NEW Old Stock
Ex our production stores, our production business has now closed down (retired) and all the stock must find new owners
Unfortunately these photo sensors were in an unmarked packet so I cannot identify the manufacturer nor the specifications, I have a suspicion they are SIEMENS (Germany) product as we tended use that company for a lot of our specialised components but as the packet is unmarked, I cannot be sure.
These devices are similar to a TEPT5700 from Vishay, a silicon transistor with only two legs. Think of this device as being similar to the old LDR but based on a semiconductor.
It would be very helpful to have datasheets for this device (or even know the part number!) but alas, it is not to be.
This opto device is offered for the experimenter ...
I have tested them to determine some very basic characteristics, details are below ...
UNIDENTIFIED MANUFACTURER - Photo Sensor
Part number: NI (No Idea)
Function: Detect and react to ambient light (often used in backlight displays etc)
Rectangular shaped body
Light Yellow "cloudy" not clear, although you can easily see the junction
MEASUREMENTS:
4.3mm Wide x 4mm Height x 3mm Thickness
Legs are 25mm length (BOTH - there is no indication of the cathode but see below about this)
At first I thought these were rectangular "level display" LED's - they are definitely NOT!
PLAY TIME! - TESTING:
First up I tested the device with a multi-semi tester, it had no idea what I was testing! It didn't "see" this component as a diode, nor a transistor and basically threw up it's arms and declared "unknown device" Not much help there ...
Out comes the Fluke multimeter and that was far more interesting ...
Resistance: Infinity (in complete darkness) One side lit up and it reads 5K Ohm in bright White light whereas with the other side lit up the resistance drops down to 900 Ohm when bathed in a bright White light. It appears that one side of the device is more sensitive than the other but no matter which side was bathed in White light, the response is very fast, smooth variations of resistance (not a sudden switching from one condition to the other) and also very sensitive. Meaning that even small changes in light would be very quickly reflected in the measured resistance.
Next I used an infra-red light source and the same responses occurred although I "feel" that the device responded to White light in a more positive fashion.
I then reversed the test leads and exactly the same thing occurred as above, with White light or IR - there appears to be no polarity sensitivity but ...
Diode test: This was polarity sensitive. Connected to the multimeter in one direction there is no voltage drop at all - sits on 0V no matter what the light level. Reverse the leads and the voltage drop ranges from 0V (complete darkness) up to 0.997V when brightly illuminated with a White light
COSMETIC CONDITION:
NEW
Old stock
CLEAN
Undamaged in any way
Packed in a sealed clear plastic packet, unfortunately without any identification originally.
