of it was jammed into a NIM bin.

mechadrake - 2017-05-17

that is amazing. build a tool, then build cage to use it. it is so comical and mad scientist cool.

Aleph Leonine - 2017-05-19

K-MAC crates?

SoCalFreelance - 2017-05-27

The black helicopters with SEAL Team 6 are on the way

Pedro - 2017-05-17

No 555's :(

theoriginaltoadnz - 2017-05-18

My father was an electronics technician and often liked to build stuff at home. he used to speak of his love for "555 Timers"? Is that what you're referring to? What is the significance of these little chips? - sorry, layman here :)

Electroduck's Gaming Videos - 2017-05-19

They are general purpose timer chips used in all kinds of designs. They are very useful, cheap, and have been around for years.

dtiydr - 2017-05-19

Industry standards, have been around since the dawn of IC.

Justin Spencer - 2017-05-20

Some say 555 ICs have unreliable timing characteristics (which makes them best for hobbyist applications only).

busdrivernow319 - 2017-05-21

555 is the 'Cockroach' of the IC world. In the event of a nuclear holocaust the Cockroach and the 555 will be the only survivors! 😀

twocvbloke - 2017-05-17

Shouldn't the MC10231 be called a Thong rather than a Flip-Flop in Australia? :P

Dexxter - 2017-07-21

Groan.....

Bruce Nitroxpro - 2020-03-21

twocvbloke , Baaaaaad! ROFL

Ryan Banks - 2017-05-17

What a beauty! Thanks for sending this to Dave for us to see!!

My lecturer in the U.K, a French guy worked in cern for many years as a theoretical physicist - incredibly interesting career - the amount of money these experiments cost is mind blowing!

What a beauty!

Sarah Watt - 2017-05-16

I use NIM bins every day at work but it's a pretty domain-specific standard so I'm not surprised you had never heard of it. They don't do much more than just supply power to the modules but it's nice not having a huge mess of cables and power bricks everywhere.

Peter Helgeson - 2017-05-16

I too worked with NIM. Seeing those LH0032 ICs brought back a lot of memories. I worked in my dad's company that measured radiation in people who worked in nuclear facilities.

a4000t - 2017-05-16

The commodore sx-64 luggable uses the NE592's on the disk drive board. Useless trivia for everyone :)

TheTaleteller - 2017-05-18

coming up next: Particle Collider teardown ... not that Oscilloscope rubbish from uncle Bob.

der Birnodin - 2017-05-17

Where are the schematics of the boards? I need to make an Arduino library for that! ;-)

iamdarkyoshi - 2017-05-15

I've got some cool old tech to send you, but its going to cost several hundred to post them to 'straya. I'll probably do it though, they need repair :)

DextersTechLab - 2017-05-16

Awesome score, would be nice to know what experiment they were used in.

Uwe Zimmermann - 2017-05-16

This is the facility where they came from: http://www.tsl.uu.se/

DextersTechLab - 2017-05-16

thank you, i'll have a read!

busdrivernow319 - 2017-05-21

Uwe Zimmermann very interesting and vindication of the answer to the layman's question "why spend all that money on research?" When you don't know what the spin off advances will be.

zach miller - 2017-05-20

I've always wanted to get a look at the stuff going on down the road from me at fermilab. I've only ever walked around the trails on top of the accelerator loop

Luke F - 2017-05-17

Now we know why the last mail bag was shorter than normal. So glad it became its own video. Thanks Uwe and thanks Dave.

FalcoGer - 2019-02-24

Jeez. I wonder why I can't have cool dumpsters like that in my area. :(

Roberto S. Chiandotti - 2017-11-13

AMAZING! Discrete stuffs from olds 70/80's working in detection of particles, events in the range of ns/ps ! Yeh, Dave, arduino's generation will be magic in the next years!

Navik Shah - 2017-05-17

omg it looks amazing

Homayoun Payvar - 2017-05-17

Daves , Please make something with salvageable parts (AD712, ADG201 ,LH0032).

FennecTECH - 2017-05-16

Those would be put on the wall

richfiles π - 2017-05-16

Man... I've been to Fermilab twice, and both times was pretty amazing. I'm sooooooo jealous you have a piece of it! All I got was a glass! XD

mechadrake - 2017-05-17

it is art. i would buy it. not for 1000 but would buy it. it is magnificent. human triumph over the angry electron pixies.

HUBBABUBBA DOOPYDOOP - 2017-05-17

You get to working on the Mr. Fusion and Flux Capacitor- I'll get the Delorean running. We've still got plenty of time.

ncrdisabled Submarine vet - 2017-05-16

Man know you know why a ball valve cost 5k each on a submarines . I spent 7 years on them SSBN 619 634 . If you threw something away and it was going to be dumped out in the ocean and you get it out of the dumpster before it went out . It was considered theft of government property . I seen a guy spent 2 weeks in the brig just for getting a playboy off the barge . The told us every thing on there is still gov property even at the bottom of the ocean. The sub I was on was in Holy loch scotland . So about 5 miles out straight you will find a 1983 playboy!!!!

dalriada842 - 2017-05-17

As a Scot, I can't say I'm happy at the thought of the US Navy dumping its rubbish off our coast! :(

HighlandSteam - 2017-05-17

ncrdisabled Submarine vet it took the local council a few years of dredging to clear all the rubbish dumped over the side in the holy loch once the floating dock departed.

jfbeam - 2017-05-17

Legally? No. Once dumped it's nobody's property. (this has been tested in civilian courts over and over. the military can be dicks and throw whatever obscure regulations at their grunts.)

markgriz - 2017-05-19

"you know why a ball valve cost 5k each on a submarines"

Yes, corruption

Bruce Nitroxpro - 2020-03-21

@jfbeam , true, but unfortunately they have more govt. funds to prosecute than we or the grunts have to defend our rights.

Marty McFly - 2020-03-16

"Jewel high speed flip flop"? Why do you say "jewel" all the time?

fire surfer - 2020-03-20

I think it's Aussie slang for a really good thing. on second thought he might be saying joule.

Alex Crawford - 2017-05-26

MRI boards have very similar configurations.

Ing. Max Koschuh - 2017-05-17

great video, as always

damonstr - 2017-05-16

64 channel ADC? I'm gonna try to guess...
they had a crapload of sensors/detectors to it, in a similar fashion to how the detectors in the LHC.

Joe Ambly - 2017-05-17

I want 64 sensors on my peepee

Sami Haapaniemi - 2017-05-17

And 1 nanosecond accuracy. I want to see tons of videos of Dave making clocks out of those! Maybe even watches to sell on ebay?

Roxor128 - 2017-05-18

Amazing find. Really interesting to look over. Kudos to your contact who sent them in.

You don't get to see equipment from the front lines of science up close like this very often.

mbaker335 - 2017-06-04

Please pause now and again when scanning with the camera. Otherwise all the parts are permanently out of focus. A potentially informative video becomes an almost continuous blur.

Matt Bryce - 2020-03-20

Actually taking anything form dumpsters is actually considered theft

CaptainDangeax - 2017-11-14

Even one non working of those cards would made my happiness and an unlimited source of chips for personal projects.

robert w - 2019-02-16

Some amazing historical stuff there, glad it was saved from the dumpster so we could have a last look at were our tax dollars went... who knows what fundamental physics was discovered with those boards.

Water Fuel Concepts - 2017-05-17

nice show and tell vlog, I liked the datasheets flashed on the screen.

Ing. Max Koschuh - 2017-05-17

that's probably something he learned from my videos,... I hope,... atleast this would make me proud

3x3 - 2017-05-17

15:10 Those prices...

Ismael Derruci - 2017-05-17

Dude! I'm you fan! I'm from Brazil, and I love your videos! I'm a musician but I think I have a little bit of electronic engineering on me! Thanks a lot!

Simon Hopkins - 2017-05-16

gold mine for a hobbyist.

Andy Parker - 2017-05-17

What do you do with those boards when you've finished with them? I'd love some of them.

ElixTwo - 2017-05-16

who ever disliked this video.. GO HOME!

Matthijs van Duin - 2020-03-17

9:50 Nope, that's an off-the-shelf component apparently... the Struck STR197 Snoop FDM (FASTBUS Display Module), "a powerful tool to debug fastbus systems" according to some old advertisement.

KD0CAC - 2017-05-17

Dave , you should do some videos of gold recovery , lots to be had there ;)