How to build an image intensifier?

[James Zuzelski]

What we discovered is that when you buy a surplus tube, it's usually the
power supply that is shot. The tube lights up fine when you put a new power
supply. This led to the current problem in the industry: the power supplies
die faster than the tubes, leaving an abundance of unpotted tubes. I spoke
to the original MX9916 power supply manufacturing company some time ago and
found that if I purchased 100 power supplies at a time, they would sell them
to me for $350. Of course, I can still buy complete surplus tubes for
about $200. It might make sense at some point, but more tubes are making
their way out through the surplus channels, so it might not.
Chris

24 years later... shot in the dark here but what suppliers have you gone through to get these? Know of any still around today?

Thanks,
James

[Phil Hobbs]

Post by James Zuzelski

What we discovered is that when you buy a surplus tube, it's
usually the power supply that is shot. The tube lights up fine when
you put a new power supply. This led to the current problem in the
industry: the power supplies die faster than the tubes, leaving an
abundance of unpotted tubes. I spoke to the original MX9916 power
supply manufacturing company some time ago and found that if I
purchased 100 power supplies at a time, they would sell them to me
for $350. Of course, I can still buy complete surplus tubes for
about $200. It might make sense at some point, but more tubes are
making their way out through the surplus channels, so it might
not. Chris

24 years later... shot in the dark here but what suppliers have you
gone through to get these? Know of any still around today?
Thanks, James

There aren't that many surplus image tubes left, it seems. A few years
ago there were some Russian ones on eBay, but they were complete crap.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

[Henry Nebrensky]

...

Post by James Zuzelski
24 years later... shot in the dark here but what suppliers have you
gone through to get these? Know of any still around today?
Thanks, James

There aren't that many surplus image tubes left, it seems. A few years
ago there were some Russian ones on eBay, but they were complete crap.

I'm slightly curious about the question... since then we've had other options appear, such as emCCDs (and that was a while back), so: are there really applications where a DIY-restored vintage image intensifier is still the best solution?

Thanks

Henry

[Phil Hobbs]

Post by Henry Nebrensky
...

Post by James Zuzelski
24 years later... shot in the dark here but what suppliers have
you gone through to get these? Know of any still around today?
Thanks, James

There aren't that many surplus image tubes left, it seems. A few
years ago there were some Russian ones on eBay, but they were
complete crap.

I'm slightly curious about the question... since then we've had other
options appear, such as emCCDs (and that was a while back), so: are
there really applications where a DIY-restored vintage image
intensifier is still the best solution?

Direct viewing, e.g. night vision goggles. Also of course EMCCDs and
sCMOS cameras do not grow on trees.

The EMCCD is a really puzzling case. You can go from starlight to
sunlight with a twist of a knob, with a signal-to-noise penalty of no
more than 3 dB,(*) and the sensor is built on a fairly bog-standard CCD
process--beautiful, right? But they never caught on and the price never
came down to anything vaguely reasonable.

I suspect that part of the issue is that any damage due to inelastic
collisions between hot carriers and Si atoms gets concentrated in the
very small volume of the last dozen or so multiplication stages. I've
never seen anything published about that, so it may be a mirage.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

(*) The math behind that 3 dB number is actually really pretty.