UK Vintage Radio Repair and Restoration Powered By Google Custom Search Vintage Radio and TV Service Data

Go Back   UK Vintage Radio Repair and Restoration Discussion Forum > General Vintage Technology > General Vintage Technology Discussions

Notices

General Vintage Technology Discussions For general discussions about vintage radio and other vintage electronics etc.

Closed Thread
 
Thread Tools
Old 31st Aug 2022, 5:41 pm   #21
kalee20
Dekatron
 
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Lynton, N. Devon, UK.
Posts: 7,061
Default Re: How would we design electronics to last 100 years?

It's in the spec, but max gold content 1% seems a lot! in a 1kg solder pot (not unreasonable) that'd be 10g of gold - £470 worth - there would have to be a lot of component leads de-golded to get that much...

It's all good stuff for 100 year lifetime though.
kalee20 is online now  
Old 31st Aug 2022, 5:48 pm   #22
G6Tanuki
Dekatron
 
G6Tanuki's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: Wiltshire, UK.
Posts: 13,953
Default Re: How would we design electronics to last 100 years?

The problem with the Mil spec crypto chips wasn't to do with the installation, it was apparently a process failure on the semiconductor die. Which apparently cost its manufacturer quite a lot in subsequent litigation with the US DoD procurement people and the large contractor who had built their radios around said chips.
__________________
I'm the Operator of my Pocket Calculator. -Kraftwerk.
G6Tanuki is offline  
Old 31st Aug 2022, 5:53 pm   #23
Electronpusher0
Nonode
 
Join Date: Jun 2016
Location: Bognor Regis, West Sussex, UK.
Posts: 2,288
Default Re: How would we design electronics to last 100 years?

I'm glad I asked now, the answers are fascinating.
If I understand them correctly we could not design a circuit to run for 100 years without service.
How are we ever going to reach even our nearest star? (and I know our nearest star is the sun, I mean Proxima Centauri.)

Peter
Electronpusher0 is offline  
Old 31st Aug 2022, 5:56 pm   #24
turretslug
Dekatron
 
turretslug's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: Surrey, UK.
Posts: 4,385
Default Re: How would we design electronics to last 100 years?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Craig Sawyers View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by Maarten View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by Craig Sawyers View Post
Nonsense, said Flowers - it is all to do with turning them on and off frequently, and it is thermal shock that kills valves. Never turn the machine off, and it will be just fine.

That turned out to be the case.
I expect that's how myths (that continue to exist to this day in the computer world) come into existence
It is not a myth. I don't trade in myths. For the record Colossus was designed to break the code from the German SZ42, and on-line cypher machine that transmitted at 80 baud.

I restored one of the only three known remaining SZ42 machines for Bletchley into full operating capability for the first time since it was captured in 1945.

And that is true and not also a myth.

Craig
I don't think that Maarten was disputing or contradicting what you said (of course, only he can corroborate that!), my interpretation was that your statement was being used to illustrate how something that was pertinent in its time can linger on long after it was relevant in ever-changing world- "HP 'scopes can't be made to trigger", "don't buy an Italian car, it'll be a pile of brown powder before its first MoT", "wood glue's no use- all those Mosquitos that fell apart".... and so on, and so on. Urban wisdom can notoriously half-understand something, then cling onto it like a limpet for decades. It has caught onto the "capacitor plague" syndrome, hence all those tales of woe on various forums that run along the lines "I have a <rather good piece of '70s/'80s hifi> that worked, I've just re-capped it and now it doesn't". I expect the re-cap it wisdom to run for a good few decades yet, something else that is slightly true that transforms into immutable fact.

Colin
turretslug is offline  
Old 31st Aug 2022, 5:56 pm   #25
Craig Sawyers
Dekatron
 
Craig Sawyers's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Oxford, UK.
Posts: 4,941
Default Re: How would we design electronics to last 100 years?

What about gold plated circuit boards, I hear you say. Well either the gold has to be abrasively removed from every solder pad, or the board has to be masked by the manufacturer to leave the solder pads un-plated and pre-tinned.

Of course the circuit board material is also important. It needs in particular to have low thermal expansion and low water retention.

The whole problem with space is that you can't do a service visit, so over a mission lifetime there has to be zero failures. And that might be many tens of thousands of components, many km of wiring and perhaps a thousand connectors. Being hammered with cosmic rays and the garbage coming from the sun.

Component prices? Bonkers. The highest space grade radiation hard FPGA? £80k a pop. The same part in commercial grade? A fiver. Every electronic component is four or five orders of magnitude more expensive that commercial grade parts.

Craig
__________________
Doomed for a certain term to walk the night
Craig Sawyers is online now  
Old 31st Aug 2022, 6:00 pm   #26
Craig Sawyers
Dekatron
 
Craig Sawyers's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Oxford, UK.
Posts: 4,941
Default Re: How would we design electronics to last 100 years?

Quote:
Originally Posted by G6Tanuki View Post
The problem with the Mil spec crypto chips wasn't to do with the installation, it was apparently a process failure on the semiconductor die. Which apparently cost its manufacturer quite a lot in subsequent litigation with the US DoD procurement people and the large contractor who had built their radios around said chips.
Blimey. What an own goal for the device manufacturer. And what a failure of the DoD procurement agents.

Craig
__________________
Doomed for a certain term to walk the night
Craig Sawyers is online now  
Old 31st Aug 2022, 6:15 pm   #27
kalee20
Dekatron
 
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Lynton, N. Devon, UK.
Posts: 7,061
Default Re: How would we design electronics to last 100 years?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Craig Sawyers View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by G6Tanuki View Post
The problem with the Mil spec crypto chips wasn't to do with the installation, it was apparently a process failure on the semiconductor die.
Blimey. What an own goal for the device manufacturer. And what a failure of the DoD procurement agents.
Well yes, but bearing in mind that hi-rel packages and processes are used far less frequently than the plastic-encapsulated commercial versions, there's less automation; the processes are exercised less frequently; and failure data is more scanty. Even burn-in can only weed out certain types of failures. Whereas, run-of-the-mill plastic DIL versions - if there was a problem, it would be known about more quickly.

It could create the paradoxical situation that the "hi-rel" parts could actually be less reliable than the commercial parts, even though they might last longer.
kalee20 is online now  
Old 31st Aug 2022, 6:17 pm   #28
Craig Sawyers
Dekatron
 
Craig Sawyers's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Oxford, UK.
Posts: 4,941
Default Re: How would we design electronics to last 100 years?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Electronpusher0 View Post
I'm glad I asked now, the answers are fascinating.
If I understand them correctly we could not design a circuit to run for 100 years without service.
How are we ever going to reach even our nearest star? (and I know our nearest star is the sun, I mean Proxima Centauri.)

Peter
Well Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, launched in 1977 (45 years ago) are still alive and transmitting. https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status/ .

But even at their speed, they would take 73,000 years to get to Proxima Centauri (they are currently a mere ~21 light hours away).

Even using the crazy end of propulsion systems such as pulsed nuclear explosions to get to 5% of c, would take 85 years to get Proxima (actually one of a a triple star complex) the nearest of 100,000,000,000 stars in our galaxy.

Craig
__________________
Doomed for a certain term to walk the night
Craig Sawyers is online now  
Old 31st Aug 2022, 6:22 pm   #29
emeritus
Dekatron
 
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Brentwood, Essex, UK.
Posts: 5,316
Default Re: How would we design electronics to last 100 years?

The data sheet of the Texas Instruments audio amplifier on a chip that I bought in the late 1970's, specified the life in terms of the number of power on/off operations (several thousand from memory).

Funnily enough, a fortnight ago the Icecrypt T5000 Set-top box I use with our pre-SCART Philips colour TV stopped working a fortnight ago, leaking 400V capacitor in the power supply section. No worries, I have an essentially unused Ferguson STB I can use while getting replacement caps from CPC.The Ferguson was fine for an hour and then started turning itself off and back on again every 10 mins: swollen caps! Two sets of capacitors from CPC and both working again, although the Ferguson now has distorted sound and is on the round tuit pile.
emeritus is offline  
Old 31st Aug 2022, 6:31 pm   #30
Craig Sawyers
Dekatron
 
Craig Sawyers's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Oxford, UK.
Posts: 4,941
Default Re: How would we design electronics to last 100 years?

Quote:
Originally Posted by kalee20 View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by Craig Sawyers View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by G6Tanuki View Post
The problem with the Mil spec crypto chips wasn't to do with the installation, it was apparently a process failure on the semiconductor die.
Blimey. What an own goal for the device manufacturer. And what a failure of the DoD procurement agents.
Well yes, but bearing in mind that hi-rel packages and processes are used far less frequently than the plastic-encapsulated commercial versions, there's less automation; the processes are exercised less frequently; and failure data is more scanty. Even burn-in can only weed out certain types of failures. Whereas, run-of-the-mill plastic DIL versions - if there was a problem, it would be known about more quickly.

It could create the paradoxical situation that the "hi-rel" parts could actually be less reliable than the commercial parts, even though they might last longer.
The cheapo plastic parts are in fact used in cube-sat missions. Near earth, short life, cheap.

But the mission I have most experience with is the Bepi Columbo mission to Mercury (I was project manager for one of the on-board instruments). Three times closer to the sun than the earth, no atmosphere, 17kW/m^2 solar radiation, and to do the science we need an active sun, where X-flares are good. So active devices have a tough time. There is no real shielding; the only thing on the MIXS instrument are electron diverter magnets the stop solar electrons from damaging the detectors.

It has so far done two passes of Venus and two so far of six Mercury passes, due to go into polar orbit in 2025. But it looks like everything is still working four years after launch.

Craig
__________________
Doomed for a certain term to walk the night
Craig Sawyers is online now  
Old 31st Aug 2022, 6:53 pm   #31
bluepilot
Heptode
 
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Duffort, Gers, France
Posts: 714
Default Re: How would we design electronics to last 100 years?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Electronpusher0 View Post
If I understand them correctly we could not design a circuit to run for 100 years without service.
How are we ever going to reach even our nearest star? (and I know our nearest star is the sun, I mean Proxima Centauri.)
Special relativity comes to the rescue. Google "twin paradox". Travelling at close to the speed of light the circuit would only need to last a couple of years (the time it takes to accelerate to nearly light speed and slow down again) although people back on Earth would have aged a lot more by the time it got back. But that's another question.
__________________
Stuart

The golden age is always yesterday - Asa Briggs
bluepilot is offline  
Old 31st Aug 2022, 7:24 pm   #32
turretslug
Dekatron
 
turretslug's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: Surrey, UK.
Posts: 4,385
Default Re: How would we design electronics to last 100 years?

Quote:
Originally Posted by kalee20 View Post
It could create the paradoxical situation that the "hi-rel" parts could actually be less reliable than the commercial parts, even though they might last longer.
I do recall a case where the loss of at least one space probe (others here will certainly be more clued up about it than me) was ascribed to the failure of whizzo $650 transistors that had been ever-so-carefully designed and made, and subsequent investigation revealed that they weren't particularly wonderful after all. The mischief in me wondered if they'd have been better off fitting good ol' metal-case BC108s at 20 for a quid from Birkett's....
turretslug is offline  
Old 31st Aug 2022, 8:40 pm   #33
The Philpott
Dekatron
 
The Philpott's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2016
Location: Colchester, Essex, UK.
Posts: 4,081
Default Re: How would we design electronics to last 100 years?

....There's Gold-Tin intermetallics as well as Gold-Aluminium? Every day brings a surprise for me.
Dave
The Philpott is offline  
Old 31st Aug 2022, 9:25 pm   #34
Cruisin Marine
Heptode
 
Join Date: Jul 2018
Location: Worthing, West Sussex, UK.
Posts: 983
Default Re: How would we design electronics to last 100 years?

Perhaps it may be better to ask the question "How would YOU submit a tender or a spec to meet this criteria"?
The costs would at first glance, appear to be horrific without even looking in to them in any depth.
Cruisin Marine is offline  
Old 31st Aug 2022, 9:49 pm   #35
The Philpott
Dekatron
 
The Philpott's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2016
Location: Colchester, Essex, UK.
Posts: 4,081
Default Re: How would we design electronics to last 100 years?

Thinking about it, PCB's are an inherently unsatisfactory technology especially when you consider how prone they are to mechanical damage, contamination, corrosion....
I totally empathise with people who refuse to fly by wire (unless the wires in question are tough steel hawsers)

Can we move forward from the PCB, if so, how? (Just putting it out there..)

Dave
The Philpott is offline  
Old 31st Aug 2022, 11:26 pm   #36
PJL
Dekatron
 
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Seaford, East Sussex, UK.
Posts: 5,997
Default Re: How would we design electronics to last 100 years?

Eventually, physics will come into play and we will no longer be able to make technology more powerful, faster and smaller but until then I guess we are stuck with technology that has a short life span. A 20 year old house is still 'new', a 20 year old car still serves it's purpose, a 20 year old mobile phone is scrap.
PJL is offline  
Old 31st Aug 2022, 11:51 pm   #37
joebog1
Banned
 
Join Date: Jun 2015
Location: Mareeba, North Queensland, Australia
Posts: 2,704
Default Re: How would we design electronics to last 100 years?

Quote:
Originally Posted by The Philpott View Post
Thinking about it, PCB's are an inherently unsatisfactory technology especially when you consider how prone they are to mechanical damage, contamination, corrosion....
I totally empathise with people who refuse to fly by wire (unless the wires in question are tough steel hawsers)

Can we move forward from the PCB, if so, how? (Just putting it out there..)

Dave

Isnt it already being done with light? I mean laser diodes and optic fibre.

Once again, I cannot get over the number of "Brainz " we have here.
Designers of space instruments.
Designers of test instruments I have never heard of.

Just designers of anything!! .

Someone else made a comment about gold and tin.

Some here are pure solid gold, some ( especially myself ) are just tin.

Another reason this forum is a massive repositry of knowledge, not only electronics, but most things scientific, or mathematical..
Thanks to all the very learned persons here, that have enlarged my tiny brain cell, to now, a much larger tiny brain cell.

Joe
joebog1 is offline  
Old 1st Sep 2022, 12:27 am   #38
emeritus
Dekatron
 
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Brentwood, Essex, UK.
Posts: 5,316
Default Re: How would we design electronics to last 100 years?

Quote:
Originally Posted by The Philpott View Post
Thinking about it, PCB's are an inherently unsatisfactory technology especially when you consider how prone they are to mechanical damage, contamination, corrosion....
I totally empathise with people who refuse to fly by wire (unless the wires in question are tough steel hawsers)

Can we move forward from the PCB, if so, how? (Just putting it out there..)

Dave
I believe that fly-by-wire systens use multiple parallel circuitry and voting logic (e g. 2 out of 3) to insure against random circuitry failures or the effect of random cosmic rays on logic signal levels.
emeritus is offline  
Old 1st Sep 2022, 5:11 am   #39
Radio Wrangler
Moderator
 
Radio Wrangler's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: Fife, Scotland, UK.
Posts: 22,800
Default Re: How would we design electronics to last 100 years?

For the multi-generational starship problem on a longer journey or if the acceleration isn't enough to rely on special relativity, take a factory along with you and keep re-making everything and recycling as needed. Take an R&D lab and you ought to wind up with better stuff than you started.

David
__________________
Can't afford the volcanic island yet, but the plans for my monorail and the goons' uniforms are done
Radio Wrangler is online now  
Old 1st Sep 2022, 8:02 am   #40
Electronpusher0
Nonode
 
Join Date: Jun 2016
Location: Bognor Regis, West Sussex, UK.
Posts: 2,288
Default Re: How would we design electronics to last 100 years?

Science fiction soved these problems years ago.
In the city and the Stars by Arthur C Clark the master computer had been working for thousands if not millions of years. Likewise the film Forbidden Planet, the Krell computer had been working and maintaining itself for similar time periods.
There have been so many instances of real life catching up with science fiction that long life of electronics may also catch up.

When I posed the question I naively though I would get replies that set out the measures to take to make them last 100 years.

Peter
Electronpusher0 is offline  
Closed Thread

Thread Tools



All times are GMT +1. The time now is 10:19 pm.


All information and advice on this forum is subject to the WARNING AND DISCLAIMER located at https://www.vintage-radio.net/rules.html.
Failure to heed this warning may result in death or serious injury to yourself and/or others.


Powered by vBulletin®
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
Copyright ©2002 - 2023, Paul Stenning.